19 replies to this topic

[Reachforthesky]

This may seem like a bit of a story but here it goes. When I was 18 I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis. My husband and I knew each other from high school and began dating. We decided in my early 20's we would try for a child with no luck. We decided to try Clomid and to our surprise we were pregnant! I was about 6-7 weeks and I started spotting and having excruciating pain. We went to emerg and found out it was ectopic, which left the tube blocked. We decided to go to London and see what our other options were and decided to go the iui route. We attempted the iui only to find out I had over stimulated and it had to be cancelled. This led to the conclusion that I also had PCOS. I had more testing over the next little while and was also diagnosed with precancerous hyperplasia. After a lot of waiting (for funding) and discussing and giving ourselves a break we decided to give Ivf a try. This is our only hope our last try. We got the phone call to start ASAP, it happened so fast. We did the meds, everything was looking good, had the follicles, uterus looked great! But come the retival only eight eggs were retrieved. Out of the eight only 3 were mature and only 1 fertilized. So we only had 1 embryo... this embryo was said to be a superstar! It was surpassing the milestones. It was our only hope. The embryo was transferred on day 3 and by a resident, and got stuck in the tube. I don't know for sure if maybe this had anything to do with the ending result and I don't want to point fingers but I feel like being that this was our only egg I wish it was transferred by a more experienced Dr. Is it possible that the embryo was damaged? They encouraged us that it sometimes happens and doesn't effect the outcome. I do want to say every doctor that we had was amazing. The nurse that was with us was beyond helpful, encouraging, caring, and she made us feel very comfortable and answered any questions we may have had. The end result was a negative pregnancy test.

This by far was the most difficult thing my husband and I have ever went through.. We are devastated, angry at times, we blame ourselves and begin to wonder why? We feel so cheated.. Like this was our only chance.. If it wasn't funded there was no way we could afford it and we only got one embryo... I'm only 32. I know it only takes the one embryo to implant to be successful. But this was a funded cycle and could have tried again if we would have had more embryos. I just don't understand what happened. I keep thinking maybe I did something wrong... I was so sick during the cycle.. maybe that was the issue. I just don't know.

I feeling so broken into tiny pieces. I'm suppose to return to work on Monday and I don't know how I'm going to. I work at a daycare and I just don't know how I'm going to face all those little people.. I don't know how I'm going to cope with all this.

[Reachforthesky]

I failed to mention... We found out we had a negative pregnancy test the day we lost our pregnancy 7 years before.. and three days after the transfer my sister announced that she was pregnant with her and her boyfriends 5th child.

[annatarz79]

I am sorry for what you are going through. In this forum all of us have our issues and it has especially helped me move forward with the support of the other members. your history is similar and yet different but the feelings are the same. i would suggest you call in sick at work and i would suggest you seek a professionals help to guide you to the next level. i understand that financing ivf is extremely difficult and that you may feel that is the end of the world but it is not.  there are other options out there but you are too emotional to see them at this moment. you need your time. and if i understood correctly you still have one tube open right?? do not lose hope it will get better and eventually it will happen. Good luck.

[Seem14]

I second annatarz79's advice. It is so hard to see opportunities in front of us when your heart is filled with all these negative emotions. I don't know how the whole funding works. I'm in BC so we don't even get that chance for coverage, and believe me financially it is difficult, but you do and you will find a way. Right now, be easy on yourself. I know you want to try and find what 'you' did wrong or what 'you' could have done differently, but fact to the matter is that you tried and gave it your all. IF alone is a very difficult journey, and all you can do is your best! ((HUGS))

[Reachforthesky]

Thank you Annatarz79 and Seem14... This is a very difficult path.. I keep thinking of things like maybe the time change effected everything too.. I need to stop wondering and just move on. Before all this my husband and I talked and I thought we were kinda ok with the fact that maybe our future together just might be childless... My husband has always said that if we can't we can't and that he's ok with it. But seeing him and how hard that this has been on him and the disappointment he had been feeling has been taking its toll on me. I feel so helpless, like I failed him.

[amazing grace]

As stated above, this road is not easy and you have to be prepared for the ups and downs of it all. Negatives happen, and yes sometimes to people who only had one embryo and who could only afford one try. Unfortunately, it is the way it goes. 

