Moving On!!!!

Well, at this point I am finally at peace. I went to my clinic on Wednesday and the doctor basically told me there was no decision to make. We only had one egg big enough to retrieve so he converted us to an IUI. To be honest I didn't even want the IUI, it just didn't make sense to me. Both my husband and I had to miss the morning of work and the chances of conceiving this way are so very slim (approx. 3-5%). I have the most advanced stage of Endometriosis, with scar tissue, deep implants, and cysts. Plus there is nothing wrong with hubbys sperm. In fact his sperm seems to be the only thing we have going for us. He had 100% mobility with the count being at 100 million after being washed (or was it 10 million, whatever it was the doctor was shocked by how many there were). My point is that his sperm just isn't an issue. Actually at times it bothers me how great it is because the clinic always makes such a big deal about it. I get it, the fertility issue is with me...haha! Anyways, everything I have read regarding endometriosis and IUI tells me that the minute I release my egg it becomes covered in toxins and basically impossible to fertilize. Plus yesterday we have a field trip in the afternoon and whatever sperm was injected in there is now on the bus seat because it was so bumpty the sperm would have been swimming in circles and flushed out!
Now we are going to move on to using my sister's eggs. She is more than willing and age isn't on her side so we want to pursue it as soon as possible. Of course we have a ton of hoops to jump through and we have to wait to meet with Dr. G at the end of March.
I have a 4 day weekend so I am going to relax every minute of it!!!

Stuck

Thanks once again for the support and suggestions. I really value your opinions and input. I should explain a couple of things. I am paying for everything out of pocket. I am in Canada so we don't pay for ultra sounds but I pay for the drugs and IVF with no coverage (we exceeded the coverage I get at work for drugs already). The frustating thing is that the government is about to start covering IVF in my province but it will probably take 2 years before it is effective. I have considered moving to another province where it is free of charge but that is just a pipe dream. I should also explain that we are stuck in our clinic for now. The way it works it that you pay the full fee up front and if you don't go to retrieval they keep the balance (minus the drugs) to use it towards the next cycle (very sneaky!!). We seriously considered switching clinics after our last cycle. But we figured it wasn't the clinics fault I didn't get pregnant and wanted to avoid going through all of the preliminary tests again so we decided to stay. Obviously that wasn't the best decision we could have made. Plus there is a 3 month waiting list to get into other clinics in my area and I have added my name already just in case.
So I did call the clinic and demand to talk to my doctor. However, he wasn't in (he is head of the local hospital) and he won't be in the clinic until next week. He doesn't have email and he doesn't take phone calls (wow, how special!). I will be seeing a doctor tomorrow but not mine. The first appointment I can make with my own doctor is March 31 (a lot of good that will do with this cycle).
I guess the decision is really mine and G's to make. I have always known the problem would be with my eggs. So do I convert to an IUI (although the stats are so low) and keep the money for a donor cycle? Or do I give it one last shot with my own eggs?(3 seems to pathetic to me) Another thought I had was to have my sister and I stim at the same time and then throwing all the embies we can make in there. Imagine after all this I end up the octomom part 2 (I am just kidding, I think I am loosing my mind). I guess it would be impossible to have us both stim at the same time (and super expensive) but it was a dream. That way if we took the 2 best embies between the both of us I could fool myself into thinking I was the egg donor.

In or Out

So the nurse from my clinic just called me and it was not good news. She said that my estrogen is down and that we have to make a decision tomorrow morning. She believes that because I am not responding that means that my ovarian reserve is so low that I will never produce multiple eggs. She says that there are only 2 protocols and because neither worked for me that we should probably move on to an egg donor, if it is an option. She said we could try upping my gonal f but in the past when women respond so poorly to the amount I am taking (300ius per night) that it doesn't make a difference to go up to (450iu)
My questions to you are: 1. Would you finish this cycle knowing there will probably be only 2 eggs? (one of the 3 is small) 2. Would you abandom the cycle and try upping the meds to the highest dosage and hope for more?(we would be out $2500 for meds but we could use the money we have paid for our next cycle) 3. Would you go right to donor egg (if my sister is really going to go for it)?
I am leaning towards abandoning this cycle, starting a new one with the highest volume of meds, and then if I don't respond seeing if my sister is serious about going through all of this bull shit!
I hate my life!!!!

Staying at 3

So it looks like the growth of my eggs has become stagnant. It sucks and I feel defeated. The cyst that could have been an egg has now been 100% deemed a cyst and tomorrow we will decide if we are going to pursue this or abandon ship. I am frustrated and I hate this stupid roller coaster. I am curious what they will do differently next time? Is there another protocol?
I have to admit that I really don't like the way my clinic is run. It frustrates me that I see a different doctor every day and various ultra sound techs see me each morning. It is so inconsistant and they all seem to have varying views. Yesterday they said not to worry because there is time to progress and today they told me we should think about cancelling because the eggs aren't progressing. Yesterday they said that people can stim on an antagonist cycle anywhere from from 7-14 days so that I had lots of time to develop. Now today the doctor said that by day 6 you pretty much know how many eggs you are going to get and things don't really change. I don't get it, my estrogen level hasn't changed so why the big change in outlook. Today I am ready to throw the towel in on this cycle and I know tomorrow I will have a different doctor on duty see me and they will give me yet another opinon. By the way, the doctor on duty is never my own doctor. G and I have come to a decision about the cycle. We will inject tonight and then tomorrow (they are going to use the extras from the bottom of our gonal pens). If we don't have atleast 5 eggs we are going to abandom ship. Let me know what you think?

You ladies Rock!!!!

