The March 2008 Infertility ONE Thread - Page 4

[ourdomicile]

biomama My naturopath recommended Maca root and it seems to have had a real impact on count and motility. Not so much on morphology. But his numbers doubled on that and a multi vitamin alone over a 2 month period, we'll see what the tests from tomorrow have to say as that was back in the Fall.

My naturopath was pretty specific about using organic maca and if possible from a fair trade source. We're using Maca Sure, which is easy to get here in Canada, but there are lots of other brands. I've also heard a number of reports of positive impacts with TCM/acupuncture, but my DH hasn't been as good about going to that or taking the herbs. The maca though he really likes. It upped his libido right away, and his overall energy levels too, so I guess he had positive reinforcement I'm not sure it would work for everyone obviously, but it seems like an easy one to try.

Thanks for your good thoughts!

[crazyrunningmama]

Jeez Louise! I was only away for a couple of days. what happened? So is the idea of the One Thread to have just a general chat thread, one not focussed on a specific topic or question, or am I missing something?

Jamie I am so sorry.

Me: Technically TTC since October 03, since we haven't used protection since then! Hmm, I wonder if there's a bunch of expired condoms in my nightstand. We have mf issues, did IVF with ICSI Jan 05, BFP but m/c at 7 weeks. FET in Aug 05, BFP. My dd was born May 06. I am currently weaning, looking into accupuncture and trying to lose some weight as I gear up for another cycle of IVF/ICSI. I feel really lucky that IVF has been so successful for us, and really freakin' anxious at the thought of rolling the dice again.

[songbird45]

crazyrunningmama - yes, general chat thread. I'm glad it's here, it makes me feel better that there are a bunch of us going through this. You know, now that you mention it, I bet we have a big box of expired condoms too!

stacymom - thank you for your experience with metformin! I'm very nervous about it, because I am not overweight and generally have blood sugar that runs low. I do tend to eat healthy (lots of fruits and veggies and beans), but I don't avoid all white flour or refined sugar or anything. My OB only prescribed 500mg though, so maybe it won't be so bad.

All weekend my hopes were way up because I've never had an LP longer than 13 days before. But between the BFN yesterday and the temp drop today, I guess we're probably going to be on to cycle 2 soon, and I'll need to fill those scripts.

[mermay1677]

No ovulation this cycle...

Well, today is CD27 with no signs of ovulation I talked to my RE's office and we are definitely moving on to injectables w/IUI next cycle, but I have to wait until CD35 b/f they will give me provera to "jump start" my period (I won't have one on my own unless I ovulate)....

I'm so frustrated and really hate being "put on hold"... any advice on ways to get AF to show w/out having to wait on the provera Rx?? (in case you haven't noticed, patience is NOT a virtue I possess... lol)

[coome]

just popping by to say hi! this thread is moving fast!

we went to the RE for our IVF consult on thursday...she spent an hour and a half chatting with us about all the possibilities, procedure, etc. it was really enlightening and made me feel really comfortable with the decision. did you guys know there is a huge difference between a 3-day and 5-day transfer? apparently there are a few risks associated with 5-day that most docs don't tell their patients about. my doc is such a researcher it's crazy. she's all about educating us on all our options. i'm getting excited about it...finally a time i won't mind AF coming so we can get started!

oh, also if you're looking to improve your dh's count/motility/morphology, my dh is on antelope antler velvet pills (you can find them online) and it improved his by like triple!

[hope4light]

TTC since March 2006. Severe Male Factor, only about 600,000 so to low for IUI or clomid. All due to problem DH had as a child, so there is nothing that they can do to up the counts (count/motility/morphology all very bad) as it is nothing environmental. Slightly low progesterone as well. 1 failed round of clomid before talked to RE. Now TTC with IVF, cycle 1 cancelled due to hyper stim. IVF cycle 1 round 2 to start in about 5 wks while my ovaries clear out.

