IVF#3

After a much needed break, I’m back! I apologize ahead of time at how long this is.

After extensive research, I’ve made my decision to go with CCRM (Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine) for IVF#3. This is the #1 rated IVF clinic and lab in the US and has the highest success rates. They say if anyone can get you pregnant, CCRM can. I’m putting them to the challenge. Some of you may think we are crazy for going to this length to conceive, but if you could step into our shoes for just one day and feel the heartache we experience, you would understand.

I had my phone consult with Dr. Schoolcraft on Sep 10. $250 for 26 minutes, yikes!!!! Schoolcraft is known to be a straight shooter, he tells it like it is and doesn’t sugar coat anything. Many girls get the donor egg speech, so I was prepared for that. I think it went really well. He specifically said that he did not believe it was time for donor egg and felt I still had a good chance with my own eggs. *** Asked him to hold so I could do a cartwheel! *** He thinks the reason for my past 2 failures was too aggressive of a protocol and lower lab quality. Their lab really is top notch, I have read so many posts where the girl had multiple failed cycles locally and never had any embryos make it past day 3 (like me) and then went on to have multiple blasts (day 5 embryos) and sometimes even enough to freeze. So it will be interesting to see if they are able to get any blasts out of me. I asked him about my slow dividing and multi-nucleated embryos and he said that while it is possible that I just have poopy eggs, he feels it is probably more to do with the protocol and lab, some labs use too harsh of a culture medium. He couldn’t give me my chance of success until he runs some tests on me, but he thinks I have a good shot.

My next step, which is required for every CCRM patient, is what they call a one-day workup. It’s an entire day of testing for both husband and wife. They are very thorough and are adamant that their lab runs all of the tests. We have already done most of this testing, but have no choice but to repeat it. Our workup is scheduled for Tue, Sept 23rd. We leave the 22nd and come back on the 25th. This will be cycle day 13 for me and since FSH, LH and E2 hormone levels have to be tested on cycle day 3, they have you get that drawn locally after the workup and mail it to them. I decided to be proactive and get it done ahead of time so that it won’t delay me later and I can get my results along with all my other testing. Problem, cd3 fell on a Sat. Talk about jumping through fire burning hoops to get cd3 b/w on a Sat without a script and have the lab let me take the blood without running tests on it!!! But I prevailed! My ob/gyn was willing to do this for me, but they were closed on Sat. I found a paramed company that was willing to come in on a Sat and do it for me, but they didn’t have the right lab supplies. No one else would draw without a script or let me take the blood home. So on that Fri at last minute, my ob/gyn called and offered me the lab supplies if I could get there in 20 mins (it’s a 30 min drive). I hung up and drove like a maniac, praying that I wouldn’t be killed over cd3 b/w! I made it in 19 mins and got the lab supplies, I felt like I had won the lottery. The next day we drove to the lab that so generously did this for us for free. They were to draw 2 vials of blood (my ob/gyn gave us 4 vials just in case) and they drew 4. Thank God we didn’t give them more than 4 vials. We then waited for it to clot, centrifuged it, poured the serum into transfer tubes, put it in a cup of ice and rushed it to our freezer. 3 of the 4 tubes of serum froze within 2 hrs, the 4th very strangely took 24 hrs to freeze. I joked to my husband that they could freeze me and I would live, he said; no, only a fourth of you would live, he’s so funny. So now I just need to get that serum on the plane and kept frozen. I pity the poor TSA officer that gets in my way, that serum is going with me!