Second opinion = first opinion

I have been MIA - wallowing in the hopelessness of it all - I surprised myself at how depressed I got about the whole thing. It was like a very virulent and condensed mid life crisis. I surfaced about a week ago and here I am again!

Well - we went for the long awaited second opinion today... to the sparkly bright big clinic with the artistic pictures of eggs and embryos in the entrance. This place is hopping - full of shiny happy infertile couples just like us. Except we are not shiny and not happy and neither are they. They all look so young though!!!

The doc was very informative, personable and patient - he is a nice looking, tanned, white haired guy in his sixties, and a bit of a maverick (not the Sarah Palin kind!) He founded this clinic and used to be the big time administrator (is that an oxymoron?) but instead of retiring he now just sees patients because he enjoys it. He said his new MO is to not give people false hope and to "tell it like it is" !!!!
He said that as he is an "old" guy he can get away with it. I can't wait till I am old so I can do the same!

Aaargh!

He was nice but straightforward. Firm but kind as Julie Andrews says in Mary Poppins. He said if I was his daughter, this is what he would say to her: he agreed with all the previous RE had done, that it was clear from my results that even with a huge amount of drugs there was no success at stimulating me; I barely had one follicle after all that - my antral follies were borderline, my FSH was high, even with all those stimulants my estrogen was very low, my uterine lining was poor. He said that because of my age and the lack of eggs of any quality and the high chances of miscarriage and genetic disorders there was no point in even trying, the odds are so low if not impossible. I must say, I would have been surprised if he had not said that, but I was holding out some slight hope. He said there are other drug protocols that he uses with "poor responders", but these are the poor responders who are younger - whose infertility and poor responses are atypical and who are not poor responders because of age. The 8% who do get pregnant in my age rage at his clinic do so because they have good ovarian reserve, whereas I don't. He said I would be a good candidate for egg donation and did mention the embryo adoption idea too - but he said you have to be really careful about the quality of embryo, the freezing method used and even what doctor did it.

I had recently come to the vaguely defined conclusion that I could wait to adopt or even to do egg donation until S is out of school in two years. But I am not so sure, now I have this final bit of information. I don't want to wait till I am even older ( and S is even more older!) until we are parents. He said the odds with egg donation are around 60%. At the moment I am kind of leaning towards that - but it has just been a few hours and I have not had time to think about it a whole lot. This clinic does around 300 cycles with egg donors per year! - they have a whole department for it.

Whatever we decide - whether it is domestic or international adoption, or egg donation, we are looking at spending anywhere from $13,500 - $40,000.

No, we don't really have all that money to spend. I might just go on welfare and get student loans.

It's a shame because I have excellent insurance, and this whole IVF cycle would have been covered if could have gone that route. The actual egg donation procedure is covered, but not the expenses associated with the egg donor, which are extensive. I have to do more research on that and adoption.

Now I am going to go drink my glass of red wine and watch " Puccini for beginners" with my honey lamb!

Night night, children!

TG:)


Happy V day all!

the credit goes to stairlanding...

I found her on blogs of note and like her blog a lot. I borrowed these two blog ideas and hope you will join in too.....


1. Fourth Annual Bloggers Silent Poetry Reading. Post your poem, (your own or another's) today.

MY PERENNIAL NEST

Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a 'Diver'-
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home-
I -a Sparrow- build there
Sweet twigs and twine
My perennial nest.

Emily Dickinson

2. Meme meme me!

Use the first letter of your name to find a word for each of the following:

Your name: Claire

Four letter word: care

Boy name: Carys

Girl name: Caroline

Occupation: chanteuse

Color: chartreuse

Beverage: claret

Something found in a bathroom: cotton buds

A Place: cote d'azur

Reason for being late: chatty neighbor

Food: cream cheese

Something you shout: come on!

week from hell over....

