Decisions and the waiting game

This is all my calendar today.   Not much on the go.  The most exciting thing was hoping for my period to come so I could find out if the cyst is gone.   There is no sign of it coming (usually I get the lovely advance notice of a week of spotting before hand).  Well that is, except yesterday's hefty dose of bitchiness directed at hubby.  He might have deserved that though, I don't know.

It was cold outside today so I spent the day grocery shopping and then making a couple of soups.  I'm thinking (hoping?) that this might be the last urge that I get to make some in a while.   Bring on the BBQ weather and food!

Hubby and I are still on different pages fertility-wise.  I didn't have the desire to write about it until now.  I was just letting it simmer for a while.   The short of it is that D wants to finish up with this round of IVF.  I feel that he is nearing the end of his IF rope and I'm trying to respect that.   He thinks it is my body that is preventing us from getting pregnant more than an embryo quality issue (ouch).   I think it's embryo quality issue, and so does the doctor.

If D can only go through this a few more times, I want to skip the OE IVF and move to DE.  He's going to be 37 soon and he's seeing the big 4-0 approaching.  I think for the first time he's feeling his biological clock ticking.

I know if I have a baby I won't regret how it came to us.  We've fought long and hard enough.  And I'm starting to wonder for what?

If OE IVF doesn't work this time around, D wants to move to traditional adoption.  I don't.  I can't explain why exactly, I just know I'm not fully there.   I want to try DE with donor sperm.

D doesn't really understand my desire to experience pregnancy.  He thinks adoption is just about the same thing.  This frustrates me.  I feel like after all that has been taken from us, I just want this one thing.   I want our baby to be welcomed into our family with the 9 months in utero that most other mothers get.  I want to control the prenatal environment.  I want to experience childbirth.

D says he needs the closure of doing this OE IVF.  He says we are too close to the finish line to quit now.  Not to mention that we have $5,000 of non-returnable Follistim just rotting away in our fridge.  He says that the money spent going after it ($25,000 for fun) will be on him (we have joint accounts, we're just talking about the guilt of spending it I suppose).  I would rather spend the rest on DE and some furniture (for a nursery!).

Something has else has happened.  The hardest part of this part of the journey lately doesn't seem to be pregnancy announcements and seeing swollen bellies anymore.  It's almost like I've become largely desensitized.   The hardest part now is that D and I don't agree on which way to proceed.

There doesn't seem to be a right path anymore.  Up until now we made the best choice together after considering the options.  While there have been many bumps in the road, one choice always seemed to stand out.   Not the case anymore folks.

Why we went from OE to Donor Embryos back to OE

I wanted to write something about why things worked out for us in this weird order.

- At first the doctors gave us only a slim chance at our own IVF working, because of my repeated FSH levels.   They were all shocked at how high my FSH was for my age.

- We decided to do a "closure" IVF cycle anyways.  We had the money and our doctors agreed to this because I was in my twenties.  Under a mild dose of stims I produced 4 follicles.

- On the night of what I thought was going to be the egg retrieval, my sister had her stroke.  The cycle was cancelled.

- Later I learned that this was just what the nurse called a practice cycle.  They wanted to only do an   an IUI.  They wanted to amp up my meds for the next real IVF.  This was not told to us in advance and I don't think I would have ever agreed to a practice cycle due to the cost of the meds and the fact that D's sperm count is very low.   It was one of a few scary reasons why moved away from this clinic.

- During the stressful time of my sister's stroke, I decided that my response to the IVF wasn't good enough to proceed.  That if it did work it might only work once.  And I wanted more than one child, and it would be nice if those children were genetically related to each other.  I didn't care if they were related to us.  I decided (and D agreed) that we would move onto the option of magic donor embryos, the option originally suggested to us by clinic #1 before we did our closure IVF.

- We spent what felt like hundreds of years (really just 6-8 months) completing our home study and adoption course (required where I live) which was required to adopt the embryos through Nightlight.

- We adopted our first set of embryos (only 2 embryos, of which 1 survived the thaw).  They didn't take.

- We quickly adopted a second set of embryos.  The last of 6 embryos we got resulted in a twin miscarriage at 8 weeks.

- Later we learned that the donor family from match #2 experienced chronic miscarriages.  I now believe based on embryology reports and their history that they had an embryo quality issue on top of some other ones with her uterus.

