Nerves

Ugh.

I'd forgotten just how nervous I used to be.

All. The. Time.

This is absurd. But I'm ridiculously nervous.

Dr. McBaby is supposed to call sometime in the next 3 hours. They don't tell an exact time just give a three hour window...which is worse because I'm sure it'll be three hours before he calls so I get to be nervous until then!

I don't really have anything to worry about. But my anxiety is so high. I can't eat. I put Lauren down for her nap and am hoping he will call while she's asleep just because I know she'll be a handful if he calls when she's awake!

And then I get emotional and think to myself, "What a beautiful problem to have!".

So I have a list of questions...

1) Why do you think my AMH levels went up? Does it really mean anything?

Edited from after our conversation: He said it didn't mean anything really. Well, he said it probably meant I was getting younger and younger! Ha! But seriously, he didn't think it was significant at all. Variations in labs possibly (though it was the same lab...). But if it had gone way down that would have been cause for concern but basically he considered there to be no change. 

2) I'm really a numbers girl. What are our chances of another successful IVF based on what we know from our last cycle and our latest test results?

He quoted about 40%. Obviously, he doesn't know how its all going to go down. But if he had to put a number on it based on everything he'd put it at 40% for a successful pregnancy.

3) Do you ever see a significant difference in egg quality when a patient has been taking French Pine Bark?

He said there are no studies on it BUT that he really believes in it. He cannot prove a thing but knows it won't hurt and he has seen cases where there was a significant improvement....was it the French Pine Bark or total coincidence? He'll never know!

4) And how reliable do you think the Sperm DNA fragmentation test is that we took right after our first IVF? Could there still be a sperm problem even if the traditional SA and the DNA frag test didn't pick up on one?

And I didn't ask this!!! Why? Because I didn't write down my questions. Because oh, I only have 4 questions...I won't need help remembering....

I'll ask next week when I see him!

We took a sperm DNA frag test after we learned that all our embryos were poor quality (well we did have one rated "fair" and two "poor" but none of the others even made it that far, the other 7 had completely quit growing). Dr. McBaby originally thought it was probably a sperm problem because of when the decline happened. Day 3 almost every single emrbyo looked fine. Day 5 was a totally different story and this is typically due to sperm issues. Bryan's SA's had always been excellent and we honestly thought our first IVF was going to be a failure so we decided to do this test ASAP because we didn't want to have to wait too long to do another IVF. But the DNA frag test came back better than excellent. And Dr. McBaby said then it was most definitely my eggs to blame.

Ouch.

But I'd like to pick his brain on the test a bit more. Bryan was a moderate smoker for our first IVF. This time around he has quit for a few months with the help of Chantix and Wellbutrin and he's now taking French Pine Bark too. But I'm just curious to know if he thinks there might be just the slightest chance that the DNA frag test was somehow inaccurate or maybe there's just still more that they don't know about and maybe just maybe it was his sperm and since he's healthier it might all be better this time.

I know most of my questions aren't going to have definite answers. But I like opinions. I like information.

I'll try and update after we chat. That way I'll have a fresh record of what we discussed.

AMH

So my AMH results are in and they're good. 4.14.

Two and a half years ago they were 2.7. They were pretty good then too.

So I have no idea what this means. If anything at all. I thought AMH didn't fluctuate very much and naturally it should go down with age. So I'm a bit confused.

I've been taking French Pine Bark since August for the purpose of improving egg quality. We won't know with any certainty if it has helped until egg retrieval and seeing how the embryos develop. So I don't know that a big increase in my AMH has anything to do with better quality. All my research says not really. Higher AMH usually results in more eggs during stimming, more eggs mean a better chance of having some good eggs. So maybe it's a good thing.

But I had a decent number, if not a really good number of eggs last time. 12 mature. 10 fertilized.

Or maybe it's a sign of PCOS. I mean I don't think I've got PCOS but one website I ran across said above 4 is indicative of PCOS. Ehh, who knows?!

I just have not heard of such a huge increase in AMH levels. Not that I have any readers currently but can anyone out there she'd some light? Anyone, hello? 😝

I have a phone conference scheduled with Dr. McBaby this Wednesday afternoon. So I'm guessing he can shed some light on this for me. Marge did say that they probably weren't going to change my IVF protocol. So that's good. It was considered a "micro IVF" protocol so medications are fairly low dose, which means cheaper!

