Let me present to you two different couples and what got them pregnant: Woman A takes a pill prescribed by her gynecologist, uses a home ovulation test, has timed intercourse, and lands pregnant first month of the prescription. They don’t even meet with a specialist. Woman B does a long IVF cycle with genetic testing, necessitating freezing all embryos. So, one cycle for birth control, one for stimulation and egg retrieval, one for recovery and waiting for results, one to […]
Super-secret post Originally composed Cycle 50 (early November, 2015) We were able to see our doctor fairly quickly to get a debrief on the new info gained from a second failed IVF on a completely different medication protocol. Basically, the doctor was stumped. She had no idea why I wasn’t making embryos with IVF.
It’s indisputable that there are certain lifestyle/environmental factors which can affect fertility. Street drug use is a big one with pot use usually having a negative effect on sperm quality/count at least in the short term. But what about everything else? And since dose makes the toxin, how much of those things? How much coffee? How much alcohol? How much weight loss is enough and how much vigorous exercise is too much? Do you need to switch to boxers three […]
Super-Secret Post Concerning cycles 47, 48, and 49 (August, September, and early October 2015) This post is really long. I’ve decided to add a tl;dr section. Our doctor didn’t care that we had a third loss in our preceding IUI since it was so early as to be deemed diagnostically insignificant. This seems to be consistent with other practices. We proceeded with a slightly different round of meds to try to improve my egg quality and resulting embryos, over the […]
Super-Secret Post Concerning cycles 44, 45, and 46 (May, June, and July 2015) In May, we kicked off a “three-pack” of IUIs. Our clinic has a pricing option where you pay upfront 200% the price of one IUI and get three credits. You can use those credits within a two-year window unless you have a live birth from one; in that case you lose any unused credit. But basically it’s no extra money unless you get pregnant on the first […]
Back before I knew any better, and with a long track record of elaborate online pranks with lead up and “photo evidence”, I took advantage of access to a 12-week scan of an older friend’s baby and carefully cut together my own name with the letters available to “photoshop” (MSPaint) my own scan, posting that our “big news” alluded to the day before was a baby (it was actually the fact that we were moving across the country after graduation […]
Super-Secret Post Concerning cycle 44 (Mid-May, 2015) In mid-May we had our debrief after the roller coaster of the last 6 months of IVF and its protracted fall-out.
I’ve reached a point in my timeline where I completely stopped taking notes for this blog. I found an online support group which is actually palatable and all my writing has gone there. It’s very different than writing for the blog. For one thing, it’s real-time. There’s an off-topic thread every day where we talk about everything from that day’s medication side effects to random plans for weekend. Often there’s a small fertility tie in (“I’m on vacation but this […]
Good news: ANA was negative. It’s never lupus*. * Except for all my online buddies who have lupus.
A bonus post about why after a year or two you can never really be cured of infertility, even if you eventually manage to have healthy babies. The money The money that could have been a family vacation (or three), allowed the house you buy to be just a bit less of a fixer upper, given you a little breathing room to job search a little longer, or hell, to help out others whose need is so much more than […]