Tag Archives: Infertility

To women going through infertility…

22 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in IVF #6 with Fresh 3-day Transfer, Uncategorized

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I feel the need to send some support out there to all the women struggling with infertility. To those women who have ever felt that they were drowning in infertility treatments, like their life was one never ending IVF cycle. Those who think about getting pregnant all the time, stare at home pregnancy tests squinting to see lines, and consume so many supplements they can’t even fit into one of those weekly pill containers.  I want you to know, you are not alone. You are not crazy. And you are not broken.

I was recently telling someone about what it’s like going through infertility treatments. In my defense he caught me on a rough day, but nevertheless I ended up sounding like a crazy person. When you spend years battling infertility, having multiple surgeries, treatments galore, and are in the middle of your 6th round of IVF, you look back and realize you’ve done a lot of crazy shit in the name of procreation. It becomes all consuming.

On that particular day, I confessed that while I would prefer a coffee, I was sitting there drinking tea that tasted like dirt because it was high in antioxidants, which is good for my eggs, and the other herbs in it are uterine tonics. Since it was my day off, I was planning on going for a long walk on my favorite trail to help improve blood flow to my uterus. Then I planned on taking a bubble bath, which I find soothing, but it also helps increase circulation which is good for my ovaries and uterus. Later that weekend, I’d be going to my friend’s house for her birthday and celebrating with one glass of wine. While I’d love to have more, I won’t because, you know, egg quality. But having just that one is okay, according to my RE, because it dilates blood vessels thus increasing blood flow to my uterus. The man I was talking with looked at me like I was an alien.

I’ll confess, this man is my therapist. I decided to go see someone after my last IVF cycle ended in 2 PGS abnormal embryos and no transfer. I was devastated, my husband was devastated, and I felt like I was exhausting my coping skills. I wanted someone to talk to that wasn’t my husband or one of my fertile friends. Someone I could say all of the dark things to who wouldn’t judge me. So yes, I’m a psychologist seeing a psychologist, and that feels a bit weird to me. I know it is the healthy choice and many therapist need therapy from time to time, but I’m like one of those doctors who avoids going to the doctor. I knew I needed to go though, after I started snapping at my loved ones. That’s not who I am or who I want to be. Infertility is HARD and we need support.

So there I was, sitting with a man who is really being kind and supportive, but I can tell he thinks I’m being excessively obsessive. And I completely am. But that is also completely normal when you are going through infertility. It happens to most of us, maybe even all of us who are at this long enough. It’s normal to want to do every little thing you can to try to improve your chances when the stakes are this high. When you are putting your body, heart, finances, and soul through so much. If medicine advanced to the point where our RE’s could tell us that “x, y, and z” will give you that positive pregnancy test, so don’t bother doing all the other silly things you read about – well, we’d all jump on board and do those things and get our babies. But that’s not the way it works. Even when we have every piece lined up, we still end up with failed transfers and negative tests. Science simply cannot control human reproduction – it’s too complex, too fragile, and possibly too magical.

So as long as our doctors can’t guarantee that treatments will work, as long as multiple women do the same thing but have different results, as long as things remain “unexplained,” we will always do our best to shift the odds in our favor. Whether that be this supplement or that, yoga, meditation, affirmations, tapping, castor oil packs, one more diagnostic test, exploratory surgery, the keto diet, the paleo diet, cutting out sugar, coffee, and alcohol, juicing, prayer, intentions,  pleading and bargaining, or standing on your right foot for five hours every full moon (okay I’m making up that last one) – we will try it.

And we will not be alone. We are not crazy. We are not broken. 

A Disappointing End

14 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by in IVF #4

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I told myself I wasn’t going to be anxious today. Today is the day that I find out if our one egg that fertilized made it to blastocyst. I said I wouldn’t be nervous because I was already counting it out. I’ve already ordered all my meds for the next cycle and the last of them will be here by tomorrow. I’m set to start my next cycle, pending a clear ultrasound, right after my period starts. It’s easy to not be nervous when your expectations are so low.

