Wednesday, July 2, 2008

overwhelmed... would love your thoughts

our regular repro endrocrinologist is out on mondays so when i went in this monday to see why no period for 56 days, i saw another doc that works with her in the practice.

seems somewhere along the way i did ovulate and period should follow at some point soon so they will not be putting me on progesterone to '' bring down'' my period. we will just wait for it to arrive.

here is the thing... we had been planning to pursue the plan i outlined in last post... we each stimulate, each do egg retrieval and then put her embryo in me...

turns out this other doctor i saw monday thinks that is a terrible idea. he says that i am much more likely to get pregnant carrying her embryo if i do *not* also go through the stimulation before the implant. that was surprising to me... our doc never mentioned that and i never would have imagined it true. most ivf happens just that way - first you stim, then do retrieval and then grow the embryos and then put back in the gal who just stimed. he said that in europe, sometimes women get a discount on ivf if they will agree to donate some of the embryos, but the fact that - % wise - the woman who gets the donation is more likely to get pregnant than the woman who's embryos they are, creates an ethical dilemma... and that is why they do not do that in the states. again, never heard any of this before...

the other thing he felt strongly about was that he thought we needed to do the three rounds of ivf egg harvesting from dakota that our insurance will pay for, and then when we have the three batches in dish, that we do genetic testing and determine that way which ones are good to go. this because of maternal age and the fact that the fact that she has had four miscarriages. at first this seemed sound... then i saw a couple articles that seemed to be saying that there has been no shown correlation between screening and higher birth rates in older moms (link to one below)... and it will cost $3-5K that our insurance will *not* pay.

http://www.ivf.net/ivf/bfs_issues_new_guidelines_recommending_limited_use_of_pgs-o3469-en.html

arrrgh... what to do? maybe we do not stim me, we collect her eggs, do not screen and just try ivf on me with her ''donated'' embryo. or do we collect her eggs, fertilize and save them for later and try IUI on me so we have higher chance [maybe] of us having two kids over time - one related biologically to each of us? have any of you out there dealt with any or all of these issues?

our regular doc was supposed to call us yesterday to talk about all this and she didn't...

sorry for the rambly post, we could really use some input and words of experience :)

4 comments:

K said...

Hey there, thanks for the comment on my blog! I wish I had some wisdom to share on your situation but, like you, I have never heard of those issues your doctor brought up.

I'll be keeping an eye on your journey and hoping for a quick success - however it finds you!

Eva said...

Wow. That sounds much complicated. I guess I have always heard of both ladies being stimmed and then you take it from there but I am no expert. If you trust your RE I would follow his advice. I have been bounced around between different medical opinions and I am starting to think that it just boils down to trusting your gut and timing. Good luck. I will check back in with you to see what you decide. One more thing, whatever you do decide, don't second guess yourself. That is the worst.

Pufferfish said...

When we were going to do it--and the way we will do it if we move forward--would be for my partner to stim and me to carry. Not both of us to stim. That was the protocol from my RE, who is one of the top 2 RE's in NYC. He really knows his IVF.

Thanks for the hug!

Io said...

Hey, there are actually a couple places in the States that do partial donation - (hi! wannabe breeder here! Welcome to the IF blogosphere!) I was planing on doing it actually so I could afford my IVF. Just fyi.
Best of luck!