My Infertility Journey: Part 5
If you are staying on board the train for this long, you are a trooper. I have a funny feeling in my heart and soul that the journey is almost at an end, but we’ll see what life has in store. Here are the previous stops on the crazy train:
This month continues the blood draws to monitor the drop of hCG in the blood, with more tests to be done once we hit 0. I finally gave in and got myself a miscarriage tea, and it was immensely helpful. I would suggest to anyone healing, try to use food and herbs and natural remedies...sometimes those are your only options. By the end of January we had a non-pregnant body! Thank you-Quest Diagnostics! One of the next things I needed to do, and kind of wanted to do, was to maybe get some second opinions and seek some financial aid.
I got a suggestion from my dentist for a Chinese Herbalist and was going to go see her, but she is more expensive that I would like to pay. But for anyone thinking about it, her name is Jeanette Painovich, and I would say...Go For It! I ended up going to Sprouts and getting Vitex Berry to regulate my system and just get back to normal, happy, and healthy. The brand name is Gaia-they make other health related products but are all very natural alternatives. It is worth going in person to see what else is there, and if that is the best for your particular situation.
The other suggestion I got was another Fertility Doctor. Her name is Sharon Moayeri of OC Fertility. As I need to make sure proceed properly, it is worth looking into a second opinion. I have a funny feeling I will end up with my OG doctor, but maybe I will feel better for doing so after I have shopped around. My first step was to do some online research, make a document telling my story thus far, and use that to get some quick answers. Let me tell you, writing that document was hell and back-I blacked out some of what happened that my notes said happen. Crazy stuff.
So emails were sent, calls happened. Dr Lin, who so very kindly called me personally, had a wonderful chat with me. I appreciate her, not only as my OBGYN, but as an informed opinion with 3rd party POV. Dr Moayeri is $185 for a phone call consultation, and $350 for an in person consultation. I decided with a phone call-as I was really unsure whether or not I would switch in the long term to her.
Life likes to get busy. While I tell the universe I am taking a break to heal-work gets busy. To heal mentally, I am doing a lot of journaling. I have also really gotten into my yard-the idea that I can grow things successfully goes a long way for my mental health. I am working out, dieting...playing to physical health. Emotionally, it would really help for me to get my tattoo updated-but my kids visited me in a dream from heaven, and I was a little rough still.
Trying to work on myself, I have been a little ignorant of some leftover pelvic pain that should not be there. I contacted Dr Lin and Dr Lee and wonderful Dr Lin arranged a urine test, to check for a UTI, and a transvaginal ultrasound. I scheduled with Quest Diagnostics, results came back normal. I scheduled with St. Jude for the ultrasound. There was a fibroid and a cyst, and I was put on Birth Control for 3 months to decrease the size of it naturally to create a positive environment for future IVF cycles.
This is the month that if I don’t have a cycle on, I need to start the ball rolling. It can easily take up to 3 months to get back to having a cycle after a miscarriage. So if we call “0 hCG” day as 1/15, then 2/15-3/15-4/15-3 month mark is 4/15. Ideally, if you are going to implant after a miscarriage-I would even say try to have 2-3 natural cycles before pushing the body into a cycle/implanting. I am sure you are asking yourself, what about the second opinions? I want to get to those when I am fully healed and back to normal and what not.
This is month 3 of taking Birth Control, and I do another ultrasound to check that the desired results have been achieved. While we do achieve one of our objectives, smaller cyst-there is not an answer for the pain. I set up a primary care doctor and run into some Insurance issues. The end of the month brings my first cycle since my miscarriage.
Still trying to answer the question of what is causing the pain, I do a CT scan and we don’t end up with a definitive answer, but it ends up being suggested that I do a Low FODMAP diet. I change my diet, again, and try to figure out a better work out schedule. I also interestingly enough talk to a Chinese doctor, it was better than you would think. I have hyperlinked anything that has a more in depth post. This ends the hiatus and next month brings the focus back to action.
