Follow Up Lab Results

Yesterday we met with the two naturopathic doctors that we have been working with.  Ryan had the day off so he went with me to get my results.  The doctors work in the same office (they are actually married) and I have worked with both so we had the appointment with both of them.  It was nice to get both of their opinions on my lab results and what to do going forward.

The reason for the recent lab work was twofold.  First, we wanted to recheck that all my critical vitamin levels were where the needed to be.  Since I am a vegetarian, I am always worried that my levels aren't where they need to be.  Last year my results came back severely anemic at 12.  I have been working really hard to get that where it needs to be.  Secondly, we did some autoimmune testing and some blood clot testing.  This is more commonly referred to as a miscarriage panel.  Usually if you have 3 miscarriages, your doctor will run it.  Since that is absolutely the last thing we want to happen, we just paid out of pocket for this lab panel.  It cost is about $700.

Our results were great, or maybe I should say par for the course, they didn't show anything wrong with me or anything the doctor would be concerned about.  This also means we have no idea why this isn't working.  By default we are again, undiagnosed and by default that points to egg quality.  But looking at the glass as half full, there is no reason not to hope that it will work this time.  Especially since we have two normal embryos to work with that are waiting for us.

The vitamin/supplements that I looked at were Iron, B12, Vitamin D and looked at my thyroid again.  Everything came back where it should be at except my Vitamin D came back low for the second time in a row.  I was taking 5,000 units, then upped it to 7,000 and now I am going to try taking 10,000.

The most exciting news is that I can start to cut back on the obscene amount of pills that I take.  As I finish off bottles, there will be no reordering for most of them.  Here is what my FET protocol looks like so far:
Medicine
Levothyroxine 75mcg 1 x day  - (I have to run this by my RE to get his approval and for the prescription)
Dexamethasone .75mg per day - I start this steroid once I start the interlipids

Supplements:
B12/B complex
Vitamin D3
Selenium
Probiotics
DHA
Iron
Vitamin C
CoQ10
Vitamin E

And that's it!!  Compared to my prep for ER this is so much more manageable.

Ryan and I are feeling both anxious and nervous.  Ryan is more hopeful than I am.  I am scared for another bout of depression if this fails.  The last BFN did a number on me so it is very hard for me to get too excited.  I'm glad that I have Ryan to think the positive thoughts for both of us.

Thanks for reading,
HEATHER

PS If anyone out there is looking for a naturopathic doctor, I can't recommend these two enough.  They both are very kind and compassionate doctors which is so very important in dealing with infertility.  They also look at things that your RE doesn't even consider.  I just like that they are looking at my whole body and not just my ovaries in order to get EVERYTHING in working order.  Here is their info: http://sandiegonaturalhealth.com/

Aerial Yoga

As I mentioned in my Next Steps post, I am back on track and going to yoga again.  I really missed my practice and I am beyond excited to be back.  My RE in Los Angeles suggested that I start doing yoga on a regular basis to help with blood flow as well as all the stress I was dealing with.  Sadly during my stims I had to cancel my membership.  With my bloated stomach full of bruising and my headaches, aerial was out of the question.  Now I am back to normal and back regularly practicing at Trilogy.  I have about 2 months before my FET so my focus in on mind, body and soul and yoga touches on all three things for me.

After I quit my job and moved to San Diego I discovered Trilogy Sanctuary and aerial yoga.  Trilogy is a rooftop studio and the views are amazing.  It is literally the most amazing yoga I have ever done.  I have been practicing there since September.  I do aerial yoga but they also have some amazing restorative classes.  I love the balance between the two classes.  There is a Balance and Restore class as well as Yinki and I take both.  Just walking in there, I feel the stress of all this just melting away.  It is short lived, but I will take any relief I can get.

chandelier pose

  I absolutely love this photo.  This pose is called shoulder stand.  When I first started I couldn't do this pose.  My teacher stood behind me and helped me get into the fabric.  I also would have my feet locked in to be able to balance.  Today I am able to do the pose and free my feet.  It is an amazing feeling especially when I live in a world without progress and without being able to reach certain goals, it helps to remind me that I AM able to conquer and attain.  Hoping that this feeling of growth and achievement helps take away all the hopelessness that I have felt for so long.

This is my beautiful teacher Olivia.  She is absolutely amazing and so supportive.  I love having her as a guide in this part of my journey.  Anyone in San Diego, come on down and join me in a class.

