Switching to Egg Donation

This journey has been such a growing process. We are now going down paths, that a year ago, I was against even the idea of doing. Early in 2017 when I found out people litterally gave away their potential unborn children (embryo adoption), I was like that crazy. I would never do that. But when you get to the point that we are at you take these alternative options into serious consideration, your mind opens up and you start consider things you never would of before.

I don't remember exactly when, but one night in late Spring 2018 as I sat on the sofa chatting with my husband, kinda whining about no one responding to our search for embryo adoption. My husband made a comment about not really being a part of this process, because we would use some one else embryos and I would carry the baby.

That got me thinking, I love my husband and his cutting up personality, why would I not want our child to be part of him even if it could not be part of me. He has great qualities and our child would be lucky to be like him. Previously, when the idea was first presented to me.  I was jealous of the thought of having a baby that would be half my husbands and half someone else. What if I could not connect with the child? What if I did not love the child?

Theses type of questions made me want to avoid the option of egg donation, but that is where facebook groups have been helpful. I can read where people ask the same questions I am thinking but am to scared to ask. So many people responded that when you give birth to the child you will fall in love with the child and it will not cross your mind the way it was made or who biologically made the child. 

After that night, I decided to open my mind up to the idea of egg donation and began by adding our name to the Jones Institutes wait list. They said there list was as long as the embryo adoption list. That told me we would not be moving forward anytime soon.

Its funny how facebook puts in front of you the things that on your mind. Repeatedly, I saw post, sponsored ads, etc that had to do with the New Hope Center and how they had embryos to be adopted and donor eggs. I wrestled with the idea of calling them and felt a little guilty for considering going back to them when I had switch clinics before. But I finally broke down and made the call to setup an appointment.

My husband and I met with Dr Robin of the New Hope Center in the beginning of June 2018. She told us they offered 4 options:

1. Embryo Adoption - they had embryos that where Caucasian and that they adopt 2 at a time . 
2. Egg  Donor - Full Cycle, We pick the donor and would get all the eggs retrieved
3. Egg Donor - Split Cycle - We would partner with another couple and split the number of eggs retrieved. 
4.  Frozen Egg Donors - We would get eggs that have already been retrieved and are current frozen. 

We decided to do option 2- Egg Donor- Full Cycle.

Trying to match ourselves

After I found out that the Jones Institute would probably not be able to match us with in 6 months, I started looking into ways to match ourselves. I had joined a facebook group when we decided to move forward with Embryo adoption called Embryo Adoption and Donation Support Group. Previously, I had just read the post and absorbed the information that was being posted. I now decided to  use one of the features in this group where embryo donors and those looking for embryos post info about themselves in hopes of matching with each other. I posted a paragraph about my husband and I and a couple pictures. No one contacted us and out the few I contacted no one responded.

 It is stressful to match yourself because you don't know what your getting. Are you getting junk embryos that would never produce a baby or are you getting embryos that could carry diseases.Age can be a factor in the success of embryos and the grade of the embryos. There just so many factors that could affect the success rate of an embryo and you just don't know the full history when matching yourself.

There are a couple private matching websites that I am aware of and  may be more:

• National Registry for Adoption
• Miracles Waiting

We created a profile on the National Registry for Adoption and paid a $49 set up fee and then $39 a month fee with the 3 month package. We answered lots of questions about us as people. What we do for a living, what we are looking for from a donor, what we are interested in, etc. Think of a dating profile, on steroids. lol  Seriously, It took quite a few hours to fill out all the questions they provide for you to answer. I contacted probably 20 or more donors through this website most never responded and the few who did respond had either already matched with someone or where already talking with a couple possible matches.

We tried to use the Miracles in Waiting website as well but I tried multiple times to join and could not get it to work.

I then was traveling for work and heard on the news about an IVF doctors office in Nashville, TN that had embryos available. I live on the northeast coast of North Carolina, so Nashville was a along way away, but I like to travel so figured I would check it out. I can't remember the name of the place, but I remember it was really expensive and when I contacted them they only had a few embryos. I just did not have a good feeling about it and I remember the cost being the same or more than doing a full round of IVF here locally.

