Ten Years

For those of you who have been reading this blog forever I write a throwback post to say it's been exactly a decade since the day I found out I was pregnant with Tiny Boy, after taking a home pregnancy test probably way too soon.  If you've been reading that long, you know there was a lot of drama <ahem> that followed. Somehow that little embryo stuck around and turned into a 9-year-old boy child who came home from school talking about some horrible lesson that was "insulting to mothers and video games." (HUH?!) 

Anyway, I wouldn't care about St. Patrick's Day but I have that.  And this year I have a martini glass and some Midori with which to celebrate. 

The One About the DE Dream

One of my students (not one I recognized from actual life) was taking her essay exam.  And when she turned in her blue book it became very clear that she'd been an egg donor.

I'm not sure why she was writing her essay about it.  But I'm pretty sure why my subconscious headed there...

Decisions Decisions

So yesterday, sometime between stripping off her Ann Taylor sweater and snapping on the latex, Dr Gorgeous asked me how the consult went. Well, I said, I think I'll need to make an appointment to talk to you about it. It would appear that my opportunity will be this Thursday (?!) so I've got to get my head around somethings pretty darn quick. Where I'm at seems to change by the minute these days. Some things for you to advise me on (while I sit here drinking sanctioned rooibos tea and ignoring the piles of laundry in my house, and the stacks of student papers to grade!):

1. Dr. Slideshow recommended repeat hysteroscopy if I do donor egg. I think it makes sense to repeat, no matter what my next big step is. I'll have to see what Dr. Gorgeous, and my insurance company, thinks about this.
2. I'm wondering if it makes sense to do an endometrial function test or test for NK cells or other autoimmune things I haven't been tested for. This isn't coming out of my appt with Dr. Slideshow so much as my sense that there's something more than DOR going on with me. And really, I don't want to give up my own DNA and shell out $30,000 just to have another miscarriage with someone young thing's eggs.
3. Although I'm still going to acupuncture, I have not made a move in terms of the Chinese herbs plan and I don't think I'm going to. While I'd like to think "holistic" is a better way to go, the fact of the matter is that I don't have the months required to actually make it a legitimate plan and see if it helps me. That plan also assumes that I actually trust my body. And you know what? I don't.
4. That is, I'm pretty much ready to bail on my body. I hit 38 in a month. That has always been my Donor Egg Deadline. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing donor egg (not sure where yet), but I also think I need to give my body one last big shot. Will that be a highly medicated IUI? IVF with Dr. Gorgeous? IVF with Dr. Slideshow? And when? Winter break would seem to be a good time, don't you think?
5. I learned something I don't like about myself. Turns out that a donor's looks matter. Dr. Slideshow gave me the link to the extended profiles page, and I have to say I freaked out when I saw pictures of the donors. A. asked me if I could just not look at them. Seriously, do I have that much impulse control?! I really like the fact that I don't know what LG's donor looks like. I've got a baby picture, that's all, and that's how I want it. Turns out that if I wanted a male donor to be a good date, I want a female donor to be a reasonable fascimile of me. Where are the high-IQed, dark haired Eastern European/Jewish egg donors, I ask you?
6. Since I haven't actually talked to Dr. Gorgeous about how she does the egg donor program, that's one thing I need to know. On the one hand, it seems to make sense to be to go with the bigger clinic for DE; Dr. Slideshow does something like 50 DE cycles per year, Dr. Gorgeous does more like 10. Her stats are also slighly lower (67% vs. 75-80% live birth rate). But there are other issues to consider, like cycling at home is way easier than cycling out of state, particularly with a school-aged child. And there's something to be said for working with the doctor who's seen you through the ups and downs (mostly downs) of 2+ years of treatment.

I keep spinning, and I don't seem to be getting anywhere. Do I take it as a sign that the reproductive counselor hasn't returned my message to schedule an appointment?