Love my RE, spends lots of time with us explaining what and why. Great when cycle 1 round 1 cancelled because he obviously hated to dash the hopes that we had hinging on this first try. Just trying to remember that we can't hinge our hopes on the first go round because it doesn't always work that way.... we should all be used to that by now right? Too hard not to get them up though.

Thanks for starting the thread, it helps to see where everyone else is at.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

Originally Posted by coome

we went to the RE for our IVF consult on thursday...she spent an hour and a half chatting with us about all the possibilities, procedure, etc. it was really enlightening and made me feel really comfortable with the decision. did you guys know there is a huge difference between a 3-day and 5-day transfer? apparently there are a few risks associated with 5-day that most docs don't tell their patients about. my doc is such a researcher it's crazy. she's all about educating us on all our options. i'm getting excited about it...finally a time i won't mind AF coming so we can get started!

I'd love to hear more about the 3- vs 5- day thing. We have been shown the stats and at our clinic, chances of a successful transfer are quite a bit higher with 5-day. The risk (and for us unfortunately it happened) is that you can lose all the embies. What else did she let you know about? I'd love to hear anything. Thanks!

[crazyrunningmama]

Helllloooooo second day of cramps. I'd rather be pregnant, or young and better able to bounce back from this monthly pain and blechiness.

[coome]

perdita~ well i'll do my best to explain! it's true that you lose about 50% of your embryos by waiting until day 5. this does mean they are hearty, but it doesn't mean the others wouldn't have survived a 3 day transfer. anyways...so at day 3 they change the medium (culture) in which the embryo lives. the medium that 3-days are in has been tested for over 20 years with no negative results. however...the 5-day medium has just recently been linked to several types of childhood cancers. even the president of RESOLVE has recently had a friend whose 8 year old (5-day transfer) died of a brain tumor....this is NOT to say it WILL happen, but is something parents should be educated on in the event they should keep an eye out for certain signs during childhood...they recently went back after this finding to study the chemical makeup of the fallopian tubes and have now tried to duplicate that. this new medium has only been out for use since october...and i don't know if all drs have it or not...so my RE will do 5 day transfers but she likes patients to be aware that no studies have been conducted on this medium. most drs don't tell their patients b/c doing 5 day transfers ups their rates of success. so that's the "short" of it! according to my doc, between day 3 and 5 of an embryo is the most critical stage of human/animal development, so it would make sense that you want this development to happen in a safe environment. does that make any sense??

[mischievium]

Originally Posted by crazyrunningmama

Jeez Louise! I was only away for a couple of days. what happened? So is the idea of the One Thread to have just a general chat thread, one not focussed on a specific topic or question, or am I missing something?

Welcome, crazyrunningmama! The idea was to help build more of a community between those of us who are coping with infertility issues. It just seemed like every time I came to this forum there were a lot of little threads on individual issues, but no one place where we all could come together.

Originally Posted by songbird45

All weekend my hopes were way up because I've never had an LP longer than 13 days before. But between the BFN yesterday and the temp drop today, I guess we're probably going to be on to cycle 2 soon, and I'll need to fill those scripts.

songbird45

Originally Posted by mermay1677

Well, today is CD27 with no signs of ovulation I talked to my RE's office and we are definitely moving on to injectables w/IUI next cycle, but I have to wait until CD35 b/f they will give me provera to "jump start" my period (I won't have one on my own unless I ovulate)....

I'm so frustrated and really hate being "put on hold"... any advice on ways to get AF to show w/out having to wait on the provera Rx?? (in case you haven't noticed, patience is NOT a virtue I possess... lol)

How frustrating! I wish I had some advice for you (I think some people have been able to bring on AF by using progesterone cream and then stopping it, but I don't know how much for how long or how well it works), patience is not a virtue of mine, either .