Next, I contacted a IVF clinic in Raleigh who said they had embryos to find out they had a 2 year wait. I even contacted a clinic in Barbados, that people in an IVF facebook group I was part of where raving about. They did not have any embryos that would fit our criteria, but I was loving the idea of going to Barbados to transfer them.

Around sometime in May 2018, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw where my previous Clinic the New Hope Center had embryos. I wonder if this was another wild goose chase, but it kept sneaking in my mind. After wrestling with it for a week or so. I made the call to see, if they really had embryos. They did!!

Since, I had not been there in over a year, I had to set up an appointment with Dr. Robin to discuss the process and options. That appointment was set for early June 2018.

Added to Embryo Adoption List, Now we wait

I am working on catching you all up to where we are in our journey current day, but to get there I have to share with you what been going on since our last post.

After our last failed IVF attempt with the Jones Institute and based on our follow up appointment, We  came to the decision to move forward with adopting an embryo. We made this decision for a couple reason:

1.  My eggs are crap and can not make viable embryos, 
2. Adopting an embryo is much cheaper than traditional adoption
3. and based on cost, we could move forward with embryo adoption quicker than any other option. 

We then contacted the Jones Institute to be added to the wait list for Embryo Adoption. To get on the list we needed to fill out a questionnaire that asked us questions about our self: like Hair color, skin color, eye color, height, weight, etc. We then where asked to write down which characteristics where the most important to us for the Jones Institute match when choosing an embryo. We only asked that they match our skin color. We live in a small town with old time values. I feel that people would already have a hard time accepting/understanding that we are trying to bring a baby into this world that not genetically ours. If we ended up giving birth to a baby that did not match our skin color that would just cause unnecessary drama for us and the baby. It just easier on everyone, if the skin color matched.  By choosing only one characteristics we hoped that would allow us to be matched quickly.

We turned in our completed questionnaire in December 2017 and where added to the wait list. At that time the current wait list was projected to be about 6 months.  The importance of the questionnaire is to be used in the matching process. You may be wondering where the embryos come from. Other families who have used Jones Institute and have gone on to have healthy babies, may have additional frozen embryos that they don't plan to use. They can choose to donate their embryos to the embryo adoption program to help other families who are struggling to become parents.

 As we played the waiting game to be matched. We decided to go ahead full the requirement of meeting with a psychologist. As part of embryo adoption process, you are required to have a counseling session with a psychologist. You don't choose your own psychologist, they refer you to someone who specialize in fertility counseling.  We made our appointment in December and went in for a visit. I was fearful that the psychologist was judging us to make sure we would be good candidates for this program, but that not what happens at all. She just explained to us how the program worked, answered any questions we had and encouraged us to always be open and honest with the child/children about the way they where conceived.

Then we waited and waited for the Jones Institute to call with our match. During this time we continued to pay down our credit card debt from our last failed IVF attempt. Around April I called in for an update on the wait list and found out that not many previous patients where donating their embryos and they where not sure when an embryo would be available for adoption. This was pretty depressing, it felt like another slap in the face.

2 week Wait and Next Step

Its been a while since I created a post so I figured it was time to finish the story from our last failed IVF attempt. My last blog talked about the process of transferring 2 embryos, so let me pick up from there to finish the update.

After the embryo transfer you wait 2 weeks for  a blood test to be preformed to find out whether or not your are pregnant. I could feel some unusual sensations in my stomach and wonder could that be the embryos implanting. Could it be working?I tried my best to stay busy during this time so I would not be 100% consumed in whether or not we where pregnant.

One thing that always amazed me is seeing ladies in a facebook support group that I am member of taking the urine style pregnancy test prior to the end of the 2 week wait. The fertility clinic specifically tells you not to do this because you could get false results. These women will either be excited or crushed by theses results and they may not even be accurate.  I never felt the need to test during the 2 week wait. I think for me I did not want to face the fact that it might not of worked.