- After the last miscarriage, the doctor suggested (surprising us) that we try OE.  He had heard of DHEA supplementation helping some women.  Also, several times through my monitoring they were noticing some of my own follicles.  My age was a driving force behind this decision for the doctor, because at the time I was 31.   I was reminded of my response to the small dose of meds that I took at clinic 1.  They thought it was promising.  We agreed to try, because we didn't want to do donor embryos anymore.

- At the time we thought we would pursue traditional adoption concurrently, but we decided it was too much at once.  Also, our social worker did not want us to do both at the same time. So we didn't pursue  the adoption.

- That IVF cycle produced a better response than we ever expected - we made 6 blasts that survived to transfer.   One resulted in a pregnancy, which I lost at 5 weeks.  Another was a negative and one had HCG of 1.0.  I don't even know if I could call that a chemical.   But something was trying to happen.

- At my request, I had a panel done for repeat losses. I tested positive for one mutation of the MTHFR gene.   Dr. Schoolcraft says that up to 40% of the population could have this mutation and it is not a factor in my miscarriages.  Everything else was clear.

- I did some more research and learn how hard it actually can be to get pregnant with donor embryos due to quality issues.  We have limited emotional energy left, for what we feel are not great chances, so we close this door.

- The doctor at my second clinic that (did my IVF) started to suggest things that made me feel like the doctor is grasping at straws.  Dr. Schoolcraft called some of my protocols "voodoo".  I was scared of the risks of the things he was suggesting and his lack of experience in those areas (I didn't want to be his first IVIG patient - no thanks).

- We decided to get one final opinion from CCRM.

- Dr. S at CCRM thinks we have an embryo quality issue with our past losses, not a uterus issue. He is most worried about my highest FSH number, and wonders about my egg quality.  He says if we can get one normal embryo (as determined by CCS), that he would give us a 50% chance of success in that cycle.  He said he didn't know if we make normal embryos.  He thought we might get one from one cycle of IVF.  He said that if we can do 2 IVFs that it would be reasonable to proceed with this option. He gives us an 80% chance of success with donor egg.

- We decide to do one more IVF because we feel we were close with our last IVF.  I feel like the 2 (maybe 3) pregnancies we had were evidence that my body DOES want to grab a hold of the little embies.  It does want to be and stay pregnant.  I think the embryos just weren't a good enough quality to survive.

- We think the slight change of protocols, the greatly improved lab with the CCS could make the difference for us.  Our last IVF with 6 embryos was the biggest factor for moving forward.

- We decide that we will quickly move to DE if our embryos are not good from the CCS.

- I have a laparoscopy and it shows that my uterus looks great.  The doctor tells us that if we can put a normal embryo in there he feels we have a good chance of it working.

- Now we have been sidelined with two cysts and I'm wondering if this was all a big mistake.  D's getting exhausted from this all (as I am).  I know in his heart, D doesn't think that DE will be any different.   He thinks we have a uterus problem.  I don't.  I think that we have an embryo quality issue not a carrying issue.  This is why I'm hesitant to move on to traditional adoption.   I want the experience of carrying.  I feel like IF has ripped everything away from us that was natural and good about this baby making process.  I just want this one thing to be "normal".

Support

I only talk about fertility stuff with my closest friends and family.  Oh, and sometimes with my hairdresser and dental hygienist. :) The hygienist had twins via egg donor and talking about it makes my appointments go by in the blink of an eye!

In the last month or so,  I've been updating people on our plans with Dr. Schoolie in Colorado.  However, I've been doing something different lately.  I'm telling them, "We don't have many tries left at this.  We are nearing the end of this road.  If this doesn't work, we are moving on to something else.  This might be it".  I leave out the part about what the something else is.  But we are thinking it is going to be egg donation, or traditional adoption.

I'm telling people this because I feel like people think we are crazy for pursing more treatment.  This is our 4th RE, and 5th year at all of this.  And more importantly, because I'm really scared of the emotional fall out from this one.   Seven procedures in,  I now know all too well what the day after a failed procedure (or worse, miscarriage) looks like.  The trend doesn't seem to be my friend.  Our grief is increasing with every cycle.  This is how I know we are nearing the end in all of this.   I can't see us being able to handle much more than we already have.

I think they need to know we are all-in.  That we are approaching new levels with all of this IF stuff.  We aren't wading knee deep in all of this anymore.  We are up to our necks.  Holy shit, this is it.