Thank god! the only thing is - there is sure to be another one just around the corner. (yes - it's me - glass not just half empty but with barely a drop in it!)That is the nature of my job and it is so frustrating and disheartening.
That's all I am saying - a blog isn't exactly a private diary now is it?
Well I will say this -it might be bearable if I knew there was an end in sight. My "end" was going to be the end of my nine month pregnancy when I would hang up my hat gracefully and take a year off to be a new mom ( albeit a poor mom) and a more homebody type partner to S. ( well we can dream!)But the nine month clock is not even ticking yet.
I keep on telling myself I will learn to meditate and it will make the bits in between work less stressful and I won't spend my spare time ruminating about it. Then when I have some down time I don't feel like learning to meditate! I have tapes and CDs and even stuff downloaded on my I-Pod. Get this: the other day we were getting ready to do some cleaning and I like to listen to my I-Pod when I am cleaning sometimes if S is working or something - so I said: "Oh I know, I'll listen to my meditation tracks while I am cleaning." And then I realized that perhaps that was not the best way to learn to meditate. I mean, aren't you supposed to sit still or something? So that was as far as I got!
The baby news is that I have an appointment at the Big Business Baby Factory to see a new doc. He was the third on my list (still highly recommended)and he helped someone in my support group get pregnant after a whole litany of mechanical type fertility problems. I think of my fertility issues as less mechanical and more about attrition! My eggs are just beaten down and tired!
Yes it's an old white guy again! The younger white guy and the middle aged white woman ( also highly recommended) were unavailable till the end of Feb and beginning of March. I couldn't wait that long. So I have an appointment for Feb 13th at 11am. I hope my honey can come, but she has taken so much time off work recently with school she may not be able to. I have to gather all my records and immunizations and blood work together again.
I have decided that if they say it's a no go I want to try either egg donation or embryo donation. I have a feeling they will give me at least one more try.
So that's the news from Lake Woe-is-me-will-I-ever-get-pregnant!
On the good news front, the cabaret class that I am taking is fun fun fun! and I am thinking of signing up for the third time to train for a triathlon - no, I never finished any of them! This time last year when I signed up for it I was thinking I would train until I got pregnant and see how I felt. Ho hum!
I would love to finish a triathlon. We'll see how it goes!

day from hell... trying to decide...knackered!

Well, that day was a long one. The day I called in sick and then called my messages and figured out I could not be sick and today was just inappropriate to have a mental health day. Other people were having mental health issues and it was my job to deal with them. Or to supervise those dealing with them. I got home at around 9pm which is early for one of those crisis laden, many layered crazy days.
In between all this today I was on the phone to my insurance to make sure the second opinion was covered. It is! I just have to figure out where I am going for it.
I have been perusing the stats for my state and the different clinics that I could visit.
I am most interested in percentage of live births in my age range achieved with the women's own eggs. The numbers are not good at all - ranging from 0 - 12 %. Stats mess with my head - there are so many variables - # of live births per cycle, per retrieval, per transfer, etc etc.I am interested in meeting with a doctor who has had some success in my age range without using donor eggs, because this is my last ditch effort to figure out if I can use mine. Any RE can tell me about donor eggs and how easy that will be. So I am debating. The small friendly clinic that I picked has 0.000000% in my age group. So I am reconsidering going there and I think I will go for the clinic that is in the 12% range. Not that I am pinning my hopes on them, but I figure they must have some tricks up their sleeve.
So that's all for now.
The couch beckons.
ta ta for now:)

Hope floats

I didn't know where that phrase came from until it popped into my head a day or two ago. I just googled it and it's a movie I have never seen: the tagline is:
"When life fell apart, love fell into place"
Hmmmmmmm.......
Not sure if that quite fits, but I did feel like my life was coming apart for a few days. Saturday, when we found out, was the too busy to feel day - some time to tell a couple of people but no time to think what it meant; Sunday was tell a couple people at church day...yes, I have told a lot of people of our journey and actually strangely it does not bother me that we have to tell them that reality does not always go the way we want it to go. Monday, was get really angry at S and at the guy whose dog slipped it's leash and went after my dogs day - a day I believe I yelled and cried and felt resentful and railed against the not fairness of it.
Tuesday, inauguration day, I could not get out of bed to go to work. I missed the whole thing - I was walking our dogs when it happened and then driving to work, as I was late. Our cable was not working so I could not watch it at home. The whole nation was celebrating and I could not muster up any kind of excitement or interest - I feel a little ashamed about that. I still have not watched it. I saw his face on Yahoo and Aretha's hat and that was that.