Blogotherapy (more thoughts from Dr. Slideshow)

Well, I will definitely NOT be pregnant before my 38th birthday. OPK I took about half an hour ago was positive, or will be by the end of the day. That means no IUI this month (though I might ask Dr. G to run a P4 level on Tuesday to check). I'm too stunned to even start registering disappoinment. The only time I've ever surged on cd 8, I've been hopped up on Clomid/Femara. And given that my lining was 12+ yesterday...clearly my body is ready to go. Not only does this rule out an IUI this month, it really fucks up the whole schedule I have going. And unless I do something (put myself on the pill? do the estrace/prometrium combo?) my next IUI would likely fall Thanksgiving weekend.

Do I take this as a sign that I need to give up on my body and run to donor egg? Do I take this as a sign that I need to give up the "natural" approach, because clearly it's not doing a damn bit of good? I'll admit there's a part of me that thinks this would be the perfect time to take estrace and do a femara/follistim combo.

*

So as I said yesterday, Dr. Slideshow did not provide me with the sense of clarity I was hoping I'd have. I'll admit that the numbers he gave me for IVF were not pretty (17% live birth rate, though he admitted that's arguably dependent on ovarian reserve which is still in question [he wants to redo AMH level and day 3 labs]). But while he was very professional, he did indicate that he thought Dr. Gorgeous's MDL/Ganirelix protocol is very odd and suggested I do a straight antagonist cycle (no EPP) if I choose to do IVF. He also suggested that the fact that I had an E2 level of 2100+ and had only 2 mature eggs at retrieval indicates a problem with how the eggs were retrieved (though it sounded like his method is the same one that Dr. Gorgeous uses).

Do I want to do IVF? No. But I'm not ready to dive into DE either. If I do decide to do IVF, do I do it with him, for something new? For his lab? For his success rates? I'm honestly not sure.

He also told me that he thought IUIs were a complete waste of time/money, that if it hasn't worked by 12-15 cycles, it won't work (but, I think, even at age 29-30, I needed to do 10 IUIs to conceive LG). And, to be sure, I'd rather spend that $600-700 on something else, or save it, but in the whole scheme of how much this baby project has cost me, really, what's the expense of a few more IUIs? Because, really, that's all I plan to do.

Still don't know what to do folks. As always, observations are welcome!

Ultrasounds and Slideshows

I promise to flesh this post out later tonight. I'm just exhausted and need to be with my girl and my mama for a while.

The gist of it:

1. I will probably not be having an IUI this month, as it's cd 7 and ultrasound revealed a lining of 12.3 (!) and a follicle/cyst at 15+ Did I say I'm out of town and the earliest I could actually show up for an IUI is Tuesday?

2. I liked the doctor, whom I will hereafter refer to as Dr. Slideshow, MUCH more than I expected. My consult--the actual talking part--lasted close to two hours. I think if I'd had more questions, and the nurse hadn't paged him to tell him his next patient was there, he would have kept talking.

3. Nothing Dr. Slideshow said has pushed me in either direction. But most of my questions went to IVF not donor egg, so maybe that says something right there. The numbers say donor egg, but when he recommended doing eSET and their out-of-this-world stats go down to 55% I'm less impressed...

4. His office is not The Spa, which is how I thought about Dr. Gorgeous's place when I first met her. There was no bathrobe to wear, no tea in the waiting room, no chinese art. And he's not nearly as pretty :)

I still don't know what to do. Except schedule a follow-up with Dr. Gorgeous.

Adventures in Gynecology (III)

I have to say I'm more than a bit wigged out about working with a male doctor, after Dr. Evil. IVF/DE consult at 1:00. Wish me luck!

In Short

1. One follicle (L) at 20mm. Natural surge. IUI #1 tomorrow between my classes. IUI #2 on Thursday. Haven't done a cycle like this since, well, I conceived LG.
2. I have Dr. Gorgeous's blessing to do herbs, acupuncture, and anything else I like.
3. Also to do natural cycles. Which I think is what I needed to hear.
4. She also said to bring back info after my Big Clinic consult; she said she's been thinking about shared risk programs herself. Her program's smaller, to be sure, but her stats are virtually identical to Big Clinic.
5. Have I told you lately that I love my doctor?