Going Back

This cycle was a negative. DH and I had a long talk, and have decided we are in the home stretch. Time for a Hail Mary.

I’ve always thought of this “journey” as a process; an evolution through time, with ups and downs, information gathering, changing, etc.. However, after several years and God-knows-how-many tries (the last few months really bringing us to a head), we have come to a point where we need to see an end in sight. We feel that the resources – emotional, physical, and financial – we have put into trying to have a child are better placed into having a fuller life with the two of us.

As such, we are giving this one final UMPF. We are going to complete the last two cycles in our guarantee with Reprofit (the Risk Sharing Program (Scroll down to “Risk Sharing Programme” in that link))…the one where we pay for two DE IVF cycles with frozen eggs, and if we still haven’t brought a baby home, the third cycle is FREE. If we just saved money, we wouldn’t be going back for at least another year. We don’t want to wait that long to move to our next chapter (whether that be pregnancy or enjoying life with just us).

So, modeling after my friend who has gone, we’ve made the extremely hard decision to tap into our IRA to fund these last trips. My friend was actually able to take out a loan against her 401k at 4.5% to pay for their trip, but that wasn’t an option for us; it was liquidate a portion or take nothing. Not a light decision to make, given that 1) while we won’t take a hit up front (taking from DH’s 403b would be a 40% hit + income tax…YIKES), we will have to pay income taxes on what we withdraw, and 2) I’m 38, soon to be 39, and DH is 35. After losing a good chunk of our retirement in 2008 (fuck the American bankers who caused that shit show, by the way), we switched everything to be very conservative. We want to be able to retire before 80, so this is no small matter to tap our savings early.

But, we are both still working. That’s the plus side. We’ll be buckling down the budget to essentially repay that money as fast as we can. And cross our fingers that the stork takes pity and sends us a little love in the form of pink or blue.

I’ve emailed Eva to get the ball rolling. DH will be flying over to Czech mid-April to leave two sperm deposits; one to fertilize the 10 eggs we currently have frozen/reserved, and one as a backup in case a third (and final) attempt is needed. I will fly over the last week of April for transfer.

My medications / protocol will be fairly simple. I’ll have an endometrial scratch toward the end of my current cycle, and start estrogen supplementation with CD 1 of my next cycle. I will also start taking 5 mg Prednisone on CD 1. I’ll have to talk with my hematologist about when to start the Heparin, but I’m guessing it will be on CD 6 (bleeding has stopped, and estrogen supps bring a higher risk of clots). Ultrasound on CD 13 to check lining, start Crinone 8% 2x daily on CD 14 if the lining is good, and have transfer (likely two embryos) on CD 19. Relax at home for a week and see what the fates bring.

Wish us luck!

And an update on me…

The two-week wait (the time between ovulation and being able to take a pregnancy test; lovingly referred to as the 2ww) has got to be one of the weirdest times during the infertility roller coaster.

Seriously. We landed instrumentation on a damn asteroid. Can’t science figure out how to speed this up? Chop chop.

Jokes aside, I am currently 4 days away from being able to take a semi-reliable test (more on that later). Back in December, when we were told that we should try with my eggs, the first couple of tries went like this:

First cycle (December): I messed up my meds and ended up with a dominant follicle. My RE changed up the routine for the next cycle anyway, as he still wasn’t impressed with what he saw regardless of my med mishap. We went ahead with a single IUI with one 17mm follicle but, predictably, the hpt was negative.

Second cycle (January): Ovarian cysts on my CD 2 ultrasound. I was told we would need to skip this cycle to let my ovaries calm down a bit (OC are common in FX carriers). Damn.

