As I said in my last post, thoughts of another baby are beginning to surface. Its funny, these thoughts of a second pregnancy are a little surprising to me. When I think about another pregnancy, it is in thinking about 'planning' it. So much about infertility (part one) was being a slave to not building expectations, learning to live without a plan at times and learning to live my life by a calendar someone else handed me at others. And now, now we have more pieces in our puzzle. We have seen success, and we know what (at least last time) works for us. We have three frozen embryos which are similar in quality to those we transferred during our two fresh cycles. Both of those cycles I did become pregnant, at least briefly, and because of that, I am hopeful one of those three embryos will become baby number three.
In a perfect world we would begin the FET process in January of 2015. So, why am I already thinking so much about all of this? We have fertility insurance. And while I am very thankful that we have it, it does add more hoops to be jumped. Like the fairly common '1 year of timed intercourse' before benefits can be utilized. Though I'm not sure that applies to someone who already has an infertility diagnosis, it is still very much dominating thoughts of growing our family. What this all means, is I'll need to go off birth control sometime around Christmas this year.
Its crazy. 'Trying' for a baby just a couple of months from now feels a little nuts, but we are being realistic in knowing an FET is very much a part of our plan. This may come as a surprise to some, but I don't have any desire to become pregnant naturally- nor do I think it will happen. I have three perfect embryos that I would like to give a chance to, and I'd rather not push that out longer and longer.
The three embryos we have are something I think about daily, and something that makes my husband feel somewhat uncomfortable. We aren't big fans of those babies just sitting and waiting for us for years to come. And if we're being completely honest, we aren't sure how this story is going to play out. Will we try with all three (not at once), will one or more of them not survive the thawing process, will we become pregnant with our first FET attempt or will it take multiple tries, will any of those three embryos become our third child? I'm fairly confident in the process and I trust my doctor entirely, so I do believe the boys' sibling is waiting for us. But, the unknowns are somewhat daunting.
I'm somewhat worried about going off birth control. I'm worried I wont have regular cycles due to my PCOS and I'll have to resort to the very much unenjoyable progesterone to stimulate cycles. I'm looking forward to the possibility of another baby and our little family growing, but it feels somewhat surreal to be thinking/preparing to jump back into all of this no matter how far off it is.
I don't often hear/see people speaking about their frozen embryos. I think I've read just one blog post about a family donating after their twin pregnancy/birth and I know of one blogger who fully intended to try with every embryo she had, but as it turned out it wasn't something she needed to worry about.
I'd love to hear your take on this, or what your plans are, my fellow IVFers. Either leave me a comment, or post your thoughts on your blog and leave me a link in the comments.
7 comments:
We have one frozen embryo left and I figure we will donate it once this baby is born. We don't plan to have more than 2 kids so this is it. Not knowing how well the embryo would survive the thawing/transfer process, I want to make sure it would be beneficial for another couple. We would definitely discuss with our RE before any decision is made.
Interesting post. I've been thinking more and more about baby #3 and I think it will happen someday. We have 12 (yes twelve!) frosties. Most are high quality and a few are mid quality. We have no idea what will become of them...I want to try naturally for a while and just see what happens. I think once the twins are 3 or 4 we'll move on to pursue a FET. We've talked about donating whatever is left, but I'm just not ready to cross that bridge until we get there. We are a few years away at this point. It's difficult to ponder at the moment as we are just trying to survive each day. Amazing that you have infertility coverage on your insurance!!! Good luck to you!!! Everyone with twins who has a third keeps telling me a singleton is incredibly easy:)
Could you go off of BC and "try" for the sake of insurance, but use other methods (condoms, etc.) until you're really ready?
We didn't have to do IVF, but my RE said that he doesn't think I'll be able to conceive without ovulation induction meds. We used Femara and HCG to conceive our first child. To control my PCOS symptoms and reduce the risk of endometriosis, I'm on BC pills. As soon as we're ready to TTC, we'll start back with the meds.
I've been following your blog (after stubbling upon it from another blog I read) and I too have twin boys who will be a year in December and we have 3 frozen embryos as well. :) Do we transfer two? Just one? What happens if we get pregnant on the first try? Will we give all our embryos a chance? I dont know-Im hoping time will tell. I ponder these questions quite often and love to know what thoughts other people in a similar situation have! :)
Hi! I'm new! My history is complicated, and I have no embryos left. My last frozen embie became my son and we have no insurance, so will not do IVF again. Natural pregnancy is all we have. But, I did have 3 frozen embryos while waiting for my baby and I knew I would always use them before wanting a natural pregnancy, so I know completely how you feel about those embryos. As soon as you see the product of those little embies, you know they need a chance. If I had some left, I would want those babies.
~A
http://missconception-ads.blogspot.com/
I think it's exciting that you're thinking about growing your family. Due to my poor, poor response, I highly doubt that I'll have anything frozen to think about after these two cycles. But only time will tell. I don't blame you for not wanting to try naturally...I'd feel weird about leaving my babies frozen too. Good luck!
I don't know how I missed this post! It's a very personal subject for me that I think about a lot. I have always wanted 2 kids. I grew up with 2 kids, my husband grew up with 2 kids. A family of four just feels perfect to me. Everyone always has someone to ride the rollercoaster with! But I also have 4 frosties. And I don't know what to do with them. We have always wanted a girl, but to have a baby just to get a girl? What if we get boy #3? Ugh, too many things to think about. I think I'll just bury my head in the sand and keep shelling out the $400/year for storage. We know for sure we don't want to donate them. We both feel uncomfortable having other people raise our children while we are alive. And donating to science also feels weird because we would have no control over how they are used and in what kind of experiments. We would either use them or destroy them. Yeah, and the idea of destroying them is a whole other complicated feeling...
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