Protocol for FET #3

My next FET will vary from my last one in a number of ways. To prep, I am going to do an endometrial scratch and a long course of antibiotics (to treat any possible infection). My last cycle, I had a combo saline sonogram/mini scratch. While my doctor doesn’t put much stock in the scratch, he is willing to do it as it cannot hurt our outcome.     We are also going to follow my natural cycle, with supplementation of estrace and progesterone, only as needed.  There will be 0 medicated suppression.  The immune protocol will remain the same.

Let’s be honest, things aren’t very positive here right now.   We’ve been actively pursing infertility treatments since March 2011 and we have 0 living children.   Short of using a gestational carrier, there isn’t much more we can do to make this work.

Supplements (daily):
Vitamin E (400-600iu), Vitamin D (2000iu), Calcium (500mg twice a day), and Fish Oil (1000mg)

FET Medications
Prenatals
Estrace Pills (Oral)
Progesterone in Ethyl Oleate (100ml / 2m l)
Doxycycline (for 2 weeks)

Immune Medications
Metanx
Baby aspirin
Prednisone 20mg
Lovenox (30mg 2x a day until first ANTI-Xa)
Intralipids

Update

Happy holidays everyone, and thank you to those of you that have reached out via e-mail. I hope your holiday season is merry and bright.

Our 6th IVF is scheduled for January and the 7th will most likely be in March. Both of these cycles, like the 5 prior, will take place at our existing IVF clinic. However, we are also discussing a cycle with Dr. Braverman at some point. Either way, the plan is to bank embryos for the next few months and then reassess. If we can get a few more blasts, we may attempt a transfer into me. If we cannot, we may use a gestational carrier.

Which Way

I’d like to say things are getting better and staying better but it seems that returning to infertility treatments has halted and also reversed any healing I did after my miscarriage.

I hate hate hate where I am right now and I’m angry that I cannot seem to snap out of it. Women have miscarriages all the time, it’s not like I’m special or anything. I wish I knew how to just suck it up and move on. On one hand I remind myself that I only lost the pregnancy a few months ago but on the other hand I feel like I should of made more progress? I should be feeling better? I don’t know. It’s just, we put so much emotional, physical and financial effort into that baby we lost: 3 IVFs, a polyp removal, CCS testing, 1000’s of injections (FU Lovenox), the bulk of our savings, etc and now I just feel empty. I have always been a strong person and I feel so very defeated.

Yesterday I cancelled on my RE literally 1 hour before I was scheduled to have a procedure. Instead, I stayed in bed and cried for a few hours. My husband then called to see how the procedure went and was shocked when he heard I didn’t go. I always go. I finally dragged myself out of bed, worked a few hours and then cut out early for a manicure and pedicure. I am trying, but some days the sadness is just overwhelming.

Perhaps it isn’t just the miscarriage, but that I am so worn down after almost 2 years of failed infertility treatments? Why continue when we always get bad news? There are just so many obstacles against us. I don’t know how we will overcome my husbands sperm DNA fragmentation and I don’t know how to overcome the HLA match issues. Especially as there is now some concern about using Neupogen due to my blood clotting issues. While we are fine using a gestational carrier it is a huge expense for us on top of 2 years of expensive infertility treatments.

I’ll admit it, I bought Powerball tickets yesterday. Unlimited funds would really help us reach the goal of 1 baby. We won $7.

Just a note to those of you who sent me an email, txt, or left a message after my last post. Thank you for checking in. Thank you for taking 1 minute out of your day to say hello, commiserate or just support. It made me feel less alone.

Impossible

I am struggling with our next steps. And to be honest here, struggling is a mild word for how I feel.

We’ve been at this infertility nightmare for almost 2 years now, with many years of trying to conceive naturally prior. It has become part of our everyday lives and unfortunately infertility isn’t a train you can just cleanly hop off of and forget. It just chugs and chugs and chugs and drains you.

People keep saying “it will happen for you” but these are people who are not involved in the HOW. HOW WILL it happen for us?

This is not a question easily answered:

1- IF we can get any chromosomally normal embryos that also happen to not have mitochondrial issues,

2- We can then off label use Neupogen at transfer for the HLA match issue. This drug, mind you, is experimental, and is intended to treat chemo patients. It is not covered by insurance (off label use rarely is) and will cost about $10,000 out of pocket. To me though, the bigger issue is not the cost (although that still makes me vomit), but if Neupogen works for us, how could it affect the baby? Or me? No one can really answer this and therefore, I am very very stressed about using this medication. This leads us to the last option, which is to…

3- Use a gestational carrier, to the tune of $60,000 (plus or minus $20k). It’s a huge amount of money, especially after spending money on 4IVFs with CCS testing and immune testing with Dr. Braverman.

There is no easy path here. There are no clear options forward. Having a child naturally or even easily via IVF has been taken from us and I’m angry, so very angry that we have to go to such extreme measures while we rack up insurmountable financial debt.

I feel so lost and defeated. And tired. So tired.