Still here

I'm still here -- just quiet because usually it's appointments and milestones that drive my blogging.

We had our WTF phone call today with our RE. He said what I've been thinking, which is this was the cruelest cycle. We had everything lined up, normal embryo and all, but it just didn't implant. (My beta was 1, so he doesn't think it even tried to implant.) Based on how the cycle went, there's nothing he would change -- we're just rolling the dice each time to try to get everything to line up.

Which is basically what I had concluded. It's frustrating, since it's $20k a pop now with PGS...

Speaking of which, I asked about any financial help -- e.g. a discount -- and he said they don't do that for fee-for-service. If we end up using a donor, we can do a shared risk plan based on her FSH (my FSH is the only thing preventing me from doing it). So this next cycle will take us to the $100k mark spent on IVF so far. Yikes.

The other thing we talked about is timing the next cycle around my vacations. We're going to do birth control pills immediately followed by estrace, which will do the estrogen priming while the birth control pills get out of my system. Hopefully that'll work.

The reason we're doing this is that I want to start stims on June 19, right after I get back from vacation #1 (which is active, so can't do it on a 2ww). With natural cycles, the timing is too unpredictable, and if we just did estrogen priming with my next cycle, we'd be doing stims in early June, which won't work.

So we're only pushing things about 3 weeks, and I can live with that. (Also, I really want to go on this vacation. :D) A little more time with my husband, injection- and hormone- free, is always good for our marriage.

I wish there was a silver bullet, but after 4 IVFs we have a pretty good idea of what worked. And this last cycle we just rolled the dice badly on implantation. We now know we can make a normal embryo, and my lining was good (as always) and my immunology numbers were great (aka normal).

I have a phone consult with Dr. Sher on Monday -- I'm most interested in what kind of protocol he'd use for me. Clearly the antagonist protocol works best, but I know he tweaks it to optimize for diminished ovarian reserve patients...

Not much more to report. Moodwise I'm ok. I generally pick myself up pretty fast and start aiming for the next cycle. I have nurse and financial consults for IVF5 the first week of May, and that'll give me my calendar for up to June 19.

Sending sticky thoughts to the big bunch of ladies in their 2ww's right now!