Stages of Ick

I didn't realize how numb I felt yesterday until this morning when I woke up very sad. Feeling sad highlights the differences from feeling numb.

I'm also starting to flirt with feeling "angry." It appears that my progress through Kubler-Ross's stages of grief are not going linearly. I am particularly angry at the embryologist at our clinic for doing such a crap ass job. Clearly he did not research the best method to defrost our eggs. I have yet to see any number in the scientific that doesn't say that 70-80% of the eggs should survive defrost. It makes me very, very angry to think that his thaw rate was about the opposite of that.

The lesson I'm learning from this is that I should have trusted my gut. I have done a good deal of research into frozen donor eggs. I know that USC has an infertility program that has done extensive research with frozen donor eggs and deems it to be a viable alternative. I should have gotten over my fear of offending them and sent all the information I had to them to make sure they knew what I know. But if *I* know that, why didn't they? Wouldn't I look like a neurotic patient/client?

Well, I am a neurotic patient/clinic. And I'm not taking the blame here, but I'm mad at myself for not doing that. And more angry for them not to have done a little bit of research themselves.

In any case, I'm also feeling empty and sad. These were good eggs and they fucked them up. And now we have nothing.

I'm assuming they are going to credit us with some of the money we've paid up front but didn't receive for services. In addition, I assume that they are going to put us up front immediately on their fresh DE list. My problem remains with trust. They have a 65% success rate, whereas other places have a much higher rate. Why is their rate so much worse and should we continue to trust them? At this point, I'm only going to trust them if we get a proven donor with multiple successful donations.

Ok. So, considering the conversation I just had in my head, I am definitely in State 2 of the Kubler-Ross model of grief: Anger.

Zero

Nobody made it until this morning. I start prometrium tonight and reduce my estrogen so that I will get my period in about a week.

We'll be setting up a meeting with my RE and the embryologist to discuss what happened. I guess then I can share all the research I was hording trying to not offend their knowledge.

Part of going through this is saying that we "tried" even if we don't end up with a baby. However, this feels like it shouldn't count. We didn't get to "try". I want a do over.

And to my dear friend who has been so worried about me and as anxious as I have been about this cycle, the one who gave me her extra eggs, it's ok. You were such a generous person to have thought of sharing your bounty of joy with me. That is so kind. It's sad it didn't work out, but I'm left with the knowledge that there are truly kind people in this world.

Not Good

Only 4 eggs survived the thaw. The embryologist used the other clinic's protocol and only 1 out of 6 survived that. then he switched protocols and 3 of the remaining 9 survived. I should have sent the information I found and told him to contact USC which has a much better success rate.

He hasn't even checked to see if the eggs that survived have their spindles or whatever. So these four may be complete crap.

And we don't even know if they will fertilize.

Although I know I've been saying that everything will work out the way it's supposed to, I'm very upset right now.

Waiting for Godot

Or good eggs, which ever comes first.

Everything starts tomorrow! DE Daddy goes in to "do his thing" at 11:30. My last lupron is tonight and then I start all the other meds (doxycillan, medrol, PIO and still continuing the estrogen patches).

I'm clearly excited as the wake-every-other-hour insomnia has hit, yet I'm not sleepy or upset.

There are two types of stress: distress and eustress. I'm voting that I having eustress right now. Why not be happy while I can? It's going to work out anyway, whatever happens.

I'm ready to get going!

I'll be back tomorrow with an update on how many thawed. For me, that's the biggie.

Freaking Out a Wee Bit

With the thaw coming up on Friday, I'm getting a bit more anxious. And doing exactly what I should not be doing by googling any new academic information (or otherwise) on the success rates of frozen donor eggs. I know we've already bought the lottery ticket. Nonetheless, I'm still calculating the odds of winning.

There was a recent article in Science on improvements the success rates from frozen eggs. As Science is not too shabby of a journal, I got the article. The main gist of this article is that eggs have been frozen since about 1986, but until the advent of ICSI , it was simply not viable. The egg's membrane gets a little tough after being frozen so it's harder for the sperm to enter. ICSI changed all that so the REs became more interested in using donor eggs.

