IVF Information

I talked to the IVF coordinator at our RE's office today, and here's what I learned:

She will check on whether we can continue to retrieve eggs from Shrike after her 39th birthday, but she thinks we can.

She'll also check on whether we could do a few cycles w/Shrike's eggs and then switch to an anonymous donor if we need to, but thinks that's also possible.

She will have a financial coordinator call me to discuss the cost for using Shrike's eggs, and for using an anonymous donor, and the various options (shared / not shared) there.

She was also able to actually answer several questions:

As far as things to be done ahead of time, Shrike would just need a couple more blood tests, but that's it. (She was very impressed with her 36 antral follicles, of course.)

We would also need a new letter from Dr T saying that we're not too crazy for this. Specifically, that we've discussed and worked out all the issues involved w/Shrike donating eggs to me or, more issuey, with using an anonymous egg donor.

From the last IUI, it would take about 3 months before we can do our first IVF cycle.

The first thing we do is a mock cycle. Starting day 2 of my period, I would get estrogen shots, then mid-cycle, there would be ultrasound and blood work, the 2nd half of the cycle, I'd do progesterone (and estrogen??) shots, and at the end, would have an endometrial biopsy. (That sounds a bit unpleasant.) All that will, of course, take about a month.

A few days after that, I'd have a period, and at that point, they would put us both on birth control pills (oh, irony!) to get our cycles in sync.

Sidebar:
We have lived together for 9.5 years, and our cycles are
not in sync. Shrike is in sync with the other girls at work, though. Which
actually makes sense, since she spends more time with them.

Then, in the cycle that we're actually trying, Shrike would get several injections (5 days???) to make lots of eggs, then mid-cycle, they do the retrieval.

Here's the deal with that - She would get IV sedation, they go in vaginally, and then go off roading. They are watching on ultrasound, and use a needle to suck the fluid out of all the follicles. Many, but not all of the follicles will have eggs in them, some but not all of which will be mature. The rate of follicles aspirated to mature eggs is about 70%.

Then, they put the eggies and spermies together for fertilization and watch for a few days.

The following day is considered "day 1" and on day 3 or 5 they transfer a few and freeze the rest.

(That's the only numbers I hear. I don't know if they ever do it on day 4. That's odd. So to speak.)

The transfer is done just like the IUI, with a catheter through the cervix, except that afterward they would send me home to bed for 24 hours.

If we do all the IUIs we have coming to us first, we could not do an IVF cycle before Shrike's birthday, so we have to find out if that's ok.

Of course, we hope that will all be moot three weeks from now, but if this cycle doesn't work, I kind of feel like maybe we should talk to Dr E about what our odds are for 3 more IUIs and whether we're throwing good money after bad, continuing that.

I'm really not thrilled about the idea of having to borrow that kind of money, and I'm not yet totally ok with giving up on my eggs, but if doing all 6 IUIs means we're just going to piss away another $5000, without much luck of it working, and then still have to do IVF, what's the point?
(Also, each cycle, I become more and more ok with just getting the job done, whatever it takes.)

On the other hand, as Shrike pointed out, who can predict what will happen, and if we give up on IUI before we use up all our cycles, will we always wonder if we would have really had to go to IVF if we'd kept trying?

So, we'll keep all this in mind, and will do what we need to in order to be ready for the IVF if it comes to that, but in the meantime we'll be keeping our fingers crossed for one of these 3 follicles that I've got right now to be a keeper!