ICLW...Already?

Wow! I can't believe it's already been one month? Where does the time go?

Welcome to all new readers! This is my humble little blog where I rant and rave about marriage, life, doctors, and basically everything under the sun, but mostly about infertility and how much it royally sucks.

To give you a little background, I've been TTC since February/March of 2009. Not too long compared to a lot of other women, but almost right off the bat, I knew something was not quite right, so after about 4-5 months I started on herbs and acupuncture.

Not too long after that, in September 2009, I decided to get checked out by an RE and started doing some real testing. All the blood work came back clear...no issues with anything. Doc (my DH) also tested and passed with good numbers. I did an HSG and ultrasound at that time and my tubes were all clear with no signs of cysts or polyps. Official diagnosis: unexplained IF.

So, we did one cycle of clo.mid which thinned my lining to a wonderful 4.5 at trigger -- obviously a BFN. Then we did two cycles of letra.zole with IUI. Both were BFNs. At that point our RE gave us an option to either move on to injections + IUI or go to IVF. We decided IVF.

In February 2010, we started IVF #1. The RE at the clinic (different than the RE whom we did the IUIs with) did a antral follicle count and found approximately 10 follicles which indicated a slightly diminished ovarian reserve (DOR). Average for my age at 34 would be more like 12-15. So, he placed me on a more aggressive antagonist protocol with a slightly higher than average injectable dosage.

Unfortunately, what he didn't realize would be that I reacted a little too well to BCPs that I was place on prior to the stims and ended up oversuppressed. During the first 4 days of stims, my E2 rose from less than 20 to a little over 100 (normally at that point the E2 should be well beyond 200). After the first 4 days, my body started acting normally and the E2 values and my follicles started to grow nicely. However, the long stim probably didn't help the egg quality.

We retrieved 10 eggs, but only 3 were mature, and only 2 fertilized with ICSI. I did a 2-day transfer and ended up with a BFN at the end of the 2WW. No surprise to either Doc or myself.

We'll be starting IVF #2 (hopefully) in June with a new RE/clinic and I'm hoping that this does the trick. After this last IVF, I'm thinking that I probably do have some issues with both DOR and egg quality, so I'm taking supplements and still going to acupuncture. Hoping and praying that this next IVF will be it!