I know - the ice caps are falling off, the new president of the USA is full of hope, the are wars everywhere, and I am a ball of heavy cotton wool.

I did barely any work on Tuesday. I felt like I was in slow motion and had tunnel vision. It took me all my energy to move my head from side to side. On Wednesday I researched second opinion doctors, which is hard to do because they all want you to come in for an appointment to talk so you could spend a lot of time talking to any number of docs.
I tentatively called my clinic and asked for a release for my medical records. I was told I needed to speak to a nurse and sign a form and no-one has called me back, which is interesting as they normally do.
I have an appointment for next Wednesday with another doc. I have no illusions about this one - I don't think she is going to sweep me off my feet and hand my lovely young eggs back to me. I just want to hear it from someone else, or find out that there may be one protocol that is worth a try and I can figure out if the odds are worth it. It does seem to be about odds - a gamble - who would have thought it?
Anyway, back to hope floating...
Throughout yesterday I felt less like cotton wool soaked in cement and with the thinking about options, I felt a little hope floating to the surface of my self. It is still there, bobbing about.
I know it's a gamble: money, time, odds, etc etc.
I do have some hope that maybe something will work.
I know that I still want to be pregnant and still go that route.
And yes, I have thought about adoption!
Keep on floating, Hope!
PS
the nurse called me back today to talk about me getting my records. She apologized for not calling me yesterday but she was too busy."It was crazy yesterday and today - I just couldn't get to the phone." Then I realized - the clinic is awash in women getting their eggs retrieved and that should have been me! grrrrrrrrrrrrr......

One lonely follicle...

That's what I got. After 300 IU Follistim 2x per day and 75 IU Menopur 2x day i got one little follie.
I was so nervous going to the RE for my ultrasound today. I knew it was bad after my visit on Wednesday, so I really was not very hopeful. The ultrasound was very quick - I got my hopes up when I saw him marking a spot on the slide, but then I sat up and he said "you only have one follicle and we need three or four, I'm sorry, we are canceling the cycle."
I asked him what my options were and he said egg donation. I asked him about embryo donation and he said he would have to check to see if they had any?!!!!
Then I went into the consult room and Susan was waiting for me and we talked to the nurse who was quite sweet. We talked a little about our options- Susan asked some questions, we left. We are going to think on it and maybe schedule a consult in a week or two. Maybe find another RE. Do some research and thinking. Talk to the money gods!
The nurse said we would be getting a call from their psychologist. I really don't need to talk to a psychologist - I have a therapist, and Susan and I can talk about it together.
When we got home from our travels today there was already a message on our machine from the shrink. I didn't listen to it yet.
the rest of the day has been incredibly social - no time to sit and think or wallow in it.
I know this is an uninspired post, but I guess there is a good reason not to be inspired right now.
more later:)

Day 5 of stims and a big fat 0

Not looking good.
At the ultrasound, doctor grumpy basically said it looks very quiet in there, there are no follicles to measure and although the antral ones are still there that's all there is.
I go for another U/S on Saturday am, armed with my trusty DP for moral support, and he said that they need to see something then for it to be a go.
I am pumping myself full of heavy duty high dose meds and nothing.
To me, that spells lots of words that are expletives.
I cried on the way to work, ran my staff meeting, worked some more and left at 4pm, after having a grande gingersnap latte.
It already feels like it is over.