It's over. FAILED.

I can't believe it. After everything I went through...multiple injections every night, needles and probes invading my body, our savings emptied...and all for nothing. We went to the clinic this morning for my transfer, all excited and bladder full. We sat waiting for about 45 minutes. Then Dana came and called us back, and said, "I'm sorry, but I have bad news." Out of our 7 zygotes, 3 tested positive for IP. Of the 4 IP-free ones, 2 had chromosome problems. The remaining 2 simply didn't grow, for no known reason. 7, 4, 2, ... 0. There is always some percentage in every batch that has chromosome problems, and there's always some percentage that just doesn't grow. Unfortunately for us, the ones with IP, the ones with chromosome problems, and the no-growers all just happened to be different ones. They said it was just really bad luck. It doesn't mean that my eggs or bad or anything, just plain bad, horrible luck.

I'm really devastated. I feel like my whole life has just fallen apart. We did this procedure to avoid another miscarriage, but really it was just as bad, worse actually, with all the drugs, needles, and invasive procedures. Even emotionally it's just as bad, because it drags out for months and months. The steroid especially made me feel so bad physically. So we have 2 choices now, to try again naturally, or to try the PGD again. I've chosen to try naturally. This was no better than a miscarriage, so I'd rather keep my body healthy and natural than doing all these drugs and procedures again. If I have another miscarriage, then we'll try the PGD again. Neither recurring miscarriages nor the PGD is good for the body, but at least maybe I can switch back and forth to avoid getting too much of one thing...

I just can't believe this happened...I never thought we wouldn't even have any to put back... :(

Sperm meets egg

We got an update today - of the 13 eggs that were retrieved, 12 were mature. Of the 12 eggs that were mature, 7 fertilized normally. So now we have 7 little zygotes sitting in the lab! :) That's a relief! 7 is good - hopefully we'll have at least one or two for transfer then...and do I dare even hope for a few to freeze??

I'm still recovering from the egg retrieval. I had 2 days of bedrest - yesterday and today. I just feel kind of sore and a bit crampy around my ovaries, but nothing bad. Tomorrow we're planning on going out a bit, but nothing that requires too much walking.

So the billing lady finally faxed the IVF codes to our insurance. I called our insurance again today and she said she had to look for it then would call me back on the status...

Condom porn?

I had my egg retrieval, and hubby gave his sample today! :) We got 13 eggs! Hooray! I didn't like this anesthesia as much as the general anesthesia I had before with my miscarriage. This "twilight sleep" left me groggy for about an hour after I woke up, and also made me nauseas. I'm surprised, because I thought since general anesthesia is stronger, I would feel more effects from that, but that wasn't the case at all. I didn't feel any pain and don't remember anything about the procedure. I remember the anesthesiologist said he was giving me some medicine, and then I was waking up. When I woke up, I had a fair amount of discomfort around my ovaries, but no real pain. They said I can take Extra-strength Tylenol for pain if I want to, but I don't need to.

My poor hubby said the porn they gave him was really bad. In the video they were using condoms! I didn't even know they made porn with condoms! So, guys, here's a tip - you might want to bring your own viewing materials with you, to help things along.

Suicidal? No, just procreating.

I triggered! I took my last 3 shots tonight! No more shots! No more shots! :) I had my final monitoring appointment today, my first visit to the Chicago office. We signed our consent forms - which, by the way, included some options that might be of interest:

• Egg fertilization
  

• Option 1: Fertilize all eggs retrieved - We choose this option of course
  
• Option 2: Fertilize only 12 eggs - This option is available for people who want to minimize the number of embryos that will be discarded at the end of the cycle, if they're not freezing or donating the extras. Personally, I can't imagine not using every single chance I get! However, I've talked to some people who's religions don't approve of discarding embryos, so this might be a good option for them.

• Cryopreservation/donation
  
• Option 1: Freeze unused embryos - We choose this option
  
• Option 2: Donate unused embryos to other couples
  
• Option 3: Discard unused embryos

• If you froze embryos - In case of death of both parents (This one seems rather morbid! lol)
• Option 1: Donate frozen embryos to research
• Option 2: Discard frozen embryos

• Submit private data to the government for statistical purposes
• Option 1: Agree to have your data & identity submitted to the government
• Option 2: Have your data only submitted anonymously - We choose this one. They don't need to have more of our data on hand than they already do!