Originally Posted by hope4light

TTC since March 2006. Severe Male Factor, only about 600,000 so to low for IUI or clomid. All due to problem DH had as a child, so there is nothing that they can do to up the counts (count/motility/morphology all very bad) as it is nothing environmental. Slightly low progesterone as well. 1 failed round of clomid before talked to RE. Now TTC with IVF, cycle 1 cancelled due to hyper stim. IVF cycle 1 round 2 to start in about 5 wks while my ovaries clear out.

Welcome, hope4light! I'm sorry to hear about your first round getting canceled. I don't know about you, but for me the waiting is awful-- and often it feels like we're waiting to wait some more.

Originally Posted by coome

perdita~ well i'll do my best to explain! it's true that you lose about 50% of your embryos by waiting until day 5. this does mean they are hearty, but it doesn't mean the others wouldn't have survived a 3 day transfer. anyways...so at day 3 they change the medium (culture) in which the embryo lives. the medium that 3-days are in has been tested for over 20 years with no negative results. however...the 5-day medium has just recently been linked to several types of childhood cancers. even the president of RESOLVE has recently had a friend whose 8 year old (5-day transfer) died of a brain tumor....this is NOT to say it WILL happen, but is something parents should be educated on in the event they should keep an eye out for certain signs during childhood...they recently went back after this finding to study the chemical makeup of the fallopian tubes and have now tried to duplicate that. this new medium has only been out for use since october...and i don't know if all drs have it or not...so my RE will do 5 day transfers but she likes patients to be aware that no studies have been conducted on this medium. most drs don't tell their patients b/c doing 5 day transfers ups their rates of success. so that's the "short" of it! according to my doc, between day 3 and 5 of an embryo is the most critical stage of human/animal development, so it would make sense that you want this development to happen in a safe environment. does that make any sense??

That's really interesting-- and not something I would never have thought to consider.

[ItyBty]

I just want to say thank you for starting this thread. I've been a member of the TTC 12+ months thread for a long time now, and it was really hard to see all the "noobies" coming and going, while I was still there. I mean, I'm not happy that there are this many people in the same boat as I am, because I wouldn't wish this on anyone, but at the same time, I am really glad to not be alone in this, if you know what I mean.

[soulshine]

coome,
the 3 day vs 5 day is very interesting to me, but that's the 1st i've heard about childhood cancers. jeez louise. like anyone needs that to factor into all the decisions you have to consider... we were not given a choice and 5-day's never came up as an option. i think our clinic feels like they do best with 3-day's so that's what they do. the embryologist probably doesn't have the skills/equiptment needed to do 5-days, but that's alright with me.

for all the ivf-ers... i am curious to know if your r.e.'s ever brought up this notion that it takes an average of 3 cycles to get pregnant? is this an age-related thing? and, going into your first cycle, are/were you thinking that the first one would work? i don't know how to feel about this. it is a terrible thing either way!! if you get your hopes up for success at try #1, and it fails, it totally sucks. but to go into it thinking it is going to fail, well, then, why bother at all? also, this 'average of 3 cycles' thing, well, that's not a somewhat fathomable cost of maybe $15000 for a cycle. that's close to $50000!! holy huge amount of money!! sigh. i am trying to find some place of peace about this. i cannot stand the disappointment. makes me pine for the days of ttc-au natural and testing with a $1 stick.

also, the whole entire stat thing is ridiculous. knowing that each woman is completely different going into the cycle, how can you compare yourself to everyone else and whether or not it is going to work for you? how can a woman, who, say, has no fallopian tubes think that her success can be compared to say, someone with unexplained IF? but they are all grouped together inn the stat-taking.

i think the way to view it is on a more singular level... 'will ivf work for ME?' not 'will i be one of the lucky 30/40/50 whatever % of women who will get pregnant this time?'

i have a friend who did ivf. she was in her late 20's, and they had male factor IF. she got pregnant on the first try with twins and she is trying to tell me this is what is going to happen to me. but, i try to explain to her that i am 38, and we have unexplained IF, and so on and so on... but no, she says 'everyone i know got pregnant with twins on the first try'. to her, ivf has a 100% success rate, with twins, nonetheless! so it is all relative.

