On to IVF #2

Hi all!

I’m so excited to be “back!”  Really, I am; I’m now feeling so much better about things.  As most of you know by now IVF #1 was unsuccessful.  I told a few people that I wasn’t surprised.  It may sound terrible of me to say but the 2 embryos that were transferred were not the best we could have had.  By day 5, they should have been at the blastocyst stage developmentally and about to start hatching out, ready to implant.  Ours’ on day 5 were morulas, meaning they were 1 day behind in growth.  The rest of the embryos didn’t make it so we had none left over to freeze.  The idea behind transferring the morulas in to me on day 5 was that they would do better in my body instead of in the lab.  If we had more than 2 morulas, then we could have waited to day 6, see if any of them became blasts and then we’d know which were the best to transfer.  But since there were only 2, that’s what happened.  Needless to say, I didn’t get my hopes up with them.  I did research that people do get pregnant and have babies who were transferred as morulas, but your chances of a successful pregnancy go way up if they’re blasts.  At least I wasn’t completely blind-sighted by the negative pregnancy tests; I think that would have been much worse had my hopes been really high.  So that’s the IVF #1 story.

Matt and I have decided to change doctors and clinics.  I have no bad feelings, complaints, or anything of the sort with Dr. Webster and his staff.  I’m by no means “bashing” them.  They were nothing but kind to me, very accomodating and it was all-around a good experience.  It was actually a really hard decision to make because of these things.  However there are several reasons why we feel changing doctors is best.  The new doctor comes highly recommended by my cousin Brooke (thanks, Brooke!); her 2 IVFs with him were both successful and now she has 3 beautiful kids.  In my infertility group there are several girls who have done the same thing- start with Webster and move to this clinic.  I also researched SART data (Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology) and discovered that the new clinic has much higher success rates than my old clinic.  For example, for my age group, new clinic’s percentage of cycles resulting in pregnancies is 56%; old clinic’s is 40.9%!!!  New clinic’s percentage of transfers resulting in live births is 55.9%; old clinic’s is 48.6%.  New clinic’s percentage of live births with twins is 48.8%; old clinic’s is 33%!!  Just these numbers right here are enough to make me switch, much less the recommendations!  The new clinic is The Fertility Institute and they’re located in Metairie (IVF will be done here), Mandeville (our appointment today was here) and Baton Rouge (all of my many monitoring appointments will be here– specifically at the Baton Rouge General on Bluebonnet)

So today was my consult with the new doctor, Dr. Peter Lu.  Matt and I both really liked him.  The consult picked up with the failed IVF.  Dr. Lu was very positive and encouraging with our situation.  He said to not have a pregnancy, morulas on day 5 and no embryos left to freeze it’s obvious my whole batch of eggs was bad.  Rotten eggs, so to speak.  Which of course begs the question, “are all of them bad??”  We will find out this next IVF cycle, but he was very positive this is not the case, especially because of my age.  To find out, he is doing things differently than last IVF—mostly changing some of my medicines.  By doing something different, if I end up with another batch of bad eggs, then we’ll know it’s my eggs and not a fluke that can be changed with different meds.  At that point he would treat me like a 40-45 year old woman, but is definitely not thinking this to be the case at all.  He fully expects me to make 10-15 eggs, have 2 BLASTS to transfer on day 5 AND have blasts left over to freeze for next time.  Not only are some of my meds changing (which is good) but also his lab is very different.  It will be a much better environment for the embryos to grow in, which is just what they may need considering.  He said their lab is “the best money can buy” and “just the filtration system cost 6 figures.”  For example, if some embryos are not the strongest or the best, if their environment is superb like this one, then that alone could help them jump that hurdle to make it.  So this is another strong plus too.  I am also over-the-moon because this clinic does not schedule IVFs in mass like my old clinic did.  With my old clinic they’d only start cycling IVF patients 1 time per month so everyone would be together. So if I started my period on the “wrong” day, then I’d have to be on birth control for up to 5 or so weeks to hold me over until their next IVF cycle began.  With this clinic, it is individualized; they work off of me for scheduling, YEAH!!  So the question was, “how soon can I start things up again?”  Today is cycle day 8, I started my period last Friday.  Traditionally for anything I’ve ever done, I’d have to wait to start a period and then we could start treatments, so I fully expected I’d have to wait until my next period came to start stimulating.  And we all know how easily and quickly I start a period (insert sarcastic eye roll).  To my shock, because my cycles last 60+ days, with today only being day 8, he said it’s like the beginning anyway, so I don’t have to wait!!  I can start things now!!!!  FINALLY an advantage to having crazy, wild periods; probably the only good thing that has ever come of it.  I was so excited; it really felt like a victory.  They did an ultrasound and blood work to confirm and I’m good-to-go.  After it’s all said and done, the IVF retrieval and transfer should be early to mid September.

So to close, I am much better than I was last week when we learned it had failed.  I wasn’t even sure how or if I’d do all of this over again.  I guess by the grace of God, I am really excited and encouraged to start again!

Thanks everyone for reading,

af