My ultrasound and bloodwork went well - I have 16 follicles that look good, and my estrogen is 1,620 - pretty perfect! :) So they moved up my egg retrieval one day! So that means I triggered tonight! Hooray!! :) So tonight I had to take my last Gonal-F at 75 IU, my last Cetrotide (big hooray!), and the Ovidrel trigger. The Ovidrel trigger wasn't so fun. The needle looked the same size as the others, but when I went to poke, it was obviously bigger :( . It took wimpy me three tries to jab it in there...but it's all over now! I don't have to take any more shots! :) I hope the next shot I ever take is a routine vaccination! :)

Tomorrow I get the day off - no more drugs! Except what's already in my system anyway ;) 26th March we go in at 9am for my egg retrieval.

Chicago!

We're finally here! We're in Chicago! Me, my other half, and my medications all made it. After a long debate, I decided to pack the drugs in my check-in. I was worried about not making it through security with all the needles, even though they say you're allowed to take prescription meds on the plane. My coordinator said you're only allowed to take one days supply in the carry-on and that I should check them in. I was also worried about our bags getting lost, but ultimately decided security was riskier. I've talked to other ladies that have been through this, and they all carried theirs on without any problem...still makes me nervous though. I was very relieved to get our bags back safely! Our connecting flight got canceled so we were delayed, but we finally made it to our hotel room just in time for my shots, and safely put the rest in the fridge. By the way, make sure you get a hotel room that has a fridge for the medications!

We went for a little walk on the beach downtown, but other than that we just slept and hung out in the hotel room this weekend since we were both tired and I wasn't feeling very good.

The midnight call

At my second monitoring appointment, after 5 days of stimulation, my 16 follicles are looking good, and my estrogen is 1,046. They lowered my dose again from 112.5 IU to 75 IU for Friday & Saturday night, then I go back up to 112.5 IU on Sunday night. They are also having me start Cetrotide. It's funny - my intuition about the meds has actually been right so far - I thought they would lower it last time, and they did, and this time I felt kind of okay, I thought they might lower it and might not, and they lowered it for 2 days then went back up on the 3rd. And I thought I would need to start Cetrotide on Friday, since I got some cervical mucus, and indeed I did start it that day.

I had so much trouble with the Cetrotide the first time! And actually, it's still hard. The first problem, that I didn't notice at first, was that the plunger slowly comes back up if you let go of it after pushing it down. Yikes! So you'll suck up air, blood, whatever, if you're not careful! And it's really hard to keep holding on to it exactly in the same place so you don't accidentally squirt any out, or suck any air up. Then, the powder that's supposed to mix with the liquid didn't mix all the way. There was still some stuck to the bottom of the vial. I waited a few minutes, "gently swirled" like the instructions said, then more vigorously swirled, but it still wouldn't dissolve. I saw warnings that said "Do not inject if particles remain", so I thought maybe that one had gone bad somehow. So, I threw it away and got out another one. This time I was aware of the plunger problem and carefully held it, then I carefully kept the needle above the powder in the vial, instead of injecting it directly into the powder, and swirled and swirled. Some was still sticking to the bottom. So what to do?? This was at about 10pm, so I called the emergency number for the pharmacy. They said they would page someone and call me back. I waited a few minutes, but wasn't sure how long I should wait. So then I called my IVF coordinator's emergency number. She called me back right away. All this time I had been holding on to the vial and plunger, swirling. After about 15 minutes, as I was talking to my coordinator, it all finally dissolved. She said it was unusual to take so long, but as long as it dissolved it was okay, so I should go ahead and do it. I felt so bad for calling her so late :( , but I really had to. I just didn't know what to do.

So then, it was also really tricky getting the liquid in the vial back into the plunger! I had to hold the needle so it was just barely in the vial, so it would suck out all the liquid, but of course not let it come out of the vial and lose all the medicine. And of course not let the plunger plunge the wrong way, all at the same time. I messed up and got some air mixed in, and had to wait for it to settle so I could get it out...but in the end, I did get my injection. Whew. That was NOT easy. The Gonal-F was so easy to do, I didn't have any trouble. But this Cetrotide, yikes. Not fun at all. It made my skin turn red too around the injection site. The Gonal-F never did that. I'm glad at least I don't have to take too many days of it.

Growing my eggs

I had my first monitoring appointment today. At my last appointment, before stimulation, I had 9 follicles and my estrogen was 41. Today, 5 days later and after 3 days of stimulation, I have 16 total follicles, 12 of which "look good", and my estrogen is 420. I haven't quite figured out what good or normal numbers are though, so I'm not really sure what that means! I've heard that somewhere around 3,000 - 4,000 for estrogen is usually considered too much, so I guess I'm nowhere near that yet...I also get to lower my dose now, one step down. I'm going from 150IU of Gonal-F to now 112.5IU of Gonal-F. Less drugs sounds good to me :) I guess I'm responding pretty normally, since they only lowered my dose a little. I'm still dealing with insurance stuff. Hopefully some day we can get reimbursed.