 

But here I am – sitting in my office, knowing that my phone could ring at any moment. And I’m nervous; my palms are sweating. Damn it. That means that deep inside, despite what I told myself, I’m hoping for good news. And I’m scared because I know the chance of getting good news is low. This process really takes a large toll on you. I know the feeling of being told that none of your embryos made it to blast, and I don’t want to feel that way again. I keep telling myself that I will be okay with bad news. I will get through it again. And I will. I just want my luck with this to change. I want some good news. I want it to work. And so I sit and wait…

 

Then the call came. The embryo didn’t make it. I’m not surprised and at least the wait is over. I can’t dwell on this. I can’t change it. Now I’m just going to have to focus on the next cycle. It’s all so disappointing. But where else can I move but forward?

But my body had other plans…

11 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in IVF #4

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My mini IVF cycle was really off to a great start. I responded excellent to the meds and at my first ultrasound I had 7 follicles. Even my left ovary, which tends to be sleepy, was producing well. It felt like this might be the protocol to do it. Each ultrasound was good and my follicles grew well and consistently. We got to last Thursday, did an ultrasound and labs to make the final decision of whether we would trigger on Friday or Saturday. My nurse called and based on my estrogen level it was decided that we would go one more day for optimal growth – trigger on Friday and retrieval on Sunday. I was right on schedule with my predicted calendar.

And then I got a second call late in the afternoon. Apparently they measured by LH in addition to my estrogen and to everyone’s surprise my LH was high – like ovulation peak high. Wait, what?! Despite the antagonist I was injecting daily, which blocks your brain from releasing LH, my brain decided to do it’s own thing. I was about to ovulate. Just two days before, my LH was low as they would expect. I was informed that my retrieval would be the next morning. I was stunned.

I spoke with my RE in the morning before the procedure. He said this happens in about 1% of the cases with antagonists. Of course I’m in that 1%. He told me of the one other patient he’s had where this happened. He waited 36 hours after the high LH reading to do the egg retrieval and ended up missing all the eggs because she had already ovulated. So, this time he’s doing it earlier – about 24 hours – in hopes of getting the eggs. Of course, the problem is you really don’t know when the surge began so there is guess work.

After waking from retrieval, I was informed that he got 2 eggs. I was devastated. And angry. Such great potential with this cycle – wasted. The issue wasn’t that I had already ovulated, rather my eggs weren’t fully detached from the fibers that hold them in the follicles. He scrapped, trying to release them, but only got 2. So we ended up being a little early. He told me to have sex since I have potentially 5 eggs that are about to be released, but I know that my chances for a natural conception are low, especially with my shotty fallopian tubes. We decided to not waste any time, since I don’t have much, and go straight into another stim cycle when my period starts in about 2 weeks. Is there a possibility that one of these 2 eggs could be the golden egg? Sure. But with stats like I’ve had, I’m not holding my breath.

This all feels surreal, as does most of the IVF process. How do we go from such a great start to this? Part of me is angry, but part of me just feels numb. And I go through the motions because what else am I going to do? After the epic failure of my last cycle, where none of my 9 eggs made it to blastocysts, this simply feels like par for the course. The fertilization report came the next day. One egg fertilized and is growing. In general, you’d expect a 50% drop off from fertilization to blastocyst. Humm, 50% of 1 isn’t looking too good. And if it did make it, would it be chromosomally normal? It’s a long shot. People have told me to have hope – that it only takes one. I get it, really I do. People want you to feel better. And they want to have hope too. But I’m getting tired. I had so much hope and optimism during these last 2 cycles and all the way up to retrieval on this 3rd. Each time I though that THIS was the one that would get me that baby. I really believed it. And all the hope and belief didn’t make it so.  I know I’m sounding really pessimistic here. But at some point, I feel like I have to protect myself from the pain. I don’t feel hopeless. I don’t feel like I’ve come to the end of my road. And neither does my RE. But right now, I need to feel neutral. I need to feel okay with a negative outcome so I don’t drown in it.

Today, I have no idea if this is going to work. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another baby. If my daughter will ever be the big sister that she so desperately wants to be. But I do know that at the end, whether I’m pregnant or not, I will have given it my best. I will have tried everything. And that’s the best that I can do.

For the next cycle we are going back to my original high dose protocol. It’s the same protocol that brought me my PGS normal embryo, as well as the failed cycle that ended in zero blasts. This will answer the question of whether that failed cycle was simply “a bad batch” or if it truly reflected a fast decline in my egg quality. My RE said that after 3 cycles of no good blasts, that’s when we would say that this isn’t going to work. I’ve had one cycle like that. I’m not counting this cycle that we just had, regardless of the outcome, because we were not able to do the egg retrieval at the right time. So I guess there is an end in sight. I truly hope there is a happy ending to this story. I’m not ready to think about the alternative.

