IVF #6 = failure

:'-(

IVF #6

So we're in our two-week-wait for ivf #6. This one isn't very promising... We did the co-culture. Then he decided to do regular meds (lupron + follistim) and we had 9 eggs but only 2 fertilized. So we had a day three transfer with those two... Not very exciting. I wasn't that impressed with this place. They're supposed to be the best - but this ended up being the least amount of embryos that we ended up with. I don't have much optimism for this cycle. Guess this means IVF #7... Wish I could just stop them but DH wants me to keep doing them...
We have the homestudy for the adoption process on Sunday so at least we have something else doing.
We also started going to training for fostering, though we're still deciding if fostering is right for us...
That's my update. Nothing too exciting, unfortunately.

Consult with RE #5 + Consult with Adoption Lawyer

So we had a consult with another RE last week. He said he'd want to do an endometrial coculture with the next ivf, since we make poor embryos maybe using some of my own lining might make them better. (Not looking forward to this since I once had a uterus biopsy -- with RE #2 -- and it was so painful I fainted afterwords and they wouldn't let me leave since my blood pressure was crazy and I was driving home.)

Then he said he would either do an IVF cycle with:
1. clomid + injections
or
2. the thing the other RE mentioned he'd do -with no lupron but using lupron to trigger ovulation.
He wants to see more of our previous records (which apparantly we never got, though we thought, and were told, we had everything, so we're still trying to get those) and he wants to discuss with some of the other doctors at his practice which course would be better, because of our previous 5 failed IVFs. At least he didn't give us false optimism like all the other REs... The other "fun" part is he doesn't take our insurance so we're just shelling out the money now...

Yesterday, we also had an appointment with an adoption lawyer. We weren't so happy with him though. We paid $400 for him to tell us nothing we didn't know. And he was very disorganized. So now we're unsure if we should look for another lawyer, or use him anyway or what. It's ridiculous that the whole adoption process is so complicated and expensive. Our lawyer told us to expect to pay $35000 if we do advertising ourselves or $55000 if we hire someone to advertise for us. Who has this kind of money? So now I'm really not sure adoption will happen either. I was hoping going to the lawyer would make DH much more optimistic about adoption, since it would feel more real to him. But if anything the lawyer just made both of us more pessimistic and overwelmed and less sure that this is doable for us.

So we're back to square zero...

I also found a new psychologist to go to for depression. I went to one a few months ago for six months but he didn't really help me. This new one doesn't take my insurance though (I couldn't find one that does that deals with depression and has evening hours), so we'll be paying out of pocket for this as well. Of course my dh didn't like the alternative of my suicide, so we'll be paying for this too.

So between paying for IVF out of network + all adoption expenses + a therapist out of network -- think we'll still have enough money for rent? I guess we can always stop eating...

IVF #5 failure phone consult

So I had a phone consult with my RE to discuss our recent failure. He said he was surprised given my age (still under 30 -- though not by much anymore :-( ) that I had such poor embryos. He said usually he only sees such poor embryos from women over 40. So he basically had only two ideas for us:
1. They just tried a new protocal for one patient (last week, so they don't yet know if it even worked for this one patient). Basically, there's a study that shows that if you use lupron instead of the hcg shot to make you ovulate, you won't hyperstimulate. So the RE wants to do this with me and not give me the bc pills and lupron initially.
The other thing he would want to add is to do pgd with the ivf. He said he usually only recommends this for women over 40 or if there's a history of pregnancy loss (since it's expensive and insurance doesn't cover it) but in my case he'd want to do it since he thinks there may be an issue on the male side that we don't know about. It could be we're just thinking pcos and so we think we know the problem and keep trying ivfs, but the reason the embryos are poor, is due to the male side of things and he said with pgd at least we'd know if the bad embryos are because of me or because of dh.
2. His other option was an egg donor. He said he hates suggesting it to someone so young, but he doesn't see an issue with my uterus and that may be our best option at getting pregnant.

So that was our "great" news -- from the doctor that gave us a 65% chance for each IVF cycle working, even though we already had 3 ivfs. So much for optimism.
We have a consult with another RE, since four REs is not enough, right? And we started looking into adoption. So even though this is our "break" it really doesn't feel like one, but I don't think I know how to have a break. I can't really stop thinking about all this, so I can never really have a complete break...

Sometimes I feel like I need a complete break not just from fertility treatments but from life as well.

