The Great Debate - Donor Embryos Vs. Adoption

Sigh.  So many things to consider in the Donor Embryos Vs. Adoption debate.

So we sat down last weekend and had a heart to heart.  I haven't posted about it up until now (over a week later) because I have been taking time to process it all.

After much discussion, Derek's take on the subject was that he would prefer to try donor embryos first but would support me if I wanted to skip forward to adoption.

He left it in my hands.

So, for those of you who don't "know" me, making decisions is NOT my strong suit.  I am terrible at it.  I can go round and round in circles for hours days weeks and still not have a definitive decision.  This creates much strife for me because I also do much better when I have a plan.  So you can see the dillema here, can't you???

If you could have been inside my head over the last couple of weeks, you would have heard something similar to the following:

Hmmm.  Maybe we should just adopt.   It is pretty much a sure thing.  Fill out some papers - I can do that. Bide our time - OK, so I am not the most patient person in the world, but we are already 4 1/2 years into this now and still no baby - I think I can stick it out for a few months.  Throw some cash at it - we have some money in savings.  Take home a baby.  Sounds like a PLAN.  But wait - I know that Derek says that he will go with what I want to do, but if he isn't 100% ready for adoption, would he resent ME for making this decision?  Or even worse, would he resent this baby because of a decision I made??? 

And really, even though I would prefer for someone to just hand me the prize, am I ready to give up on carrying a child, even if it isn't genetically related to me?  I mean - I have always wanted to have that experience of the first ultrasound where you see the sac, hear the heartbeat for the first time, watch my baby grow, rub my swollen belly, feel my baby move inside me for the first time, watch Derek rub my stomach and see his excitement when he feels our child moving inside me for the first time.  Granted, labor is something I wouldn't mind missing - but that moment where they lie that newborn all nasty on your chest...I don't know if I want to give that up!!!

So donor embryos then.  After all, in our original "what if IVF doesn't work" plan, that was THE PLAN.  Donor embryos was the next step. I should call and ask some more questions, fill out the application, and send in our money.  I can call and schedule our home visit and get that taken care of.  And when we had a transfer of a blastocyst I did get slightly pregnant, so maybe our chances are good.

But what if it doesn't work? What if we go through the everything required and put in the time and money and hormones and shots and effort of this process and then end up with a (still) emtpy uterus?  The wait is between 6 months to a year!  So a year from now, we could be right back where we are now!  Maybe I should just save us the time, money and the heartache and decide adoption...

So as you can see, a decision has been eluding me and I am pretty much dizzy from turning in circles...and I have had a couple of panic attacks.

My current stance is that if I am still holding on so tightly to my desire to carry a child AND since that is Derek's preference, that I should just make the decision of donor embryos.  I think I am to a point now that I can say that is our next step in my head and I don't feel an overwhelming sense of panic.  Most of the time, anyway.

I think I will call the Donor Embryo place to ask some questions and fill out the application.  Hopefully between those two actions, I will know if this is the right choice...

Holy Moly, AF is a B-IATCH

To start off - I need to thank anyone who returned to this blog after reading my last post.  I promise I am normally more level headed than that. 

And thank you for the lovely comments.  I know that I am allowed to be angry and I know I am allowed to focus on a minute detail if that is all I can focus on.  I think my biggest problem was the fact that I had this overwhelming feeling that I was a baby killer.  I also know that my uterus has not been proven to be defective and that I should not think that way - but I was just a bit freaked out.  Freak out moment over, I promise. 

As far as my sanity is concerned, I think it is coming back around.  Derek and I still have some talking to do.  I always feel better about things when I have a plan and the lack of a definite plan was not helping.  We still aren't set on a plan, but I have been moving towards figuring out a plan, and that helps.

I have been contacting the people I know who have adopted to find out more about their stories.  I am scheduling dinner with one of the couples so that we can talk with them.  We have discussed that we will be possibly talking to an adoption specialist to learn all the details about both international and domestic adoptions.  And, we will be making some calls to the donor embryo place to learn all of the details of that type of transaction.  Hopefully, knowledge will be one of the keys to making a decision.

Oh, and I made a decision about my tag line...

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On to the reason for this actual post.  AF has arrived.  With a vengence.  This next section might get a bit graphic, but I will try to keep it as nice as possible considering the subject matter.

After going through 2 failed IVF cycles, I thought I knew what to expect when the bitch showed up.  Boy was I wrong.