I've never been good at receiving support from people other than D, and through my online friends.   I hate to blame my parents, but I truly think I was raised not knowing how.   My parents showed zero affection and support to each other and surprise, surprise, ended up divorced.

I never cry in front of other people. It usually takes a lot for me to even cry in front of D.  My sob-fests tend to sneak up on me while driving my car (not the safest, I know) or when I'm home alone.

I find discussing all of our IF stuff to be difficult.  I can tell the facts about what is happening, but I rarely go into how I feel.  People don't ask, and I don't want to be a downer.

I think this is unhealthy.  A therapist once pointed out to me that I don't need to protect them.  And that I don't need to put on a strong front all of the time.    I know she is right.  I've had more than one friend tell me I'm "so strong" in how I deal with all of this IF.   I'm done with this approach.  While I don't want to be a blubbering puddle all of the time,  I want to be able to do it sometimes.   I guess I'm getting to the point where I need to do it.

I don't know how this works.  How do you get and accept support?

Bridesmaid

I was asked to be a bridesmaid in a wedding this July.  The offer completely caught me off guard to say the least.  I had met her all of three times before she asked me.   I'm not a good surprise-reactor under the best of situations, let alone this one where I hadn't even had time to process what I thought about it all.  D was also asked to be in the wedding party.

So, I hugged her and said a mostly enthusiastic, "sure!"

A month or so later it came out, that I was actually being asked to stand up for her fiancé, which made a little more sense.  He is D's long time friend, and he has hung out at our house a lot.  We've helped him get through some tough times in his past.

It's interesting. But, oh well I thought.  It will save me sitting at a table full of significant others who I don't know.  And maybe D & I will get a nice picture all dolled up together.  :)

The bride has been changing her mind (a few times) on the styles of bridesmaid dresses that she would like.   While other bridesmaids were growing slightly annoyed by the decision making process, I couldn't care less.  For one, I don't care what I'm wearing, it's her day, and I'm happy to wear a paper bag if that is what she wants.  It would be a plus if I liked the dress,  but it doesn't really matter.   The bride had many other people chiming in to give her advice, so I just sat back and relaxed.

After much deliberation over the course of a few months, the bride selected the bridesmaid dresses. She also let us know that they are on sale right now.  So, the good bridesmaid that I am, I called the store and ordered my dress.

There is only one problem though.  What size to order?   At first I thought I would just order my size and an extra bit of material.  You know, in case I was actually pregnant next July.

But I wasn't sure if this was the best option.  Maybe I should just order a larger dress?  That might be a weird conversation.  Umm, I'm planning on getting fatter, what size should I order?  So, I confided in the clerk my hopes of becoming pregnant, and asked her what I should do about sizing.  Deep down, I silly even saying it his to her.  Of course she doesn't know my history, but I've been through this before.  Thoughts of maybe by next Christmas or at my next birthday?  Should I buy that new winter coat? This sweater is great, because I could also wear it as a maternity sweater, I've told myself more than a few times.

It's such a hard thing to figure out.
a) If I'll be pregnant (please, please, please universe!), and
b) what size of a preggo I would be? (I think I'll be a nice plump one if I ever get the chance) , or
c) Will it be a pregnancy from our first CCRM IVF resulting in third trimester baby bump?
d) Will we (still holding my breath for a miracle) have more embies to transfer in a frozen cycle if the first transfer doesn't work?  Might I be pregnant, but only in the first or second trimester?
e) Will we have finally closed the door on OE, and moved on to DE and be in the early stages of a DE pregnancy? or
f) be where we are now, childless and not pregnant with one super-sized teal coloured bridesmaid dress?  Correct that, I mean as the bride would say, "malibu" coloured dress.

I decided to error on the side of optimism.  I ordered the dress two sizes larger than I am now.   They told me they could take it in if they needed to, and that it shouldn't be too hard with the style of dress.   But if things don't work out, I'm going to have a yucky little reminder in the early summer when I go in have my alterations done.

Here's to hoping I won't need those alterations.

Gearing up

Gah, I want to post something just so I don't have to look at the last pic anymore.  Bad call on the beard pic, and it doesn't even have any dandruff in it.  I don't hate beards, but ew!

The exercise class has been going well.  As I write this my face is attempting to return to it's normal colour, down from the beet reddish-purple that it is right now.  I've never been a person who sweats much, and I think my body tries to compensate by turning colour.  I can remember in elementary school when I was running cross country, people used to ask me if I was ok because of it.