All systems go for launch!

I'm so excited, and worried! I had my appointment today to see if I'm ready to start stimulation (Gonal-F) on Sunday. The appointment went great - my estrogen, lining, and follicles all look just perfect. :) So, that means we're really doing this! On Sunday I'll start stimulation, and next Saturday we're going to Chicago! I'm so excited!! And, I did it - I shot myself!! A nurse taught me how to do the shots today. She filled on with water, then I took it, and punched it in! Actually, it barely hurt at all, just a prick. It was so much easier than I thought, and really not that scary. I don't think I'll have trouble doing it on Sunday at all. I'm doing 150 IU of Gonal-F using the Gonal-F Pen sometime from 7-11 pm Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. Then I have another appointment on Wednesday to see how it's going. Yes, yes, I did it! I just bravely stuck that needle in like I was a pincushion!

Also, today was payment day. Yipee...Unfortunately, our insurance still hasn't finished doing that second benefits advisory for the IVF portion. So I had to pay it all upfront, and get reimbursed later! :( They already have the PGD portion approval, so that I didn't have to pay, and they said they'll be billing for it soon so then we'll get the $3,500 setup fee back that we already paid ourselves in January. The $2,000 chromosome testing fee that's not covered I also paid today, and of course we won't be getting that back. The IVF bill that I paid today was $20,822!! Ouch!! Our savings is empty now. I really hope I'll be getting that back later!!! The original quote I got for the IVF portion was only $10,000, however apparently that didn't include monitoring, blood tests, and some other things...I'm still confused about that, but she's going to send us the complete breakdown. Hopefully it won't matter because we'll be getting reimbursed later...I hope. However, I will list the final breakdown when I get it, since I'm sure you readers are very interested in how that mysteriously got doubled! I asked her for the breakdown on the phone, and she went on and on for awhile in a long list, so I think I just need to see it written down to really get a grasp on where that's all going. If only someone else like me had written a blog about this earlier, maybe I could have fixed this insurance problem before it started! Lol. I hope I can help some of you to avoid going through this rigmarole and just getting everything right the first time.

Queen of Billing

If I didn't check, and push, and follow-up, I'd be this old by the time we have our first child! You have to be so on top of things, so proactive, to make a PGD happen. The lady from the billing department at RGI called me this morning while I was still in bed (Chicago is two hours ahead of us). She said it's time for payment. Okay. However, when she quoted the price, I discovered that she still didn't have my insurance coverage information! Sigh...Our insurance told me that they had faxed everything to RGI in the middle of February, but you know the golden rule of fertility faxes - It takes two phone calls to get a fax actually sent! She put me on hold and contacted my PGD coordinator, and said now she did have coverage information for the PGD, however, not for the IVF portion. She said IVF is not covered because it's not for infertility. So then I call my insurance, they verify again that yes, the IVF is covered, but they said the IVF was not specifically included in the benefits advisory I requested since the letter from my genetic counselor only included the special codes for the PGD. Although IVF was listed in the letter, the special IVF codes were not. So, yes, the IVF is covered, but she can't give me anything in writing because to do that I need to request a benefits advisory for the IVF portion. So, I call the RGI billing lady back and leave a message, then call my genetic counselor and leave a message. My genetic counselor calls back and says the billing lady will take care of it, then the billing lady calls and says that she will submit the letter with the IVF codes included. So now I don't have anything to do but wait for my insurance to get back to billing with the official IVF portion approval.

I'm sure you readers weren't particularly interested in all of that, :) , but I thought I'd just give you a taste of some of the problems that you have to take care of yourself. Of course, now, I shouldn't have to do anything, right? But I know better by now. After a couple days I'll call my insurance again, and verify that they have received the letter from the billing department, ask what the status is, and fix any problems that arise. Then, finally, I can pay the $2,000 optional chromosome testing fee, and the 20% out-of-network portion.

On a more positive note, I've made all our Chicago travel arrangements! We got two free tickets using our credit card points, one week of a free rental car also using credit card points, and a good deal on a Hilton, which was the result of a lot of searching. Credit card companies don't make it easy to use their points either, but after all this PGD stuff, I'm getting more used to getting down and dirty and just doing what's necessary to get what we want. I know it's paying off.