I awoke Thursday morning at 2 a.m. with some pretty nice cramps.  I got up to check and found that AF had graced me with her presence.  I took care of the necessary arrangements and went back to bed.  Or so I thought.  The cramping intensified greatly.  I began to hurt all the way through to my back and started having quite a bit of pressure down below.  I kept going to the bathroom thinking that a BM was necessary.  Diarrhea arrived.  The flow of AF was VERY clotty, even more so than my first miscarriage or IVF cycle.  The pain got to the point that I was nauseous.  I finally took a pain pill (left over from the egg retrieval), grabbed the heating pad, and laid back down.  At around 6:30 in the morning, I was sitting on the toilet and puking into the trashcan.  I was seriously concerned that something inside had ruptured or something and I was considering a trip to the ER.  We finally got in touch with the RE's office.  The nurse informed me that this was NORMAL. 

WTF???

She actually made it sound like some women go through this EVERY month.  Bless their hearts if they do.  I explained to her that I normally had pretty strong cramps and that my miscarriage was nothing in comparrison to this pain.  She then informed me that since I did have HCG in my system, that this WAS a miscarriage and that it would be painful.  (Thanks for the heads up BEFORE AF showed...)

Anyway, as you all know by now, I survived.  Today was not nearly as bad.  And, just so you all know - Derek was SO sweet.  He stayed home with me until he was sure that the pain was at a tolerable level and took care of me.  I really am so happy to have him as a husband.

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Also - I am not sure of how one should actually answer a question from a comment - I was afraid to answer in the comments for fear that she wouldn't see the answer.  So please forgive me if this is an inappropriate...
Tina - in answer to your question, we don't know where our fragmentation comes from.  We had insurance infertility coverage for a certain dollar amount and it did not cover any treatments where donors were used.  We determined we would exhaust our coverage with our own goods and see where we ended up.  After looking at the financial implications of donor services (i.e. donor eggs or IVF with donor sperm), we determined that donor embryos or adoption would be our next step.

Not Our Miracle

Although I heard the news on Monday afternoon, I am still processing it and dealing with how I feel.  The hopeful 8.8 that we heard on Friday had dropped to 3.9 by Monday.  The nurse said it was now a negative and I didn't have to return anymore for follow up bloodwork and to stop taking my meds.

I have stopped taking everything.  Every time I use the restroom, I expect for AF to be arriving but she hasn't shown her ugly face yet.  With every twinge down there, I think about her pending arrival - how when she shows, that thick beautiful lining that I worked so hard to build up will be shedding from the walls of my uterus and bringing with it my precious little embryo that just wasn't strong enough.  It won't resemble much and probably won't even be visable in the post-IVF hell that shows after an unsuccessful transfer...

What I really feel like posting about right now is not our future options or how I know I will come out stronger on the other side.  What I really feel like posting about is something that is so minute that it shouldn't even be entering my contious thoughts.  Really - you will think I am nuts.

What is this trivial item???

My tag line on my the BBC. 

As I contemplated the shedding of my uterine lining, I wondered "Does this count as a miscarriage?  Should I update my tag line on BBC to 2 Angels?"  But the worst part about this is that in this thought pattern, I realized that really, throughout this IVF process, I didn't have just 1 Angel.  My total embryos transferred has been 7 which brings my total of known live embryos in my uterus to 8.  And there were 18 more that never made it out of the petri dish.  Crap.  That is a total of 27 known embryos of ours that never stood a chance. 

27. 

That is a lot of babies that I have been unable to bring into this world safely.  I half jokingly told my best friend over lunch that I felt like a baby killer.  I know.  That is an absolutely TERRIBLE way to look at this situation.  Really, someone probably needs to slap some sense into me for having these thoughts.

But I guess what makes me so worried about this number?  Why would anyone chose to give me THEIR babies to grow in my uterus if I couldn't get my own to nestle down in there???? 

Logic tells me that the fragmentation means some sort of genetic anomaly that prevented me from carrying a child of our own to term and that any strong healthy blastocyst would stand a chance.  After all, Dr. C told me that my uterus is just fine even though it has it's own anomaly.  And logic would also argue that the only blastocyst we transferred at least implanted and gave us an HCG of 8.8.

But that damned emotional/hormonal/irrational side of myself is screaming that I don't stand a chance at carrying a baby so why even bother to try someone else's embryos?  Wouldn't I just end up losing them too and having to add them the list of carnage???  It is screaming at me to just give up any hope of ever seeing an ultrasound with my baby in it.  It yells to forget about feeling the baby move or kick for the first time.  It tells me that I should not even bother about daydreaming about Derek kissing my swollen belly and looking at me in awe as he gets to feel it move for the first time.  It whispers that having a nurse hand you your baby all covered in goo after labor is over-rated.  It taunts that breastfeeding will never be in my future.

Maybe I should just remove anything about angels from my tag line on the BBC.  It makes the decision that much easier.  Besides - I think I would have some people un-friend me with a statistic like 27 angel babies in my tag line.  Yup.  That sounds like a plan.

Shit - I guess I should sign off while I can.  I think I see a man with a straight jacket coming for me.  And even if he wasn't on his way, some of you that know my home address might be sending him FOR me after reading THIS post. 

