ICLW- welcome

Welcome to ICLW-ers, and anyone else who happens along my blog. Here's a quickie synopsis of what's transpired so far in my IF life to save you from the tedium of slogging through the whole blog.


June 2008- after a year of TTC the "natural" way, we learn that DH (I call him C) has no sperm. By this time, I was 40 years old so we can consider "advanced maternal age" yet another limiting factor. All we need is donor sperm, right?

August 2008- DIUI cycle #1- BFN

September 2008- DIUI cycle #2- BFN

October 2008- DIUI cycle #3, this time with Clomid- BFN

November 2008- DIUI cycle #4, with Clomid- BFN

January 2009- invest in some new insurance that will cover fertility diagnosis and treatment. Everything up to now was out of pocket (what a great tax deduction that was!). Hook up with an actual RE, do the usual b/w, HSG, Clomid challenge, etc. I'm OK- just "old."

DIUI cycle #5, with Clomid (from Clomid challenge)- BFN

February 2009- DIUI cycle #6, with Clomid- BFN

March/April 2009- OI cycle using Gonal-F- planned for IUI, but converted on CD9 to IVF due to "exuberant" response to FSH. 11 eggs retrieved on CD11, 5 mature, three fertilized. Three embryos transferred- BFN

June/July 2009- IVF (on purpose this time)- Long Lupron protocol-

10u Lupron CD22-30 with instructions to call RE's nurses on CD1.

And that's where we are now. It's CD30 and AF's arrival is imminent. In fact, I was so convinced she'd arrived yesterday that I called the nurses at my RE's office and reported that I was on CD1. It was a little embarassing to admit this morning, when they called me back, that I had been mistaken but still expected my period to start "literally any minute now." If it starts today, then I'll have an u/s tomorrow, maybe some b/w, and they'll let me know when to start the Gonal-F. Because of my age (I'm 41 now), assisted hatching will be practiced and the RE wants to transfer up to five embryos. I'm perfectly OK with AH, but five... I know the odds are not in my favor, but what if they ALL stick? That's the only real conundrum this cycle, my only real worry... aside from failing completely.

Donor sperm has not proven to be the magic bullet we had hoped for. We're on our fifth donor now. The first wasn't very impressive, so we switched banks. I absolutely loved the second one, but he retired and stock ran out. The third one retired. The fourth one was fine, but now that we're doing IVF from the get-go, we had to find a donor with ICI vials available. Donor #4 had no ICI vials, so we found donor #5. If anyone's curious, unwashed sperm is preferred for IVF and I was instructed to purchase two vials for this cycle. I have seriously mixed emotions about choosing a donor. On one hand, I would love to match as many chacteristics of C as we can find in a single donor. But, at the same time, I would be happy with a baby of any size, shape or color. Most important are the family medical history and the openness of the donor. We want our child to have the best shot at being healthy, and we want her to at least have the chance to learn more about her bio-dad if she wants to. If the cryobank sends us the wrong donor sperm, we'll use it anyway (I've come a long way since DIUI#5, when I had a bit of a confrontation with the RE's office over my checking the cryotank contents before reporting to the office for an IUI).

B

Lupron day 8

The only side effects I've had include being easily distracted, unfocused, and generally a little out-of-it. And maybe that fit of crying I had at the wedding last week. AF is nowhere in sight. If I were unmedicated, she'd have arrived yesterday or today. I couldn't find any answers regarding the affect of Lupron on cycle length, so I don't know what to expect. The injections themselves are easy, with little to none of the mild burning I felt with the first dose. Only the latest three pinpricks are visible on my belly, and those very faintly. There's been no bruising at all. I alternate sides to decrease the risk of stabbing where I recently stabbed. The right side is for odd days, and the left is even because I probably wouldn't be able to remember where yesterday's shot went in.

I've decided to take the week after the July 4th weekend as a vacation. I haven't taken more than three days off (not counting weekends) at one time in over three years, so this doesn't arouse any suspicion. My supervisor just thinks I am finally taking a real vacation. Too many people at work suspected what was going on when I took two days off for IVF #1's ER/ET. And even for those who had no clue, my refusal to lift anything raised questions. I just hope the timeline works out- C is praying for ER on 7/3, a holiday, with 7/2 as a back-up. He told his boss that he'd need a day off in the first week of July to take me to the doctor. If ET falls on a work day, I'll be on my own, but he'll definitely be with me for the ER. I'd like him to be there for both, but that can't happen if they're both scheduled for working days. My ideal schedule would be ET on 7/2 and ER on 7/5. We'll see.

