The two week wait 2.0

Five days ago I went to the clinic for blastocyst transfer. The doctor shared that there were 2 eggs that had reached that point. One of them was of very high quality and the doctor recommended against transferring both. I accepted his recommendation.

Since my husband couldn’t come on this trip with me, my mother was there. On the one hand, it’s great to have a mom nearby when going through this process. On the other hand, her attitude of assuming that only a positive result can be obtained from this process, rather than give me hope, fills me with dread. A dread of disappointing her if things don’t work as she expects. I have always preferred to keep my hopes up realistically, especially after what we have experienced so far, than to hit my face against a wall every time things don’t work. I miss my husband and the privacy of just having him with me and not having to share any details that we don’t want to. But this is what we got.

On day 5, I’m feeling down because I haven’t had any spotting that might indicate implantation. However, it’s possible not to spot so I keep hoping while I wait for 9 more long days before the pregnancy test.

Against all odds… again

So, the doctor chose a good donor. One that the clinic has worked with successfully in the past. Ovarian stimulation went great and the doctor told me last Friday that he expected to retrieve at least 10 eggs.

He called me on Saturday to give me not so encouraging news. The most mature follicles exploded releasing the eggs before they could be retrieved. This is very unusual and had never happened to this donor before. They were able to retrieve 4 healthy eggs and the lab proceeded to fertilize them.

If we have any viable embryos on day 5, we will proceed with transfer of those. However, if there isn’t a successful pregnancy, the clinic will give us a donor cycle at no cost, since they are committed to obtain at least 8 eggs from a donor.

So, even though the news is not all bad, once again the odds fail for us. And we keep hoping…

Decisions

I arrived in Colombia last week and went to the clinic on Friday. After 4 days of ovarian stimulation, no eggs could be seen but the doctor thought it was still early. After 3 more days, only one very small follicle could be found, so we cancelled the cycle. At his point, we are faced with the decision, once more:

On the one hand, as I have no return ticket yet, I could wait for another month and try again with my own eggs. The downside is that it means I’d stay away from my husband for at least 2 more months, and the chances continue to be very low. We have tried 4 cycles of stimulation and 3 of them yielded no eggs at all. The one cycle where we got two perfect eggs was very encouraging but it doesn’t seem that the odds are in our favor.

On the other hand, we could start right now with a donor cycle. It means that in 2 weeks I could be having a transfer and in one month, a confirmed pregnancy, assuming it all works well. The probabilities of this to work are much higher, however, we already tried a donor cycle in which not a single embryo survived, against all odds.

After much discussion, mainly with the pressure of time (time apart as well as time lost in this process), we decided to try the donor cycle. The doctor is looking for an ideal donor to stimulate so we have fresh eggs. This is supposed to increase slightly the chances of success, but it also means that we don’t know from the beginning how many eggs we will be able to fertilize.

I don’t know how to feel now. It’s really a combination of hope and sadness and impatience. It seems our process has not followed closely the expected odds so we can only hope. If this cycle doesn’t work, that would be 2 IVF cycles spent and 2 more to go. Will we finally become parents in 2020?

Hopes are skyrocketing

We just heard from the lab that my two eggs have survived unfreezing and fertilizing. It’s only the 1st day but it’s exciting news. We will wait for day 3 and decide if we do implantation on that day or wait two more days for development. There are also 4 fertilized eggs from the donor so we have started with a total of 6.

Not much else to say today… I’ll have more news soon.

There is always a first

So, we’re back in our home country, going through one more cycle of this process. We were expecting that the same process that produced a few eggs two months ago, would yield similar results and we would have enough eggs to go for the IVF.

Unfortunately, the treatment did not produce the same results. This time my ovaries produced no eggs at all. Empty tiny ovaries were all we could see in the ultrasounds.

As we are here for just a month, we had to decide how to finish this cycle. We could simply stop here and try again later, which means to organize another international trip, or extend this one. Or, we could continue with a fertilization of the 2 eggs we have stored and if successful, we could leave with a developing embryo already implanted.

As we have been told how low the odds were for 2 eggs to begin an IVF cycle, this is a hard choice. It means spending an IVF cycle out of the 4 we get, with a low chance of pregnancy. In my mind I already know that we won’t get much out of my ovaries, so after that, the option is to take donor eggs. So, I asked the doctor if we could try an IVF cycle with my 2 eggs AND donor eggs.

