August IF check-in

[sally]

Because it’s not June anymore 😜

[sally]

I did my baseline, meds class and genetics counsellor appointments last week. The genetics counsellor meeting was good, but really hit home that the odds are unfortunately not in our favour. We don’t get many (if any) testable embryos in a cycle, and based on my age they don’t have a great chance of being chromasomally normal, so all together that sucks. I mean, that wasn’t brand new information, but it still sucks. Anyway, once AF shows we start stims. I’m doing a new protocol that will hopefully result in slower, more even growth, but we shall find out.

I hope everyone is doing well! This place is pretty quiet. I hope that’s because everyone is having a great summer!

[champagne]

Thanks for starting sally! I’m sorry for the not so great news and hope the new protocol leads to a positive result for you guys.

[champagne]

We had a failed IUI in July. It sucked. However I just recently accepted a new position with my same company that will come with a big raise. The raise is big enough that we are going to probably move forward with IVF round 2. Which reminds me I need to reach out and update my RE. I’m scared to drop all that money on IVF again but it will be worth it if it works.

[sally]

champagne congrats on the job! I’m sorry that the IUI didn’t work, but I’m super glad the the new position make another round of IVF a possibility for you. It is a whole lotta money for a chance.

[radiantfate]

Hey everyone! Haven't been around lately because work got really crazy, and we had some health issues with DS that took a lot of time to resolve, plus my XH (DS's dad) decided he was going to up and move out of state which drastically changed our custody arrangement, AND DS just started middle school this week. Nothing much has changed though, IF wise. Still waiting another couple months to have the hysteroscopy and repeat SA for DH. With all the stressors in my life these last few months I've done a poor job of losing the weight I need to have the hysteroscopy done so I've gotta make that a priority again.

champagne I'm sorry to hear about the failed IUI. Congrats on the promotion though!! And good luck on IVF #2!

[champagne]

Aug 15, 2019 11:57:47 GMT -6 radiantfate said:

Hey everyone! Haven't been around lately because work got really crazy, and we had some health issues with DS that took a lot of time to resolve, plus my XH (DS's dad) decided he was going to up and move out of state which drastically changed our custody arrangement, AND DS just started middle school this week. Nothing much has changed though, IF wise. Still waiting another couple months to have the hysteroscopy and repeat SA for DH. With all the stressors in my life these last few months I've done a poor job of losing the weight I need to have the hysteroscopy done so I've gotta make that a priority again.

champagne I'm sorry to hear about the failed IUI. Congrats on the promotion though!! And good luck on IVF #2!

I’m sorry to hear about the health issues with your DS and that’s crazy about the move. I hope things start to calm down for your family.

[radiantfate]

Thank you, champagne. DS is doing so, so much better now, so I think that part is at least mostly resolved. XH officially moves away today, so at least the chaos around moving DS's extra stuff out of his house and into ours is done. I think after October is really when things will settle down for real though, our landlord is also selling our house and our lease is up at the end of October so we'll have to move at that point...once the move is done, I think we can just settle into living life again. Whew. This year has been a real rollercoaster.

[ttcbabyj]

Well my FET at the end of the month was just cancelled. 😕
My lining was too thin, today it was a 5.

[champagne]

Aug 19, 2019 14:14:54 GMT -6 ttcbabyj said:

Well my FET at the end of the month was just cancelled. 😕
My lining was too thin, today it was a 5.

I’m sorry that it got canceled. I hope your lining starts to cooperate. 🤞

[sally]

Ugh, that’s so frustrating ttcbabyj . Have you had lining issues before? Are you going to change anything up for next time?

[ttcbabyj]

Aug 20, 2019 5:42:05 GMT -6 sally said:

Ugh, that’s so frustrating ttcbabyj . Have you had lining issues before? Are you going to change anything up for next time?

