You take the good, you take the bad......

H got really tired of me moping around the house and making up stories in my head about what went wrong with cycle# 5 (totally obsessing about what the Dr. might say.) I'm sure the past 2 weeks have not been easy on him. He does not like to see me hurting so he took charge and booked a follow up with Dr. D. I had my WTF yesterday. Despite not being ready,I agreed to meet with the Dr. and hear what he had to say.

He feels like there are 2 possible problems:

1. My uterus

2. H's sperm


I was totally prepared for him to tell me to start picking egg donors but he seems to think that my eggs are not necessarily the biggest issue.....good news, right? Not so much. He does want me to try at least 1 more cycle with my own eggs because I respond very well to the meds for a woman my age. I make a decent amount of eggs for a 39 year old and my FSH is quite low (never above a 7.1 thankyouverymuch). Remember, this guy is the AMA Guru so he has seen a lot of women my age and even younger who do not do as well with egg making as I do. He also sees lots of women my age who do not respond as well as I do but end up pregnant with less IVFs under their belts.

However, that doesn't mean we get to celebrate..... It takes 2 people to make a baby(or 22 if you do IVF but 2 people need to bring the good DNA). Dr. D feels that H might have more problems than low sperm count, motility and morph. He thinks the DNA in the sperm might be bad. For the past 2 years, I have been begging to have H's sperm tested for chromosomal abnormalities but the REs keep telling me that ICSI takes care of all the problems with the sperm and it has to be my eggs because I am over 35. There is, however, a test called an SCSA and it tests for DNA fragmentation in the sperm. Two other REs have shoved the AMA diagnosis down my throat for the past 2 years and would not even entertain the fact that the sperm might be abnormal. Dr. D suggested the test to us without prompting from me. Guess what? Turns out ICSI does not fixy everything. Something I suspected all along......Not that it matters who has the problem, but the eggs have done nothing but age and I feel like we have lost a lot of time. If we knew of this 2 years ago, we could have done DS instead of blaming my eggs and making us both feel like crap and still leaving us childless.


What does that mean if the sperm are fragmented? If we find that H's sperm are more than 14% fragmented, it decreases our chances. Dr. D gives us a 30% shot any given cycle but if we find fragmentation, it would decrease our chances to about 20%. Why such a big deal? Well, I thought DE would fix everything since my eggs are so "bad" but if the sperm is "bad", then the chances of success using a younger woman's eggs would also be decreased. Not an ideal situation at $30,000. yes, $30,000 a pop.

Dr. D also wants to do a hysteroscopy (exam of the ute under anaesthesia) to check out my lining very closely. The HSG (dye in the tubes and ute)can tell you only so much. It can search for polyps and fibroids but it is not so good finding the scar tissue. My ute could have cobwebs(not due to lack of sex) or be really scaly. Not the ideal enviromnment for implantaion to occur.He feels that there might be something going on in there because of the d & c last year. If he finds anything, he'll remove it. I appreciate how thorough he is and hope that his instinct is right about us.....that we are 1 cycle away from success. He actually said that. If nothing else, I will get some good drugs when they knock me out while he looks around.

So, we have a few more tests to look forward to. Another heartbreak? Do we push forward and keep hoping for the best? Keep doing cycles until we can't take it anymore? (I'm pretty much there)Or do we stop everything and prepare to live childless? Are we just prolonging the grieving process? Lots of decisions to make.At this point we will have the tests. If we don't do another cycle, we will at least have some answers. If you feel like weighing in or giving me any advice...I'll take it.