You all give the best advice and insight. I am glad to know that I am not the only one that has experienced the cyst versus egg dilema (although I wish none of us had to). It gives me confidence in my clinic that other clinics are unable to correctly identify the difference too. I guess I will just roll with it. Although I did post about being frustrated I really haven't been obsessing about things. They will be what they will be. If I had to guess last IVF there were only 2 eggs all along and the rest were cysts. I have to say that the pain I am feeling the last couple of days is exactly the same as when I have a new cyst. As I mentioned before I haven't done this protocol before but I don't think there would be any pain in the ovaries if it was just eggs growing in there.
Not sure if I mentioned it yesterday but I also learned that my ovaries are tucked far behind my uterus yesterday (how did I not know that!!!). When the ultra sound tech mentioned it yesterday I thought she was crazy. When I mentioned it to G, he said "yeah, don't you remember Dr. G saying that after your egg retrieval". Uh no I don't....I am pretty sure I was loopy and nobody ever mentioned it when I asked what went wrong. I must have asked G a million times if Dr.G had said what happened to the other 4 eggs he had seen on the ultra sound. Anyways, what difference does it make, add it to the list of abnormalities!!

Cysts versus Eggs

What a disaster my clinic is. Maybe I am being too demanding but seriously it is hard to believe that "skilled" ultra sound techs can't figure out the difference between cysts and eggs. Every time I go in they change the report. It ranges from them recording me as having anywhere from 2-6 cysts. Seriously, they have no idea how many eggs I have because they don't know if they are cysts or eggs. I assume they are cysts because last time they were so off on my egg count.
At today's appointment they said my cyst (that yesterday they told me was an egg) has grown to 2.0. When I pointed out that they had thought it was an egg yesterday the nurse didn't know how to explain. She said it will only become clear when they got bigger. This confuses me because the eggs aren't supposed to get bigger than 2.0 before retrieval. Anways, they are now counting 3 eggs and possibly a fourth that could also be a cyst. I guess I will take the extra egg if it is in fact an egg.
Thanks for the input on my last post. They won't nicrease my doses for a couple of reasons: 1. The meds make my cysts grow 2. I am already double the doses from last IVF and they worry about over stimulating 3. I have only be injecting for 4 days so I have another week to go.
I am doing an antagonist cycle (whatever that means) so egg counts are supposed to be different(lower to start) and apparently they say I should see more any day now ( I will believe it when I see it).
Thanks for the support!!!

2 freakin eggs

Ugh!!!! I only have 2 eggs!!! This is so frustrating and I am sick of this bull shit. I hate the smugness on the nurse's face (I know it's not her fault). I wish she would be honest and say that it sucks. I hate the fake bullshit trying to make me feel better. She tried to say it is only day 6 and that there "could" be more before the retrieval. This time I will not go through with the retrieval unless we are showing more eggs because it is a waste of money and too damn depressing. They will not sway me with their false optimism!!!
This SUCKS!!!!

Going through the motions

I don't know what it is but this cycle feels different. I haven't Dr. Googled anything and I don't even know the names of some of the drugs I am injecting. I don't know if it is because I am still in denial that I am going through this again or if it is because this is such a short and unexpected cycle. Maybe I haven't had time to process things. I started my injections today (one down 2 to go) and it felt more annoying than last time. I think last time I was so excited to get the process going that I was looking forward to injecting (not the physical act but the signifigance of the injections). Now I can't help but say to myself, is this doing anything! I know, I should be positivie if I want positive results but hell that didn't work last time. I am not doing accupuncture this time and I am not taking all of the vitamin suppliments. Plus have a terrible cold (maybe that is why this is such a negative post) and I feel like shit. The one thing I am going to do though is take more days off from school this time. Last time I felt that I had to get back in the classroom as soon as possible. Now I feel like I am just going to take whatever time I need. The admin at my school knows I am doing IVF and they seem to be supportive so why not.
I have my ultra sound appointment on Sunday to see if my ovaries actually respond this time!!! I am hoping to have enough eggs to supply the easter bunny!
Oh yeah and the worst news about the cycle is that I have 5 cycts. This actually makes me nervous because they were thinking of cancelling the cycle because of them. I just hope they didn't let it go forward because they wanted the $$$. Does anyone know how multiple cycsts influence IVF? The nurse told me that it should be okay as long as my estrogen levels are stable. I hate the "it should be okay"!!! I wanted her to say something more along the lines of "it will not influence your IVF at all".
I hope you are all doing well with your pregnancies, and in your journey to conceive. I have not been able to bring myself to follow pregnancy posts but I truly from the bottom of my heart wish you all the best!

Are we really doing this again???

Well we were going to wait until after our cruise but I had a drs appointment today and because we are doing a shorter antagonist cycle we can squeeze it in before we go. I know hubby was thinking we could wait and do the cycle when we were relaxed after our vacation but I can't wait. Mostly because I loved being able to get away when things didn't work out last time. It was great to having something else to look forward to instead of wallowing in self pity. I know that it is a bit pessimistic to be making plans for another failed attempt but I like to think of myself as a realist. Honestly, I am probably cursing myself but I truly believe my eggs are stale (hence my blog title) and I don't want to let myself to be shattered if this cycle doesn't work. Plus my sister isn't getting any younger so if I want to use her eggs we have to get moving.
By the way my parents seemed to have taken their offer of paying for this round off of the table. To make a long story short, they give us money for a trip to visit them every year and we declined this year (we are driving instead of flying) so they said to take the money ($1000) and put it towards our IVF or whatever we want to do with it. There was no mention of paying for the rest of the round and I would HATE to initiate the conversation. Any suggestions????