Oh, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can eat their heart out.  Leave it to a woman with infertility to really go ape-shit nuts!  I think I have them beat.

8.8

That isn't the number of seconds that I stayed on the bull.  That was my HCG level from my beta.

The original conversation with the nurse basically said that below 10 was technically a negative and that I should stop all medications and go back next Friday for another beta to make sure everything was gone.  I numbly said OK and hung up.

After I had a few minutes to digest this information, I began to wonder - What IF our embryo WAS a procrastinator???  What if it was just late implantation?  Wouldn't stopping my meds mean that I was giving up on our little embryo before it had a chance?  What if THIS is our miracle?

So I called the nurse back.  I asked her if there was ANY chance that this coule be a viable pregnancy.  She said the chance was very small.  But she did give me the option of continuing to take the medication and going back in on Monday for another beta.

Maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but I am going to keep taking the meds and go back for another beta on Monday.

I just don't want to spend the rest of my life worrying that I didn't do everything possible to make this little embryo have every chance to become our future child...

Innermost Thoughts

After my last post, I went to update my BBC friends on the testing.  The more I type, the worse I feel.  It is almost as if opening up to let the smallest bit of innermost negativity out is like a small leak in the dam that is causing the whole dam to break and the water to come flooding out.

I realized that all of those feelings - you know know the ones - maybe I am a failure at reproducing because I would be a failure at being a mother.

Perhaps instead of mapping out our next options, I should just throw in the towel.  Maybe Aunt Karen is right.  Maybe I was never meant to raise children.

F.U.C.K.

My Sources Say No

And the source isn't the Magic 8 Ball.

I took a HPT on Wednesday morning.  It was a First Response.  And that damned second line is still eluding me.  It isn't even faintly there.  There isn't even an evap line if you hold it in the sunlight to give me any hope.

After consulting with Dr. Google, I found out that it is one of the most sensitive tests available in drugstores.  It detects levels as low as 25.  Dr. Google also helped me reason out that a typical pregnancy starts generating HCG around 9 days after fertilization and then levels steadily increase.  (I already KNEW this, but had to do the research again anyway.)

What does that mean for us?  Well, since fertilization occurred months ago and our embryo was already 5 days old, then implantation should have occurred a couple of days after transfer and should have already been generating HCG.  Wednesday would have been 12 days after fertilization.  Yup.  Unless our embryo is a procrastinator, it doesn't look like the 3rd time will be the charm.

I feel like I am playing in a high stakes poker game and I just went all in with a pair of twos...My hopes of every having a biological child have been pretty much shattered at this point.  This freaking sucks.  I thought I was ready for this.  I thought I was ready to be told "That is it.  Throw in the towel.  You are a failure at producing offspring."  But based on how I am feeling right now, I don't think I was quite as prepared as I thought I was.  I am feeling pretty down.  Perhaps I should rename my blog to "The Forever Empty Womb".

I know, the fat lady hasn't sung yet.  But she is going to come a calling tomorrow afternoon around 2:30.

Derek has been great.  He knows I am taking this pretty rough and has been quite sweet.  He made a remark that next time, maybe we will get a live one instead of going for a seed.  It would be so nice to do SOMETHING that would actually result in a baby.

***SIGH***

I am still holding on to this one little tiny thread of hope (and I mean tiny - more thin and fragile than the tiniest spider's web you have ever seen) and I will be testing again tomorrow morning.  Don't hold your breath for me to post tomorrow night.  I am expecting to be quite intoxicated.

5DPFET and Counting

So, I know I haven't really been posting.  Most of my blog readers are friends from BBC or are really close to me IRL and already know our status.  But I felt as if I had to post SOMETHING after the transfer and during the waiting period.

Our little one thawed out perfectly.  The transfer was the most relaxing transfer that we have had to date.  And after the transfer, we headed to the beach for a few days of relaxation.  Just what the doctor ordered!

I don't know if it is because we didn't have fragmentation to worry about this time or if it was all of the praying for peace that I have been doing, but I feel surprisingly calm and positive.  That's right.  I said POSITIVE.  I really feel as if this time, we have a good chance that it worked.

We have had a few "what if it didn't work" conversations to start, but I have quickly ended them with let's see if it worked and then go from there type of statements.  Derek has been going along with this quite well.

I bought some tests today for my pre-beta testing.  It took me about 15 minutes to pick which tests to buy - I know, I was totally overanalyzing the situation and I freaked out.  I mean, it wasn't as if I had never bought a pack of HPTs before!  I finally just made a decision and bought the things.  Funny thing is that as I type this, I am wondering if I bought the right kind and considering consulting the Google.

Sigh...It was so much easier when I was using up the stock of HPTs under my sink!