[Reachforthesky]

I know amazing grace.. We went into this knowing we had only a 40% chance.. This was just a lot harder than I thought it would be. Through the whole thing I really really tried my best to be positive but optimistic I think what really got me is how my husbands reacting to this when he has told me from the beginning he was ok with not having children.

[amazing grace]

I fully understand and wish you the best of luck.

[Reachforthesky]

Thank you..

[returnable]

The IF journey is a very difficult one. It may be helpful for you and your husband to go to a counselor that specifically deals with IF. I am not sure how your husband reacted, but he probably started dreaming of what it would be like to be a father so his perspective on being okay with not having kids may have been challenged and changed.

 

I always find that it is good to start thinking of the next step of what you will do in the "what if" case. That keeps you moving forward and past your current troubles.

 

It is a difficult journey, but we are here to support each other.

[Abrianna]

Reachforthesky, I am so sorry you are going through this we had similar outcome with our funded cycle in July and it was heartbreaking single egg fertilized ending in chemical pregnancy. We made the choice to pay for an IVF cycle in Oct which was never our original plan and things went significantly worse. Know that it is nothing that you did that impacted the outcome. Most of the time poor response/fertilization issues comes down to drug protocol or underlying diagnosis. We always said that we would be fine if we were unable to have children and if the cycle failed. It is so much harder dealing with it once it becomes a reality.

Give yourself the time to grieve and process the loss. It does help having something to focus on as a coping strategy. We have made the decision to get a second opinion at another clinic as part of that process. I don't know that we will ever do another cycle due to the physical, financial and emotional toll that it takes. We just want peace of mind about what is really going wrong with our cycles and proper diagnosis.

I also work with children, newborn babies and pregnant moms all day. If you need some extra time off work take it. First cycle I returned to work right away but this time I took a week off to deal with outcome and give myself a break.

If you ever want to chat feel free to pm me.

[Reachforthesky]

Thank you for sharing your story.. I'm sorry you had to go through this too. It's a horrible feeling. I don't think it's fair we have to go through all this... I'm waiting to hear back from the clinic for our follow up appointment I am curious to what they have to say why they think things happened the way they did. Did they give you any reason to why they think it happened in your case? Through the process the kept me at a minimal dose of meds.. For fear of blood clots and OHSS. They had me on metformin 1700mg, gonal f 125, menopur 75, lupron 10, and femara daily during this process I was very sick and couldn't keep anything down gravol wouldn't help so they put me on an antinausia medication that's given to chemo patients. It did help a bit. When I asked the dr why I'm so sick he said that I'm very sensitive to estrogen. But if I am sensitive to estrogen then why did I have such bad quality eggs? I'm curious that maybe the drugs dosages were to low?

[Abrianna]

So at our follow up after the funded cycle failure they really didn't have an answer for fertilization failure. I had AFC 36, triggered a day early with 12 mature eggs, 1 fertilized. RE said ICSI failure is usually egg quality but didn't feel that drugs were wrong as I briefly was pregnant. I was on bcp/suprefact suppression, 150iu gonal-f that was dropped to 125 part way through and still developed OHSS. Only theory was meds impacted egg quality??? but really no specific evidence to back it up. We have isolated MFI as far as they know.

Second round same suppression, dropped gonal-f 125iu to prevent overstim and added 75 luveris to boost egg quality. Gonal-f was increased to 200iu after second u/s as response seemed too low. AFC 18 and only 9 follicles reached above 15mm. Only 3 eggs retrieved 2 mature 0 fertilized. Our only hope at this point is that the protocol and dosages that they are using with me are destroying egg quality. I also think there is a problem with Ovidrel trigger as I am ending up with a low number of retrieved eggs compared to follicle count.

We moved our follow up with current clinic to Jan as we are not in a hurry to go back and want another opinion on things first. I know they won't have an answer for us or want to explore further testing. Hopefully Hannam or Markham can give us some answers or ideas for moving forward. At this point we are just working on accepting that we will not have children and setting goals for our life moving forwards. When is your follow-up?