We selected yet another sperm donor. Since this is a planned IVF, I was told to obtain unwashed, ICI specimens. None of the donors we used previously have any ICI vials available, but we lucked out in that Ca Cryobank is offering free donor information (via rebate on purchase) this month. So I splurged and bought the baby photos along with the long profiles of two of our possibilities. Both our final choices have twins in their families. We didn't look for that on purpose, but it's another similarity between the donor and C- C's father is a twin. Not that our decision was based on looks, but my first choice was a much cuter baby than C's choice. Their family health histories helped cement our decision ... we went with the cuter baby. And, thankfully, he's an open donor. I so wanted to give that to our child.

The whole donor selection process still feels terribly arbitrary and artificial to me. I almost wish they had something akin to the eHarm0ny questionnaire, and wouldn't show me any pictures until we'd already been matched based on values and interests. Instead, it all starts with vital stats- height, weight, hair and eye color. We're planning to be completely open with our child about where he came from, so blood type wasn't a criteria. And, to be completely honest, we don't care about any of those superficial traits. We'd be happy with a baby of any color and size. That realization helped me get over the RE's policy about opening the cryotank to check the contents. If the bank sends a wrong vial, I'll use it any way. C agrees with me on that. We just want a baby. Period.

Cycle-wise, I'm still on 10 units of Lupron every morning and just waiting for AF to arrive. Then, I believe there will be a baseline u/s and b/w, with stims (225IU of Gonal-F, twice daily) to start a few days into the cycle.

in the middle

I know that I start imagining what's going on in the lives of other bloggers when they don't post for a longer-than-usual stretch. While I don't believe anyone is hanging on my every word, I do feel that there are people out there whom I've never met who do care what's going on. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't blog publicly. So, knowing that someone out there might be wondering what's up, I thought I should post even though there's really nothing to say or report.



I took the clomid as directed and have had an extremely short fuse for the last week or so, but no other side-effects to report. I started taking a "pre-natal" vitamin each day, since my regular women's multivitamins ran out. I learned quickly that the DHA liquigel capsule should be taken at night so I sleep through the mildly fishy burpettes (not quite burps). I was also pleased to discover that these don't make me queasy like the regular vitamins do if taken without food. I'm annoyed to see that the USRDA of folic acid for pregnant women and those trying to conceive is 800 mg. My RE told me to stop taking an additional folic acid supplement with my daily vitamin that contained 400mg folic acid. I'm a rebel, though, so I continued to take the extra folic acid (hey- it's water-soluble, so any excess goes right out of my system. You can't overdose on folic acid) until the bottle was empty two weeks ago. Now, I don't feel like I was wasting my money on the extra dose. IN YOUR FACE, RE!



I should see the digital smiley face tonight, so I'm planning a couple of trips to the RE's office over the weekend and I warned my soccer team that I might not be playing. C will be going with me for the IUIs this cycle, both because he hasn't gone back to work yet and because they're on the weekend. Luckily, it's not supposed to snow so no plowing and no white-knuckle driving to an IUI (have any studies examined the affect of tense driving situations on insemination success?). The donor sperm should arrive at my office this afternoon.


Ah, the donor... we picked a new one, and I'm a little nervous about a decision we made in choosing this one. We made a list of our top 4 picks, and then narrowed it further to our top 2 based on availability and some of the items documented in their short (free) profiles. We bought the long profiles for our first choice and immediately discovered an extensive family history of heart problems. Both sets of grandparents, one parent, multiple aunts/uncles. So I bought the long profile for our second choice- immaculate health history! We're talking nothing but a little adolescent acne. No allergies, no illnesses, no nothing. You'd think that would make it easy to choose the one with the great health. The kicker is that the heart-problem-donor is open while perfect-health-man is anonymous. I know we'll probably have some identity issues to deal with either way, but I don't want my children to think I made the anonymous selection lightly or without consideration of what my children may one day want to learn about their genetic heritage. Hopefully, this is the first of a lifetime of decisions we'll be making in the best interest of the child we'll conceive this cycle.