Egg Donor IVF is Scheduled!

After months of testing, our IVF date is finally scheduled, the only thing that could throw off the schedule now is my echo cardiogram appointment. Donor egg retrieval is planned for the first week of September, either Thursday or Friday and embryo implantation is planned for the second week of September, either Tuesday or Wednesday. The schedule is a little tricky as we are working around Labor Day, so the dates might change, but for now, the beginning of September looks to be the go-date.

Setting the official timeline brings with it a handful of different emotions. I am happy and want to celebrate the fact that we have made it this far and that if everything works as it is suppose to, I could actually get pregnant. But on the other hand, I don't want to get too excited or happy, as there is a 40% chance it won't provide the preferred outcome, which is a live birth. So I am training myself to look at it as a very expensive medical procedure that marks just the beginning of our journey. If it doesn't work the first time, I imagine that we will just keep trying until we are out of embryos and then just go from there.

I still feel certain that we will have children one day, I just haven't had any feelings of confirmation that they will come out of my own body. As always, time will tell.

Genetic Results

On Friday we went is to meet with our geneticist to review my latest genetic testing. One great thing came out of the appointment, and the rest was pretty much a waste of time. When reviewing my lab work, we discovered that I have a VERY low percentage of mosaic cells, from the latest round of testing, I had 4 mosaic cells out of 118 that they grew, which is just over 3%. Additionally, the geneticist did not believe this would lead to any further health complications, including heart and kidney issues, which I was a little worried about. In fact, they felt so strongly about it that they said I could cancel my appointment with the cardiologist. Thrilled I came home and called RMA to send them the latest lab work and confirm it was OK to cancel my appointment. Unfortunately, they did not agree with the geneticist and still wanted me to have my Echocardiogram, which is scheduled for July 2nd.

So that is the latest and greatest, hopefully it means that everything is going to be OK and the only health issues I will have are infertility and POF.

I Need Infertile Friends

I woke up in the middle of the night with a desperate need to Google; Philadelphia (my city), Infertility, LDS (my religion)....all in the hopes of tracking down someone else out here that is struggling with infertility. I know you exist and I need to find you!

If your out there, let's be friends, let's be a rock. I feel very alone in this.

infertilemrsb@gmail.com

The R House (Love & Hate Relationship)

I have a love & hate relationship going on with a blog. Kind of odd, I agree, but take a look at it and you might understand. I have a good friend who pointed me to The R House blog a few months ago and since then I tend to check it out about once a week. mrs. r is a fantastic story teller and I really enjoy following her through her highs and lows, mainly surrounding adoption. She is a HUGE adoption advocate and there is so much to learn from her but I often find her stories so overwhelming, heart aching, and a little too close to home.

When you follow her blog, you can't help but become an advocate for adoption. There are SO MANY couples out there that can't have children. You don't realize it, until you become one of these couples. So many women are heartbroken and waiting for their miracle and at the same time there are so many women out there with unplanned pregnancies. It seems like a sick joke that so many women can't accomplish what comes so easily to others. I have always been pro-choice, and I will always be, but my heart hurts every time I hear of a woman aborting a child that could have been the miracle that another was waiting for.

Everyone has their own trials, I have been told this countless times, and I truly believe it, but there is something so painful about infertility, it cuts straight to your heart, challenges your identity and changes your dreams. I encourage everyone to check out The R House, pass on the link and encourage others to do the same. Adoption miracles happen every single day and you never know the impact you can have until you try.

Reproductive Geneticists

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I will be meeting with a reproductive geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/obgyn/divisions/reproductive-gen.htm

This is my first appointment working with a geneticist and I am pretty excited to gain a little more knowledge on Mosaic Turner Syndrome. The goal of the appointment is to decide on the direction we will go for further testing, confirmation and planning in regards to my long term health, given my most recent diagnosis. This group of doctors will also be the doctors leading me down the path to deciding if my body can handle IVF and carrying a baby to term.

Wish us luck!

Dark Days

Sad & dark days happen and this weekend seemed to be filled with them. I want to say that I am only feeling this way because it has been raining all weekend but even when it is sunny I have dark days once in a while. I don't think anyone can be truly happy all the time and if they appear to be, I think they must be very good at acting. When I have dark days, I spend a lot of time analyzing why I am feeling down, trying in some way to understand the reasons behind why I am feeling what I am feeling, some times it is understanding why I feel dark that makes me able to come out of it. This time around, understanding the reasons does not seem to be enough, so I am hoping that blogging about them will be.