I'm emotionally putting on my armour, and gearing myself up for Christmas. This will be my last family Christmas (on my side) that will be child free.  This baby will be my parents first grandchild. The truth is that I've enjoyed the fact that I could escape our IF when I was with my family.  I have 2 younger brothers and 2 younger sisters, and baby making and child rearing have never been a part of our conversations.   That's about to change, with my brother's girlfriend expecting this January.

Of course I am jealous.  However, I am cutting myself some slack because I think it's not surprising that I'm feeling this way.  Who wouldn't if they were in our shoes?  5 years of IF hell and your brother's girlfriend gets pregnant by accident while on the pill?  Uh.   The IFers know the drill all too well.   It just hadn't infiltrated my family yet.  It was one of my remaining safe places from IF.

The only good thing about her pregnancy is that she isn't super pumped about it.  I know that sounds terrible and that this fact would make a lot of people upset, given how much they want a baby.  But I'm ok with it.  I get it.  She wasn't ready.  If I wasn't ready (say 10 years ago), I would probably feel the same way too.  I'm trying to see it as a small blessing.  She's not flaunting her pregnancy around me, letting me know when the baby has gone from the size of a plum to a medium apple to a turnip.

I'm hoping for my day 3 FSH today.  This is the last piece of the pre- IVF work that needs to be complete.   I'm hoping for sky-high or low.  No middle iffy number.    I want to make a final decision about this IVF, DE or OE and move forward.

Trust

During our preoperative consult, Dr. Dandruffbeard explicitly asked me if I trusted him.   He said that it seemed that I preferred the care of the other doctors in America, because I had chosen them for my care.  He said that there were many surgeons that could do the ligation for me in Canada besides him, if it was a trust issue.  He said I should have a surgeon that I trust.   He said this all in a very nice and respectful way.  However, it caught me a bit by surprise! In all of the specialists I've seen over the last five years, this has never come up before.

I told him that no, it wasn't a trust issue.  It is an opinion issue and a timely-care issue, but I didn't go into that.  I told him that geographically it made sense for us to proceed with the other doctor (which he understood).  Also, I reminded him that at the time the only option he gave to us was donor egg, from a known donor.   And since that for us was pretty much out of the question for us, we moved on.

It was his opinion, combined with Dr. Snowflake's that led us to choose embryo adoption.  He told me he was not interested in trying to get eggs from me because of the low probability of success (less than 5% chance).  He told me that twice. Almost 5 years ago, and more recently 3 years ago.

It's painful to think about all of that.  I wonder if he is going to be proven right after all of these years?  If we just stuck with his opinion, and chose other family building options would we have a family now and have avoided a lot of heartache?  Our savings would have certainly taken less of a beating.

I suppose, we've already proven him a little bit wrong.  We did do an IVF and made 11 eggs and 6 embryos, resulting in one pregnancy.  I'm hoping to completely prove him wrong with this IVF in Colorado.  

Later on, I visited his website.  At the bottom of his page was a quote "I thank my patients for their trust.  They know they can count on me 100%.  Interesting.

I'm hoping that maybe we can do the ligation after the IVF cycle.  I've left a message for the nurses to see what the doctor thinks of this idea.  This would allow me to be on a waiting list in Canada for the procedure, without wasting precious time.  Plus, I'm on all of these supplements and restrictions and I want to be finished with them sooner rather than later.   We will know for sure after my day 3 blood work is processed.  We need this before Dr. Schoolie will give his final blessing on any OE IVF cycle.

Update: Yeah - Because we are planning to do a frozen cycle with CCS, we are able to do the laproscopy later.  I'm excited about that news.  Now just awaiting the day 3 blood work.  Please, let it be ok.

Surgery it is

 *image from goivf.com

It took a few phone calls and a couple of days, but I've made a decision to have the surgery.  Checking another thing off the list.

After pressing for more information, Dr. Schoolie says that it is only a three day recovery and that without it he would reduce our chance of a normal embryo implanting by 50%, to only 25%.

While I'm not looking forward to having the surgery (who would?), I feel good that I got the information I needed to make the decision with confidence.

