Fertile yet Infertile ?

Empty

I've been struggling for the past few weeks to compose a post in my head.  I've started a few times - and they all seemed incoherent, rambling.  Going nowhere.  I'm not sure this one will be much different, but here goes.

Last night, I saw my therapist.  I told her how I don't even have the words to describe how I am feeling these days.  I then told her about my past few weeks.  We went back and forth a bit - and she came up with a word for me:  empty.  Its a good one.

My emotions have been all over the place.  I've taken my anger out now not once, but twice on poor T.  One time was completely scary.  I screamed at him - like I have never screamed before.  I frightened myself, ladies.  It was like a demon took over my body and was escaping via my mouth.  My heart was pounding.  I thought my head was going to explode.  I had to go lay down in the spare room, close the door and turn off the light to get myself back to some semblance of normal.  We have since mended fences, but I feel like a complete disappointment as a wife.  Why do I keep doing this to him?  He's such an easy target for me and I know the pitfalls, yet I let it continue to happen anyway.

Its just that the circle of people I am leaning on has grown so small, for so many reasons.  And I'm almost afraid to unleash the real me - even on my closest friends.  It doesn't feel safe.  It feels burdensome - and I feel like its so hard to describe how I am feeling, how can they possibly understand? 

In the meantime, we saw our doctor yesterday, at his new practice.  We discussed some options.  He felt badly about the donor and the luck we had with her.  He said they are transitioning the donor program from the closed practice to his new one.  Therefore, we won't have to re-apply or get on another waiting list.

We talked about doing another fresh cycle with my own eggs.  He didn't recommend against it.  He also got into this whole discussion about how he's not much of a believer in PGD anymore, as studies have borne that out to not be as great as everyone once thought it was.  Essentially he's saying they have found the aneuploidy tests they are doing to not be very reliable or accurate.  While I had been reading some various articles about Docs coming out and saying "we may need to take a second look at this because its not increasing pregnancy rates like we had hoped it would," I had not read this.

His main concern is we may have in the past discarded embryos that would have gone on to develop into chromosomally normal, healthy pregnancies.  Unbelievable.  He actually talked about using the procedure as a guide, not as an absolute.  Has anyone else heard or read anything about this?  I asked him for some article citations, which I am waiting for him to send me.

In any case, he actually said he would have to do some research and get back to us as to what he recommends.  I left there feeling nauseous and weak.

That aside, I wish I could just get past this complete sense of hopelessness.  I don't know what I want to do next.  I feel isolated and lonely, yet I want people (even T) to leave me alone.  I feel like none of my friends are concerned enough to reach out to me, yet I haven't asked for any help.  Most of the time when the phone rings - I can't even bring myself to answer it.  I don't want to talk to anyone - I just want all of this to go away.  Except it won't.

I have been grieving for the better part of four years now.  I'm not sure how much longer that can possibly last without my entire life - including my marriage, crumbling and falling apart right before my eyes.

It's official

This cycle is a wrap.

And to boot - my practice is completely closing its doors.  My doctor has moved to another practice with one of the other docs.  The other two are scattering.   I knew my doc had left, but not that the entire place was shutting down.  I'm not sure what happened, because this is essentially the biggest (most patients) practice in my area.

So - there won't be any asking for a discounted cycle from them.  The nurse coordinator of the DE program at this place was completely sympathetic to my plight, and basically admitted I got a raw deal with the cycle results we had.  I told her I was planning on asking for some financial consideration if I decided to cycle again, and she said: "Sherry, believe me I would have totally gone to bat for you."  She also encouraged me to talk to my doc about it at the new practice and see if he can do anything for me.

I wonder what the wait list time is like for donors with his new group.

Anyway we've made most of our obligatory calls to parents and siblings and the few friends who knew about the cycle.  I am just so sick of having to be the bearer of bad news, telling people of our failures.  And of obliging them when they inevitably don't know what to say. 

I feel like crawling under a rock for a couple of months and not dealing with anything or anybody.

No joy in crapville

Well, move my confidence factor that I am NOT pregnant up to 99.99%.

This morning I tried another eary result pg test - completely negative.

Went to my blood test anyhow but didn't even bother asking them to do my progesterone shot.

I'll get results this afternoon and then we begin the fun of figuring out what comes next.

Anyone have experience with getting their donor cycle discounted after their first one was a bust - and completely the result of a dud donor?

I feel completely defeated and emotionally spent.

HPT

Well, the fat lady is just about to sing.

Took an "early result" HPT this morning.  Completely negative.  T cried when I sent him in the bathroom to look at it.

I'm continuing my shots, as my beta isn't till Friday morning, but I think we can call this a bust with 98% accuracy.  I'll try another HPT Friday morning before I go just so the results won't be a surprise.

I forsee margaritas in my future this weekend.

Now what?  A big, loaded question we will have to tackle.

I'm still really angry about the donor cycle results.  I mean - not that I WANT this result to happen to anyone else - but why did it have to happen to me?  You know, me - of the three miscarriages.  Me, of the two failed IVF with PGD cycles?  Me - who has now spent the better part of 4 years trying just to attain motherhood?  I feel so ripped off.

This merry go-round has to stop - for my emotional health, for my poor body, for my husband's sake, for my the sake of my marriage.  But everytime I think about it, I shudder.  I am not ready to get off.

