Donor Sperm IUI/IVF- 2012

[Redhead7211]

Well I'm a week out from my IUI. I finally woke up Saturday feeling well! I am very relieved I'm not sore anymore. Sunday I was having some odd sensations in my uterus (maybe irritation from the rough IUI?). I've also been very hungry and thirsty. I usually eat toast or cereal for breakfast around 6:30am, by 10:30am I'm hungry again, then I eat some fruit in the afternoon and am starving for dinner. I'll take the hunger though!

 

[Guenhwyvar]

Hello ladies old and new!
I thought I would drop by and see how everyone was doing. There are a lot of new faces out there & I'm so happy to see so many
For the new ladies. I joined the thread back in July doing home DIUI. Got a but it turned out to be ectopic and I disappeared from the thread around Sep, taking some time to sort everything out in my life.
After the ectopic I was put on bc for my endo since we didn't have any plans on trying again until the beginning of this year. Unfortunately it wasn't the right type of bc so I ended up having AF for 10 weeks straight with internal bleeding. On the bright side that got me a referral to a great gyno who's had me on Cilest ever since and wants to do a HSG in preparation for another round of (hopefully) home DIUI in Feb/Mar.
I hope ya'll will let me join you once again.

 

[Redhead7211]

Hi Guenhwyvar! I'm glad (and sad) to see you back on the boards.

I'm sorry to hear about the ectopic pregnancy. Did they have to take a tube? That's good you switched doctors and are getting an HSG done. It will put your mind at ease and will tell you. Is Celist birth control? I'm also sorry to hear about that horrid AF!!

I hope you're all keeping warm! The high here was 4 degrees today!

 

[Redhead7211]

Side note-I have had the worst acne this TWW. I have like 8 pimples on my face finally going away and have it on my back too! ha It's 4 degrees outside and my skin is breaking out all over.

 

[want2beamamma]

Redhead- Thanks so much that means alot I can always feel better about things after chatting with ladies on here! OH will be 30 this year and he has had it done for about 3.5 years. We havent got a call yet for our consult but hopefully soon. We had called early last year and they said they would send out the info for a consult....turns out they DID but to a very old address so we lost out spot Now we have to wait again URGH sometimes I just feel like this is not meant to happen for me!!!!!!!

IVF is approx 12,000 where i am . Funny how location changes everything so much.


How have you been feeling? I really hope this is your month

 

[Redhead7211]

Want2-I always feel better talking to you ladies here. Now that I've been on such a long TTC journey, I recently started telling a few close friends. I think it scares people. I get a random text every so often going "you pregnant yet?" Or "Geez, why aren't you pregnant yet?!" Ha like I'm not trying everything I can to have a baby. I actually had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who is pregnant with her third. She said she would be a surrogate for DH and I if we wanted/needed it. I know NY has some hard surrogate laws in regard to compensation. And I have no idea how we would even go about it, but it's nice she offered and something to think about.

Anyway, I digress...Is there any way you can get your partners vasectomy reversed in another location? When we looked into it, it was much cheaper to go to Toronto, or even another state. Maybe the wait would be shorter too?

I had a really rough start to the TWW. I was in incredible pain, but turned a page Saturday. I've been having some uterus twinges/odd feelings and am always hungry at the same time every day. I've had a very slight congested/sinus stuffy nose thing going on, am feeling very tired, thirsty, with unbelievable acne. I look like my 13 year old self! haha I'm trying not to over think anything. Considering my track record I'm just trying to be very positive. It would be nice to get a BFP for once!

How are you feeling?

 

[Redhead7211]

Well, I'm afraid AF is right around the corner. At work today I started to get cramps, went to the bathroom and had the tiniest bit of brown blood on a panty liner. It took everything I had not to cry the whole rest of the day. I showered and had to come here and talk to you ladies.

