Photography

The most exciting thing happened a couple weeks ago! I applied for membership into an international wedding photography association, and to my surprise, I was accepted! I've read that only approximately 5% of applicants get in, so I've been just over the moon about it!

I do wonder why I decided to start a photography business right before IVF...probably not the most reasonable thing to do. So I got everything off the ground for my business - website etc. But when I was contacted to shoot a wedding in the summer of '12, I started getting very nervous. With my unicornuate, I could be put on bedrest very early, and I'll (hopefully) be 4 or 5 months by the summer of next year! So I think I have to slow down with photography until I get my baby.

Here are a few of my favorites from the wedding.

All Booked for Vegas

I just finalized all of the plans for our Vegas IVF trip! I'll be flying out at the end of January with my husband joining me for about half of the trip. It will be an 11 day trip for me. I'm very excited to be transferring blasts this time, and two blasts at that! I have a really good feeling about this cycle!

My new doctor tested my natural killer cells recently, which I assumed wouldn't be activated...and they kind-of weren't? During the normal test, my nk cells were deactivated, but under the stress test they became activated. I'll be doing 2 intralipid infusions, just in case the nk cells are attacking my embryos after transfer. I certainly wasn't expecting that, but at least it's easily fixable.

Lots of Change

There have been lots of good changes recently!

First, we finally got our insurance money back! It was a little less than I expected, but still probably enough to cover an IVF cycle. I was so excited! We've been trying to get this resolved since May, and finally finally I don't have to call the insurance company weekly anymore!

Second, I had a telephone consultation with an out-of-town doctor (Dr. S.) earlier this week. He seems to have a lot more ideas that my doctor (Dr. C.). Dr. C. doesn't want to change much going into a new IVF - slight follistim increase, and bring embryos to blastocyst instead of 3 day. My lining has been thin (7-8) through all of my IVF / FETs (I didn't even know this until my most recent FET). According to Dr. C., where my lining is could probably work. According to Dr. S., my lining is like trying to plant a tree in a rock. Now how their opinions vary so widely is beyond me. Dr. C has no plans for fixing my lining. Dr. S. seems to have lots of plans! He plans to change my protocol (from antagonist to agonist antagonist conversion) because he suspects my testosterone is high and affecting embryo quality as well as my lining. I will also be using viag.ra suppositories to try to help build my lining. I asked Dr. C. about using vi.agra, and her response was that they did not have good results with it at their clinic. Once again, huge difference in opinion with Dr. S, he says his results have been good. With Dr. S. I will still be taking my embryos to blast, but instead of transferring one, we'll be transferring two! Another major thing Dr. S. said was that 1/2 of my embryos not surviving thaw was a technical error. I had always thought it may have been. There are even more difference in their plans, but that's enough for now. So...I'm sending my deposit tomorrow for a January 30th cycle with Dr. S! Since Dr. S. is all way across the country, I'll be staying there for 12 days. I'm kind of a homebody, and thus dreading the "vacation" part of this. Mostly I'm gonna miss / worry about my cat sons. I'll try to be better about updating more as we go through this cycle. It's honestly been quite boring since the first IVF. FETs are no fun. I love getting the embryo quality calls! As long as they're good news I guess.

Third and final piece of good news, I will be second shooting at a wedding this weekend!! I've been wanting to get into wedding photography for a while now, so I'm looking forward to it! If I get any grand pictures, I'll post them!

Nope

Debbie Downer here.....It didn't work.

We had 4 embryos left, but unfortunately, we had to thaw them all to get a viable one. So now we're back at square one...

I guess we've got 4 options - use my mom as a surrogate, got to India for surrogacy, try more embryos in me, or adoption. We're not exactly sure what to do at this point, but we're leaning toward my mom as a surrogate. We've got an appt. on Oct 10th to discuss all this with the doctor and get her opinion.

The insurance money is pretty much gone now. I think we have $1500 left, so our next cycle will more than likely be out of pocket. My husband and I are both applying to companies that offer infertility insurance, but so far we've not had any luck. I hate our insurance company. They took $7000 for my surgery out of our $15,000 for infertility. My doctor and the insurance co. agree that the surgery was medically necessary as opposed to infertility, but something about self-funded plan, blah blah, get over it, no more money for you. Oh well, we tried and tried to get that money back, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen.

