DE FET #2 - starting

After the sonohysterogram in November 2012 I went for a hysterscopy in January 2013. They found nothing abnormal so I'm back to square one, not too sure what Dr. S saw on the Sono but when Dr.  W said all was fine, including the biopsy after the hysterscopy I guess I just have to trust him. 

Fast forward to June 2013, I'm supposed to have a FET at ORM but my lining only get up to 6.4mm so it was cancelled. 

We tried again in August for a September 16th transfer. We changed things up this time and instead of using interamuscular Delesteogen we are using Climera patches in hopes that my lining would get above 6mm, for a little shake up so to speak. 

My first ultrasound for this cycle was September 2nd - about three days earlier then normal - at RFP. They measured my lining to 6.5mm. Not too bad considering its early. Then I had to go for another ultrasound on September 9th at RFP again. Dr. S measured my lining to only be at 7 or 7.6, just depending how they placed to prob. So I asked for a second opinion - he wasn't happy but for god sakes, I'm paying a crap load of money for this. He finally agreed and brought in Dr. G. He was no better because he claimed to see my left ovary, which is funny because I DON'T HAVE ONE!!!!

So I made the decision to ask Dr. H at ORM if I could please go down there for an ultrasound and he agreed. We flew down to Portland for the ultrasound for the following Monday, September 16th. It went great! My lining was easly detected by Dr. H at a solid 9.0mm. I tell you, the machines in the US are way better then here in Canada - maybe the docs too. :) Anyway we get to go ahead with the transfer next Monday, yayy!!! 

Monday September 23rd, transfer day, we got the call from the embryologist at 11:00am saying that the first two embryo's only thawed at a 50% cell survival. All I could think was "crap, it's happening all over again. All our embryo's must be this bad!" So I asked if she could just keep thawing until she finds some good ones. 

We arrived at ORM at 1:15 for the transfer and to our surprise they told us that the next two embryo's they thawed look great and have a 90% and 95% cell survival. I'm so happy we didn't have to go through all our embryos to get good ones. We now have 9 frosties left. 

So what do you guys think, do they look good or do you think they were just saying that? I can't really find anything on Google. :(

So today is 3dp5dt nothing but some cramping in the later day and I'm thirsty as usual. Hopefully this time works. Fingers crossed. Not getting my hopes up though. 

I'm back!

First off I'm super sorry that I've been MIA for the last little while. I've been totally busy with my dad, work and just life in general.

Dad has been as good as can be, he's still on the chemo and thankfully hasn't lost any more weight since the start of it. He's been fluctuating between 187 to 188 so I'm glad for that, but I have to keep bugging him to eat all the time and at the very least to drink his Ensure - he says that food just doesn't taste the same anymore - I feel so bad for him, he was at 200lbs before all of this. Good news though, or bad, depending on how you look at it; we found out that my dad has his 3 month CT scan booked for May 10th. This should tell us if he has been responding to the chemo thus far. If not, I'm not sure what we'll do but I just pray that it's working.

Now my infertility life...

About a week ago I found out my OR date for the Endo Biopsy and the Hysteroscopy has been booked for May 24th but I'm not too sure that date is going to work. I only say that because this last Monday was my last BCP, so if I do the math, next visit from AF should be around the 24th, 25th of May. That sucks! Now I'll have to call the clinic to get them to reschedule... how long will I have to wait now?!?

On the 22nd I had yet another consult, but this time it was with the donor nurse at ORM. It went really well, it was basically just to go over the things that I needed to get done before my DE cycle begins. Like my pending Hysterocopy and Endo Biopsy, a boat load of blood tests, a pap and a Donor Egg Consult with a Psychologist - which my have to be done there. Dr Hesla also would like to do a Mock Cycle, which I'm OK with just because it gives him an opportunity to see how I'll respond to the meds given the fact that my last FET didn't go to well with all the spotting I had. The nurse also said that she would like us to go down to Oregon for the tail end of the mock cycle so that Dr H can check my lining, do a Doppler U/S to see how blood flow is and to do a trial transfer. It sucks to have to spend the money to get there and to stay in a hotel but its the best thing to do. I've been trying ART for over a year now - referral to my clinic in canada 2 1/2 years ago - so its been a long time and I want to make sure things go well and that we have a good chance with this. So no complaining here, even if I have to stick myself with the intramuscular delestrogen injections... OUCH! Not looking forward to those.

Other news, I found out the donor we have chosen had 23 retrieved, 18 mature, and 13 fertilized with her first cycle ever! That to me is some pretty good numbers but we're still waiting to find out how many made it to day 5 so my opinion could change and so could my donor choice. I think I may just e-mail them tomorrow to see. If all goes well I just have to pray to the goddesses that she wants to cycle 2 more times - one with the next couple in line and then with us so FX that she does.

Getting Some Blood Work Done!

I'm trying this post from my Blackberry so let's hope this works.

So I guess I'm kind of between clinics, see I had to call RFP because ever since my BFN from my last FET in February AF has been all buggered up and I've had non stop spotting. Yup, you heard that right, ever since February.

10 days ago I decided to put myself on BCP to see if it would stop and nothing changed. So I called the clinic on Wednesday and they finally got back to me today. They want me to go for some blood tests to see why she hasn't stopped yet, thank goodness. So, I'm off to get B/W done. Hopefully I'll get the results tomorrow and we can finally straighten things out.