Dr. Schoolie says that it is a pretty basic surgery and he would be comfortable with me having another surgeon do it.  So, I am going to try to have the surgery in Canada to avoid the cost by traveling to Colorado and to avoid paying for this procedure (I suppose I guess I do pay via my tax dollars, but I digress).  I would also like to recover in the comfort of my own home.  I'll be traveling only 2 hours away and under the care of Dr. Dandruffbeard.

By some fluke of the Canadian medical system, on Friday afternoon I was able to get a Monday morning appointment for the surgery consult!   I appreciate socialized medicine for many things, but wait times for specialists is not one of them.  I'm considering this a mini-miracle.   The receptionist said that if the doctor agrees to preform the surgery that I could be looking at a January surgery date.  Perfect!

Dr. Dandruffbeard did request a letter from Dr. Schoolie, and the CCRM nurses amazingly emailed me one within an hour of my phone request.  The letter said:

"...During her testing she had an HSG that revealed delayed spillage and questionable hydrosalpinx in her left tube.  It is our recommendation that she needs to have a laparoscopy to evaluate her tube and if there is a hydrosalpinx noted, she needs to have her left tube ligated."

The letter makes things sound simple.  Getting to this point of understanding about this procedure has not been that simple.  I'm realizing that CCRM isn't perfect either.  I am however still very appreciative of their care.

I'm trying not to think (several times a day) about the possibility of this not working.  My mind just goes there, so it's difficult.  I'm also second guessing our decision to do OE IVF vs. donor, but not enough to change my mind I think.

JS

PS)  The exercising has been gratifying but... ouch! Muscles that were happily withering away are now mad at me in droves.   And I'm happy that today I discovered a warm, sweet drink that I can have sans-caffeine.  It's warmed milk with a little (or a lot) of my favourite french vanilla creamer.   I'm semi-lactose intolerant, so I'll have to do this in small doses.

All in

It seems I'm coming down from the emotional high that I had when leaving Colorado.   I kind of feel lame writing that - as if going to a fertility clinic could ever be a high, but, I guess I'll take what I can get.

I got my period yesterday, so it seems that the countdown is officially on.  I'm hoping to have all of my paperwork compete to attempt an IVF stimulation cycle in January, and a FET (hopefully) in February.  There's been a lot of tears (all mine) since November in getting to this point.  I'm scared of flushing a big wad of money down the toilet and coping with the emotional fall out if there are more negative results.

As I put it to D the other night while on a walk, this is it.  We are now all in as it relates to having a genetic child.  If this doesn't work (we're giving ourselves two IVF cycles depending on the results of the first CCS screening), this door will officially be closed for us.

Saying we are all in kind of makes me gag a little in side.  And I think I know why.  I've always been a procrastinator.  After some life coaching afforded to me in a previous career made me realize that my procrastination stems from wanting perfection.  Basically, it goes like this.  Something is hard or outside of my comfort zone.  If I procrastinate long enough, and don't have enough time that I am saving myself from disappointment if things don't work out.  There's always the thought that "I could have done better if I... had more time/tried harder", etc.

That's not the case for IVF.  I can't say that we've really procrastinated on a lot of things.  We've been chugging along this path for five years now.  Always in line for more tests, more procedures, more results.

These will be our last attempts at OE IVF.  And it makes me very emotional to think about it.  We are flying across the continent, to go all in.  This is it.  I've never felt this way before because there's always been more embryos, more chances left, more options out there.  God, please help us.

I've been following a blog for several months (http://lifeandloveinthepetridish.blogspot.ca) which I've grown to love.  She's a woman who persevered through much more than I think I could with all of this. She's survived cancer, seven IVFs and six, yes, six miscarriages.   One of the things the author has talked about is regret management.  I like the idea of this.  Hers involved a lot of very interesting things.  Mine are more basic.

1)  I've started exercising.  Today was my first day, and I joined a boot camp style fitness class.  I'm doing this to help stabilize my mood and to feel better about myself.  Because if this is all a bust, I'm going to need all of the help I can get.  It's been long enough that I've been making excuses (fertility treatments work great).  I will be stopping when I'm stimming, but until then it's a go.   At least I'm hoping to keep even with the house over the holidays.

2) I'm starting acupuncture. This is for overall health and to try to increase blood flow to my uterus.  At CCRM, during my one day work up they told me that I have "reverse flow" with the main arteries around my uterus.  They would like the flow to be under a 3.0 but my results were 3.62 and 3.5 left and right respectively.   When I go back to CCRM I'm going to have another doppler ultrasound to see if any of these things have changed my blood flow.

