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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Creating My Monster – 1 Year Anniversary and Updates

One year ago today I started this blog about my journey TTC with PCOS. I had hoped to have better news to share by now but unfortunately things have not worked out as we had hoped for.

For those of you who do not already know, Round 2 (IVM) was not successful. I had a strong feeling that it hadn’t taken but went in for my blood test on Jan 15th to confirm. I met with my doctor on January 18th and now have a better understanding as to why it didn’t work. Basically, they believe it came down to embryo quality – not anything that I did wrong (I have to keep telling myself that).

There are 3 grades of usable embryos from what I understand: Grade 1 which has never been seen in the lab, Grade 2 which is the best quality to hope for through IVF/IVM, and Grade 3 which are acceptable but have a lesser chance of success. Any embryo that is lower than a grade 3 is considered unusable, and in my case they had to discard 2/6 that were of lower quality. In January they transferred two Grade 3 embryos in hopes that at least one of them would implant despite their lower quality, but neither did. However, the two embryos that I was able to freeze are Grade 2 quality and have a much higher success rate in thawing as well as transferring so we remain hopeful, at least for now!

No decision has been made as to how many embryos will be transferred the next time, but we already have a date set for Round 3 (IVM). Unfortunately, as the hospital is heavily overbooked we were not able to start again right away, but that gave us the chance to go to Cuba! It was a last minute decision with only a week of preparation and very little research (very abnormal for me) but it was needed! We just got back so I will post more about the trip later on! As for Round 3 (IVM), I have decided to keep things a little less public this time around because it made the failure of the last round really hard for us to handle. Too many people knew the exact time I would be finding out if if had worked or not and that meant a lot of phone calls to make at a time when we really didn't want to talk to anybody and share our bad news. This time, a few people will know but even then, I am not sure in how much detail. Once we get the news, good or bad, it will give us some time to process things for ourselves before sharing with others. And hopefully it will be good news this time around!!!

Now, I think this post needs a bit of uplifting news, don't you?

Well, last but certainly not least, I am thrilled to announce that I am going to be an aunt this May! I have known since late November and have told a few people, but I had decided a while ago to wait until this post to let everyone know regardless of our own news (or lack of)! I just hope that I get to give my niece or nephew a little cousin soon!