i think i will give it a few tries. and then, move away from it. (sounds easy now, but the tricky part is the 'moving on') i am tired of grieving losses! my friends are busy raising their new families, and we have been busy grieving losses. when i was growing up, my mom had a friend who was suffering through IF. they tried and tried, like 7 or 8 ivf's and nothing. they switched clinic's, tried new technologies, etc. she was always so sad. 15 years of sadness, and i never could understand, because all the while they were adding to their family through adoption. they have 3 kids! but she couldn't give the dream of a pregnancy up. i could never understand it. well, haha, now i am walking in her footsteps. i've had 'only' 3 years of sadness, and it's almost finished me off. and i havn't even had a full ivf cycle yet!!

well, anyway... just some thoughts.

i tried to post the other day and it got eaten.
i wanted to say to jamie how sad i was to hear her news. i wanted to give her a hug... (((jamie))). i wonder how you are doing?

one last thing. are any of the ivf'ers using tcm herbs?
did your r.e. have any views on herbs while cycling? i have heard some don't want you to take them, esp. during stimming. my acupuncturist told me this is probably due to the r.e.'s not knowing what the herbs are or what they are doing... i have decided to take them through my bcp's, and then stop at my suppression check. i don't even know what are in them- it is a blend of 15 or so tcm herbs, called 'warm the menses'. i think i am going to stop my western herbs during stims, too.

best wishes to you all... its been nice to have a home to check into...

[biomama]

Originally Posted by soulshine

coome,
the 3 day vs 5 day is very interesting to me, but that's the 1st i've heard about childhood cancers.

I hadn't heard of that either! It must be so hard to study that stuff, to keep all the IVF kids enrolled in a study and follow them for so many years!

Originally Posted by soulshine

for all the ivf-ers... i am curious to know if your r.e.'s ever brought up this notion that it takes an average of 3 cycles to get pregnant? is this an age-related thing? and, going into your first cycle, are/were you thinking that the first one would work? i don't know how to feel about this. it is a terrible thing either way!! if you get your hopes up for success at try #1, and it fails, it totally sucks. but to go into it thinking it is going to fail, well, then, why bother at all? also, this 'average of 3 cycles' thing, well, that's not a somewhat fathomable cost of maybe $15000 for a cycle. that's close to $50000!! holy huge amount of money!! sigh. i am trying to find some place of peace about this. i cannot stand the disappointment. makes me pine for the days of ttc-au natural and testing with a $1 stick.

I just had How to Get Pregnant checked out from the library, and Dr. Sherman Silber, the author, has all these tables in there for IVF success rates (per cycle) for all these different parameters, including maternal age. It may be useful to take a look at the book, though I'd take it all with a grain of salt. Dr. Silber runs a pretty big IVF clinic in St. Louis, and he is very negative about everything that isn't IVF done his way. Plus he didn't cite the research literature for his claims, which always makes me mad, since I like to look things up and read about the primary data myself.

I totally agree about the financial cost (let alone emotional one) is daunting. I've heard about programs that allow you to pay for 3 cycles up front, and then if you don't get pg in those 3 cycles, they give you the money back (or give you more cycles for free) or something. Kind of like shared risk insurance.

[mermay1677]

Ok, I've been researching how to "jump start" AF so I can move on to the next cycle... and I keep reading about parsley tea... has anyone tried this??

I went by the Herb Shop last night and picked up a box... and it is SO GROSS, but will be worth it if it works...

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

Originally Posted by soulshine

coome,
the 3 day vs 5 day is very interesting to me, but that's the 1st i've heard about childhood cancers. jeez louise. like anyone needs that to factor into all the decisions you have to consider... we were not given a choice and 5-day's never came up as an option. i think our clinic feels like they do best with 3-day's so that's what they do. the embryologist probably doesn't have the skills/equiptment needed to do 5-days, but that's alright with me.

