Holding out hope

When I got the news about the one normal egg - I was numb. At first I was kind of ok with the whole idea of only getting one ... until I told Berilac about the results ... and he was really disappointed. Then I realized that I must have been stupidly naive to be grateful for one egg and I got really scared and anxious. Thanks honey *roll eyes*

In the last few days I've been trying to process it more and I came up with these positive thoughts:

• It's one more normal egg than I've had in the past!
• If this had been a "traditional" IVF and we would have fertilized those puppies ... ONE of them could have easily made a normal baby (and I could have had a normal baby in me right now!!)
• Not ALL of my eggs are bad, despite having four miscarriages ... not ALL of my eggs are broken!
• We were statistically right on. In the previous trials of this technology the results showed that for FERTILE women (in their 20's no less!) come up with 30% normal eggs for any given IVF cycle. So what is 30% of 5? It's 1.5 ... statistically a FERTILE woman would have had 1.5 normal eggs on this cycle. Well, I came up with: 1 normal egg, 3 abnormal eggs, and 1 "inconclusive" egg (the testing could not be completed due to lack of material so the egg could be normal or abnormal hence the .5!! The Dr and the Embryologist both want to fertilize it and if it makes it to day 5 we'll transfer it.)

So each day I'm getting more and more excited about our one good egg. My hope is that in the next retrieval we have a better protocol and more eggs retrieved but really, I'm just hoping for one more good egg.

Berilac and I have decided that once we get two normal eggs we are going to attempt an embryo transfer, praying that our two eggs survive thaw, get fertilized from Berilac's men, divide normally, and survive nicely to day 5 for a transfer. Yes, I know ... there's a lot of opportunity for failure there but I'm hopeful that if they survive the thaw then they'll make it to my uterus. If we have two normal eggs and one inconclusive, and they all make it to day 5 - we'll transfer all three.

So hopefully we can do an embryo transfer in late October or November. We need to wait this long because we have to wait the 6 weeks to get the egg testing results from the second batch of eggs. Sure, it's not anytime soon, but it's better than NEXT year! Previously we were thinking that we needed to get all the retrievals in before we transfer any embryos ... but really, we're not looking to bank eggs (as the news story would have you believe) we really just want a baby - just one, we're not being greedy. So we will try after two retrievals - and hopefully two normal eggs. If that transfer doesn't work, then we might go back for the third retrieval or we might do traditional IVF (now that we know that I do have normal eggs - it's an option!!) Some of you might be wondering why we just don't do a transfer now with our one good egg. Well, statistically, only one of two eggs should survive the entire process - so we'd rather work with two eggs than one.

Now, what in the heck am I going to do to keep busy while I wait for my next retrieval and my next pregnancy?

Well, we do have more activity in the whole "what the heck is going on in our bodies" front. I am seeing a hematologist for the first time (for my Compound Hetero MTHFR diagnosis) on 6/19. I am going to go through alloimmune testing in mid June. Berilac will be doing sperm testing in July and then I start my next cycle.

I just wanted to keep you all updated on the haps ... maybe the next post will be more interesting with some reflection and thoughts - today, you get the facts. "Just the facts ma'am, just the facts!"