Third cycle (February): We’re a go! I still messed up my meds, but only by a little. Oops. The result wasn’t too awful, though. Here is a breakdown of what we did…

• CD 2: Baseline ultrasound to check for any cysts. Green light to start meds
• CD 3-6*: 10 mg Femara (letrozole) in the evening. (*On the evening of CD 6, I was supposed to double up and take both the femara AND the Follistim/micro-dose hcg. I didn’t; I only took the Femara. Hence my “oops.”)
• CD 7-8: 300 units Follistim (FSH…I’ve taken Gonal-F as well; just depends on what is available to me at the time), followed by 5 units of micro-dose hcg. (MDhcg is a hard cookie to find research on. It is a diluted form of the hcg used to trigger ovulation (I used Novarel) Per my RE, however, it is supposed to help mature eggs that would otherwise have a hard time making the grade. Anecdotally, it has led to increased fertilization and clinical pregnancy rates. It is taken at the same time as FSH injections, with the dose determined by the RE. Since I’m at the “kitchen sink” part of ttc anyway, I had no qualms about giving it a go.)
• CD 9: 3 mg Cetrotide (1 kit) to prevent early ovulation (I have a history of this. My body likes to spit ’em out early and immature.), 300 units Follistim, and 7.5 units hcg. My ultrasound today showed 4 follicles: 18, 16, 15, and 12 mm.
• CD 10-11: 3 mg Cetrotide, 300 units Follistim, and 7.5 units hcg.
• CD 12: 8:30 am – Trigger time! 10,000 units hcg delivered to my tukis. Ultrasound showed 23, 22, 21, and three 12 mm follicles. I was told the 12mm follies wouldn’t amount to anything.
• CD 13: First IUI at 9:30 am; 24 hours post-trigger. 77 million of DH’s swimmers at 86% motility. My RE said he likes to do IUIs at 24 and 48 hours post-trigger to make sure we catch ovulation.
• CD 14: Second IUI; 48 hours post-trigger. 86 million at 96% motility. Supercharged! Lots of ovary pain as I woke up this morning; my nurse said I likely ovulated late the night before. On this day, I also started 5,000 units of subcutaneous Heparin twice daily to combat the inherited thrombophilia.
• CD 15, 18, and 21: 1.5 mL subcutaneous hcg booster shots. RE said this was to up my progesterone production and create a better environment for implantation. Since I’ve had issues in the past with my progesterone falling into the toilet while I was still pregnant, I also added 1 daily 8% Crinone supplement in the evenings. I’ve gone through all of this so far; I refuse to let something like not enough progesterone tank my chances. Bad eggs creating bad embryos…I’ve learned to deal with that. I would never deal well with not adding something simple like extra progesterone and ending up with another miscarriage.

And this brings me to now, CD 26. I’ve tested every 48 hours so far to “test” the hcg boosters out of my system. I figure by this Friday, 3/11, I’ll be able to see which way the lines are going – lighter or darker – to determine if this shebang worked. I still don’t know that I’ll have a blood test taken next week. If I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant. With the Heparin and daily progesterone, I’m already doing everything I can to keep the baby. A blood test won’t do anything; and seeing a doctor won’t stop a miscarriage. I’ll just make an appointment for an 8-week ultrasound. And if I’m not pregnant, I’m not.

In the meantime, I have e-mailed back and forth with Eva Kopecna, my coordinator at Reprofit. DH and I still have 10 donated eggs on ice in Czech, and we will be paying storage fees again in June to keep them. We paid €90 for one year of storage last July. If this IUI cycle is a bust, well…we’re still squirreling money away for a second trip to Brno for another DE IVF. And you know, I’m actually REALLY missing that region. Funny, no? I learned how to make Czech Goulash (Hovězí Guláš) and Wiener Schnitzel from Vienna, but it just isn’t the same!

A Reprofit Update

Even though it’s not my news, I feel the absolute highest obligation to share a happy update with all of you!

A while back, I posted a picture of my dear friend’s ultrasound picture. It showed a wee little yolk sac and bean. My friend had gone to Reprofit and had two double donor embryos (donor egg and donor sperm) implanted. Here’s an update:

“It is with great joy that (we) present to you our gorgeous baby girl! She was born March 1, 2016 and is a healthy 8lb 3oz and 21 inches long! I always said that Reprofit gave me hope! My dreams have all come true!! 

And here she is!

To my dear friend – you know who you are – congratulations!! I am so proud of you, and I am tearing up right now for all of the joy this sweet girl has brought into your life.

To my readers, I list this update to give you HOPE. Reprofit DOES make dreams come true.

Love to you all. x