3) I've given up caffeine, even decaffeinated drinks and chocolate. When I had my doppler ultrasound, I wasn't allowed to have caffeine for three days prior because it reduces uterine blood flow.  Man, oh man. This has been hard for me.  I love sweets.  And it's Christmas.   I cheated once last Saturday and had a decaffeinated coffee, but other than that I've been caffeine free since November 29th.  I love a warm creamy drink (I'm drooling right now just thinking of a tall white chocolate mocha or coffee with french vanilla sweetener, literally).  This is difficult for me.  

4) I'm continuing with my supplements.  DHEA (3 x 75mg per day), CoQ10 (3 x 200mg per day).  1000 units of vitamin D (CCRM tested and I am slightly deficient).  And a prenatal vitamin with DHA.  This may slightly change when I see the naturopathic doctor today.

5) I'm going to continue to eat mostly home cooked meals with lots of veggies and lean proteins.  For my morning smoothie I'm going to start adding more greens.  Right now it's frozen raspberries, a banana, a frozen spinach puck, orange/veggie juice and greek yogurt.  I'm experimenting with adding celery and cucumber and kale.

As for drinking wheat grass or any other disgusting concoction, I just don't think I can handle any more changes.

This is it.  This is me.  I'm all in.  And it's scary as hell.

Post-consult

I'm back. 

Colorado was great.  It was everything we hoped it would be.  I kind of felt like it was a fertility-wonderland, complete with a waterfall.  The staff were very professional and we felt that we got some new information.  I'm happy that we went.   

We still haven't made a decision on donor egg vs. trying our own egg.  Honestly, I'm still on the fence.  If money weren't an issue, I would 100% give an IVF with CCS a go for two cycles.  But, being real, money is an issue.  If we spend $60,000 (the rough cost of trying two IVFs) and don't end up with a baby I'll be feeling really depressed and kind of stupid.  The only reason why I prefer own-egg is because in many ways it just feels simpler.  No explaining one day of where they came from and no issues of loss for the child.   I suppose I just don't feel very confident in my parenting skills, because I haven't got the chance to practice them yet. 

It's funny to me how we are back to (almost) the same decisions that we were making over years ago when we decided to adopt the embryos.  

It's very frustrating and difficult to make these decisions. I just want to be done with this part of my life and move on to the part where I am a mommy. 

Some of the things I really liked about CCRM:

- They are organized.  Check in at the desk, have a test, check in again, have another.  We had back to back appointments all morning and things went very smoothly. 

- I felt Dr. Schoolie was kind and was honest with us about our options. 

- The staff seemed to be really well trained and experienced.  I liked that many of the technicians really took time to explain the procedure they were doing, and what they were hoping to see.  

Some of the things I don't like:

- They messed up on drawing enough blood for a thrombosis panel.  I had 16 vials of blood taken, and that still wasn't enough.   16 vials tops my previous record of having 13 drawn at once.  I wonder what my fertility-lifetime total would be? 

- They called me back and said that they doctor isn't sure about whether to recommend a laprosopy and tubal ligation for my left side.  It seems that my HCG showed some hydrosalpinx (sp?), but there was some spill (which means that there is no blockage) however they weren't 100% sure if there is a blockage or not.  Basically the doctor said it was my call on how to proceed with this.  After a few days of marinating on the topic, I've decided that this isn't enough information to make the decision.  I need a doctor's recommendation.  Isn't that what I'm paying  for?!?  I'm honestly a little flabbergasted that they haven't given me more information on this to make the decision.  Oh well.  I guess no clinic is perfect.  That's why I've called back for more information. 

I'll write more later.  I just wanted to break the silence, and get some of my thoughts out. :) 

The missing piece

I left my professional career for a few reasons. The main ones were because a) I felt like it was sucking the life out of me, b) I wanted to be a stay at home mom, and c) I was convinced that I needed only some time and (ewww, I hate to admit this),  a little less stress to figure things out a.k.a. solve our infertility problem, become pregnant, give birth and live happily ever after, the end.

What started as a one-year leave of absence from my employment turned into a resignation and four years gone by.   I’ve cherished a lot of the time that I’ve had.  And I've been through some pretty rough stuff too, including coming this.close to losing my sister to a massive stroke and helping her rehabilitate.  I’ve been able to do some things and learn about myself in a way that I don’t think I could have, had I remained in the rat-race.  At my job I was work-alcoholic fueled by coffee, anxiety, and positive reinforcement.  It wasn’t a pretty combination.

