Road to nowhere...

Hey, it's Lara. We haven't posted in a while because it's just been bad news after bad news and it's difficult to talk about. After all the crap with figuring out the stims, we went to retrieval and the doc asperated 11 follicles, 7 were mature, and 5 actually fertilized. I think that's where we left off. We had hope for our 5 fertilized embryos and were hoping they would all hold on. Five days after retrieval came transfer, where they put the embryos back in. The embryologist doesn't look at the embryos after day 3, until you come into the office for transfer on day 5. Then, after you know how the embryos look, you can decide which ones and how many to transfer. Well, we walked in the office with high hopes, then sat down at the doc's desk. I glanced at the paperwork and immediately noticed (and said) that at least two of our embryos looked like shit from the day 3 photos. Come to find out, only 4 embryos made it to day 3. They looked something like this...in fact, our day 3 pics looked almost exactly like this pic I found online:

 

The ones on the right are pretty decent for day 3- equally sized cells. The ones on the left are really fragmented (as a result of unequal cellular division) and will probably die off. And this was at day 3. Our day 5 pics contained the official bad news- we only had two embryos left and they weren't of great quality. On a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being the best, ours were graded a 2 and a 3. They are supposed to look like the bottom pic on the right at day 5:

 

Our two embryos looked like the one in the middle row, on the right...more like a 3.5-4 day embryo. Not good, at all. There was no decision to be made, as we had to put both of the crappy embryos in for transfer. The others they were going to leave until day 6 and see if they survived (unlikely). At this point, I was really torn up about it. I pretty much started grieving as soon as I saw the pictures of our embryos. I also have to say that I wasn't a very good partner during transfer...I alternated between being mad and crying. It wasn't a good time, for sure. I'm just glad they had given JL a valium to relax her and she slept after they transferred the embryos.

The actual process of transfer involved the embryologist, who we hadn't met until that day. His lab was right across from our room, so he could fetch the embryos and the doc could transfer them immediately. He had the embryos in some sort of medium and he had to suck them up into a flexible cathedar, under the microscope. First, he sucked up an air bubble, then the two embryos, then another air bubble. By doing so, the doc can know that he has transferred both embryos if he can see both air bubbles under the sonogram. Of course I had to take pics:

Embryologist sucking up our embryos

 

Sonogram during transfer. The green arrows indicate the air bubbles. The embryos are somewhere in between.

 

So, needless to say, I left the transfer being pretty upset about everything- how emotionally taxing this has been the past two years, how we hung our last bit of hope on IVF, and how it probably wasn't going to turn into anything except another negative and another monthly bill with nothing to show for it. Not to mention all the drugs JL had to put into her body, how she put her body through hell for this:

75 vials of injectables. Four vials, twice a day.

 

So, fast forward another week. We received a letter yesterday that we had zero embryos to freeze. Not surprising but I think this was the point where it really hit JL hard. Then, we did a home pregnancy test this morning and it was negative. JL has to go in for an official blood test on Wednesday and on Friday. I just want to get this shit over with so we can move forward. The bad news just never stops. It's like you have this huge chunk of hope and every day something chips away at it. I barely have any hope now and the blood test will be the sledge hammer that obliterates that last little sliver.

 

I can't speak for JL, but I can say that, as of right now, I'm pretty jaded. I'm generally not an angry person, but everything is irritating and makes me angry. I don't know...I hope some psychological space between us and this process of trying to get pregnant will help things. It's hard to look forward because there are so many questions. Why can't we get pregnant? What are we doing wrong? Could we have done anything else? Should we switch doctors? Should we switch donors? Are we just not destined to be parents? Could we be okay with that? I don't know the answers to these questions...wish I did. Anyway, that's what's going on right now with our process.

 

 This is Jave chiming in before we post this - I am very very emotional today. I keep waivering between hoping for the impossible and just feeling devastated and hurt.  I somewhat succumbed to my negative feelings yesterday - feelings of hating my body for doing something I can't will it to do or questioning if I did everything the exact way I was told to in this cycle. I'm expecting the bad news after my second blood draw Friday, but I hope I'll be able to have closure with all of this when some questions are answered in our post cycle consultation with the RE. I feel a bit lost and speechless. I know closure will come inevitably, and all the gentle condolences from friends and family will resonate in me. I'm trying to keep those kind words in mind today - remembering that things happen for a reason and things will be as they should in the long run.