Lupron is Delaying my Period

AF should have been here by now but of course the one time I want her to show up she doesn't.  If this was a normal cycle I would be off to the drugstore to buy a HPT, but this isn't a normal cycle and there is no chance that I am pregnant. The faster AF comes the faster I get my phase 2 protocol and get possible embryo transfer dates. My temperatures are down but not down enough to get AF. For the last few days I have been really crampy and keep getting excited that AF is finally going to start but nothing happens. I scared myself by reading that Lupron can cause cysts which will delay your period. Since all other fertility medications give me cysts, I am pretty sure that Lupron will do the same thing. If AF doesn't come in a week I have to tell the nurse from the agency and I have no idea what will happen at that point. In the past when I got cysts the doctors never cared and said they would go away on their own. However, I have a feeling that won't happen with the my new doctor. I can see her wanting me to have some sort of medical treatment to get rid of cysts and I am terrified to know what kind of treatments. I thought that for sure we would be down there in the first week of November, but now it's looking like it may not be until the end of November which won't be good since that's when American Thanksgiving is. I guess as long as we are down there before Christmas it won't be a huge deal. I want to get there before the snow comes and don't want to risk any chances of plane cancellations or delays. It doesn't snow where we are going, but I have a feeling that Toronto is going to get hit with one of the worst snowstorms ever this year. I keep worrying about every little thing that might go wrong. When I stop worrying about one thing, I start worrying about something else.

I Hate Lupron

I'm on day 3 of Lupron and I don't like it very much. It has too many unwanted side effects that I wish would just go away. The most annoying side effect so far has been the exhaustion. I am always too tired and don't want to do anything but sleep. Yesterday I had a nap for 7 hours and then slept for 10 hours not long after my nap. All I can think about is my pillow which sucks because I hate sleeping. I hate the feeling of being tired, groggy and not well rested. Another awesome side effect is the hunger. I can't stop eating or thinking of food. The day of my first needle I had a bad craving for pizza so when I smelled it coming through my window the next morning (I live up the street from a pizza place), I ordered some for brunch lol. This morning I woke up craving a Big Mac. My whole body is achy and sore. I have been moody and emotional. Everything makes me weepy. I also get bad hot flashes, mild headaches, blurred vision, slurred speech, weird dreams and leg cramps.

I hope my period comes soon. The sooner it gets here the sooner I can stop Lupron. AF should be here in about 4 days, but I have read that Lupron can delay it. If I don't get a period in 11 days, I have to call the clinic so they can order tests to find out why AF didn't come.

Some Good News

The agency DH and I are getting eggs from normally thaws a batch of six eggs for the recipient. However, I found out today that DH and I will be getting a batch of eight eggs instead because it's the donors first time donating eggs and DH and I were the first to pick her. I feel so blessed and I am very excited. I am so excited that I can't keep it in, and I just feel the need to tell someone, anyone. It would be so great to have all eight eggs thaw and fertilize, transfer two and have six to freeze. That's unlikely to happen but would be nice.  I am surprised at how much information I received on the donor. I was told how many eggs she produced (I am jealous) and how many recipients have reserved her eggs amongst other things. I am trying to think of other questions to ask about her but can't think of anything.

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but DH and I got a fortune cookie the same day we decided to do IVF with donor eggs that had, "your present plans are going to succeed". Tonight we had chinese food (we eat it quite often) and both of our fortune cookies had positive and meaningful things written on them. DH's fortune had, "you will soon get something special because of your charm" and my fortune had, "a surprise announcement will free you". A positive pregnancy test would not only be a surprise but also will free the number one question I have been wondering for almost 3 years now, 'will I ever get pregnant?'.

For the first time in years I finally feel confident that I will be pregnant. I have always had doubt, even when I was a teenager and before I wanted kids. For whatever reason I kept thinking that I wouldn't be able to have children. I now know that is partially true, I probably won't ever get pregnant using my own eggs but from the gift of donor eggs I will have a child that DH and have wanted for so long now.

Donor egg protocol.

I got my IVF protocol the other day and wow am I ever going to be on a lot of drugs. I felt like a heroin addict yesterday after going to the fertility clinic to pick up 2 huge bags of syringes. I keep wondering if I would have ever gotten pregnant if the doctors here gave me some of the drugs that I will be taking next cycle. But because I don't respond to FSH I probably wouldn't have.