It's all crazy. We had a 3-day transfer our first cycle, and got DD. Our 5-day got us a big fat 0 because all the embryos died before they could be transferred. I know that at our clinic that's rare and they really feel that Day 5s are more successful. But then, most patients don't make it to Day 5 because they don't have enough embies to survive the attrition. We certainly had not heard anything about a cancer risk. We have already stated that in our next cycle we will not be going to Day 5 (on the recommendation of the team of REs after our last cycle) so I guess that's one thing I don't have to worry about next time. Coome, thank you for the information. In a whacked kind of way, it makes our Day 5 failure just a little more palatable. Just a little

I have a friend I met cycling the first time. She has just been diagnosed with breast cancer (super-healthy, just turned 40). Her oncologist says that there are some worries that IVF (especially if you have a whole bunch of cycles) can lead to a higher risk of cancer. It makes sense to me - all that estrogen pumping around in your body - it's why extended breastfeeding and the Pill can lower the risk, because they lower the estrogen (if my simplistic understanding is correct). It worries me. A lot. All that work to get kids, only to be suffering through cancer treatments. I'm not sure how many cycles I'm going to undergo after learning about that. Something else my RE hasn't brought up...

Originally Posted by soulshine

for all the ivf-ers... i am curious to know if your r.e.'s ever brought up this notion that it takes an average of 3 cycles to get pregnant? is this an age-related thing? and, going into your first cycle, are/were you thinking that the first one would work? i don't know how to feel about this. it is a terrible thing either way!! if you get your hopes up for success at try #1, and it fails, it totally sucks. but to go into it thinking it is going to fail, well, then, why bother at all? also, this 'average of 3 cycles' thing, well, that's not a somewhat fathomable cost of maybe $15000 for a cycle. that's close to $50000!! holy huge amount of money!! sigh. i am trying to find some place of peace about this. i cannot stand the disappointment. makes me pine for the days of ttc-au natural and testing with a $1 stick.

I don't know if my RE brought it up specifically, but it makes sense to me based on both IVF statistics and just plain old pregnancy statistics (natural pregnancy rate is 25% or something?).

I did go into my first one thinking it would work. And it did. We were fully male factor (so I thought) so chances were good everything would work out. As it turns out, I have a low-ish ovarian reserve and need quite a bit of FSH to get me going - that doesn't help matters. But shouldn't impact pregnancy.

I went into my second IVF feeling like it wasn't going to work. And it didn't. I don't think what I thought had much to do with it, but to be honest I figured that the chances of two successful cycles in a row was a bit unlikely. But I know it's happened, and what are you going to do? The option is not to try. It's a huge amount of money.

Originally Posted by soulshine

also, the whole entire stat thing is ridiculous. knowing that each woman is completely different going into the cycle, how can you compare yourself to everyone else and whether or not it is going to work for you? how can a woman, who, say, has no fallopian tubes think that her success can be compared to say, someone with unexplained IF? but they are all grouped together inn the stat-taking.

Well, stats are stats. They do have usefulness. But yeah, they're useful for knowing which way things are trending. More women get pregnant with X or Y protocol yada yada. But I too wish that we could see success rates broken down a bit more by cause of IF. And the stats at our clinic were that they had our situation (embies all died) only twice before in their last 10 years. Well, that's great, but we became #3. So bugger the stats!

[songbird45]

mischevium, can you change my description to match my current signature? AF started today, so we're on to cycle 2 with Clomid.