Never, I’ve never had a problem with my lining. At the beginning of this cycle my RE did an endo scratch. I don’t know if this is related. RE said for the next cycle he wants to up my dose of estrogen. I hope it works.

[sally]

Today is CD3 and day 2 of stims. I have to go every day for bloodwork so my poor arms are going to be in rough shape by the end of this 😜. Everything else is easy so far, but it’s early. I’m still having difficulties believing we’re doing this again, but here we are 🤷‍♀️

[sally]

How is everyone doing?

I had my last cycle monitoring U/S and bloodwork this morning. I’ll trigger tonight for a Sunday morning retrieval.

[champagne]

Aug 30, 2019 7:32:55 GMT -6 sally said:

How is everyone doing?

I had my last cycle monitoring U/S and bloodwork this morning. I’ll trigger tonight for a Sunday morning retrieval.

Woot woot! That’s exciting! I hope everything goes smoothly.

As for me, I’ve been busy with the change in position at work. I’m swamped trying to wrap up my old job while already starting duties for my new one. I have an appointment with my RE in 2 weeks once I’m down to only focusing on one job.

[ttcbabyj]

Aug 30, 2019 7:32:55 GMT -6 sally said:

How is everyone doing?

I had my last cycle monitoring U/S and bloodwork this morning. I’ll trigger tonight for a Sunday morning retrieval.

How did your retrieval go? Everything crossed for you.

[ttcbabyj]

Tonight is my last bcp, baseline appointment on Friday. Let’s do this...

[cythe]

I guess I'll pop back in here, if for nothing else just to spice things up again in the IF board.

A bit about me **triggers for loss and living child**

I'm confident none of you really know me, by time HIH got rolling I was so far into the land of infertility that I didn't even want to talk to people about it. H and I started TTC in 2014, after the required year of not even a squinter we saw an RE on the military base. We did 3 IUIs with them, all of which were useless so we decided to see a civilian RE for IVF. Even to this day, we are still unexplained.

We did our first round of IVF in ... uh, 2015? 2016? Either way, it failed. All of my eggs were immature upon retrieval and none fertilized. We came back to it again, and ended up with 3 good looking day 5 blasts. We transferred one, which ended as a blighted ovum at 6w. Our second transfer was successful and is currently a zazzy almost 2 year old. Our last embryo was transferred last month, and ended as a failed transfer - no HCG in the beta, just a failed transfer.

So, we are here deciding what to do with ourselves. My mom (and financier of all fertility treatments) wants us to try again, but I'm not sure. We have one child and I would hate to stim a full IVF and end up with a lot of embryos, but then again we also arent great candidates for IUI due to my extensive IF history. Anyway, I have an appt with a new RE (since we've moved since our second transfer) at the end of the month to discuss options for us. In the meantime, I've started the keto diet since there is a fair bit of evidence that it can help with fertility in general, but specifically egg quality which is one of our big issues. The new clinic recommends keto for 3 months before treatment for all of their patients. Who knows, maybe there will be a miracle unassisted BFP in our future.... ha.


Anyway, thats me. Best of luck to those cycling!

[sally]

My update is... meh. 9 retrieved, 7 mature, but only 4 fertilized. That’s the worst fert rate by far. Today is day 3 and we have 1 6-cell and 3 8-cell, so where they should be at this point which is good, but it’s always been between day 3 and day 5 that they drop off. I keep trying to tell myself we weren’t going after lots of embryos, we just need a good one(and a few good ones would be better) but that’s hard. Of course we’ve had many more retrieved in previous cycles and here we are anyways, so who knows.

I’ve started looking into donor eggs. MH doesn’t like talking about things until we know all the facts but I like to be prepared. I don’t know if that’s the route we will go, but we will see. Hey, maybe we will get something out of this cycle anyway, right?

[sally]

Yay for finishing BCP ttcbabyj !
cythe I remember you 😬 I might have been just lurking and I changed my name at some point so I’m not surprised if you don’t remember me. I’ve been at this for a while. Welcome back!
champagne I’m sure you’ll be happy to be finishing up the job and only working one.

