Last Chance Workout

Biggest Loser reference, anyone?

This weekend has been one big, giant infertility whirlwind. The last big push before weigh in.

I had my monitoring appointment on Friday to see how I had responded to my Letrozole. As per usual, only one follicle(size 23mm) and ready to go.

More importantly, we had our consult with our new Dr. to meet and talk about future treatment plans. We didn’t want to take the wind out of this cycles sails, because we certainly hope that this works, but if it doesn’t, we need to know where to go from here. And since we live 3 hours away from our Dr’s office, it was much more convenient to have this consult while we were at the office.

This is what we were left with:

Because I have responded well to Letrozole/IUI, there is no reason to try with injectable medication/IUI. For numerous reasons. 1) It wouldn’t increase our success rates 2) with my age we would be at risk of super high multiples(not talking twins, talking like quads/quints kind of risk) 3) On the opposite end, I could not respond any differently and have spent significantly more time and money and the inconvenience of injectable medicine to not have much difference at all.

So that leaves us with only one more available treatment option. IVF.

I figured we were headed here, but the potential to be in the midst of an IVF cycle in just a few weeks was a complete shock to me. There are many perks to going this route if IUI #3 fails us. Such as: 60-80% success rates instead of 12% currently, the potential for frozen embryos so in a few years when we want to try again we would have my 24 year old embryos to use, it will be the fastest way with the highest success rates to get where we want to be. Pregnant.

There are also many downsides. Firstly, the cost. Outrageous. Secondly, the time involved. Multiple blood draws, ultrasounds, doctors appointments, and tons more medication. I’ll pretty much be living in Kansas City for the 5 weeks it takes to try. The 20-40% risk that it won’t work at all. It’s given us so much to think about, pray about, to decide together. This weekend has been completely overwhelming.

While we were at the office we had an IVF consult. They explained that we can have the consult and not do IVF, but we can’t do IVF without the consult. So, while we were there, we went ahead and gathered as much information as we possibly could.

I trigged with Ovidrel Friday night and we had IUI #3 on Saturday morning.

We’re so hoping and praying that this works. It would not only be such an answer to prayers, but it would save us so much decision making about finances, timing, and our future.

Now we wait and hope for the next two weeks.