Tuesday, July 17, 2007

No Update Because Nothing Happening!

Well this is my last month to conceive naturally before IVF #1! :) I know that sounds crazy, but that's how I look at it. I don't expect it, but it's different being 4 DPO and knowing at least there's a chance. With BCP's next month it'll be different.

I keep wondering, since we're unexplained, if no eggs will fertilize. Have any of you Unexplained gals had these thoughts? I just wonder if there's something we don't know that'll become apparent with IVF. It bugs me that the SART only has data through 2005 for my clinic and it says out of 156 cycles they only had 2 with "Unknown" diagnosis. That sounds irrational! And of those 2, 1 got pregnant (with twins I add) and 1 didn't. They both put back 2. Interesting. Their overall success rate is 58.3% per cycle. But I think with unexplained I'm an even 50/50 chance. You just don't know! Anyway, not that these numbers change anything, but c'mon, I have to have something to obsess about! :) (Seriously, I've only looked at them a few times every few months.)

In front of me at end of July I have Day 3 labs, I start BCP's 5 days after my new cycle, and I have a Baseline Appt Aug 30. I went ahead and used FF miles to get a ticket that leaves Wednesday the 29th and returns home Thursday afternoon Aug 30th. I know what morning appts are like (over by 9 at the LATEST). They said there's no injection class or anything that day, so catching my plane should be a breeze. Even if I missed it I'd just stand by for others.

I am surprised once I made the decision to be open about IVF how easy it is to talk about and how I rarely receive criticism or unsolicited advice. I think maybe because I'm asked a few questions and perahps I rattle them so much with my medical terminology they're temporarily too stunned to say "How about adoption?" Plus, I do tell them if this IVF cycle fails, even if we have extra frozen embryos, we're going to go ahead with pursuing adoption. Both J and I think this is right.

We finally decided what to do with our frozen embryos if we both die. Our friends in SA who've gone through IVF and have embryos of their own - they get responsibility for them. We're leaving a document with set instructions (no discarding ever, $$$ set aside for 10 years of preserving embryos, instructions as to who to try to give them to & if no one wants them the embryo adoption agency we want). Obviously I don't want this to happen, but we have to be good stewards and provide for their future as we would any live children we had.

Here's where I wonder if you guys think this odd. We agree to give these embryos life, and if J dies, we want me to still try to have the rest of the embryos (or if unreasonable, put them up for embryo adoption I guess). Is that odd? I never want to BE in that situation. Explaining that would be so hard. Ah the decisions ART has you face!!!

5 comments:

twirl said...

I don't know if partial ICSI is an option for you, but we chose to do it because we, like you, wondered if fertilization was a problem. By committing to ICSI half, we had our own little experiment. It turned out that both groups fertilized, so we had no answers, but it has been telling for some people.

As far as extra embryos... I would have tried to use them in the event of P's untimely death. I don't think it's odd to consider these things. It's responsible. (In our case we had none make it to freeze.)

Best of luck!

K said...

I keep wondering the same thing! In our case, PCOS and my lack of ovulation has always been the assumed major problem. But, we had one IUI in April with 3 marvelous looking eggs and R's super-sperm, and no pregnancy. So, I reason, couldn't that mean that we have a fertilization problem?? What if none of the eggs they retrieve day after tomorrow fertilizes? Arrrgh, SO many things to constantly obsess over......

twirl said...

Just wanted to elaborate about partial icsi. They take half your eggs and allow them to fert naturally and then the others are icsi'd. This prevents total fert failure on the big day.

(I really wanted to know about fertilization too!)

Ann said...

I don't think it's wrong at all to want to have your husband's babies, even if he's not around. After all, they're half him, and if you can't have him around (God forbid, of course), you can still have them.

amy said...

Thanks for commenting on my blog. I love finding new friends in the blog-o-sphere.

I too worry about the fertilization thing...but my RE seems pretty confident that we'll get some good embryos. What to do with the unused ones?? Oh my goodness. We haven't even thought about it...I guess we'll give them up for adoption or for stem cell research.
Have you started your IVF cycle now?? We will start ours in a few weeks if we didn't get PG from this last IUI.

Amy
dancingwithinfertility.blogspot.com