I just got an email from Debbie and everything's already scheduled for this cycle. Definitely different from an IVF cycle where everything is day-by-day. Obviously if things aren't where they want them to be for evaluations then there will be some extra appointments, but here's the current schedule:
7/14 - 7/29: take birth control
8/2: evaluation appointment for blood work and to check lining - want the lining to be thin
8/2 - pregnancy test or beyond: estrogen patches
8/13: evaluation appointment for blood work and to check lining - want the lining to be 8mm or thicker
8/14 - pregnancy test or beyond: endometrin inserts
8/17: frozen embryo transfer
8/30: likely pregnancy test appointment (this is not on the schedule that Debbie sent, but it was the timing the last time)
This is about 2 weeks to a month earlier than I thought which is amazing in my mind. So much less time to wait, worry, and wonder!
Monday, July 16, 2012
End of IVF Cycle 1 - Start of FET Cycle 1
It's taken me 5 days to be able to write this post, which will make itself apparent shortly.
On Wednesday, around 2:00 I got a phone call from Debbie about my test results from that morning. Shockingly, disappointingly, frustratingly, the blood work came back negative. I'm not pregnant. This was an absolute shock to me. I thought I had been experiencing morning sickness since the previous Sunday and I was just so absolutely positive and overly optimistic that I was pregnant that it never occurred to me that I might not be. Debbie went over the next steps with me, which I wrote down, and felt incredibly overwhelmed about. Debbie told me that I would be on birth control for one month and then start injections of dell-estrogen and eventually add injections of progesterone and oil, all of which are intro-muscular injections that Dennis would have to give me. I called Dennis, told him the news, and left work for the day. Logically, I knew that it didn't mean it would never happen, but emotionally I was devastated. The stress caught up to both Dennis and I and when we both got home we had the biggest rip-roaring argument that we've ever had. And then the depression kicked in for me. I vaguely remembered prior to Wednesday what it was like to be depressed before I started taking anti-depressants, but it had been pushed so far to the back of my mind. The best way to describe it is that the only emotions I am able to fully have are sadness accompanied by lots of crying and anger accompanied by lots of yelling. If I'm not experiencing those emotions I feel like a zombie. The commercials about depression actually do it a great deal of justice. You feel like you're in a fog or looking at the rest of the world through a mirror and not actually part of it. You can fake your way through it for the people around you, but aren't fully experiencing anything.
Skip ahead to Friday. I get a call while I'm running errands (I had off this week, as I do every other Friday) from a different nurse telling me that Dr. Saffan is calling us at 1:30pm. This is complete news to me. I don't want to talk about the situation any more than I have to and didn't see what else he could tell me about next steps any more than Debbie already did. I figured I have my next protocol, let's move on, and STOP talking about it. When I called Dennis about it on my way home, I got so upset and panicked about it all that I took it out on him (again). [As a side note, Dennis has been beyond patient with me through all of this and yes will let me pull him in to an argument at times (which is essentially what my depressed mind is doing), but for the most part is so loving and supportive when I know he's feeling stressed and disappointed with the results as well.] Dr. Saffan's call was actually quite helpful and he had decided to change the protocol from what Debbie had originally told me so it was all new information. He does not see any reason why I won't eventually get pregnant and there is no medical reason why this one didn't implant. Both good and frustrating news at the same time. He also decided that for the frozen embryo transfer he's actually going to go with a non-injection protocol. He's in a bit of a disagreement with some of his colleagues about this and they actually just had a day-long conference about this on Monday. Dr. Saffan does not feel that there is a need to put so much extra stress on the body through injections and has had the same success rates going with a non-injection approach. So, I will be doing a month of birth control (to ensure I don't ovulate) and when I start my next menstrual cycle they will check the lining of my uterus. If it's thin (which it should be), I will actually be using an estrogen patch instead of taking shots. After a couple of weeks (not completely sure about the timing of this yet) the lining will be checked again. Once it hits 8mm or greater, they will add progesterone (inserts or patch - not sure about this either) and schedule the frozen embryo transfer (FET) for 5-6 days later. Dr. Saffan also mentioned that after the last transfer, this blastocyst reached an A/B stage, which was even better than the first embryo, which leads me to believe the last one was actually a grade B, not A which was never definitively stated, just that it looked great. There is a chance that when they thaw the embryo the morning of the FET, that it won't survive the thaw, but that they are usable 90-95% of the time and the success rate is 51%.
I have spent most of the last few days questioning why it didn't work, why my body doesn't want to accept it, blaming myself, blaming Dennis, and questioning God quite a bit. I've been in low points in my life before, but this was definitely equal to them in terms of my emotional state. What really caused my shift back to normalcy was church yesterday. The theme - HOPE. Boy, was that ever needed. It caused me to stop dwelling on the negative and actually start to believe what I had been saying the last 5 days, that God has a reason and it will all depend on His timing. I was saying the words, but not really believing them deep down. Having communion at the "table of hope" (yes, those were the exact words used by Pastor Tim yesterday), made all the difference.
