I'm trying to not be discouraged that almost exactly a year ago we were seeing our RE for the very first consultation appointment. In the time since that appointment, we've seen peaks and valleys. There have been moments of hope, frustration, sadness, anger, excitement, pain, joy and a myriad of other emotions... but if you're reading this, you already 'get' that roller coaster. You understand, so I'll stop trying to put into words something that really can't be explained, only felt.
As we go into today's appointment, I am excited. Sure there is still the pain of what has happened in the last several weeks, and knowing that it will certainly be talked about kind of makes me cringe, but I'm ready. We knew from the start that this was going to be a rough road, and I am proud of the way we've handled it so far- with faith, courage and perseverance.
I'm excited to see where this journey is going to take us next. I'll be back this afternoon with an update!
Update!!!
Out appointment went great. We started by talking briefly about what happened with IVF #1. We went over my response to the medication, the eggs that were retrieved, eggs that were mature, eggs that fertilized and eventually what we transferred and what we froze. We touched on our short lived pregnancy, which is believed to be due to a chromosomal issue, and then talked about what the options were and potential changes.....
We basically have two options. A fresh cycle or a frozen cycle. We currently have two great (the sheet said 5AAA) embryos in the freezer, and there is absolutely no reason to believe they are anything but perfect. The thaw rate is 80-85% make it through the thaw to transfer- meaning most likely we would end up with both. While this is a very valid option, my doctor encouraged us to consider a fresh cycle given that we're young, able, and know that we want to have more than one baby/successful pregnancy. We had already pretty much decided that we wanted to do a fresh cycle if that was what she recommended, so we were sold.
Given that our # retrieved/# mature/ #fertilized was not exactly what any of us predicted, there will be some small changes to our next cycle. Instead of starting slow on the stim drugs, we will start at a higher dose and taper down instead of moving in the opposite direction, thus hopefully recruiting more from the start. The only other change is she asked me to lose about 10lbs. I don't see this as much of an issue, I've been loosing weight for about the last year without much effort- so I'll just kick it into high gear for the next several weeks and I'm sure I'll get there. No biggy.
So the plan is to have my baseline ultrasound as soon as I get my next period. With that period I'll start a month of birth control for a couple of reasons- 1. to give me some time to loose the weight 2. so we don't end up with a super long cycle pushing out our start date or running into the embryology close period in December. Once that month is complete, I will probably take a few more pills and then start lu.pron. As of right now we are projected to be doing our ER/ET around the first week of December. Which means we will likely be in the midst of daily/every-other-day monitoring right over Thanksgiving weekend. Not ideal, but I would really rather not wait until January!
So that is the plan! The official start of IVF round 2 looks like it will be sometime in October and will span through November and then trickle into December. This of course will all be determined by my current cycle-- and at this point I don't have a whole lot of faith in having a 'normal' natural cycle. In the event that this cycle makes it to the 40 day mark, I'll go in for blood work and start pro.vera. That stuff KILLS me, so hopefully it will not come to that!
Overall, we left feeling very optimistic that we WILL get pregnant again, and that the next pregnancy WILL be successful.
Ahhhh, a plan. I feel so much better :)