There's also a new technique for freezing eggs called vitrification versus the old way of doing it, called slow freeze (or the roll-off-your-tongue formal name gamete cryopresevation). From what I can gather, virtification is a quick-freeze, dip in some liquid or another whereas slow-freeze takes up to 1.5 hours of slowly freezing the eggs. And the gist of the debate is that vitrification yeilds more usable eggs at thaw than slow freeze. Like, a lot better in both quantity and quality. In fact, some REs say that vitrification yeilds about the same result as fresh eggs. However, there have only been 100 births ever from vitritifed eggs and about 300-500 births per year world-wide for slow-freeze eggs. With those sorts of numbers it's hard to argue that one is really better than the other. (100 total is a really small sample size) Nonetheless, the 95% survival rate for vitrified eggs is impressive as the Science article above says.

Guess which one our clinic used?

How about "Not Virtification." In fact the clinic got all cranky when I asked which one they used saying that the research was not yet conclusive. Considering that yes, doctor's are likely to exaggerate their success rates and also that this clinic has a Really High donor egg success rate, I'm not going to get completely freaked out, just a little.

However, the Science article says that one needs about 50 slow-freeze eggs for a viable pregnancy whereas one only needs 21-25 eggs for a successful vitrified pregnancy.

That's when I start freaking out. We have 15 slow freeze eggs. ((gulp)) I start twittering and I don't mean updating my friends.

But then I go back to this peer reviewed article in Fertility and Sterility reporting a pretty signficant success rate (about 30%) for frozen DONOR eggs. That's a whole different ballgame than regular frozen eggs. Most women freeze their eggs in their 30s not their 20s. Their success rate is already lower. And I know that our donor was a true fertile Myrtle (as opposed to me, being somewhat of a fertile turtle). So then I reassure myself because I honestly believe that if 75% of these eggs can make it through the thaw stage, we'll have a decent chance.

And last night as I was getting all dramatic on myself thinking "If we don't get pregnant, this will be the worst thing ever" I had to stop and say "Ummmm, no it won't. It won't even be close." I've had a lot worse things happen than not getting pregnant on an IVF cycle. I will undoubtedly be sad. But it will not be the Worst Thing Ever.

I still don't know if I would be ready to give up if it doesn't work. (DE Daddy and I are in the midst of debating about this.) I'm still getting anxious. But this certainly will not be the Worst Thing to Ever happen to me.

Thawing Set

The nurse called late Friday afternoon with the update. First, she says my lining looks perfect. (yay!) However, they are going to wait to thaw out the eggs until Friday not Monday as we originally thought. The embryologist doesn't want to thaw them Saturday-Weds (vacation, I'm imagining) and my RE will not be in the office next Monday so they are working all around their schedules. Apparently, the embryologist and my RE are very keen on being very involved in this process; I think that is good news.

They are aiming for a 5 day transfer which would be May 14. From what I've seen in the literature, frozen eggies often go at a 3 day transfer, although some do make it to 5 days. I don't know if for those who do 3 days it's because the embryos looks so crappy or if that's the clinic's policy. I am still surprised to hear of places that still routinely do 3 day transfers because I was under the impression that 5 days are much, much better.

So we're on the way. And I'm excited to be going forward but trying very hard not to become to invested in one outcome or the other. I want to go ahead and have the answer. But then I also want the best shot we can have for this.

Trip to the Doctor's

I went in today for my bloodwork and an ultrasound. I'm waiting to hear the results, but my uterine lining looked good. He said my stripe was "9". I thought I was looking for a triple stripe, sort of in my mind like Neopolitan ice cream. Does any one have any info or should I go play Dr. Google.

I'm thinking we'll start defrosting the eggies on Monday.

I'm really anxious to hear when everything is going to start up, and to make sure they don't forget about my heparin and prednisone for the (potential) auto-immune problems.

More later if I hear anything.