a hard week - our failed IVF

This has been a very hard week for me. Since we hit the ultimate brick wall for our IVF cycle on Wednesday I've felt a major let down. All of that work, all of those hopes and then . . . . nothing.

We met with our RE on Thursday and let me just say out front that we will not be continuing treatment with our clinic. The guy couldn't even offer his condolences for our failed cycle. We had many many questions for him about why he thought our cycle went the way it did. He admitted that I had an asymmetrical response to the stimulation drugs - causing one follicle to jump out ahead of the rest, followed by four more, with five more lagging way behind that. He said that my body probably wasn't all the way shut down that the beginning of the stim drugs and that he would recommend not using Lupron for the next cycle. He also laid out a totally different drug protocol that he thought would work.

I asked if he would label me as a poor responder and he said he would not, that I just didn't respond well to this drug protocol.

The thing is: my clinic knew that I was having an asymmetrical response to the drugs and after that really bad US that I posted about (see "stim blues" below) we were wondering why our cycle was not called off. One thing I did not write about in my precious post was that I DID have a conversation with the doctor on staff that day (not our RE) about whether or not we should cancel the cycle and she was confident that we would be able to get something. She upped my doses and told me that we would probably stim for longer. Then when I went to my next appointment and looked at the ultrasound all that seemed to go out the window. The nurse counted ten follicles and she was very excited.

But that count didn't matter - not when those other five follicles would have never caught up. Never. I never even used those extra drugs we ordered because suddenly I was being ordered to do my trigger shot. What a cluster fuck.

I am angry.

I trusted them. I trusted their experience. My husband and I knew that this all could go to hell, but our doctor should not have gone forward with the egg retrieval when we had such low chances of having successful fertilization - because of our low number of what they assumed were mature follicles.

The majority of the fees for the cycle start to happen at the lab retrieval. I feel like we wasted our fertility resources. We can't get that money back.

Our Dr. said that in hindsight he should have canceled the cycle before the retrieval. That didn't make me feel better. We did go and talk to the clinic manager about recouping some of the wasted fee - somehow working it into another cycle . . . but like I said at the offset . . . we did that, but we're not going back.

I guess I just want to see what they say.

So - what a shitty, shitty experience. My dr. and clinic really did nothing to educate us about what was going on and make us aware of the risks - no one said I was having an asymmetrical response during our stim period. Tell the patient what's happening - if they weren't going to make the hard choice to stop the cycle, maybe my husband and I would have. Maybe. We were just so hopeful and desperate. We were flying forward at 60 miles per hour and then suddenly the lab called and said we had nothing.

One red flag that I should have noticed is that the nurse would always turn the ultrasound screen away from me during the procedure. She didn't want me to see the bad news? We're feeling it now. Living it.

So . . . .

One mature egg that fertilized abnormally with icsi - not that odd for a thirty-five year old woman.

and

Three immature eggs.

I do not expect our clinic to "grow our eggs" but the responsible thing would have been to call the cycle off before the couple is completely fucked.

Complete loss of trust. I feel no qualms about stating that our clinic was the University of Minnesota Reproductive Medicine Center, if you want more info about them, email me and I can tell you more about my experience. I feel it's my responsibility to share this - maybe it can save someone else the heartbreak that we've been through this past week.

If you read about someone who is experiencing this same thing . . . please try to warn them. At least they can quiz their drs about it at their next appointment.

So, what's next: Embryo Adoption. We're already signed up and we feel great about it. More to come as soon as I can start lining things up.

I wish this hadn't happened. I wish I was on the two week wait. I am miserable and sad, but I still have hope. I thought IVF was the bottom of the barrel, but God has shown us another way. We hope he as much faith in us as we have in Him.

Thank you all for lifting me up. Praying for you all.

Jillian