We're on a break from TTC until 2012. We've been doing pretty much continuous cycles all year and are just kinda tired of it all. That'll give us a little more time to try to find insurance and to relax.

Maybe I've mentioned this before, can't remember, but we're on an adoption waiting list with the state...kinda. We're actually on a waiting list for the workshop, but they only take 20 couples per year for that list then you decide if you want to move forward at that point. The workshop was supposed to be this fall, but due to a lack of babies, it wont be until next spring. My husband isn't quite on board with all of this yet, but we're still on the list just in case.

And for once, something unrelated to infertility! Imagine that.

I got a new camera a few months ago and I love it! I've been taking pics of bugs, flowers...mostly nature things. These are a couple of my favorites so far

I've never liked bugs before so what posessed me to like them now, I have no idea. It has actually been a good way to get rid of some of the bug fear. I still don't like taking pictures of spiders though!

The Latest

A quick update..

Everything is going fairly well with our FET cycle so far. I was supposed to have my transfer last week, but my lining was a little thin (7.2), so we decided to postpone one week. At my scan today the lining was 7.3, so not much of a jump. They say it's alright though. My lining was only 7.5 last transfer, so this might be about all my unicornuate uterus can do.

There is a whole new batch of residents and fellows at my clinic. I loved my old doctors, so I wasn't too pleased about this. They knew me and my uterus so it was nice. Oh well. What if I get to know these doctors, I'm still not pregnant, and have to meet all new doctors again!!

FET #2

We'll be having FET #2 on August 24th!

Four of our embryos are still frozen - 2 high quality and 2 mid-quality.

For the first two cycles, our doctor strongly recommended that we only transfer one embryo per try. This time she will let us transfer two if we decide, but we'd have to selectively reduce if both took. With transferring two there is a 50% chance that we'll get pregnant and if we do, there'd be a 33% chance of twins. We've decided that one embryo is the way to go for now.

I started my Lupron at some point in the recent past...it's all kinda blurring together at this point. Other than the Lupron, not much to report. I'll be starting estrogen patches and pills this weekend.

My insurance company took $7,000 (of my $15,000 lifetime infertility) for my surgery in February. My doctor has written them a letter asking them not to charge it to infertility, but I'm still waiting on their decision. UGH. If they don't give me that $ back, we'll only have $1,800 left for infertility. Luckily the FETs are fairly cheap - $1,500 medical cost I believe (and $1,500 for Rx, but we may still have coverage on that).

My husband will be working out of town through my progesterone, so I had planned to switch to Crinone (a vaginal progesterone gel), but insurance will not cover it unless I am already pregnant, and without coverage it'll be $900...compared to $20 for progesterone in oil for injection. I'm just gonna try giving myself the shots. I think I can do it! I've seen videos on youtube of people doing their own, so surely I can too! The hardest part will be checking the syringe for blood before injecting.

That's about that for now. Our next pregnancy test will be September 7th! Over a month away, but I'm getting excited already!

Waiting on Pregnancy Test

Just waiting on my blood pregnancy test...gosh it's taking forever to get here!

My transfer went pretty well. It always seems to be more complicated than it is supposed to be. First of all, I drank way too much water. By the time I was at the clinic, I was dancing around trying not to pee. My doctor said it was fine to let a little out, so I did. Went in for transfer, still miserable from my bladder being so full, and turns out it was still too full. After I emptied again, we were set to go. I hate having my cervix cleaned, it's just very uncomfortable, and with both of my transfers I've had to have it cleaned twice because of a speculum change. I still had to pee really bad, and was just uncomfortable. I got so hot, I sweated through the paper sheet on the table.

Our embryo was frozen as an 8 cell and came out a 7 cell.

I swore that I would not take home pregnancy tests this time, but of course I couldn't resist! I've been taking them since 6dp3dt (6 days past 3 day transfer). I swear there is an abbriviation for everything in infertility (IF) world! I guess if we can't make babies, we can at least make abbreviations! Anyway, all my tests have been negative so far. Go fucking figure! Story of my life! Hopefully Ill get a positive next week at my blood pregnancy test.