More waiting

It has been a busy last couple of weeks.
I went to Branson, MO for a conference. Tom and I have been busy running around town. We have been to Las Vegas, San Francisco and I also have the above mentioned Branson. I feel like I am firmly coming out of my baby making focused funk.
Before I left for Branson on the 19th, I had an appointment with my fertility doc.
Summary of the visit is basically, they are not sure what happened. No other couples had any issues in the time around us. No other embryos stopped growing. That being said, they have NEVER had this happen when the couple is young and healthy so they are taking some of the fault on themselves and allowing us to have a free cycle this next time. They tried sending the embryos for genetic testing but they didn't get accurate information due to the "age" of the embryos by the time they were sent.

So now we wait some more. I have to have a whole cycle off and then we start with the suppression again. This places our expected transfer on the only weekend for the rest of the year that we have out of town plans. We are planning to go to Seattle for a long weekend for the A's Mariners. We have non-refundable hotel in downtown.

We discussed this with the nurse at the fertility clinic. She said we can always have me take two extra weeks of birth control pills which would put the extraction and transfer closer to Labor Day. And move the due date closer to our birthdays at the end of May, first of June.

This time around, instead of waiting until day 5 for transfer, they will likely try day 3 since that is when the embryos had their issues (we may just have sensitive embryos). In that case, the chances of each embryo making it is much lower. They may decide to transfer 3 embryos in that case. This will be a tough decision. But for now, we will enjoy the summer sun and heat and wait for cooler days to think about hormone therapy again. May not be too many updates to come from now until then.

Tom did get me a book on IVF for my birthday which I read on the flight to San Francisco. If anyone wants to read a different view of IVF, it is called Pregnancy Wishes and IVF Dreams. The only thing that was frustrating about reading this book is that the couple in it had a clear diagnosed male factor problem and was able to get pregnant the first time with twins. This is not always the experience that people have. I actually have a patient who has been through IVF 5 times without success and was only able to get pregnant the last time with IVF. I can't imagine. This is it for us for a while. I think if this time around doesn't work, will look into adoption a little bit more and wait to do another round of IVF for a year or two.

Have a good summer all, stay cool. More to come in August is my guess.