Catching up

Oops. I had no idea I never posted an ending to our IVF cycle back in August. It didn't work. Turns out that my eggs and the resulting embryos that we had transferred weren't of the best quality and probably were not viable.

At the follow-up appointment, our doctor suggested a different protocol for next time, as well as genetic testing of the Day 5 embryos to ensure that we only transfer back viable ones. This means that the embryos would be frozen on Day 5 and then we'd do a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) at a later date. It sounded logical to us, but we went to go get a second opinion at another clinic first.

The doctor there suggested a very similar protocol, said that it would produce a greater number of higher-quality eggs than I had the last time. He did not, however, mention the testing. We thought long and hard about it, and decided to try one more time with our current doctor, do the testing, and then if we have no viable embryos we know that we probably can't make babies with each other, and if we have viable ones, then we at least have another data point. Either way, we'll know more.

So earlier this week, I started back on injections and pills. I've been seeing an acupuncturist for a couple of months, too, as well as doing a relaxation exercise daily during the cycle. At yesterday's ultrasound the right ovary looked like it has a few good follicles growing in it, and nothing was really happening on the left side. So, at acupuncture today, he pulled out the big guns and hooked me up to the electricity to try to jump-start things.

I go back for another ultrasound tomorrow, and acupuncture again, too. I imagine that egg retrieval will be around next weekend sometime, and then hopefully a couple weeks after that we'll know if we have any viable embryos that we can transfer in a few months. Fingers crossed!!