Reasons I am in a Funk:

1 - Statistics, statistics, statistics. So many people, mainly the ones that are close to me think that IVF solves the problem. I am infertile and with donor egg IVF I have a 60% chance of having a baby, that 60% chance is much higher than the 0% chance I have without IVF, but it still leaves a 40% chance that I will spend $30k and come away with nothing. I, much like everyone around me, try not to think about the statistics, but they are there even if we like to pretend that they are not. Donor Egg IVF, though it is amazing, special and successful might not work and it is that 40% that we need to be prepared for.

2 - Forever 26. Mr. B and I are in an odd place right now. All of our friends are younger than us, as everyone around us, that is our age, already has children. When you don't have kids, it is easier to be friends with other people that don't have kids because you have a lot more in common and there is a lot more freedom in your activities. But as we are nearing our thirties, we are finding that we are pretty much alone out here. It is hard to stand by and watch groups of friends move on in life, graduating, getting pregnant, moving away, while we seem to be stuck in one place. We try to find friendships with each new generation but they seem to just keep getting younger as we get older and older. Right in front of my eyes I have seen countless friends find out they are pregnant, go through their 9 months, pop out a child and grow into a parent. Sometimes it is hard for me to watch.

3 - Our house is on the market right now and we have had two couples show quite a bit of interest. In fact I would be surprised if we did not get an offer by the end of the week. The idea of selling this house is really great and really sad at the same time. We have lived here for exactly two years and in that two years I have put so much of me into this house. There are things about this house that I really love, in fact I love about 90% of the house and the idea of leaving it all behind makes me so sad. I try to keep telling myself that I can make our next house just as good, if not better, but in the last two years we have put every extra dollar, our blood, sweat and tears, and everything we are into this house. We took something that was fit to be demolished and brought it back to life and leaving it behind makes me feel like I am leaving a part of myself.

Looking back over these three reasons, no wonder I am in a funk. All I can hope is that we are moving in the right direction and that even if we are setting ourselves up for more heartbreak that there will be a whole lot of good that will be able to come from it.

Spreading The Good Word....

Part of being approved for donor egg IVF is going through a quick counselling session so that you can be educated on details that aren't common knowledge and so that you are prepared for everything to come. Mr. B and I had this counselling session on Tuesday and we spoke a lot about sharing our personal details with friends and family. As you all know, once I was diagnosed with POF, we decided to be completely open about everything as we didn't want any 'secrets' out there. Now that we are headed into donor egg IVF, a very delicate & stressful time, we still feel good about the decision to be open, however now I feel my readers might need a little bit of education as well, so you know what is appropriate in this crazy world of infertility.

Mrs. B's Rules to Live By:

(regarding IVF)

1 - As we head into IVF, this blog is the best way to get up-to-speed on our current status, highs and lows, if we are comfortable sharing the details, you will find them here.

2 - We are completely great with talking about anything on this blog, if you read something and have questions or just want to shoot the breeze, anything on this blog is fair game

3 - As we head into IVF, please do not ask us if we are pregnant. This whole thing might not work the first time, or even the fifth time and if that is the case, it would be very difficult to constantly field questions about our lacking success. If I become pregnant, you will hear about it, if I don't, chances are, you will hear about it, any important news you will hear about, just as you have with everything we have gone through in this blog.

4 - If you read this blog, no need to keep it a secret. We created the blog to share our news, often times we find people have read the blog but are afraid to mention it to us in person. Don't be afraid to let us know that you have read the blog. If the blog was a secret, we would make it private. If you have read the blog and want to discuss it in person, here is a great way to get it into a conversation, 'So hey, I was catching up on your blog the other day and I was wondering how you are doing with it all and if you have met with your cardiologist yet?'. For the most part both Mr. B and I are totally open about this entire subject and we don't mind talking about it as it has taken over a large part of our lives so don't worry about offending!

On another note, if you want to pass the link to this blog on to someone you know who might (or might not) be struggling with infertility, please do so. If you want to add it to your blogging list, not a problem. This site is not a secret. When I was diagnosed with POF and then later Mosaic Turner's, I found it difficult to find articles/stories/blogs on the Internet that discussed the diagnoses from a patients perspective, so much out there is clinical and not reality and a site like this would have really helped me. So, share the link and maybe it will help someone else.