I am now ready to move forward, stop mourning what did not happen, and hopeful that this will work in God's time. So, for the next month, just taking birth control every day at 9:00am and trying to stay positive through it all.
On Wednesday, around 2:00 I got a phone call from Debbie about my test results from that morning. Shockingly, disappointingly, frustratingly, the blood work came back negative. I'm not pregnant. This was an absolute shock to me. I thought I had been experiencing morning sickness since the previous Sunday and I was just so absolutely positive and overly optimistic that I was pregnant that it never occurred to me that I might not be. Debbie went over the next steps with me, which I wrote down, and felt incredibly overwhelmed about. Debbie told me that I would be on birth control for one month and then start injections of dell-estrogen and eventually add injections of progesterone and oil, all of which are intro-muscular injections that Dennis would have to give me. I called Dennis, told him the news, and left work for the day. Logically, I knew that it didn't mean it would never happen, but emotionally I was devastated. The stress caught up to both Dennis and I and when we both got home we had the biggest rip-roaring argument that we've ever had. And then the depression kicked in for me. I vaguely remembered prior to Wednesday what it was like to be depressed before I started taking anti-depressants, but it had been pushed so far to the back of my mind. The best way to describe it is that the only emotions I am able to fully have are sadness accompanied by lots of crying and anger accompanied by lots of yelling. If I'm not experiencing those emotions I feel like a zombie. The commercials about depression actually do it a great deal of justice. You feel like you're in a fog or looking at the rest of the world through a mirror and not actually part of it. You can fake your way through it for the people around you, but aren't fully experiencing anything.
Skip ahead to Friday. I get a call while I'm running errands (I had off this week, as I do every other Friday) from a different nurse telling me that Dr. Saffan is calling us at 1:30pm. This is complete news to me. I don't want to talk about the situation any more than I have to and didn't see what else he could tell me about next steps any more than Debbie already did. I figured I have my next protocol, let's move on, and STOP talking about it. When I called Dennis about it on my way home, I got so upset and panicked about it all that I took it out on him (again). [As a side note, Dennis has been beyond patient with me through all of this and yes will let me pull him in to an argument at times (which is essentially what my depressed mind is doing), but for the most part is so loving and supportive when I know he's feeling stressed and disappointed with the results as well.] Dr. Saffan's call was actually quite helpful and he had decided to change the protocol from what Debbie had originally told me so it was all new information. He does not see any reason why I won't eventually get pregnant and there is no medical reason why this one didn't implant. Both good and frustrating news at the same time. He also decided that for the frozen embryo transfer he's actually going to go with a non-injection protocol. He's in a bit of a disagreement with some of his colleagues about this and they actually just had a day-long conference about this on Monday. Dr. Saffan does not feel that there is a need to put so much extra stress on the body through injections and has had the same success rates going with a non-injection approach. So, I will be doing a month of birth control (to ensure I don't ovulate) and when I start my next menstrual cycle they will check the lining of my uterus. If it's thin (which it should be), I will actually be using an estrogen patch instead of taking shots. After a couple of weeks (not completely sure about the timing of this yet) the lining will be checked again. Once it hits 8mm or greater, they will add progesterone (inserts or patch - not sure about this either) and schedule the frozen embryo transfer (FET) for 5-6 days later. Dr. Saffan also mentioned that after the last transfer, this blastocyst reached an A/B stage, which was even better than the first embryo, which leads me to believe the last one was actually a grade B, not A which was never definitively stated, just that it looked great. There is a chance that when they thaw the embryo the morning of the FET, that it won't survive the thaw, but that they are usable 90-95% of the time and the success rate is 51%.
I have spent most of the last few days questioning why it didn't work, why my body doesn't want to accept it, blaming myself, blaming Dennis, and questioning God quite a bit. I've been in low points in my life before, but this was definitely equal to them in terms of my emotional state. What really caused my shift back to normalcy was church yesterday. The theme - HOPE. Boy, was that ever needed. It caused me to stop dwelling on the negative and actually start to believe what I had been saying the last 5 days, that God has a reason and it will all depend on His timing. I was saying the words, but not really believing them deep down. Having communion at the "table of hope" (yes, those were the exact words used by Pastor Tim yesterday), made all the difference.
I am now ready to move forward, stop mourning what did not happen, and hopeful that this will work in God's time. So, for the next month, just taking birth control every day at 9:00am and trying to stay positive through it all.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Day 9 - One Frozen Embryo
I got a call today from Debbie letting us know the status of our remaining embryos. Apparently, only one continued to mature and was viable for cryopreservation. So, one was frozen for future use if the one that was transferred on Thursday does not result in a baby. With any luck, we won't even need it!
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