This month hasn't been too bad, especially compared to last month. Now that was a doozy! The Clomid-less cycle went fine, and my lining actually got up to almost 6mm, although it wasn't a textbook 3 layers, it was thicker than it's been in a while. I had a lot of hope because of that. The insemination went fine, and we settled in to wait. We also added Heperin to my regime, so I'd been sticking myself in the belly for 2 weeks, with varying amounts of bruising. My belly was not a pretty sight. My beta came back at the end of the two week wait at 5.9, and technically the consider anything above 5 positive, and anything below 5 negative, so they wanted me to continue my progesterone and heperin and come in for a repeat beta 2 days later. This was over my birthday weekend (I turned 35 {ack!} on Monday, March 5th), and my mom and step-dad were in town, so I basically assumed it was negative and ate and drank whatever I wanted. I actually had oysters two nights in a row, and drank good lots of Chardonnay. Yum! Sure enough, I went back in on Monday, and it was negative. I'm not even putting this one on my list of m/c's.
Rob and I talked to Dr. Schoolcraft from Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, and his take on my situation was that my eggs were most likely old, and that was the problem with them not sticking. He suggested moving on to Donor Egg (DE). Although it was incredibly disheartening to hear that my eggs may have problems, and even if I got pregnant, it may not work out, it was also sort of a relief. Using donor eggs gives you the success rate of the donor, age wise, rather than the receipient, so that is encouraging. Of course, as with any fertility procedures, there aren't any guarantees, but I'll take better odds any day. Dr. Schoolcraft and Dr. Westphal both seemed to think that my lining isn't playing a part in the recurrant m/c's, but rather the eggs, so transferring DE embryo's into my uterus will give us a viable option at pregnancy. Plus, there are none of the legal hassles that come with adoption, and you can actually experience the joys of pregnancy and have some measure of control over the fetal environment. We had already decided that adoption would work for us, so this is just that much better, from my point of view.
We discussed it and decided to enroll in the DE program at Stanford and continue to work with Dr. Westphall, rather than try treatment in Colorado. I called three DE agencies on Friday, and on Saturday received my first packet from one of them. It included a sample DE packet, with photos of the donor, her folks, her as a child, etc. The sample person they sent us would work fine, so it was encouraging to see and imagine. Rob and I are trying to figure out when we can go in and meet with one of the agencies and look through their donor books. Then we just have to pick someone, and see when we can do this.
In the meantime, Dr. Westphal and I decided that my chances of getting pregnant on my own were better with multiple eggs, so we are doing another Clomid, Trental, Viagra cycle. I go in for my follicle check u/s on Sunday, March 18th.
In other, non fertility related news, Rob and I are buying a new house. For more information, click on this.
