Our Choices

We had our phone consult this week so got a little insight which was helpful.

Basically, our doctor thinks that we produce good, viable embryos and he thinks the problem is more in the 'environment'. Ha! Nice bedside manner way of putting it. I did appreciate that, rather than him saying my body. Because of this, he says a gestational carrier would be our next step.

Our other doctor had been telling us that donor egg was the solution. We're going to go to him for another opinion as well as potentially some others.

The issue our current doctor says is that we can't be certain it isn't the environment. There is nothing that points to that--other than 8 early pregnancy losses.

Yes, even though we had an extremely low hcg this time, he says it still counts as implanting and still counts as a loss. So we've had 8 total.

The question is -- is there enough of a guarantee for us to do gestational carrier? (Not like there is with any of this... but what are our odds? He put it at somewhere between 66-80%). What if we do a cycle and only get one viable embryo?

I could be up for another egg retrieval, much as I wanted to be done with this, but I just don't know if this is worth it.

So, our options are:

• Gestational carrier
• Adopt
• Live childfree

And I'm totally confused (and so is B) on what we want to do.

I feel some hopefulness in carrying out our dream with gestational carrier, but the cost makes me kinda sick and I think I want to be done with medical stuff (and for the record, I'd be fine with gestational carrier - I never cared about the carrying part so much as the outcome).

I know I wanted to adopt 5 years ago and that option makes me hopeful too; I just don't know if I need to grieve our imagined genetic children first. I know people say you just attach but it's hard to think about right now.

Living childfree is probably what is tugging at me most right now. It's hard to believe that I could feel that way since for a good 5 years there I kept thinking that I was a mom without a child. But this whole process has worn me down. I don't know that I have the energy for middle of the night feedings much less doing homework.

I turn 40 in a week. That seems weird. That age is so tied up with fertility. But if I take that out of the equation and don't focus on how 'old' 40 seemed when I was 20, I'm pretty happy right now.

I think I just need a break, a long one. Problem is, if we are going to do gestational carrier, I'd want to get these embryos made soon.

But for now, I'm going to focus on me, me & B and do happy things. Like travel. I'm trying to plan a fun summer vacation to either Scotland or Greece and maybe some fun weekend trips in between. I went to FL and to Philly the last 2 weekends and that felt great. I'm also having a fun birthday dinner with close friends next weekend which I'm looking forward to. I'm creating a photo collage of my travels and I'll have fun questions for our dinner conversation.

Oh yeah, and I need to leave right now (at 6:30am!) to run a 1/2 marathon!!!

(Pretty proud of myself for training up until a transfer and after the failed pregnancy. Go me!!).

Game Over

I kinda can't believe it. This is now officially the end of this road for us.

Our 11th and last transfer did not work.

And we're bumming out. This was our throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-it cycle. We did everything possible and still nothing worked.

Kinda makes it slightly worse to know that both embryos were girls...

We're just sad. We're grieving. We're mopey. We're tired and have no energy. And we have no idea what's next.

There isn't much that would convince us to continue on. Our options at this point would be to use a donor egg in a gestational carrier, go the adoption route or decide to live childfree. None of these feel right at the moment. If I had to pick one, adoption makes me feel most hopeful. But we need time.

I guess I was technically pregnant, a bio-chemical pregnancy they called it. My hcg was 6.5. We knew it was too low for it to be a viable pregnancy. The second beta was 5.8 and we were to stop all meds at that point, then my beta went up to 16, so I needed to keep going to get checked. Next was 5.something and then finally 0, so for about a week and a half, I didn't have a repreive on this.

I'm rebelling a bit with travel. When my home pregnancy tests were showing pretty much negative, I booked a flight to visit my cousin in Sara.sota and just went last weekend. It was great to be warm, to be traveling alone and reading my kindle and to spend time with her kids who all call me Aunt. I feel especially close to the 10 year old, who rode her bike with me while I ran 6 miles and who kicked the soccer ball around with me and who leaned in on me at church. I just love her!

And this weekend I'm going to Philly to that cousin again who is coming into town to visit her sister there. I'm also really eager to book our August vacation and thinking either Scot.land or Gree.ce.

And I have a half marathon next weekend which I had been training for prior to the transfer and then after we got the negative tests.

Oh, and I turn 40 in 2 weeks. That's a weird one. Not sure how to feel about that. Honestly, I don't feel great about it. But I'm going to celebrate by having my closest friends come over for an intimate dinner. Six women I've known for at least 20 years. And we're going to talk about my favorite topics--travel and books. And we'll hopefully play a bit of App.les to App.les!

Lots to look forward to and B & I are stronger than ever which makes this blow much easier to take than it could've otherwise been. We'll get through it. We don't know how but we will.

And in the meantime we're giving ourselves the space to grieve our imagined biological children.