[SunshineTTC]

Certain clinics repeatedly showing up on these forums with all the same issue... few mature eggs retrieved compared to follicle count prior to retrieval... all 1 thing in common... Ovidrel trigger.  At single dose it is not strong enough to induce complete final maturation of the eggs (really immature eggs will not "detach" from the follicles to be retrieved).  It is also more expensive than 10,000 units Hcg used by majority of clinics.

[Reachforthesky]

Abrianna I was also suppressed... We had a lot of similarities in our cycle. Where did you go for your Ivf cycle? You don't have any diagnosis? I hope you too get some answers. Our follow up is not until January as well. Seems like it's so far away. I just wanna know what went wrong so I can move forward.

I had no idea about the Ovidrel trigger.. I thought I did pretty well researching about Ivf but apparently not.. Things I know now would have helped then.

[Abrianna]

Reachforthesky I agree it does sound like we had similar cycles and we are the same age. I have no known fertility issues but I feel I am high risk for unexplained infertility due to celiac disease and past chronic fatigue syndrome. All my testing came back within normal and excellent for age. Our diagnosis was supposed to be MFI due to low testosterone causing low count and some morphology issues. We did all of our testing and treatment at the Ottawa Fertility Centre as it is the closest option to us. We knew the issues that others have had with the clinic going in and unfortunately we have become one of those statics. I am looking forward to our appointment with Dr Hannam in a few weeks as I expected he will have some issues with what Ottawa has done with our cycles.

I agree 100% with what SunshineTTC said about Ovidrel being an issue. I suspected it could be a problem with first cycle but RE refused to switch to a different trigger. Research shows blah blah blah. I should have pushed harder but wasn't too excited about idea of intramuscular shot. I have seen way to many failed cycles on this forum with Ovidrel being involved. The one embryo that we did have first cycle was also perfect quality but ended in chemical pregnancy which was more heartbreaking the bfn.

I hope you get some answers at your follow-up. I will let you know if we find out anything interesting at our Hannam appointment. I promise it gets easier everyday. We are also a month since our last failed cycle and work/life is already much easier to manage.

[SunshineTTC]

HCG trigger is not intramuscular - at least doesn't have to be - most do it subcutaneous no different from Ovidrel (other than better trigger/more successful maturation, and cheaper).

[Reachforthesky]

I hope that everything goes well and you get answers Aubrianna. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. I am still not back to work, at this point I'm not sure if I am ever going to be ok to go back. I love my job, I'm awesome at my job too, but I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around being with kids and babies everyday. Before this I found myself emotional talking to parents about their child's milestones and things they did that day that I was proud of them for... I don't know what I'm going to be like after all this. I am starting counselling tomorrow so let's hope this helps whip me back into shape.

[Reachforthesky]

Update.. We see the specialist on January 11th and I'm feeling very anxious when I think about it. I don't know what to ask... I've been slowly getting better but this process has been very hard. I've been seeing a counsellor and I haven't been able to get my husband to go.. I've always been the type of person to look after myself last and throw my emotions back and deal with them later. So counselling has been helping somewhat. I find it hard sometimes to talk with my husband about my feelings when I'm having a bad day.. a couple times he's gotten angry at me for feeling the way I do so I bottle it up and then don't sleep at night.. it's hard to not let my emotions get the best of me.

[Abrianna]

Reachforthesky: I am sorry to hear you are still struggling so much. Glad to hear you are getting support from a counselor. I definitely found my anxiety levels were up before our appointment in Dec for a second opinion on our case. For me just thinking of going into a clinic triggers my anxiety especially after the ER experience with our last cycle. For me the biggest thing that helped was acknowledging that I was dealing with some infertility PTSD from our last cycle and building activities into my day to help me cope. Going back after a failed cycle is an emotional experience and it is normal to feel anxious.

Going for our second opinion was definitely worthwhile. New RE confirmed what I suspected that I was on wrong protocol and med doses which probably destroyed my egg quality. We did more detailed semen testing and Karyotype to rule out any other issues but he thinks errors by previous clinic were cause of fertilization failure. Having an answer has definitely helped both of us cope better. Still not sure if we are going to try another cycle this summer but it is nice to have closure. We decided to cancel our wtf as I knew we wouldn't gain any answers from going and just the thought of going back into that clinic made me panic.

If you need to talk more feel free to pm me. ((hugs))