My cycle was coming kind of regularly. So this was the time to decide, what doctor was going to the best for our journey? Would we stay with the same doctor, but arm ourselves with a new perspective? Were we going to jump ship? I had a couple of doctors to choose from:
Dr Moayeri of OC Fertility
Dr Jane Frederick at HRC Fertility
Dr James Lin at Reproductive Fertility Center
Dr Terrance Lee of Fertility Care
July was an interesting and lucky time for us in this regards, we decided to call Dr James Lin of RFC, and they were having a birthday special so the consultation was $99. We went to Irvine, their other location is Riverside. We filled out a lot of paperwork, which seemed like a lot for just a consultation but if it turned out to be a switch it would of been worth it. The doctor does not want to look at my document of my history until after we met in person, as Dr Lee did not offer a lot of records, and we asked Dr Lee to send Dr Lin a copy of my records. We got an estimate “10k for 18K”, a special that was offered for people who had appointments in July of 2023 for their birthday special. A fertility coach called us.
I was told to call on the first day of my cycle, but I got busy with visiting family. This opened up the opportunity for us to make a game plan: Egg Retrieval, Receptiva Testing, Implanting. So, the cycle in August did not happen. This will set into motion a crazy September.
I have a missed cycle but it has pregnancy like symptoms. I take at home urine tests, negative. I go to my primary care doctor: urine test and blood test...negative. Weird to say that I had a pregnancy scare, but it was. I had a pap smear scheduled for months, the day of the pap smear my late cycle finally arrives. Me and Dr V Lin agree to do a pap smear on a future prenatal appointment. Since my cycle has arrived, its time to call back Dr J Lin of RFC.
Day 1, I call the office. Day 2, me and my partner do urine test and blood work. I have an ultrasound done to see how many eggs we have going before stimulation. We start Follistim and Menopur, nightly injections in the stomach. For prenatals, he just has me go on a Prenatal Multivitamin and Folic Acid. While I was hoping to check to see if I was allergic to man made folic acid, I took the initiative to switch to natural folic acid.
Paid: $13,070 to RFC | $2,900 to Surgery Center | $239.80 to MDR Pharmacy
Estradiol: 45,137, 385.2, 775, 1307,
LH: 3.48, 2.51, 3.8, 5.91, 6.26
Progesterone: 0.313, 0.432, 0.88, 0.658, 0.930
We go in every couple of days for check up appointments. We add in Ganirelix as an injection, but we make this one for the AM. Egg count changed each time, but they started to grow, we were told to look for any egg over 16 mm. Also they grow about 2 mm per day. It was time to trigger, I don’t remember the process from beginning to end being so short but my stomach was over the injections. Two days after triggering, we went into Egg Retrieval surgery. While I was in surgery, my partner was giving a sample. I was down for 24 hours after the procedure and on Pelvic rest for the next week. The day of surgery I was told we had 14 eggs, and he estimated 7 of those to mature.
12 of them were mixed with Sperm
6 Embryos fertilized normally
Day 5: 1 early blast, 4 compacting, 1 multicell
Day 6: 1 Frozen, 2 multicell, 1 compacting
Embryos are watched for 7 days and the ones that make it are sent off for further testing. Results take 2 weeks to come back. Meanwhile, there is about a week between pelvic rest and when the body should be coming back for cycle. Body feels all sorts of weird as it comes off of hormone withdrawl. Plan is to take birth control to keep the pelvis area quiet while we wait for the results of the embryo testing. But this will conclude this round and we prepare for the next round.
Real talk here for a second, no two egg retrievals are the same. Who is to say why one goes better than the other? The act of playing god with science and hoping your lucky is the very definition of GAMBLE. It hurt like no other hell to hear only one made it. The first feelings? Proud of 14, hopeful at 6, sad at 1 hoping for 2. Ending up with 1? Fear. Who knows how it will grade? Will it make it if I carry? If I made more eggs would they make it through all the tests? Am I too old for this? What more do I do? Sadness. In my family and in yours, less young people are having kids and infertility treatments are more and more due to issues of people trying to have kids later in life. I know that I may be the only granddaughter having kids, and I know my partner works for legacy. I cry at the thought of letting them down. I say this to warn you, this is a highly emotional process-give anyone going through it as much love as you can.
Embryo Grading Results: My one embryo was abnormal/aneuploid. I am pretty heart broken.
But y’all, I felt terrible to switch offices. But the problem with my first office is he was smaller-more fitting his clients to what he found works versus adjusting for each client. My new office is bigger, it means they do everything or most things in house and are cheaper. Problem with bigger is it sometimes seems they are too big to talk to one another. But I am really proud of myself, last time I did Egg Retrieval I was 27 and got 17 eggs. I am 31 years old and got 14 to start, go me! The body changes as it gets older and this was definitely harder on me-despite the lifestyle changes.