Dumb comment #1001

I have limited knowledge of our cycle and use of DE to a very small group of people.  My mother, Ts parents, and a couple of friends are the only ones we've told. For one, i just have a need to keep this more private than the last few cycles, and two - to tell the truth, we've really grown apart from many of our friends over the past 2-3 years as they have all started families while we still deal with IF.

One friend who knows what is going on, e-mailed me Monday evening to ask how the transfer went.  She herself struggled to get pregnant, and has twins via IVF who just turned one.  Recently, though, she found out she is pregnant again - with an "oops" baby it appears, even though she had once been told she could never get pregnant on her own.

Anyway, I very briefly filled this friend in on the latest cycle developments.  She wrote back:

Well, one is still better than none, so I will cross my fingers.  You never know, it might take and let's look on the bright side - did you really want to have twins or triplets? probably not.  So in the end, this might be a good thing. 

Um yeah - after having invested 4 years, countless tears, and tens of thousands of dollars, having only one 7-celled embryo to transfer (as an ivf patient I'm sure shes familiar with the success rates on single embryo transfer!) is A GOOD THING!  I didn't want to be able to freeze embryos for a second chance or anything - or God forbid actually if I am lucky enough to have a child from this, be able to give him/her a genetically related sibling!

I guess I'll have to close the circle a little smaller.  I SWEAR!

We should all get together and publish a book - "1001 dumbest things people ever said to an infertile."

Ugh.

We arrived at the clinic today nice and early.  I managed my full bladder in perfect time - so I wasn't sitting in the waiting room with crossed legs, but when I was up on the table in the procedure room, the Dr. pronounced it "perfect!"

Arriving early is about as good as it got for us unfortunately.  After we changed into our garb, T went off to the bathroom.  The nurse approached me with the consent paperwork, stopped and looked at me.  "We need to talk about the embryos," she said.  I knew that couldn't be good, but was shocked when she told me we only had one left.  Three of the four were fairly fragmented last night, and by this morning they were more than 50% so, and had stopped progressing.

I immediately started crying.  This cycle has been a complete disappointment.  I can't believe we invested so much financial, emotional, and physical resources to get a very similar result to my own cycles.  How could this possibly happen?

A couple tissues later, I composed myself and went to look at our one little embie.  The embryologist said it was a grade 2, which is good.  It was about 7 cells if I remember correctly, (I was rather shell shocked) with some fragmentation, which she said could be completely normal.  She said it had even made progress since this morning, which was a good sign, and that all the fragmentation was being pushed out to the exterior, which told her it was not an issue.

Transfer was completely textbook, and I've been parked on the couch since we got home.

I know it only takes one, but I can't believe using a donor has gotten us results that are no more promising than we had on our own - with my old, garbage eggs.

To my friends inside the intenet: Will you still be my friends?

So – I have been among the missing for months now, my friends, and yet I am asking for something I am not sure I deserve: your support. While I have been faithfully reading your blogs, and sometimes occasionally once in a blue moon commenting on them, I haven’t been doing much in the way of keeping you up to date on happenings here.

I am not sure why. I fell out of the habit, I didn’t feel like writing, I was too depressed to rehash my boring insecurities here, feeling too exposed to being hurt – all of these things at one time or another over the past few months. But right now – I need to know, in a big way that other people are rooting for me out there. All of you who are climbing this same mountain with me, you know – the one with the big HPT at the last summit before the top. Somehow, when I lie on that table with a full bladder tomorrow, I have this strong feeling that if I just think of you all, knowing I have even a handful of "infertiliy sisters" in my corner, everything will be ok.

To bring you up to date: T and I decided to go for it with the donor. We ponied (is it ponyed?) up a lot of cash – well, credit – and signed on. I started up the birth control pills, and then T and I took a fabulous vacation to California. When we got back, I started on Lu*pron. Holy cow, my friends. Never been on Lu*pron before, and let me just say I hope I never have to take it again. It kicked my butt! From there, we added in some Estro*gen, in pill and eventually patch form. A couple days ago we started Progest*erone in oil shots, and now here we are.

The donor’s retrieval was Friday. They retrieved 10 eggs. I was somewhat disappointed in this number, but kept reminding myself that we’re going for quality here, not quantity. After all, they got 20 eggs from me last time – and they were all crap.

Yesterday I got the call that of the 10, only 6 were mature. All of those were ICSI’ed, and as of yesterday afternoon we had 4 embryos. I almost came unglued. Not really the result I was looking for. I second guessed myself all over the place. I should have gone with my gut about the donor, should have waited for a "proven" one, what am I thinking spending this kind of money on what essentially amounts to a crapshoot, etc.

I slept fitfully, waking up at least 3 times during the night with clenched fists. I felt so angry – "can’t we get JUST ONE BREAK FOR ONCE!"

Anyway, I had bloodwork early this morning and the nurse, who had to give me my PIO shot afterwards, was comforting. It happened to be the coordinator of the DE program who was on call this morning. She basically said, yes it is disappointing we got so few eggs from the donor. However, even in these situations they have had a lot of success – they have had many pregnancies in situations where the donor only produced a few viable eggs. In her words, "these eggs from donors seem to be able to overcome a lot of things the others just can’t." So I felt a little better leaving there, but still scared out of my mind.

My mood improved when she called a couple hours ago to report all 4 are still developing. One is at 2 cells, the others are at 3, 5, and 6. So tomorrow at 12:15, they will be putting in the best looking two embies, and then we wait. And pray. And hope.

Please if you have any spare room in your thoughts or prayers tonight or tomorrow for me, T, and our embryos – we could use all the extra help we can get.