Thank you for reading,
HEATHER

Regroup

We had our regroup yesterday with our doctor and came up with a FET protocol and strategy.  We have a few things that are up to us to decide before we move forward.  Our doctor wants to do another test to make sure my uterus is still normal.  We are also doing a few blood tests with our naturopathic doctor just to make sure that we are checking everything we possibly can.

The most exciting news we received  yesterday was  that we found out the gender of our two embryos.  We have decided at this time that we are going to keep that news to ourselves.  We want to keep some part of our reproductive life to ourselves :)  If we actually get a BFP, then we will share.

The first thing we need to do is another sonohysterogram (SHG).  This is a test to make sure there is nothing in my uterus that would interfere with the embryo implanting such as polyps, adhesions or fibroids.  I had this done last year and there were no issues.  My doctor wants to do another one to make sure there hasn't been any changes.  This is a painless test that only take a few minutes in the doctors office.

The first big decision we have is how many embryos to implant.  If we implant both we have a 65% chance and if we implant only one, we have a 50% chance.  Obviously if we implant both then we also have a higher chance of twins which we would be totally fine with.  But if it doesn't work, we would have nothing left to try again.  Or if it does work and only one takes, then we don't have another chance for a sibling.  We have up until the day before the transfer to decide.  Knowing us we will go back and forth a million times before we make up our minds.

Thanks for reading,
HEATHER

Next Steps

Although SDFC told us we could jump right into prepping for our transfer, Ryan and I have decided to wait.  I was still feeling the effects of the stims and my period after and IVF is very long and very unpleasant.  We just felt like it would be a better idea to let my body get back to normal before starting to prime for the FET.  For the last few years we have mainly focused on egg and sperm quality.  Now we are switching our focus to implementation.

Between now and our transfer, here is what we are working on;

• The first thing I did was take milk thistle to help push all the drugs out of my system.  My ER was two weeks ago and I am just now feeling back to normal.
• Yoga!!!  I am so excited to be back taking yoga.  I missed it so much.   I go 4-5 times a week faithfully but during my last cycle I put my membership on hold.  I do aerial yoga and I just couldn't do it with a headache and with my stomach.  Now I'm back and loving it.  
• I am going back to see the naturopathic doctor for some new testing and some retesting.  Before I was focusing on egg quality and overall health.  Now I am going to do the miscarriage panel just to make sure I'm not overlooking anything.
• I'm going back to my strict diet.  During my stims I really just stuck with eating gluten free and vegetarian.  Now that I'm feeling better I am back to gluten free, grain free, low sugar and of course vegetarian.

Thanks for reading,

HEATHER

Final Embryo Report part 2

WE GOT 1 MORE NORMAL!!!!!!! - Couldn't wait until the end of the blog to share :)  Here are the details.

 Waiting by the phone never gets any easier.  These calls never get easier.  The sleepless nights never go away.  I waited all day yesterday for the call from the embryologist to call with the final report on our last 2 blasts.  I got a call around 3:30pm saying the results weren't in yet.  Hopefully they would come in the next day but Monday at the latest.

I finally fell asleep around 3am and woke up around 5am.  I woke up with a racing heart as if I drank 10 shots of espresso.  The results of today's call is just so huge.  Anymore normals and we significantly increase our chance of becoming parents at least once.  If the final 2 are abnormal, then we have officially closed a chapter in our books and our potential child will never have the chance of a sibling.  

The phone rang and I swear she was talking in slow motion. She finally revealed that we have 1 more normal to add to the one already waiting on ice for us.  I asked that she not reveal the sex because I wanted my husband and I to be together when we find out.  We have a follow up on June 1st to discuss next steps and at that appointment we will get the official report which will reveal the sex of both embryos.  

Here are our results of all our embryos:

1 - IVF bank cycle #1, biopsy date 3/16 - CHROMOSOMALLY NORMAL
2 - IVF bank cycle #1, biopsy date 3/17 - ANEUPLOIDY  (discarded)
3 - IVF bank cycle #2, biopsy date 5/11 - ANEUPLOIDY  (discarded)
4 - IVF bank cycle #2, biopsy date 5/12 - ANEUPLOIDY  (discarded)
5 - IVF bank cycle #2, biopsy date 5/12 - CHROMOSOMALLY NORMAL

After she revealed that we had 1 normal, she discussed that we had another aneuploidy and that she needed my permission to discard it.  I told her she was breaking my heart but that I understood.   Between having another discussion about having to discard another unusable embryo that I had worked so hard to create, and the ecstatic news of hearing that we had two normals, as soon as I hung up the phone, I burst into tears.  I called Ryan to tell him the good news, but I couldn't talk at first.  Infertility is just such an emotional rollercoaster.  I finally got the good news out and I could hear his excitement on the other end of the phone.

