I'm sorry - I'm kind of cut/pasting this from another post rather than re-writing the whole thing.
We had our followup meeting with our RE, and it went okay. We're not sure what we're going to do. She thinks my main issues are/may be egg quality/quantity and implantation (maybe.) Dr. K. thought that I would have had more eggs and better quality eggs this time. She said she still thinks I have a good chance at having more eggs/good quality if we try again because we had 3 grade A blasts with the first cycle. She thinks part of it may be my age and that my eggs are starting to change as I get older. But it's not necessarily one month you have some and the next month you have none. It goes kind of up and down like a wave.
She suggests that if we try again we try the Microdose Lupron but with higher doses of Bravelle (or Gonal F instead of Bravelle) 2x/day and she even said she could start me on 2 estrogen pills/day (even though she didn't think that was part of the issue.) She also said she would run bloodwork for blood clots and for immunity issues - that may be related to implantation issues. She also mentioned doing assisted hatching on our embryos, too.
If we go through a 3rd cycle, I would want to do the August cycle, so it would be before school starts. That's right around the corner...
She doesn't think we're to the point where we would need to consider donor eggs/donor embryos. She thinks we're still good candidates for the procedure. She said that with donor eggs you have a higher chance of it working (70-80%) because the women whose eggs you would use are younger/or have already had healthy children. It's also an additional $5,000. Then with embryo adoption, you have to go through with the adoption process/homestudy and about a year later you get the embryo.
Our other option is to skip the 3rd IVF and head straight into adoption. We are both willing to move forward with that if that's what we decide we should do. We like the agency we already spoke with - we feel comfortable with them.
It's such a hard decision. There are so many things to consider - the timing of everything, the emotional stress of everything, the financial aspect of it all, and did I mention the emotional stress of everything?????
It's so hard. I don't know what we're going to do.
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I had the autoimmune bloodwork done on Saturday. I also had cycle day 3 bloodwork and ultrasound done in case with go through with cycle #3. We should get our bloodwork results back in a week, except for the karyotype results. That may take up to 6 weeks.
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After our followup on Wednesday, I met with the counselor at the RE's office on Thursday. We talked about the stress of all this and how dealing with the negatives has been so hard. The counselor has been through 3 IVFs, so she really understands the emotional toll that it takes on a couple.
We talked about grief and she let me know that it's okay to be sad - to be mad - to be angry. She talked about how when an IVF fails, it's like you are dealing with a death - a death of children you'll never know; a death of dreams that you may never realize. What we're dealing with feels so "heavy" - I feel like there is this weight on me all the time. She asked me how I'm taking care of myself and I told her, "I don't know." Isn't that sad? I am not even sure how to take care of myself at this point anymore.
She suggested I do something positive to remember our IVFs and our embryos - much like you would do to honor someone that passed away. I'm working on a painting - I told the counselor how much I love to paint and how much I've missed it over the last few months. I already had something in mind for the picture - I just had to start it.
So, I've been trying really hard to work through being sad, being depressed. I am not sure how to do it but I'm going day by day - I went for a walk and looked out at the lake nearby, I worked in our yard and took my aggressions out on the weeds, I started my painting, I've been reading, I've been talking to family and friends. I guess it just takes time.