I just don't know what to do any more. According to the plan my RE had there are 2 more IUI cycles left before moving on to IVF. I just don't know what to do. I just feel like if I didn't get pregnant from this cycle with all the great numbers, good timing, monitoring etc. why would it work next time? And if so many IUI's have failed, why would IVF work? I get so beyond depressed now every time I have a failed IUI, I don't know how I would even be able to cope with the loss if that didn't work. I just can't see doing any more IUI's at this point. It feels like a waste of money, even though next cycle I'm supposed to be switching meds. I just don't know what to do. I wish someone had a crystal ball and could tell me what will make me pregnant, or even if it's possible. I guess I may look over our adoption paperwork and maybe look into that again.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

 

[silverbell]

I'm so sorry Redhead I truly am. I can honestly say I know precisely how you feel and it's absolutely devastating. Not only have we found ourselves having to use donor sperm - which is a big enough decision as it is - but then we find our supposedly healthy bodies just can't seem to get pregnant anyway. It's a really tough thing to deal with and I know just how it feels.

The decision is entirely yours of course, but knowing what I know now I wish I'd just stopped after 4 or 5 and gone ahead with IVF. They reckon you have a roughly 15 to 20% chance of success with IUI and in my opinion it should therefore have worked within 5 tries.

I'm not sure how readily available IVF is to you? Will you have to pay yourselves for it?

I know for me the last couple of tries with IUI just seemed more like I was ticking boxes and I knew it wasn't going to work, as all the previous ones hadn't. But each time AF appeared I still burst into tears. It's so distressing.

Thinking of you and sending lots of

 

[Redhead7211]

Thanks Silver

I've been holding it together really well. I have the day off today and DH is probably going to a concert a few hours away. I figured worse case scenario I can cry and at least drink coffee and wine all day ha. I'm already dreading this period. The last one on the lower dose of Gonal was horrible, I can only imagine this one.

I'm lucky that I can leach off my mom's health insurance for another 10 months or so and it's very good insurance. I'm not sure what it covers (if anything) in regard to IVF. I know the other doctor in the practice told me that our odds with IVF are in the 50-55% range...which is very tempting. But, like you pointed out there's something about our seemingly healthy bodies that isn't quite "normal". It just makes me nervous to spend serious money on something that could fail, when we could apply that to adoption and hopefully have a child. I know the RE will strongly recommend trying IVF, at least then we'd understand what's going on with my eggs.

I don't really know where I stand. I know DH will support what I pick, but I think he'd feel better just going with adoption. I know he feels helpless when I get my period and with all the pain and discomfort I was in this cycle.

 

[MrsC8776]

ladies! Just stopping in to see how you all are doing.

Welcome back Guen! Fx for your IUI in the coming month.

Welcome back Want2be! So sorry about the last IUI. I was so sure there was something there.

Red I'm so sorry that this hasn't worked yet. Have you thought about switching donors? Oddly enough sometimes that makes a difference. Not sure why but it does. Have you don'e any testing other than an HSG to see if there is anything stopping implantation or anything like that?

Silver how are you doing?

 

[Redhead7211]

MrsC-More importantly how are you feeling? I've been thinking a lot about you and your girls.

DH and I have switched donors a few months ago. I've only had the HSG. I'm not even sure what other tests there are in regard to checking on implantation.

 

[MrsC8776]

Thanks for asking! I'm hanging in there. Had a scan yesterday and baby A is weighing in at 3 lbs 13 oz and baby B is 4 lbs 13 oz. So very close to 9 pounds of baby in there! They are both heads down right now. My body is feeling it for sure and things are becoming very difficult (like walking!). I'll start non stress tests twice a week on Monday. Just have to see how long I can keep these girls in for.

There are some blood tests that can be done to check for certain things. Maybe try asking what they could do before moving on to IVF. I know there are many factors in getting a bfp but knowing all info can help a ton.

 

[Redhead7211]

That's a lot of baby weight for your body to be carrying around. You must be terribly uncomfortable. I'm glad you're almost to the end! I'm looking forward to seeing some baby pics!

She planned on the next IUI being a Lupron one, the one after that a simulated IVF cycle with Menopur(sp?) and Lupron. It just feels like we are throwing away money at this point. I guess I'll call the RE Monday and see what she has to say. Ugh AF is already here with full force and horrid cramps.

 

[SunUp]

I only did 3 IUI's. I could have done 6, but I felt that after the first three, they would have worked if they were going to.

IVF worked for me. I'd say go with what gives you a better chance.

 

[silverbell]

The thing that stands out for me here Red is that you say 'i think'. You need to sit down and ask him how he would feel and what he'd like to do. He might surprise you. My DH has always imagined me being pregnant and going to scans and watching my belly grow. For him having a child was about pregnancy as well as the child at the end of it. We both discussed things and knew we'd have to try IUIs and IVF before we could head down the adoption route. We had to know we'd tried.