I spent a portion the last four years going back to school.  It started as something to do and a strategy to keep my grey-matter from becoming mush.   A few courses turned into a few more, and the next thing I knew I had signed up for a full year of classes to complete a degree.  I’m tremendously grateful for the opportunity to learn just for the sake of learning.  I think it might just be one of the greatest luxuries in the world.  I love learning.  I just wish more of it stayed in my head!

One of the first courses I completed was also one of the most valuable and fascinating. It was a class in positive psychology.  We studied questions such as “what makes a happy life?”  The professor taught us that this question is probably the wrong one.  And eudaimonic wellbeing is really what we should be talking about. 

A person could think of it as happiness = pleasure, and eudaimonia = human flourishing.   Eudaimonia is arguably made up of several things.  One of which is having meaning in your life.  

(This website provides a detailed explanation if you are so inclined.  It’s a bit of a read, but it is definitely faster than taking a course in positive psychology!

http://www.positivepsychology.org.uk/pp-theory/eudaimonia/34-the-concept-of-eudaimonic-well-being.html)

I often question why I want to be a parent.  Sometimes I think that maybe it is just a biological need, and can’t be explained?  I wonder, if I am just trying to fill this “meaning-void” with a little one when it could be filled with something else? Like maybe a different career?  I wonder if parenting is going to live up to my expectations? I wonder about my marriage. Parenting can be stressful. Will D and I get along as well as we do now, or will we grow closer in our new roles?

D and I agree that our search for parenthood is tied closely with our search for meaning in this life. I strongly desire the full-circle life experience that only parenting is able to provide.  I want to grow in my view of the world by seeing it through the eyes of a child.  Sometimes when the IF road becomes really rough, I wonder if I could instead find meaning in another life pursuit to compensate for a life that is childfree?  If all of the time, effort and money were spent somewhere else, would I have a better sense of wellbeing?

As we debate important decisions about OE or DE in our upcoming journey, I can’t help but wonder if it is silly for us (personally) to be chasing a genetic connection to a child?  Is it going to change the amount of meaning we get from being parents?  Nope.  Will it bring us less pleasure? Doubt it.  

Maybe for us DE is a better choice, as it has a higher probability of making us parents (and sooner)?

Decisions

I'm still feeling so grateful for the opportunity to talk with Dr. Schoolcraft.  He was kind and easy to talk with.  And I feel like his advice just made sense.  Hallelujah! It's a very different feeling then when I have consulted with Dr. M.  I always left confused, the options he gave always seemed to come out of left-field.   Dr. Schoolcraft said was what I expected to hear.  After the appointment I feel what I hoped I would; realistic optimism.  He clarified a lot of things for us and also validated that we had received conflicting information from past doctors, as our case is not cut and dry.

Dr. Schoolcraft basically offered us an IVF cycle with a 50% chance of success (if we could get one normal blastocyst), or a donor egg cycle with a 60-80% chance of success (depending if 1 or 2 embryos were transferred).   It's a big choice that will have life long implications.  And it's an expensive choice.

It seems crazy to bet the cost of an IVF cycle with CCS and travel costs on possibly one lone embryo.  Or to do a second IVF cycle hoping for another chance with a second embryo.

Part of me thinks we should just go for the "surer bet" to become parents with donor egg.  It could end this special hell of infertility, and make us parents.  We've already adopted and transferred 8 donor embryos in the past.  The genetic connection is something we have thought long and hard about.

However, another part of me just wants a genetic child.  For two reasons.  1. For what I call the "science experiment" part of it; to know what D and I would look like together.  And, 2. I feel like it would be easier.  Easier in the sense that I wouldn't have to explain everything to the child and manage a relationship with a genetic family (I would prefer a semi-open relationship egg donor if possible,  but that's a whole other post in itself).  

It goes without saying for D and I that our love for the child would be the same regardless of how they came into our family.  I just feel the need to say that though, because I'm putting this post out into cyber-land.

After discussing it, I think D and I have decided to go with the IVF route.  We've come this far, and we need closure.  As Dr. Schoolcraft summarized, after the IVF, we'll have a baby or an answer.  And if it doesn't work we will have done the pre-work for a donor egg cycle.