FFS

For. Fucks. Sake. My last post ended with hard cutoff dates and a comment about no more interventions. So, yeah. That’s not what has happened at all. The transfer failed, (of course). Neither Kap nor I were surprised. But shit, that’s 10 (!!!) embryos now. And our doctor’s continued response is that everything looks fine so he just isn’t sure why nothing works. So annoying. I finally decided to reach out to a clinic close to where I used to live in DFW. It has been recommended frequently on the donor embryo subreddit and Jen’s fiancée Josie has recommended it many times since a radio personality she likes had gotten pregnant through their clinic. They were able to get me in 2 weeks after I requested an appointment. 

The appointment went well. It felt like the kind of clinic all the people on reddit go to. They don’t allow children in their clinic. They gave me a little gift bag. They had a hot coco bar. While none of these things are life changing, it just felt really validating that they acknowledge all of this is really fucking hard. We went in with my giant folder full of medical records and the doctor talked to us for about an hour. I’ll skip some of it because otherwise this will end up being a book. 

Basically, after reviewing everything, my uterus appears to be functioning. The RE is currently part of a group doing studies around HHV6 and its impact on RIF, (repeat implantation failure). HHV6 is a virus many people have as a child for a day or two and go on with life. However, some people have it forever as a dormant virus and there are two very small studies that show a correlation between it and infertility. Now here’s where it gets interesting. Since the virus is in the same family as herpes, (apparently several viruses are; who knew?🤷🏻‍♀️), they have been testing the impact of having patients on the medication used to treat genital herpes prior to embryo transfer and throughout pregnancy. So far, there is anecdotal evidence of this working for repeat implantation failure patients. 

But here’s the hitch: we have to find out if I have this virus. If I don’t, the doctor basically encouraged us to look at alternative paths to family building. If I do, then we go the previously described route. In order to discover whether or not I have this virus, I’ve been tracking ovulation since the appointment. I missed it one cycle. 🤦🏻‍♀️ So, now I’m testing constantly to ensure that doesn’t happen again. Once I ovulate, I contact the clinic and we set an appointment for a super fun endometrial biopsy. They’ll send that sample to a lab in Wisconsin and about 6 weeks later we will know whether or not I have this virus. 

I don’t know what to hope. It would be nice to have a somewhat definitive answer. Then again, it would be nice to finally be done with the medical interventions. I’m just tired. I’m worn out physically, emotionally and financially. 

Update: yep. We’ve got a mid-rant update here. This morning I tested positive on both ovulation kits. Thank goodness! I am so friggin’ sick of testing my urine every day. I called the clinic and they had me leave a message on the nurse’s line. I got paranoid so I also sent an email via their “contact us” link. Now I’m sitting around impatiently waiting to find out when my appointment will be. 

Update 2: still sitting here impatiently at 2:24p when I left the message at 8a this morning. I get it. Mine is not the most pressing issue on the nurse’s line but I, too, still have a life to live and to plan around. 

Update 3: they never called back that day. I got annoyed and called them again the following morning. They were super apologetic and said they’d personally give a nurse my message. A couple hours later the nurse called and I am scheduled for an endometrial biopsy at 9:15a the day after Christmas at their Fort Worth office. 

This means my mom and I will drive to Aledo to my sister’s house on Christmas evening. We’ll hang out there and open presents then on the morning of the 26th, my sister will take me for my biopsy while my mom stays at the house with my niece. At this point I just want it done. I keep going back and forth on whether to hope I have the virus or not. The two paths are so radically different but at least I can put one foot in the front of the other, get the biopsy and wait on the results. Here we go.