The 6-Day Report

17 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by in IVF #3

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And so IVF#3 comes to an abrupt end. The news didn’t go as I thought it would – I found out today that all 3 of our embryos arrested. How did this happen? All the egg quality supplements, the addition of HGH, and this cycle’s outcome was worse than before! Did my eggs get that much worse in the 4 months since my last retrieval? Or was it just a bad crop this cycle and the next will be better? I’m holding out hope that the answer is the latter. I just know there are good eggs in there – my RE just needs to find them! Initially I was feeling very sad and discouraged. I cried. But I’m not ready to give up. This isn’t the end of my journey.

 

I’ll be meeting with my RE on Nov. 27th and I hope he had some answers and ideas. Until then I’m going to take care of myself, try to focus on the simple pleasures in life, and hold onto my hope.

Soaking Up The Sun

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in IVF#2 with FET

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natalie-collins-177075I’m lucky to live in a place that usually has clear beautiful blue skies most of the year. It’s what gets me through the colder months. In July the sun is radiant and, well, a little hot. I’m one of those people who spends a lot of time indoors. I have a desk job. But I do love the sun. The feel of the sun’s warm kiss on my skin. It reminds me of my childhood days spent playing in my parents’ pool, and my teen years listening to the waves crash on the beach. Getting out in the sun is good for my soul.

As a psychologist I also know it’s good for my mental well being. Studies have shown that exposure to sunlight, or lack thereof, is related to mood changes. Without enough sunlight we may feel sluggish, down, or even depressed. There’s even a disorder all about this called Seasonal Affective Disorder. What is it about the sun that affects our emotions this way? Well, there are several contributing factors, but the one that I want to call out here is vitamin D. The sun is hands down the best source of vitamin D for our bodies, and Vitamin D boosts our mood. It also does a myriad of other positive things in our bodies and plays a role in several illnesses from diabetes to cancer to infertility (which you can read more about here). So sunshine is good for my mind, body, and spirit, and my fertility.

I had my Vitamin D levels checked prior to beginning IVF. It was low-normal. At my doctor’s recommendation I began taking a vitamin D3 supplement to boost this up a bit. Then my RE suggested I up it even more to help with egg quality, as Vitamin D is also a great antioxidant. Even though I’m now past egg retrieval, I’m continuing to take Vitamin D as I prepare for my frozen embryo transfer and hopefully become pregnant. So now I’m currently taking the recommended prenatal dosage, although the dose varies based on which resource you read. I’m sticking with what the American Pregnancy Association says, which is 4,000 IU daily of the bio-avalible cholecalciferol form of D3.

But the truth is that our bodies are designed to make vitamin D from sun exposure. This is optimal. Now I know there are a lot of sun-related fears out there. Yes I’ve heard that sun tanning causes skin cancer and we should slather ourselves daily in sunscreen. But on a side note, have you ever read the ingredients in most sun screens? Lots of them are filled with carcinogens (caner causing) and endocrine disruptors (wreaks havoc on hormones which is not good for fertility), so that seems a bit counterproductive to me. I won’t go too far down that rabbit hole in this post. I’m not a sunscreen hater. It has it’s place. Burning isn’t good for anyone and there are some more natural, non-toxic ones out there. But sun exposure has gotten a bad rap. And I’ll admit it: I am a sun lover, in moderation of course.

So I have been making an effort to engage in short, intimate rendezvous with the sun.  I found this article helpful for knowing when and how much sun exposure to aim for safely. But as much as I love the vitamin D, it’s more than that to me. The sun represents energy, power, will, and endurance – and these characteristics are woven into my journey with infertility. So when I bare my skin for a glorious 15 minutes up on my balcony under the sun, that’s what I’m taking in. I’m filling every cell in my body with this energy, this power. I ask the Diving power of the sun to recharge me and give me strength on this journey. I visualize my body filling with this energy and beginning to glow. And then I offer a quiet word of thanks for this wonderful gift.

I was inspired by a recent post in a group that I’m in that referenced an older blog post about a meditation called “Eating the Sun”. It’s a simple meditation that you can do anytime, anywhere. You can find the blog post here and try it out if you’d like. It’s really beautiful.

We could all use a little more sunshine on this journey, couldn’t we?