The 2 week testing date arrived and I had arranged plans to have the blood test done in Elizabeth City, so I would not have to make the hour drive to and from the fertility clinic in Virginia. I was able to get the test done at my local OBGYN office. I asked how long before they would have the results to the Jones Institute and they told me it could be a few days. I was ok with that because no news was better than bad news. Later that day the Jones Institute called to see if I was able to get the blood test done that morning. I told them yes, but that the OBGYN said it could take a couple days for the results to be returned to them. The nurse from the Jones Institute said they know this test is a rush and that she would contact them right now. It was less than a a few hours and the Jones Institute called again with the results. Unfortunately the transfer had failed and we where not pregnant. Even though going in we knew our chances where low it was still upsetting to have come this far and still have nothing to show for it. I was told to stop the progesterone shots and patches. They where no longer needed.

After the failed IVF round. I thought there would be a follow up appointment scheduled by the clinic to discuss future options, but that appointment was not scheduled, so after a few weeks. I called to schedule my own.

My husband and I met with Dr. Bocca in November 2017 and she said that the reason this cycle had failed was due to the quality of my eggs. The eggs where just not strong enough to do what they needed to do to make a viable embryo. She also mentioned that it could be millions of reasons why my eggs where such poor quality and the chances of figuring out the reason would be like finding a needle in a hay stack. Dr. Bocca proceed to tell us our options from here.

1. Do another round of IVF, but she could not guarantee any better results next time.
2. Use an egg Donor and my husband sperm.
3. Adopt an embryo
4. Adopt a baby.

Don and I talked about the options on the way home. I did not want to spend the money on another round of IVF since it was costing us between $20,000 to $30,000 a round and the odds of success was not in our favor. Using an egg donor would be about the same amount, so I did not want to spend that amount of money either since we where still paying off the previous round. Adopting an embryo was between $5,000 and $8,000 with a wait time of 6 months. The last option was adopting a baby, I had a coworker go through this process recently and it took them 2 years to get there baby and I believe it cost them around $25,000. To do normal adoption I would want to pay off the existing failed ivf round which would take at least 7 months and then we would need to save additional money to money forward with adoption. In my mind I was thinking this could take up to a year or longer.

I have set a deadline for myself, If I can't have a baby by the time I am 40 years old, then I am going to give up on this dream. I am currently 37 years old, so time is ticking away.

With all that to take into consideration we decided to move forward with being on the wait list to adopt a an embryo. I had a little money in savings and felt like we would have most of the latest IVF failed cycle paid off with in 7 months. That led us to choose embryo adoption since it was the cheapest and quickest option.

Let's Compare

I like comparisons, so this post is all about how my IVF cycle at The New Hope Center compares to my IVF Cycle at the Jones Institute. In this post I am comparing medicines, follicle growth, and eggs retrieved.


Lets first look at how the medicine prescribed was different from both clinics. Now in all fairness the Jones Institute intentionally went with a low medicine regiment in an effort to be able to produce better quality eggs.

 Next I made this graph below to show how the follicles grew from visit to visit.

 

The Last comparison is Eggs Retrieved

NEW HOPE CENTER we got 5 eggs but non fertilized

JONES INSTITUTE we got 7 eggs, 2 fertilized normally but did not make it to blastocyst stage.

Round 3 - Egg Retrieval/Transfer Week

The Egg Retrieval and the Embroy Transfer are scheduled 5 days apart, so that makes for a busy week and a long post.

The Egg Retrieval was done on Tuesday 10/3/17. I  am not going to take up much of this post to detail about the egg retrieval since I have blogged about it previously and this time was almost identical to the previous egg retrieval. If your interested in the reading about my previous egg retrieval click here:Previous Egg Retrieval blog post .
 The important information to know about this egg retrieval is that the doctor was able to retrieve 8 eggs. That's 2 more than the previous cycle!

Just before 9 am on Wednesday 10/4/17 I received a call from Dr. Bocca asking how I was feeling after yesterday's egg retrieval. She then proceeded to move on to I have an update on your egg/embryo fertilization. This is where everything fell apart last time. She says we retrieved 8 eggs yesterday, we where able to fertilize 5 of the 8.

Of the 5 embryos 2 are progressing normally with 3 needing to be monitored longer to see if they would be viable or not. I told Dr. Bocca that was better news than I heard the last time I went through this process and that I was happy to have options this time.

My next step was to begin Vivelle Patches and Progesterone Oil.The patches and the shot are both are both administered on the buttocks.