On day 21 of this cycle (next Sunday) I will be starting 10 units of lupron every morning. Once my period comes I will reduce the lupron to 5 units a day and add estrogen patches. I will start off with one estrogen patch then increase it to four estrogen patches a day. I have sensitive skin so I am hoping the patches don't make me react. On cycle day 10 of estrogen, otherwise known as DOC10, I will go in for an ultrasound to see if my lining is thick enough to set an egg thaw date. On cycle day 15 of estrogen I will begin taking 25mg of progesterone IM, Doxycycline, and Medrol. This will also be the day when DH and I go to the US. On cycle day 16 DH will give a sample and the clinic will thaw a batch of eggs for us. On cycle day 17 I will stop taking Lupron, but continue to take estrogen and progesterone. Depending on how the embryos grow, my transfer will be on cycle day 19 or cycle day 21. The clinic said they aim for a day 5 transfer. After the transfer we will fly home and wait to POAS. If I get a positive pregnancy test I have to stay on the progesterone and estrogen until the 12th week of pregnancy. I have been told that progesterone shots hurt like hell and are quite nasty, but I usually don't mind needles so I am hoping that this won't be any different.

If anyone is reading this, please pray for us. The thought of never having a child depresses me. I must admit that as time has gone by I have been getting less and less depressed. I have my moments, but not as many as I used to. If all goes as planned we will be in the US at the beginning of November.

Choosing our donor

Not that long ago we got access to an egg donor database. The database was huge and felt a bit overwhelming at first but when we narrowed it down the choice was easy. After carefully looking through all the donors we narrowed it down to four. Out of those four it was quite easy to cut two out of the equation based on their health records. One had multiple miscarriages and had relatives who also had several miscarriages. I was told that this doesn't mean I would miscarry, but if I were to have a baby girl she would be at risk for miscarriages.  We dropped her from our list, as I don't want to risk it. The next donor has a child with heart conditions and has had relatives die young from heart diseases and cancer. That left us with two potential donors. One of the donors didn't have as much information as the others. When I asked the nurse about that she said it was because her profile was old. We decided not to go with her for that and because DH liked the other donor more.

That left us with one. Out of all the donors DH thought that she was the cutest as a child and liked her the most from the start. She doesn't look anything like me, but she does have a lot of DH's features and has my body structure and is the same height. I liked her answers on the questionnaire she filled out.  All of her genetic testing came back normal and she has no major health problems in her family. She has grandparents that are alive and in their 80's which is a plus. She is college educated, seems very ambitious and has good future goals.

There were so many questions that she answered. One of the questions was, "if you could write a message to the child born through the participation of donating your eggs once he/she turns 18, what would it be?" For obvious reasons I am not going reveal her answer, but it was really nice and left me in tears. If this does work and we do have a child, we plan on telling them that they were conceived with donor eggs. I saved and printed the questionnaire and all of the donor's photos that we were given. 

I am very happy with our decision and can't wait to for the embryo transfer next month. I'm feeling very optimistic which could be a bad thing. I had my hopes up so many times for so many years just to be let down and I don't want that to happen again so I am trying not to be that excited.

IVF with donor eggs it is.

It has been confirmed that I will be having IVF with donor eggs. After giving it much thought, DH and I decided that this was the best thing to do for several reasons. My body does not produce enough eggs even on high doses of FSH. I attempted IVF and didn't even make it to the retrieval. I knew that if I kept trying IVF with my own eggs at that crappy clinic we would never have a baby. Fertility medication is very expensive and every IVF cycle that we attempt would have costed too much. There's a $300 administrative fee per cycle (completed or not), and then there's the cost of an IUI if the cycle gets cancelled. I don't want to take the risk of attempting IVF with my own eggs just to have the cycle cancelled or fail.

Anyway, when the old clinic first suggested donor eggs I knew they wanted to scam us into buying eggs from a donor agency that they use in the US. Their price for 1 cycle is $24,000 but if you use the agency they use, the price for 1 cycle is $16,000 or $30,000 for 5 cycles. AND if you don't get pregnant after the 5 cycles you get half your money back. Why use a middleman when you can go right to the source for a better deal? I could have probably put an ad on Kijiji or something lol, but I think going through an agency is the safest thing to do.

We have chosen a donor and will have the transfer sometime in November if all goes according to plan.