IVF #5 = Failure

So this has been a pretty bad month for us. The cycle was pretty bad from the beginning. They ended up doing retreival much earlier than they would have wanted since my estrogen was over 6000. So I ended up with 8 eggs, 5 fertilized, but all were poor quality. They were going to put back 2 and I asked for 3 and the dr said, "Sure, why not? We'll be lucky if even one of these work." So, it wasn't a big shocker when I got the negative result, but of course it hurts anyway. We found out the bad news a week ago. I'm still having issues with it. I don't want to do another IVF. I think 5 failures is enough for me. I was literally ready to jump off a building most of this month. But DH wants me to do more. He's not ready to give up hoping. Of course I'm the one that needs to go through most of this... So anyway, we decided to take a long break (at least 6 months is the plan, don't know if we'll make it) and reevaluate later. After the break, he said if I agree to do more IVFs, we can start the adoption process. Of course I only got him to say that by threatening to leave him if he won't let me adopt, so it wasn't really a win. I just want to know that one day I will have a child, and that one day won't be in ten years. (We're also talking about possibly looking into egg donors, which neither of us is too happy with. He prefers it to adoption, but is still hoping we'll get a miracle and have a baby with both our genes. I think I might prefer adoption, since I'm scared I won't be able to handle being pregnant with someone else's baby for 9 months. And I'm worried it'll hurt me seeing a baby that's DH's but not mine and having everyone make comments about how much it looks like me... And at the same time I also think there may be issues with my uteris and I'm not really ready for more miscarriages. But I guess I'd do it anyway for DH.) So that's our story. Assuming I actually don't end up killing myself within the next few months...

Starting IVF#5

I'm currently doing the birth control/lupron thing to start IVF #5. I'm really not so hopeful for this... What's the chance of IVF #5 working when the proceeding 4 didn't work? I wish I could just give up and stop all this. At what IVF number do I decide I had enough and I just won't have kids of my own?

I can't even miscarry normally...

So today, almost a week after my beta went down to 25, it went up to 67. And still no bleeding... Thursday I'm having an ultrasound, so they can see what's going on and if I'll need a d&c. Great. I can't get pregnant normally and I can't miscarry normally either. I just want this cycle to be over with already.

IVF #4 = Chemical :-(

I went in Sunday (I should have gone in saturday, but since I'm a Sabbath observer they said I could go in the next day). The beta was very low -- at 32. They were still hopeful that maybe it would double and it would be fine. I went in today and my beta dropped to 25. It's definitely a chemical. :-(
I guess I should be happy since this is the first ivf I've had that was positive at all, even if only for a few days... But easier said than done. :-(

Now I've had a miscarriage, an ectopic, and now a chemical. When will I get a pregnancy that works?

IVF #4 update part 2

So there were two good embryos that they used for the transfer and eight others that were so-so. They decided to wait to day 6 to see how those looked to see if they were worth freezing. They didn't end up freezing any of them so I guess they weren't good. :-( So out of our 25 eggs, this is our 1 and only try! Wish us luck!!!

IVF #4 Update

So this cycle took forever-- they kept raising and lowering the amount of follistim I was on since my estrogen kept changing drastically. There were a few points where they almost cancelled the cycle since it went so high, but thankfully, we did make it to the retrieval and without hyperstimulating! The retrieval was on this past Saturday. Tomorrow is the transfer. We had 25 eggs and 15 embryos as of Sunday. I have no idea how many are left or the quality but hopefully we'll have some good ones for tomorrow! This is the most we've ever had so I guess the > 1 month of follistim was worth something! Wish me luck!!

RE #4 & HSG #2 & IVF #4

So I had my consult with the new RE. We're doing an IVF, similar to IVF #1 (with RE #2). He wasn't so concerned about our lack of success with IVFs since he said the last doctor we used had very low success rates in general and his is much better. Of course, he didn't take the last insurance we had, so going to him wasn't really an option previously. We don't really have 10s of thousands of dollars lying around waiting to be used for cycles that don't work anyway.

He also wanted me to do another HSG, since the first one I had was before my ectopic. I had it on Monday and the results were basically inconclusive. He said everything was fine except the right fallopian tube. He couldn't tell with that one. He said the dye did go through so it's definitely not completely blocked, but there might be some scarring from the ectopic. He said that if I was a person with no issues and a 28-day cycle, he'd want to do the laproscopic surgery and see if there's scarring and fix it if there is. But since we need to do IVF anyway, he didn't think there was any point to the surgery since the scarring won't affect IVF (though he said it might have affected the IUIs we did). So basically we're still on for IVF #4. He's having us go on bcp for a month first (we did that for IVF #1 as well). When I went to pick up the bcp from the pharmacy, I also picked up the antibiotic I needed for the HSG. The pharmacist there "needed" to speak to me. She wanted to make sure I knew that if I took those antibiotics at the same time as the birth control pills, the birth control pills might not be as effective. She was very concerned. I nodded and smiled, thinking the whole time that that should be my worst problem. I accidentally get pregnant while on birth control.

More Failures

A few months ago, I decided I should get a consult with another doctor, as my current RE is out of ideas. My new insurance is more accepted, so I made an appointment for a new place that takes this insurance, that in theory has a high success rate. However, their next appointment was 3 months away. Three months is now almost over, so my appointment is on Wednesday. Hopefully, the RE will have a good idea for us.
Anyway, while we were waiting for our appointment, we did another IUI (I needed an IVF break). We found out yesterday that it didn't work. :-( It wasn't really a big shock at this point, but it still hurts anyway.
So that's where we are right now. Same place as always. No where.

IVF #3 =failure

:'-(