[champagne]

ttcbabyj Yay for being done with birth control!

cythe welcome back! I’m sorry for all you have been through. I have been dealing with this for 6 years now myself. We’re here for you no matter what you decide.

sally Reading your update brought back memories. Your report is very similar to my last round of IVF. I know it’s hard and we are always hoping for more, but really we just need those eggs to be strong ones. Im rooting for you. Keep us posted. Also I’ve been thinking about donor embryos too. I plan to bring it up at my next appointment.

[ttcbabyj]

Since we are completely OOP, we try to stay within our designated budget for treatment. When my cycle was cancelled last month, I was charged $1200 for TWO ultrasounds and 2 estrogen tests. I had to email my team about this. I expressed my concern about my lining when I started my cycle. I had a very heavy AF after the failed transfer, I also spotted a bit after my endometrin scratch and then another AF after stopping the 10 days of BCP. This is 3 periods in less than a month. I was told don’t worry about my lining. But obviously this should have been addressed. My doctor told me he will waive the fees for the ultrasounds. And my coordinator dropped the ball she should have contacted the lab to have my lab tests cancelled after my ultrasound showed a thin lining and my RE cancelled my cycle.

I’ve started my estrogen shots, they gave me at a higher dose than last cycle and I’m having a lot of side effects. Ugh

I just needed to get that off my chest.

[sally]

Ugh ttcbabyj that’s so annoying. Also, why so expensive? I realize I’m in another country but usually our stuff is more expensive. I’m glad you got it worked out, that is not something you want to have to worry about when prepping for a FET.

[sally]

So we got one blast to test. It’s not great, but I didn’t think we’d even get that based on the updates so there’s that. I know I’m such a Debbie downer, but statistically it has a much better chance of being aneuploid than euploid based on my age so I feel like it’s just prolonging the inevitable. Aargh. But, maybe we’ll get lucky. It could happen, right?

[ttcbabyj]

Sept 9, 2019 15:04:11 GMT -6 sally said:

Ugh ttcbabyj that’s so annoying. Also, why so expensive? I realize I’m in another country but usually our stuff is more expensive. I’m glad you got it worked out, that is not something you want to have to worry about when prepping for a FET.

You know nobody could really explain to me why the ultrasounds are so expensive. I mean I understand medical procedure are pricey when you pay out of pocket. But an ultrasound to check my lining, which takes 5 minutes at most, the price is just ridiculous. My RE drives a black and a white Bentley I guess now I know how he can afford them both. I’m also glad it worked out.

[lastnamewithheld]

Hi guys!

sorry I've fallen off the face of the earth--this summer was freaking ROUGH. Work was insane and obviously my failed FET coupled with the first embryo not surviving thaw kinda f*cked me up.

Anywhoo, I'm baaaaack! My ERA (at ~123 hours of progesterone) showed me pre-receptive. My last transfer happened at ~118 hours of Progesterone, so it's like...why didn't I just do the ERA BEFORE I did my first FET and save myself some freaking heartache. Anywhoo, my logical brain says that this information doesn't matter in some cases, but I'm not going to lie: I am feeling hopeful again knowing that this thing was a problem and now we've fixed it and hopefully we will have success.

So my last transfer is tomorrow! It all comes down to this--we are out of embryos and money if this doesn't work. This is it! All these years of saving and trying and failing and testing and spending exorbitant amounts of money FOR A CHANCE at a thing that normal people just *GET*. It's all going to be over TOMORROW. Almost 8 years of my life, in some way thinking about/obsessing over/tracking *something* relating to TTC ... And in a blink of an eye, it'll be over. Tomorrow. What do I do with myself after that?!

Anyways, what's everyone else up to around these parts?!

[lastnamewithheld]

I just realized this is an August thread. I should've made a September thread, lol. DUH