WTF meeting and 2nd opinions

I just realized that I hadn't posted in awhile. This past month has been such a blur with work, life, etc. We celebrated our sweet boys birthday on Halloween. I can't believe he's already 2!  These 2 years have flown by. Work has been keeping me busy too. It has been good to be distracted.

The week after our bfn I scheduled 2nd opinions with CCRM and SIRM. They are in Denver and Las Vegas. Pretty far away but both clinics do out of town IVF cycles and are good with crappy eggs. So far we have had 1 2nd opinion and had our wtf meeting with our current RE.  The 2nd opinion was with CCRM. Originally we were scheduled for mid December but they had a cancellation a couple weeks ago so they were able to push us up sooner. The consult was not very informative- just went over our cycles and talked about options we could do. The doctor wouldn't give us a protocol or any other info because you have to go there to do all the testing. Only then will they give you real thoughts and a plan for the future. Even though I did all the testing this past summer already, they want us to redo it all. This, in a word, is frustrating. First of all, we would have to travel there. They do not allow out of town testing - all needs to be done in their lab (which of course is not in my insurance network). I just looked at flights for December to Denver and they are not cheap. And what do we do with our son for that day?  Secondly, we would have to spend a couple grand just to get all the testing done again. Third, the financial impact for the IVF cycle is nearly double than our current clinic. All that said, they do have excellent results. This is just such a gamble!  I'm especially wavering because our current re told us that a) he didn't know what went wrong and b) we have about 35-40% chance of it working on our 2nd try. But do we fork over all this money and deal with the inconvenience to go to a clinic in Colorado only to have it fail??  On the flip side, if we stay in Chicago, spend less, deal with a clinic that we are familiar with, have it be more convenient, but it fails again - what then?  Will I always wonder "what if"?  Ugh. I just don't know. 

My re is pretty sure our embryo quality issue is due to bad eggs since the sperm's roll is only about 5% of the equation. BUT what if that 5% is where our issues stem from?  He didn't recommend any other testing for my hubby. The other doc suggested he get tested for sperm dna fragmentation. If that was high, take supplements. Since sperm turn over every 3 months, sperm quality could be better 3 months after changes are implemented. The other clinic also uses PICSI where they use a special dish to find the good sperm for use in IVF via ICSI as sometimes it is difficult via microscope alone. 

My hubby and I talked about it during our recent car trip for thanksgiving. Hubby thinks we are trying too hard if we go to Colorado. He feels like it's extreme and all the hoops to jump thru and money is a sign that we shouldn't go to that extent. I'm of a similar mindset but I can't get away from the "what if?" part. 

We still have one more consult at SIRM in about 2 weeks. Interested to hear what this doc has to say but I'm starting to feel pretty despondent about a 2nd cycle. We still will try again but I've all but stopped taking supplements, I'm eating terribly, have gained weight - just not great health wise. Hubby is the same. When we do try again I think it'll have to be March so we have 3 months to get back on track. In the meantime, we may get hubby's sperm tested for fragmentation and I might start doing weekly acupuncture. Looking back to this time 3 years ago I can't remember feeling this negative. I seem to recall feeling hopeful but I was also so so scared and desperate. Now that we have been successful once though, that desperation is not there anymore. We have a beautiful son who brings us SO much joy!  We are indeed parents now. So maybe God is telling us that we were only meant to have 1 child.  Who knows. That's just not what I'm feeling at the moment though. I really do feel like we should be parents to multiple children and strongly feel like our son should have a sibling. He'd be a great big brother!  Maybe it's just wishful thinking though. 

Official results

As expected, my beta was negative last Wednesday. I got the call when I was at work. The nurse left a message that she had results. I left work early and called her back. I knew I was going to probably cry so I didn't want to do that at work. I only left an hour early so it wasn't too noticeable. Anyway, I didn't cry really when I got the official word. But it was still sad to hear that the cycle was officially over and to hear that "doctor wants you to stop all meds tonight". My voice did get a bit shaky but I didn't break down. I got home and reported the news to hubby. He was upset but not overly so. I went and got our son from daycare early and that brightened our moods a great deal. 

My hubby surprised me though. When I mentioned that I wanted to go over the cycle with the doctor, he said he wanted to try again right away. However, our insurance operates on a yearly max for meds and procedures which we have already hit. So we have to wait for next year. He didn't realize that and was bummed about that. Also it makes me uncomfortable starting again when he doesn't have a job. But really, that doesn't matter so much because we put all the stuff on an interest free credit card that we have until May 2017 to pay off. If he still doesn't have a job by that time, something is greatly wrong. So I donno. We might go again sooner than I thought. 

I set up a follow up (WTF meeting) with our RE on November 24th. It seems so far away (nearly a month since our official BFN) but that's the earliest phone consult that he had open. I want to also call CCRM or SIRM or maybe some other places who rank high with women who have DOR (aka crappy eggs) for a 2nd opinion. There's a place in Texas that is interesting. Some in California. So maybe we will do that while we are waiting for the appointment with our clinic. But really, we will see what our current RE has to say. If he is pessimistic or doesn't have anything new to try, we might switch. However if he has an idea as to what happened and thinks we have a good chance again, maybe we'll stay there. We'll have to see.