You're right that IVF can show you much more about what's going on with your eggs. For me to have 10 mature eggs removed and only 4 fertilising and only 2 of them making it to normal stages, it showed me that a lot of my eggs are duff.

Next IVF in May my doc is going to treat me as if I have natural killer cells and put me on low dose steroids. If I do have NKC then this will help with implantation. There's a possibility I do due to already having an autoimmune condition.

I personally felt so much more positive with IVF because everything is much more certain. Saying that, the crash was much harder when AF showed ...

 

[Guenhwyvar]

Redhead - Thanks so much for the welcome back They treated the Ectopic with methotrexate which sucked a little bit but allowed me to keep my tube for now. My understanding is Cilest is a mostly progesterone bc while your normal bc is mostly. estrogen. I'm brand spanking new to the world of bc, having only previously used it with IVF so anyone with me understanding please free to correct me.
I am so sorry to hear the witch for you. It sounded so promising. You of course have to do what's best for you. I'd definitely call &all for me tests though.
BTW, I love I'm not the only one using their Ginger furbaby as a profile pic!

MrsC - Thanks so much! Glad to hear your girls are growing like weeds. In no the they'll be out & you'll be wishing you could just at down for awhile. :-D

SunUp - Congrats on the since my departure!

AFM, I've had a horrible cold where it fees like all I did was sleep. On the bright side I've been trying to lose a few pounds & there's nothing like being sick to help ya out a little. I go for my HSG Tuesday. I'm a little nervous but prepared for it to show a blockage in my right tube since that was the one with the Ectopic & it trends to be bent/twisted in US.

 

[CanadianMaple]

Guenhwyvar- I think I have the same cold. I had strep throat last weekend and the cold hit my second day on the antibiotics. I have been napping all weekend even though the worse seems to be behind me. Glad to see you back!

MrsC- That is a lot of weight to carry around.

Silverbell- It sounds like they have a good plan for your next IVF.

Redhead- So sorry that AF found you again. I think it may be a good idea to touch base with your RE. I was given the option to do medicated IUIs or just go straight to IVF. We opted for IVF even though the thought is still scary to me.

AFM- I go for my teaching appointment on Tuesday and start my Suprefact injections on Wednesday. I'm really scared about the cost of the meds and the egg retrieval mostly. DH is doing the TESA although we know he only has a 20% chance of success, so we have our same donor sperm waiting at the clinic as a backup. Right now, it looks like stims start on Feb 11. I just want to get this started at this point.

 

[Redhead7211]

Thanks for all the kind responses lovely ladies!

Sun-I totally understand being done with the IUI's. I've tried medicated, Clomid and Gonal. I just feel like if it hasn't happened yet, then it's not going to.

Silver-DH and I talked yesterday and at work today about the baby situation. He feels like IUI is a waste at this point. Throughout this journey we have both fantasized about me being pregnant and having a child that way. What matters to him is that we ultimately have a child. We are both scared about the various paths...spending money on IVF and it not working, being on the adoption list forever and not receiving a baby...etc.
It sounds like you're doctor is really proactive. I'm looking forward to being along on the next leg of your IVF journey.

Guenhwyvar-Thank goodness you kept the tube, hopefully there is no damage! Have you had the HSG done before?
I have 3 ginger fur babies! A redheaded dog, 2 orange boy cats Focker and Sebastian (pictured). We're a house full of redheads-except DH, he has more salt and pepper hair

CM-IVF is a scary choice, but how nice that you have made one and are going for it. What meds are you taking to stim?

 

[NannyGoat]

Hello Ladies, I stumbled onto this forum and would love to introduce myself. My husband and I discovered he had azoospermia about eight months ago. We have decided to use donor sperm and move forward with IUI. We are still at the beginning of the process and it seems a bit overwhelming at this point, but you all seem like a great source of information. So, hello!

 

[CanadianMaple]

Welcome Nannygoat. It definitely is a process to go from the diagnosis to using a donor. Feel free to ask anything, most of us have probably asked it at some point.

Redhead- I'll be using Gonal-F and Luveris.