Heart Breaker

All this past weekend was a heart breaker for Andrew and I. As I posted earlier we have made the very thoughtful and difficult choice to go through IVF. Unfortunately do to things that are simply out of our control and a wrong judgement in medication this cycle that we were on has fizzled and we had to stop all procedures and medications.

The most difficult piece to all of this is the time, pain, emotions, finances, and sacrifices that went into preparing for the very long journey of doing an IVF cycle. Additionally, this is the fifth time that Andrew and I have come to a cross roads within our infertility journey only to be told that this is not a good cycle for us to continue. We had two attempts on clomid only to find that my body has no reaction to this drug (well lots of side effects), two attempts with IUIs although we never made it to the actual procedure because we were told at the last minute (or final monitoring days) that this was not a good cycle to try an IUI and now with the first attempt to do the IVF procedures.

Quick background: An IVF cycle is when you start on birth control for a set amount of time to stabilize your cycle, then you take a hormone which suppresses your ovulation (I took a generic form of Lupron). Through out this time period you go in for numerous internal ultrasounds and blood work. Finally after a certain period of time you have what is called a base line check which is another internal ultrasound and blood drawn. You are then told what type of stimm medication you should take and at what amounts (I was/am on Follistim). For a period of time you are giving yourself two injections a day. My stomach is still bruised from the injection locations and I have gained quite a bit of weight through out this entire infertility journey :(. Again you are going in about every other day for ultrasounds and blood work. We were getting up and down news about our results, but everyone (doctors and nurses) were still very positive that we would be able to complete the full IVF cycle. Unfortunately on Sunday which would have been one of the last checks before continuing we got the news that all of the follicles that we thought we had are now gone. I was told this is fairly rare and it really had to do with the medication dosage they were giving to me. In their attempt to be cautious (which they have over 30 years of infertility experience) they lowered my Follistim dosage and it literally wiped out all of the follicle growth I had experienced to that point. The recommendation and based on a lot of conversations about timing, money, success rates it was determined that we can not continue with this cycle.

Had we continued I would have given myself a third injection called a "trigger" (I am on Ovidrel) it pretty much tells your body to release all of the eggs which have begun to grow or to ovulate. After which about 36 hours after I give myself the "trigger" shot the retrieval procedures take place. This is also the time when the egg and sperm are mixed together in a dish to see if there are any potential "connections" and development. After that about 3-5 days later depending on the strength of development the fertilized egg is placed back into me for hopes that it will attach and continue to grow. Additionally you have already started to give yourself Progesterone injections which you continue to give yourself for 7-8 weeks. These shots are essential for the growth of your baby(ies) because in IVF your body does not naturally produce enough progesterone. If you want to know why I can explain it later...

This has been a very emotional and psychologically draining experience. I can deal with the pain, bruising, and side effects but the emotional disappointments are much harder. I spent Sunday crying and Monday motivating myself to be strong to praise the Lord in these times and to lean on Andrew for strength. (thank goodness for the very satisfying pleasures of dinner and a movie) But this hurts especially because every time you let yourself hope...

My faith is still strong and we will try again, we just don't know exactly when...Please keep us in your prayers as we both find strength to start again...Lord keep our little baby(ies) perfect in your embrace until they will be given to Andrew and I to raise