Decision & Update: Day 3

Just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your input on the 1 or 2 decision.  It means a lot to hear from people who have been in the situation. 

My heart wants to do two.  But my head (and the doctor) says to do one.  So, we are only going transfer only one.  If there was anything wrong with the embryo quality or my lining we would choose to transfer two.  Fortunately, (gratefully!, amazingly!) this hasn't become an issue.

We made this decision because we are scared of the risks, more than we are scared of having twins.   We have been the low/negative odds it seems with all of our infertility stuff and we don't want to risk it... this time.  Also, because this is our first attempt with donor egg, and the donor was 21 years old, we feel we should see what happens with one first. There's so much more that went into this decision, but that's the short version.

If this transfer doesn't work, next time we might try two.  But we'll see.  Hoping we don't need to make this decision.

It's 9:30am right now in Colorado.  We have 30 more minutes to wait to hear if we will be having a day 3 transfer.  If  we don't get a call, we're off to take a little trip for a couple of days.  

I look forward to commenting on all of your blogs soon - so much as been going on!  I've been mostly using my iphone and the blogger app for updates, and there is some kind of browser glitch between the two.  It makes me miss my computer!

DAY 3 UPDATE:

* We are doing a day 5 transfer. 
* We have eleven (!)  6-10 cell "very good" looking embryos.  They discarded one that stopped growing and two others are growing but not as well.
* Feeling happy and grateful! Off to Vail!

1 or 2

So today we met with Dr. Gustofson instead of Dr. Schoolcraft.

I am happy we met with him. He was so  personable. He even smiled-more than once!  Dr. S is just really laid back and kind of nonchalant. I've heard him described by another blogger as a cool cucumber, and I agree. Dr. G was laid back, but in a different, more warm way.  

Some key information from our visit:

- He says we have an 85% chance of a positive pregnancy test if we transfer two high quality embryos. 

- Transferring 2 has a 40-50% chance of twins.

- Twin pregancies have a 10-15% chance of complications, including lifelong problems or death for babies, due to the risk of prematurity. 

- Transferring 1 has a 65-75% chance of  success. 

- He recommends 1, however 1 or 2 is our choice. They only need to know 5 minutes before transfer. 

- 70% of couples choose to transfer 2. 

- The cost of a FET including our travel and meds would be between $6-8k.  

- Chance of a miscarriage is less than 5% with donor eggs. This doesn't change much with the intended mother's age. They don't see an increased risk of miscarriage because of my history with miscarriage (CCRM attributes them to embryo quality). 

- He said the risks of pregnancy complications don't increase dramatically each year. At my age (34), he said risks of pregnancy start really increasing in 7-8 years. 

- We asked about transferring 1 higher quality and 1 lower. He said they won't do that. This is because the research is showing if you lose 1 of the 2 babies then the remaining one doesn't do as well.  

We went in there thinking we'd transfer 2.   Now we're both on the fence.  The chance of twins and complications are much higher than expected. 

Looks like we've got some thinking to do over the next couple of days.