And so it begins.

BASELINE UPDATE

I almost forgot about my baseline this morning. Thank god DH didn't! I guess after going through this month after month, it gets kind of old. I saw a couple in the waiting room, they were obviously there for their initial consult. You can always tell. Their eyes are lit up, smiles, and feelings of relief that they finally are doing something about their IF scream from their faces. Then there is the rest of us, our heads down and our eyes sad and puffy from crying so much. There were a lot of us there.

I had about 9 AFC's. Kind of a bummer since I had 14 last time but nothing I can do about that. Not much to report other than that. I will get a call later today and if all went well, I will start Gonal F and Menopur tomorrow.

CCRM UPDATE

I had a phone consult with Dr. Schoolcraft of CCRM yesterday. I have mixed feelings about it. He said that our poor fertilization was very unusual, especially since we did ICSI. He hopes it was a fluke and we have a much better report this cycle.

He did not have the full report on my genetic report but he did see that it was abnormal (I have an inversion on chromosome 9). I explained this and he said he is not sure if he agrees with the genetic counselor we saw and if we choose to go to CCRM, he will have us talk to his genetic specialist. I don't know what to think of that right now. On the one hand I think the he is the best and probably knows everything about IF so there probably is an IF problem because of my inversion. On the other hand, I went to a PHD/MD expert on genetics and he told me he sees that often and my IF has nothing to do with that. I want to believe him but Dr. S's words have been biting my brain since I talked to him. I may have to find another genetic counselor and see what he/she has to say.

Basically, Dr. S. said that between my FSH of 12.6, the low fertilization, and the genetic report, if we get a low or no fertilization again, we may need to consider donor eggs. That was really hard to swallow and I wasn't ready for that. I guess a lot depends on this cycle. I am praying to every god that might listen that our last IVF was fluke and our fert will be much much better this time. He said the lab plays a big part on the fert rate and we will be using a different lab this time even though we are using the same clinic. My new RE even mentioned that while he lives so close to the lab in downtown (the one we used last time), he drives well over an hour to do all of his procedures in another lab. For now, I'm holding on to the hope that our problems were lab related.