[soulshine]

perdita,
thanks for your take on all that! i am really sorry to read that your friend got dx w/breast cancer. that part of the ivf is definately scary. you are using intense drugs, not magic pills. i am hoping that my generally good health will work to my benefit in the face of the med onslaught...
for us, like you this last time, the statistics have all been not to our particular favor. the chances of having a full term stillbirth are like 1%. but if it happens to you, it's as if it is 100%. it happened. its real. with our subsequent miscarriage, they say that once you see a healthy heartbeat, the chances of miscarriage are like 5% (can't rememeber specifically, but something quite low)... at this point in my 'career' i was paying attention to stats. but then, our baby fell into that 5%. chances of getting pregnant naturally each cycle? 20%. 30 cycles later, you find yourself in the 80% of nada and start to wonder. move your butt over to the r.e. where the stats are a bit better, hey, 30-50% sounds pretty good, right? i guess. what are the other options? i don't know- for us there aren't realy any. it's frustrating! what are the chances of ovulating through the lupron?! its *almost* funny. but, having said all that, i still am optimistic about doing the ivf. and in the larger picture, still optimistic about becoming a parent in general. thinking about the stats, we got pregnant unplanned and unexpected with our daughter while on the pill. again, 1% chance of that happening! iy-yi-yi! but, that turned out to be a very good 1%... she changed out lives and although her life was brief, she is our daughter and we are so blessed.

so, i am on a general anti-stat kick, i guess! they really have been bumming me out!

biomama, our clinic does have a shared-risk program and we totally would have done it but you have to be under 38 at the time of your first cycle, so we missed that boat. the shared risk is a great idea... unless, i guess, you get pregnant in the first cycle, right?!! but then if that happens, who cares! it worked! it's worth it!

mermay,
do you see an acupuncturist? i have heard you can use acu. for bringing on your period. have not tried parsey tea. sounds... bracing. i hope it works for you! that extended waiting is terrible, isn't it?

[mermay1677]

Originally Posted by soulshine

perdita,
mermay,
do you see an acupuncturist? i have heard you can use acu. for bringing on your period. have not tried parsey tea. sounds... bracing. i hope it works for you! that extended waiting is terrible, isn't it?

I have not tried acupuncture, but am very interested... I just called my RE's office and sent them the info on my insurance's mail order pharmacy... I can get 3 months of injectable meds for $35!! I'm not sure exactly how long it will take for them to come in, so I'm holding off on pushing for AF to start until they get here... don't want to get ahead of myself!!

As for the parsley tea, I have read where it can work in as little as 24 hrs!!! Guess I should def wait until the meds get here to start drinking a lot of it!! I'm sure I'll be VERY motivated to drink it if I have the meds sitting there waiting on me!!!

[poetgirl]

Soulshine, I am going to try to get on the anti-stat board with you.

In Dec. our RE told us we had a 1-2% chance of conceiving naturally. I simply cannot digest that esp. given that I O every month and DH has no mf. Then it went 5% w/ clomid, 10% clomid+IUI, 15% inject, 35% ivf. It's so hard to go into these months knowing you barely have a shot. Comparatively the normal 20-25% seems so high now! Makes me wonder sometimes if we should just jump to ivf. ??? My sister is on her 3rd round of inject. For that price we might as well just do ivf. How do you decide to move onto that step?

I'm trying not to let this get to me. Anyone else share in the slim chance figures presented to them by an RE? How do you cope w/ that?

p.s. I agree w/ Ity. This thread is good company for a tough road. Thanks Mischievium for starting it.

[mermay1677]

I just talked to my RE's office to find out what injectable drug they plan to use starting next cycle... they gave me 3 names that are basically the same med, just made by different companies... 2 of them are available through my insurance's mail order pharmacy... the cost is....

Are you ready for this????

3 month supply is....

ONLY $35!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so pumped!!! I just faxed the Rx form to the nurse so she can send it off today!! We want to make sure the drugs are here b/f AF shows... which could be in 5 days or not until we "jump start" with provera....

Anyways, I just wanted to share so good news for a change (hasn't been much this cycle)...

So, the plan for next cycle is to use injectables (either follistem or gonal-f) for up to 10 days (starting w/CD3)... plus an IUI.... any words of wisdom from anyone who has been down this path????