Fertility Clinic Vent (very long)

A lot has happened since I stopped blogging.  I got excited that we were doing IVF but at the same time I was worried about it. I didn't think that my doctor had my best interest in mind when he put me on a bad protocol and insisted that there weren't any others that we could try. I knew from the start that the cycle would get cancelled, but I went along with my doctors plan anyway to prove to him that it wouldn't work in hopes that he would try a different protocol for our next try. I hate saying this, but I was right and my doctor was wrong. Our IVF cycle went horribly wrong. I did not respond to the medicine properly. Instead of creating a lot of follicles, the meds caused one to grow out of control. After 3 days of stims and on cycle day 6 I had 1 follicle that was 18mm. The nurse went in her pocket and took out a folded piece of lined paper where they kept notes with a pen and showed me that I had 5 smaller follicles. I wanted to cancel the cycle but our doctor told us to wait an extra day so the other follicles would catch up. Stupidly taking his advice, DH and I bought the expensive remaining drugs and went to the fertility clinic the next day just to find out that there was no change. We cancelled the cycle and saw our doctor again. He told us that we should try again but with a higher dose of medications. I knew that wasn't going to work so I said no and told him the protocol I wanted to try but of course he refused to go with my way. I know my body and how it responds to meds. I did a lot of research and found another protocol, but my doctor told me that the internet was crap and I shouldn't listen to anything I read on the internet. I then asked him what would happen if my IVF cycles didn't work and he suggested donor eggs. I was so annoyed with his lack of options and that he wasn't open to my suggestions so I asked if he could refer me to another doctor who might have an idea. I don't think he liked that very much because that's when things started to get BAD for me. The next day when I had my IUI done by him he was very rude and physically hurt me. I would like to think that he didn't hurt me intentionally, but I am pretty sure that it was. I am in tears writing this because I feel so violated. When he inserted the catheter into me I screamed at the top of my lungs in agony. The doctor smiled and said that he accidentally used the big catheter and it was okay because I liked them big anyway. I really want to complain to someone but am afraid to.

The clinic said right from the beginning that if our cycle was cancelled we could get all of our money back minus the IUI and a $300 administrative fee for the cycle. After my horrid IUI I wanted to leave that place and never turn back so DH and I went to the reception and asked to get our IVF money back, but of course that didn't go over well. They didn't refund us what they owed us. They only gave us the cost of the IVF back, but never gave us the $1000 for ICSI. They also charged a $300 administrative fee for 2 cycles. The reception argued with us about it and then out of the blue turned to me and said that if I don't want any problems and ever wanted treatment done again that I would need to have a meeting with the medical director, who by the way was away because he was having back surgery. DH told them that he would just tell the CC company that services weren't rendered.


Because I was never going back to that awful clinic, I asked for my chart to be emailed to me. When I received it I couldn't believe what I saw. The fertility clinic lied on my records. They lied about the drugs I was had been on and the doses. My records say that I wasn't taking any medications when I was. I assume they made fake records because they were given me way too much medication that could have seriously hurt me. I was on Femara almost every cycle taking 5 - 12.5 mg at once. The lined piece of paper that the nurse showed me during my IVF cycle wasn't the same as the actual IVF record that they emailed me. My actual records said that I only had 3 follicles and not 6 like the lined paper had. This record also said that I was taking no medication when I was on a whole bunch of things.

At the end of my IVF cycle I started to feel really weird. I was in a lot of pain and felt like something was leaking inside of my legs, ovaries and uterus. Before I asked for a second opinion and everything was okay at the clinic, the IVF nurse said that she would be there for at any time of my cycle and if I needed anything at all to call or email  her, yet when I was concerned and needed her I couldn't get a hold of her, or anyone at the clinic for that matter. I still don't know what was wrong with me, but as soon as my period started I passed a clot the size of the toilet and felt a lot better. This was months ago and the clinic never did follow up with me. You think they would want to make sure I was okay after  giving me all of those IVF medications, oh yeah but that's not on their records so I guess they don't care.

DH and I have realized that we were being screwed by this clinic big time! All they cared about was money. They strung us along knowing that nothing they were doing would work and nickeled and dimed us. When I went there for the first time they led me to believe that I couldn't buy fertility medication at a normal pharmacy and said that if we were to buy our medication elsewhere we would have to pay them $75 per cycle. That must have pissed people off because they stopped that.

I cannot believe I wasted 2 years with those crooks. I have more stories about them that would make anyone cringe but this is getting long so I'll get to those later.

In my next post I will write about our new plans.