#3 rules the day

first off let me just say that reading the comments you gals left on my last post has been so helpful and calming...

well let me say it this way, thanks for helping me to see/embrace/admit that i am confused and overwhelmed because what we are trying to navigate is knots-in-your-stomach confusing and mind-numbingly overwhelming. not, for example, because i am not paying enough attention, or being indecisive, or i don't know... some other embarrassingly degraded reason i could come up with. so again, thank you, thank you, thank you, you lovely women you!

here is what the doctor said... she thinks that option #3 rules the day (with option #1 being second best and option #2 being a distant final option).

that means (brace your selves for the mind searing details ladies):

* i do the first round of stimulation (starting this week) so that we can harvest and freeze a round of my eggs/embryos (we have opted to not have dakota do a harvest in this round because fresh transfer is best and our insurance will cover three rounds of harvest - we are holding out for the ability to do three rounds of fresh transfer from her if we need to go three rounds. we will freeze anything that is good and does not get used in the fresh transfers)

* then during second cycle, dakota does stimulation and harvest (i do no more harvests, just gear up for receiving embryos - stay on meds to be sync'd and ready). we do fresh transfer from dakota to me during this second cycle. (we hope this part of the dance ends here in pregnancy, but we will rinse and repeat from this spot as needed).

* we keep my eggs/embryos frozen for future use even though the quality is not ideal with them frozen (we think that frozen, one year younger embryos will be better than one year older eggs for us at this stage)

dear dr... options, details, questions

hello blog compatriots -

for those of you who are into process, i thought i would show you the email/letter that came of the cuddling confab that dakota and i had on sunday night.

i sent this (very detailed) email to our doc this morning (she is best with email, so far it works ok.) we will let you know what she says.

i think we are leaning towards option 3 ourselves - though it would delay actual transfer of any embryos for *at least* another cycle, it covers more bases... JEEZE THIS IS HARD TO NAIL DOWN... and truly, i know we have talked about this 100 times before and yet, it seems impossible to get our heads around the details.

in it you will see all the optimism of two gals who hope to have not only one baby, but two (even though i am, count them, 41 years of age). we figure, why not shoot for what we really want while embracing the life that takes shape around us.

letter

dear dr -

hope you had a good july!

we have some logistic questions for you as we gear up for ivf - hoping to kick off this week...

where we are in our cycles now:
dakota is CD12 (expecting her period around end of month)
mulberry is CD34 (expecting her period on 8/7/08)

we are continuing to review the ways for us to approach ivf. these are the things we are considering in making our decision:

- for now, we have ruled out dakota carrying (we will see if we come back to that at a later date). we are going to focus only on mulberry carrying.
- we want to conceive our first baby with dakota's eggs, if at all possible
- while we want to use dakota's eggs first, we are concerned that if it takes a while to get pregnant with dakota's eggs and then all goes well and we carry to term, it will be another year or more of aging for mulberry's eggs by the time we get to trying for another baby using mulberry's eggs.
- mulberry is VERY sensitive to all medications (a real canary in the coal mine) and we would like to limit the meds mulberry is on when at all possible.
- while we want to look at preparation for possible future babies, we do *not* want that focus, in any way, to get in the way of doing what we need to do to get pregnant with a *first* baby.

can you tell us what the process would be to do each of the options below? and, importantly, your thoughts on what way gives us the *best* chances at this moment?


option #1) dakota goes through stimulation and harvest of eggs and mulberry does *not* do stimulation (so, no egg harvest for mulberry) but mulberry is on what ever drugs needed to sync up with dakota to allow for a fresh transfer on this first cycle.

what meds would be needed for each of us and what would the timeline be? this one obviously requires syncing our cycles. i know we have discussed this before briefly, but we are less than clear on the actual logistics. what is the blow by blow process on how we would do that, given *where we are in our cycles at the moment*?


option #2) dakota goes through stimulation and harvest of eggs and mulberry also does stimulation (so both can freeze eggs) no transfer on this cycle. we would then do a frozen transfer the following cycle when mulberry has *not* just gone through stimulation.

what meds would be needed for each of us and what would the timeline be?


option #3) mulberry does the first round of stimulation so she can harvest and freeze a round of eggs and then during second cycle, dakota does stimulation and harvest. we do fresh transfer during this second cycle to mulberry who would need to be sync'd up to receive the transfer.

what meds would be needed for each of us and what would the timeline be?


do you see another option that would be better for us to consider?? we are hoping to kick things off with mulberry's period that is due this week, thursday.

we look forward to your thoughts via email. let us know if you feel we should plan a time to meet with you in person as well to discuss.

thank you so much!

-- mulberry and dakota

slowing down, deep breaths...

well, i feel like this last week has been a good lesson in clarity... the wish for it, and lack of it, and that it is possible to slow down, take a deep breath and live through mud...

over the last weeks we all watched the soon to be 6 mommies at veeandjay, romancingthestork and joulybeansbabyblog... flap around in the muddy waters and happily come out of the chaos pregnant!

as for our current unclarity, we talked to our regular RE and she did not completely agree with the dr we saw the other day. she did not think we absolutely should not do the simultaneous stimulation, but she did think that we might be a little better off with a more simple protocol. she also did not feel strongly about us needing to do the blanket genetic screening at this juncture which is good, cause we were not comfortable with that.

we have much more talking to do with each other (dakota and i). to start with, we have decided to do nothing at all for july, as i am traveling for two weeks at the end of the month. we will regroup in august. we are going for ivf for sure, but still trying to get clear on if we should find a way to collect some of my eggs before we try to do implant one of dakota's embryos in my uterus so that my eggs don't age another year before we try to use them. we are of course hoping that i will get pregnant with her embryo so that would mean about a year before i would be trying for baby #2. i am 41 now, so that is all a bit daunting...

we did get some good advice (on-line and off) not to second guess ourselves and to trust that we can do this. so we will be keeping on :) with deep breaths...

we will keep updating as we go...

(confession, i have such a hard time with the waiting... i am really trying to do what i am writing - deep breaths!!)

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 :)