I kept waiting day by day for bad news but Friday rolls around and I get a call from the Jones Institute stating I was to be there on Sunday at 7:30 am for the transfer.

Sunday  10/8/17  Don and I left home about 6 am heading to The Jones Institute for our embryo transfer. We arrived about 7:15am and where led to the 2nd Floor where the surgery's, egg retrieval and transfers are preformed. The nurse gave me instructions to undress from the waist down, put on the gown over top the top half of my clothes and then come back to the bed area to lay down. Once I was in the bed the nurse took my vitals, said the transfer would be about 8:30 am and to begin drinking water about 20 minutes before.  Shortly after that, the doctor walks into our area, which I first though was odd, since most time the doctors have been to see me right before my procedures in the past. The doctor proceeds to tell us that our 2 normal embryo have not progressed to the 5 day blastocyst stage. They where at the 3-4 day stage (multi-cell picture below). We where given 2 options.

1. Transfer 2 abnormal embryos that had a low chance of resulting in a viable pregnancy or 
2. Wait another day or 2 to see if they reach blastocyst, then freeze the embryos and do the transfer the following month. If the embryos survived another day. 

I have included a picture below to give you an idea how embryos should progress. We where at the multi-cell stage. 

 

It was a very confusing time,we felt like the doctor was kinda leading us one way then she would lead us another way while always saying its a hard decision. She left us alone while she went to do an egg retrieval and to give Don and I time to discuss what we should do. We went back and forth on what to do and then Don came up with what we thought was a brilliant idea. Transfer the best 1 of the 2 and then wait out the remaining embryo to see it would make it to blastocyst stage. When the doctor came back in and we told her the idea. She went to talk to the embryologist and then had him come talk to us. After talking with him, you could see that he felt like the embryos where not going to make it much longer and they had started progressing backwards. I had read an article recently about using abnormal embryos and how in some instances they where able to produce a health baby. So we decide to go ahead d antransfer both embryos. 

Now was the time to start drinking water, because they need my uterus to be full to help with the implantation of the embryos. Well before I was even done with the first bottle of water, I was already experiencing the uncomfortable symptoms of having to pee. But I had to wait for the doctor to take me back to do the transfer first.The symptoms worsened and now I was in pain and asking the nurse to let me go to the bathroom, I could drink more water. She finally said I could go pass a small amount but not to empty my bladder. I took her up on that offer but honestly that just made things worse. Here a picture below to help illustrate the need to drink water. Only problem my bladder was full!!!

After what felt like forever Don and I where finally taken back to the operating room. I was wheeled back on a bed and then slide across to the operating table. There was no sedation for the procedure. Don sat at my head and the doctor, nurse and embryologist where at my feet. I remember asking them if anyone had ever peed on the table because I was so worried that would happen to me when the doctor inserted the speculum. Thank goodness that did not happen. The doctor had some trouble and had to try a couple different size speculum to get the right one. I am in severe pain during this because I have to pee so bad. Now with the speculum in place the embryologist brings over the embryos in a catheter. The doctor then transfer the embryos into my uterus with the catheter. I have attached 2 pictures below to give you an idea of how it is done. 

Now that the transfer is done. I was moved back to a hospital bed and then wheeled back to the area where the patients are held pre and post procedures. I now had to lay flat for 20 minutes. Remember I  still have to pee and am feeling so much discomfort from this. Don graciously offered to keep the time for the nurses. I thought he was being sweet for doing this. NO, he was being his normal prankster self. I am lying their feeling like I can't hold it any longer, and he talking about water falls. Finally 20 minutes is over and I make a bee line for the bathroom. I get there and could not go. I am like REALLY bladder come on. Finally it started and I could feel Relief!!! I was then cleared to be able to get dressed and go home.Before Don heads down stairs to get the car he proceeds to tell me that he made me lay there longer than 20 minutes. Its a good think I love him, cause I could of killed him in that moment. I was pretty mad at him for about a whole 5 minutes. lol 

When leaving the nurse instructed me to stay seated or reclined as much as possible for the rest of the day and then I could go back to my normal activities the next day. The next step is to come back in 2 weeks for a pregnancy test to see if it works.