The doctor looks at me and says no one has ever asked him that. He thinks it is a good idea, but would need to check with the lab. To me, it’s a logical process, to increase the odds by having more eggs.

The other question is if my endometrium is ready, since we weren’t preparing for implantation, and ovarian stimulating drugs have a detrimental effect on the thickness. Yes, typically, a local patient would just wait for the next month, but with our traveling plans, it’s not as easy. Exams are ordered and the doctor goes to do research and get some questions answered.

After the weekend we get an answer to our question. We can try the cycle with two sets of eggs, own and donor. The only condition from the lab is that they’re not mixed so we know which one is being used. It makes sense to me. It means that if we get a single viable embryo from my eggs, we will try with that one alone.

The doctor has found two matching donors of frozen eggs, since we don’t have time to start a stimulation now for fresh eggs from a donor. They have 6 and 10 eggs and we have to choose one of them. The smaller amount come from a younger woman, which the doctor thinks is a better option.

I’m excited that we are moving forward with the IVF process this time and am really hoping to travel back to the US with one more passenger inside me…

To hope or not to hope?

The next cycle I went early for a check-up and we discussed the options again with the doctor. As we weren’t considering an egg donor just yet, we had to choose between trying another cycle of ovarian stimulation or a natural cycle. The advantage of the stimulation was the possibility of producing more than one mature egg, the disadvantage being the overdose of hormones coming into my body. The doctor didn’t think using the same method as before would give different results but he believed a different treatment could, so we chose that route.

This time I had to self-inject even more drugs and take pills, but I was getting used to it by now. I’m not particularly afraid of needles and didn’t find it that uncomfortable.

At the next appointment we had a great surprise. My ovaries had at least 3 eggs that were growing rapidly. The doctor was as surprised and excited as me. This meant that we could potentially continue with extraction, fertilization and insemination if we wanted to. However, the chances with only 3 eggs were still low.

We had to decide if we were going to go through the full cycle this time, as one of the drugs’ side effects was the thinning of my endometrium. If we chose to go full cycle, we could stop that drug and still continue the stimulation process. We decided not to try for a full cycle this time. We had already expected not to be able to do it at this time, and we wanted to get more eggs to increase our chances when we used the IVF cycle.

I continued with all the drugs until the expected extraction day and was given one last shot that would trigger a release of the egg from the follicle shell in 36 hours. It’s kind of amazing how perfect the body machine is, and how medicine can play along.

The day of the procedure I came to the clinic early, was given a robe and booties and taken to a cubicle to wait. After getting an IV I was rolled into the OR and sedated. Half an hour later I was completely awake, back at the cubicle.

The process managed to obtain 2 mature eggs and we left them frozen waiting for our next visit.

A few weeks earlier my husband had left a semen sample as he had to go back home. Sometimes I think of my eggs and his sperm, frozen in the same room, next to each other, but still separated. Just waiting anxiously for the party to start…

Pulled down to earth… again

Not in a hopeful mood like last time, we just returned from the clinic were we cancelled the first IVF cycle. With only one follicle in my ovaries, and not even the expected size after 8 days of hormonal stimulation, the doctor says there is no point in proceeding this cycle. The news is devastating, even though we knew all along that my ovaries weren’t doing great.

The doctor asks what we think of an egg donor, since this alternative is included in the price of the treatment. Unfortunately, we don’t quite agree on this point. Same as when we considered adoption, I have no problem with not sharing any genetic material with my child, but my husband is still reluctant about that point. Even though, it’s MY genetic material that wouldn’t be part of the child.

Our next step will be to follow closely on the next natural cycle and see if my body produces a useful egg naturally. They can then extract it and keep it frozen. We can do this several times before we go to fertilization, which is when the first IVF cycle would be considered spent. For our lives, it means that my time here in Colombia for now won’t include an insemination, just an egg extraction in the best case. It means we need to plan our schedules and return again in a few months after I’ve completed a few work trips in September and work commitments in October.

Even in my realistic mind, I was almost convinced that two cycles would end in a successful pregnancy and we were going to return with one more life in tow. The reality check is hard and it leaves an open-ended question about when and how we will become parents. Because we will…