Part of the reason why this news is so emotional is because NONE of the doctors that we have meet with thought we would get here.  After our first 3 failed IVFs, we were told to move on to either donor or adoption.  Ryan and I were not ready to move on from the idea of have genetically related children.  So we decided to press on.  The doctor we are working with now gave us less than 7% chance on having a child.  And he was one of the more generous ones.  Basically, once you have 3 failed IVFs you become a lost cause in the infertility world of statistics.  He suggested that we do 3 banking cycle to get between 5 - 8 Day 5 blasts.  Statistically if we had at least 6 embryos, our PGS would come back with only 1 normal.  So now looking at having 2 normals with only 5 chances, you can see why this was such great news.

The next steps are preparing for the FET.  I have a regroup with my doctor on June 1.  Then we will come up with a strategy.  So far I know I am going to do the uterine scratching and intralipids.   I'll talk about those in a later post.  

Nothing is guaranteed and just because we have a normal embryo transfer, does not mean it will implant even, let alone grow into a child.  However we just significantly increased the odds of that happening. I am over the moon.  This is really the first good news we have heard in a very long time.  

Thanks for reading,
HEATHER

Final Embryo Report - Day 6

So going into today, we had 1 blast, 4 potential blasts and lost everything else.  Of the 4 potential blast 2 did in fact make it to full blast form however they both were not graded that high, but good enough to biopsy and freeze.  So the final total from this cycle was 1 Day 5 blast and 2 Day 6 blasts.

This was our second cycle in a back to back banking cycle.  Our first cycle in March ended with 1 Day 5 blast and 1 Day 6 blast.  So we had 5 total embryos from both cycles.

The cells from the biopsy have been sent to Los Angeles for  PGS testing.  PGS testing test the chromosomes in the embryos and looks for abnormalities that wouldn't support life.  If you would like to learn more specifics about PGS and PGD,  click here.

A few of our cells slides have been tested already and we received our first report today.   Here are our results so far:

1 - IVF bank cycle #1, biopsy date 3/16 - CHROMOSOMALLY NORMAL
2 - IVF bank cycle #1, biopsy date 3/17 - ANEUPLOIDY  (discarded)
3 - IVF bank cycle #2, biopsy date 5/11 - ANEUPLOIDY  (discarded)
4 - IVF bank cycle #2, biopsy date 5/12 - ??????
5 - IVF bank cycle #2, biopsy date 5/12 - ??????

We should have the results tomorrow or Thursday at the latest for the last two.  Fingers crossed.

Thanks for reading,
HEATHER

Embryo Report - Day 5

Today's the big day, the Day 5 report.  Today is  the day that all this hard work, the tears, the elimination diet, the stress, the supplements, the doctor appointments, the blood draws, the 100+ vials of medication given by my husband in 13 days and the anxiety have all been for.  The ultimate goal is getting as many embryos as you can get to make it to Day 5 blasts.  Blasts (Blastocyst) are basically when the embryo takes on the shape of what will hopefully the future baby.  There is an inner portion which will form the embryo and grow to become the baby and an outer section that forms the placenta.  The Morula stage has about 16 cells, the blast stage has 200-300 cells so a lot has to happen  to get here.  If the embryos makes it to this stage today, they will be biopsied and frozen.  If they are slower than they should be, they get 1 more day and 1 last chance to catch up and will be kept in culture and looked at tomorrow.

Because of the gravity of the situation, I achieved about 2 hours of sleep last night and Ryan got about 4.  Even Parker couldn't sleep, she picks up on our anxiety I think.   So I waited all day for the results.  The phone rang around 4pm.

We have:
1 blast (Good quality) - this is the only embryo that is right on track and exactly where it should be
4 early blasts (fair to good quality) - these are much farther behind where they should be
2 poor quality - discarded
5 officially not growing anymore - discarded

WE ARE DEVASTATED.