Feeling better today

I am happy to say I am feeling much better today. Last night was the best night of sleep I've had in awhile in part because my hips are much less sore. Also, I haven't had any hot flashes today! And I was able to walk farther today with Paul, and it also wasn't nearly as painful. So that has helped me emotionally also. Plus I think it has helped me emotionally to feel better since I am feeling better physically. And my dear sweet husband has stayed home with me the past four days which has helped immensely. I also think it has helped that we made a decision about "Ashley"

I instant messaged with one of my sisters this morning, and she had a few questions/ideas. For example, she suggested that maybe I send the questionnaires and such that go in the packet for Mark (lawyer in FL) and allow my sister to select 1-2 situations for us to be presented for with him. She thought if we eliminated the suspense it might help (through not knowing when we were presented). I said I'd run it by Paul. Well he wasn't crazy about the idea because he doesn't want to relinquish control in terms of which situations we do/don't apply for. But I thought it was a very kind, thoughtful and creative idea that she had!!! I guess maybe a way this plan might work is if we spelled out our preferences just like we have with Lifetime/Cathy. They decide when to present us based on when our preferences (ex. total cost of adoption) match as well as when we match the birthmother's preferences.

She also asked about adopting embryos to have transferred at the same time as our frozen embyro transfer in part because of the thaw rate (which is about 50% nationally). I plan to ask the RE on August 30 if we would be eligible to receive a donated embyro (different from an adopted one). If he would be able to arrange for us to have (for a very little cost) two embyros from a couple who no longer wanted to use their frozen embryos, we think we might do this so that if we thaw three embyros hopefully we might have at least two to transfer. If one of the donated embryos resulted in a pregnancy it would still be an adoption of sorts, but I for sure wouldn't be smoking, drinking, or doing drugs while pregnant. And I'd get to experience pgcy, nursing the baby, etc.

If using donated embyros is not a possibility, we are not sure what our plan of action will be. Embryo adoption is expensive. The Snowflake program for example is $8K (not including the transfer fees). That is for six embryos. They figure that it generally takes 6 frozen embryos to have one baby as the national thaw rate is 50% and the national pregnancy rate for frozen embyros is 30% so based on those stats the average is one baby from every six frozen embryos. Plus you can't participate in the Snowflake program if you are also pursuing traditional adoption which we certainly are. I found another program that is cheaper -about $5K including the transfer. http://www.embryodonation.org/adoption.html Since that's still very close to the price of a fresh cycle (our total cost will likely end up being about $7,500), that doesn't sound too appealing to us (although far less physically painful for me!). This second program says their thaw rate is 66% and pregnancy rate is 20-25% per transfer. So I think we are not leaning in the direction of embryo adoption.

Another option is to do another fresh cycle first and then transfer this frozen embryo with frozen embryos resulting from IVF #2 (either for our first child if IVF #2 didn't work OR for our second child if IVF #2 did work). The cheapest, simplest, and least painful option is just to transfer our one frozen embryo. It seems we have about a 15% chance of success. I am not sure what the costs will be. We already paid $600 for that embryo to be frozen. I am going to call on Monday to find out the costs for thawing, culturing, and transferring that embryo. I called today, but the lady who handles the finances at the RE clinic was on vacation this week. From the bills we received in the mail today it looks like they charge about $700 for a transfer. My guess is that the total fee for a FET will likely be at least $2K. We definitely want to transfer this embryo. That's not the issue. The issue is whether to transfer this one by itself or not. And if not by itself whether we donated or adopted embryos or with more of our own. We won't make this decision until we talk to the RE on August 30 and hear what he has to say about his assessment of the whole IVF cycle plus the quality of this particular embryo (what he thinks are the chances it will survive the thaw, etc.).

In June when we decided to do IVF, we had decided to try it a second time if try #1 didn't work, and we decided that two would be our maximum. After the retrieval this time, I wasn't thinking I could possible put myself through this a second time, but of course I really would like to give birth to a baby some day. I am sure though that I don't want to do IVF again at the same clinic. If I do it a second time, I want to do it at a clinic with a much higher success rate. So I wouldn't need to add hotel costs to the total expense, I studied the success rates for all the IVF clinics in MD, VA, DC, and IL since I have family in MD and IL and could stay with them. The winner by far was Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago http://www.advancedfertility.com/ivf-success-rates.htm. Their 2004 success rates (most recent ones that can be found on the CDC website) was that 67.7% of transfers resulted in a live birth (for those under the age of 25) and 42.3% for those between 35-37 compared to my clinic says they have a 40% success rate for those under 35 and 25% for those between 35-39. Their blastocyst transfer rates are particularly impressive (day 5 or 6 transfers) - 69.3% for under 35 and 50% for 35-39. That's one thing if I can go back in time I would have done differently. I wish we had done a 5 or 6 day transfer instead of a 3 day one. But that's water under the bridge now. 15% of their patients are from out of the area so we wouldn't be the first to travel to this clinic from another state to do IVF. If we did the stimulation part here locally (which I would want to do as our insurance does pay for the bloodwork and ultrasounds) then we would have to pay $8,100 for IVF with ICSI. So we'd pay about $1K more (plus airfare to IL) to go to this clinic. Again, first we need to hear what the RE thought. Maybe he'll say we shouldn't ever do IVF again. I doubt it since three of our embryos were "very good" but who knows. One thing that I really took notice of was that this clinic reports an ICSI fertilization rate of 70-85%. Ours says 50% is their normal ICSI fert. rate but ours was only 38%. So just having a higher fertilization rate could make all the difference in my opinion.

Before we meet with the doctor on August 30 I want to go back through our budget and such and make sure we can afford to do ivf a second time plus a frozen transfer. Of course if we could have two or three children through a fresh + frozen transfer, that would be far cheaper than completing two separate adoptions. I just want to be sure that if we do a fresh and FET and still don't get pg that we still will have enough $$ to pay for an adoption through Cathy if she gets us a match. I think we're talking about around $11K for a fresh cycle plus frozen transfer. I had been saying if I did another fresh cycle I didn't want to do it until next summer as #1 I wanted more time to "recover" emotionally/physically and #2 I don't want to do a fresh cycle when school is in session. However I think there are two compelling reasons not to wait that long. #1 Time is not on my side. Our chances at success will keep dropping as more time passes. #2 It will be cheaper if we pay for it in 2007 because we have now reached the point with the IRS that we can deduct our medical expenses (never spent enough in a year before to be eligible for that deduction). So if we do IVF #2 in 2007 it will in the end cost about 25% less than if we did it in 2008. For me the penny pincher, that's big. So maybe 2007 is going to turn into the year of IVF fresh cycles for me. Never done them before 2007 and if we do two this year we never plan on doing it again. We are both 100% certain we don't want to do it more than twice. I am relieved! Paul has been the one wanting to do ivf the last 3 years, but even he is 100% sure he doesn't want to do it more than twice. Big sigh of relief for me...

So I am not sure what will come first - the FET from IVF #1 or fresh IVF #2. And we won't decide until we talk to the doctor on Aug 30. I am planning to be in Chicago the first week of November so I could possibly do the initial consult then. If I did IVF #2 this year, I would want to do the stimulation through transfer in between the two semesters (December 15 to January 13). If we do a 5dt that's probably about 18 days total. If I knew we'd get pg from the FET of our one embie, I would just do that first. It's hard to make these decisions when you have no idea what the outcome will be!!!

Sorry I was so longwinded! Thanks again for all your prayers. They are greatly appreciated!!!