Hurry Up and Wait

We are in another waiting phase of the infertility journey. That’s what this whole thing seems to be, hurry up and wait. We had another ultra sound on Friday to see what the progress of the most recent large cyst is. I had had some lower abdominal pain a few days prior that was a bit concerning, but it went away after a short time, so we are figuring that it was just a muscle pain of some kind. The ultra sound showed that the cyst was completely gone! Unlike last time where the cyst was simply deflated after the 3 weeks of birth control, this time there was no sign of the cyst. And even better, there were minimal under developed follicles in each ovary. We are set to start treatment again once this next cycle starts. This will be our last shot at an IUI. The odds of an IUI working after 3 to 4 failed IUIs is only about 10%, as there is probably another issue going on that we just aren’t finding, so there wouldn’t be a point in trying for more after this.  We are going to be doing a more aggressive IUI cycle than we have before. This has a higher risk of triplets and twins than the other cycles (I know I’ve said that before, but this is still apparently the case), but since having even 3-4 mature follicles isn’t getting us pregnant a more aggressive approach may be what’s needed. I’m not sure what will be involved in this cycle yet, but once my period starts we’ll do another baseline ultra sound and Dr. Amols will explain what our medication regimen will be. Unfortunately, if this IUI doesn’t work we will have to move on to a more expensive treatment option like IVF. We have an appointment with Dr. Amols on May 17 to discuss other options should this IUI not work. Because Matthew and I are both pro-life there are some aspects of IVF that do concern us. Dr. Amols has mentioned other options for IVF than just the traditionally thought of one where multiple embryos are created and then frozen. This method can end up with embryos that do not survive the freezing process and embryos that we do not intend to transfer in the event of a success. As we believe life begins at conception, this is not a method we can morally do. The method Dr. Amols has suggested is is collecting multiple eggs and freezing the eggs, and then only creating two embryos that we then transfer into me. In researching the procedure I’ve found that there is a roughly 50% chance of success with IVF at my age. This percentage seems awfully low to me since we are transferring fertilized eggs directly into my uterus, but it’s hard to determine how it compares with natural pregnancy since you have more information about the pregnancy earlier than you would with a natural pregnancy.

In other medical news, I am also just about done seeing the chiropractor for my back and neck injuries from my car accident in February which is great. I do not having any residual pain from the accident so I am back to where I was. I also had an eye appointment 2 weeks ago where I found out I have a condition called ocular rosacea. This is basically where the oil ducts in my eye lids are gunked up so the natural bacteria on my eye lids combines with it and creates a sulfactant that irritates my eyes when my contacts are not in.

Non-medically related, last week I got to spend time with my family for my cousin’s wedding which was really nice. I got to see some of my other cousins’ kids that I hadn’t gotten to meet in person yet, and spend time with cousins that I hadn’t seen in many years.

We want to thank everyone for their well wishes and prayers through out this process as well as listening to me rant about everything that is going on. We will keep everyone updated on what the next steps are and our progress 🙂