In other news, I e-mailed the Donor Nurse at ORM yesterday about the donor we would like. I knew she was currently in cycle but who would have thought she would already have another recipient waiting... It turns out we would be third in line - providing she wants to cycle again - which would be around Sept/Oct. The nurse said she'd have to ask her but she wouldn't do that until she's had her retrieval, which should be in 2 - 3 days. After going through it myself 2 times I can't say I would be all that eager to want to do it a third time if I was in her shoes, but ya never know, all one can do is hope.

One More Sleep...

OK, so it's been a long time since I've posted and I have to apologize for that. It's just there really hasn't been much going on lately. This past weekend was a relaxing one - more forced but still relaxing - because it snowed nearly 15cm in a day!

So during my house bound weekend I was able to get our taxes done which brought us a good chunk of money back, YAY!! Thank goodness because we spent a crap load of cash on the past 2 IVF's and 1 FET in 2010 but considering what we spent I didn't get nearly enough moo la back, oh well, this year - providing we get to start a DE cycle - I'll definitely be getting an accountant to do our taxes next year to maximize our deductions to the fullest.

Tomorrow is our phone consult with ORM - they had to cancel our original consult which was on the 7th and change it to the 5th. Not too bad, at least we didn't have to wait weeks after. I'm super excited, I can't wait to get things going.

Today was my dad's fourth round of chemo and next Monday is his week off. Thank goodness because I think its starting to take a toll on him. He tires more easily now, once a man that did woodworking, walked the dog, and curled all in one day to now maybe doing one of those things. He's doing great considering, or at least I think he is, he doesn't say much about how he feels other then good. I try to help out by bring him and my mom meals as much as I can so that he doesn't have to cook and I try and do other things just to hopefully make things easier on him.

Until tomorrow - or the next day - when I let you all know how the consult went. FX that it all works out at that they feel that I can in fact move forward with DE.

The Weekend is Almost Over *Sigh*

I sure wish weekends didn't go so fast.

This morning G had to go tend to some work stuff - he started his own company about a year ago - so I'm just taking it easy, curling up on the couch with my little dog and reading a book because the weather sucks but it's really beautiful out.

Yesterday I went to my parents place to visit my dad and to make them a healthy supper. He seems to be doing pretty good, he hasn't gained any weight back but nor has he lost anymore.

This past week was his week off chemo so he's had a better week this week but tomorrow he's back on chemo for another two weeks. I really hope he's not getting discouraged though because he made a comment to me yesterday that makes me think that he's not as positive as he was at the start of his chemo three weeks ago. I do believe that he is reevaluating some things, which could be a good thing because he's picking up the things he use to love to do many, many years ago and doing them again but he's also been fixing things too so I'm not too sure what that all about.

Right now he's been getting back into building his model boats - very time consuming but they look awesome!! He also loves playing around with his model trains but he doesn't have them set up in this house so he decided one night this last week that he's going to set them up again. I think he finds it relaxing and I'd imagine that it gets his mind off of everything.

As for me, AF hasn't been very nice to me lately. She came on the 10th and now she's back again. I think it's because when I did my last FET my RE moved her up from the end of the month to the beginning so I think I'm going to go back on BCP. This way I can regulate her and hopefully control my endo a little. Should I call my RE and tell him, probably, but I think I would just be wasting time waiting to hear back from him only to hear that he wants to put me on BCP... Or should I call my new RE at ORM to see what I should do, gosh I don't know, if anyone wants to comment please do so. I'm open to any suggestions.

Long Time Reader, First Time Poster

In 1999 I met the man I was going to marry and start a family with. Much to our dismay it hasn't quite worked out that way. We got to the marriage part but just haven't reached the family part. Prior to all this infertility stuff life was great, we built our first home, moved in and then got our cute little Manchester Terrier all in 2003. All and all life was pretty normal...

  

and this is where our story begins...

In March 2007 I was diagnosed with stage IV Endometriosis, had surgery, lost my left ovary during the surgery and was told to start TTC as soon as possible.

June 2007, we finally got married after being together for 8 years. It sure did take him long enough to put a ring on it that's for sure.

October 2007, we sold our old home and moved into our new home which we started the building process on in March. The past 7 months had been crazy. I couldn't believe we got through it all in one piece but that was just one of many more to come. What do they say, building a house and getting married are like the number one stressers on a relationship and if you can get through that you can get through anything.

Fast forward to 2011, still nothing in the TTC department.  2 IVF's and 1 FET later with my own eggs, which I might add are very few and far between and the results were negative, negative, negative. So with that said we have come to the decision to move forward using DE.

I'm thinking about going to ORM - Oregon Reproductive Medicine. Right now I think the only thing holding me back is the fear of the unknown. I've done the research and I'm pretty confident in my decision but I just have to get the balls to get the "ball" rolling. Hopefully that will be soon. There could be a little reluctance on my part partially because I'm also dealing with the fact that my dad has been newly diagnoses with cancer which apparently the doctor doesn't think can be cured with Chemo only managed. My dad is my rock, I love him to bits I have no idea how I can do this whole thing without him. I just hope I'll have him around for many more years to come.

OK I hope I haven't bored you all but this is my very first post so be gentle in the comments department.