I remember all of these feelings, worries, obsessions, fears from the three very long years we tried for our first child. They're so much easier to handle now that we've made it to this side. But they still kind of suck!

The what ifs! How comes! What do I do nows!

Mehhh.

Labs are Done

A few months ago I emailed my IVF nurse, let's call her Marge...to inquire about doing an IVF cycle in January. I suspected that breastfeeding would pose some problems and I wanted to see if there were any supplements or medications that my doctor might recommend since we discovered that I have poor egg quality after doing our first IVF.

Marge responded immediately and recommended that I begin taking something called French Pine Bark. So I think I went to the store that same day and started popping those pills! She also said that I needed to have ceased breastfeeding for 3 months before we could attempt another IVF. Like I said, I suspected there could be some problems so I'm glad I checked! However, three months was a bit of a shock. I thought I'd just need to quit before I started the medications. But they want my body back in tip top "I can carry a baby" shape and breastfeeding MIGHT prevent that. 

And when we're forking over $15k for one single attempt at pregnancy we really don't want to take any chances!

So I thought about stopping but quickly realized neither one of us were ready so we pushed the date back further and decided we'd stop in January and aim for an April IVF.

So that is where we are now. I nursed my sweet girl for almost 17 months, an accomplishment that I'm very proud of. 

I then emailed Marge again and let her know we were "ready" to get the ball rolling. We got some lab orders in and my husband and I both had our blood drawn earlier this week and are awaiting the results.

I think its time I come up with names for my family...since we're anonymous here at Grow Blueberry Grow...this should be fun!

I'll just go with some names I like....Bryan, Katie, and Lauren. I'll be Katie. 

So Bryan had his blood drawn. One measley vial of blood. They're just checking him for infectious diseases. Meanwhile they took 5 from me. They're checking for infectious disease too, thryoid testing, clotting problems and one of the most important in my book: AMH.

Back in 2012 my AMH was a respectable 2.7. Very normal number for a woman of 31. At 33, almost 34, I must admit I'm pretty scared about what the number might be now. AMH gives you a round about figure of how many eggs you've got left. Obviously, the older we get the lower that number should be....but low numbers can be scary and extra expensive and lower the already low odds that we are going to get pregnant and have a baby!

And that's where we are now.

Our next steps: schedule a sperm analysis for Bryan, schedule a sonohysterogram for me, and then have a sit down with the RE, Dr. McBaby, and figure out our game plan!

Well, hello there!

Man, oh man, does this feel fantastic and weird. Definitely weird. It has been so incredibly long since I've written in a blog.

My blog.

And I'm happy to be back! Anonymous this time around but back nonetheless.

So, anonymous? This will be interesting. Do I use code names? Crazy aliases? Decision, decisions!

I think I'll just start with my story.

It began in 2009 when I married the love of my life. What a ride we've been on! We went through more bad stuff, oh let's just tell it like it was, we went through absolute fucking hell for a number of years. We made some crazy, off the wall decisions, and landed here. Five and a half years later, happier than ever before. With a life darn well near perfect.

We have a dog, named Saint. He's a lab. He's crazy the way most young labs are. But he's super good looking so we let him stay.

We have a litter of cats. Ok, so not really. But we do have four. I love them. Except when they bring snakes into my house for show and tell.

Not so cool.

But the best of all, we have a beautiful (yes, I know all parents say this but in our case its so true...so, so true) little girl. And I don't just mean she's easy to look at. I mean this child is the sweetest, kindest, funniest, smartest little thing I've ever encountered and probably that you've ever encountered too. And because we've been living with this crazy kid for 17 months now we've come to realize that we really want to bring another baby into our home just as awesome and wonderful and cute and loveable as she is. It's hard to find perfection once but we're pretty sure we can do it again!

So our journey begins.

I kept a blog of our journey to my daughter. It was traumatic. Not the blog. But the journey. Two miscarriages, an infection that destroyed my fallopian tubes, an ectopic pregnancy, fertility treatments including IVF and then finally, from out of darkness my rainbow appeared. And just in the knick of time too, I'm not so sure my heart could have survived much more.

And here we go again. In the coming months we will embark down the same road. IVF. This time with a lot more knowledge of what we're up against and just how incredibly lucky and blessed we are to be parents at all.