Author: femmephysicist

How we made the decision to use donor eggs

~ femmephysicist ~ 1 Comment

Now that I’m nearly 27 weeks pregnant(!), I’ve gotten a few private messages lately from women in the infertility trenches asking me things like how we made the decision to use donor eggs, how we decided between anonymous and known donation, and how the process compared to non-donor-egg IVF. I actually love getting these questions, because if I can help other people by sharing our experience, it honestly makes it all worth it. (Well… almost worth it… I’m no masochist.)

So for those who are currently considering donor eggs themselves, or those who are just curious, I thought I’d write a series of posts attempting to answer these questions. I’ll start by sharing how the decision process went for our particular case, with the acknowledgement that each case is different, and therefore our case may not mirror yours.

How did we make the leap to donor eggs?

I’m one of those people who researches the hell out of everything, so as soon as we learned that I had premature ovarian failure, I basically already knew that we would end up using donor eggs. To be clear, our OB-GYN here in Holland didn’t actually use the phrase ‘premature ovarian failure’… However, she told us that I had the hormone levels of a menopausal woman despite being 34 at the time, and then once we confirmed how my ovaries were responding to IVF (i.e., they weren’t), I put two-and-two together.

Of course, we still tried my eggs three times, which took quite a bit of effort — we had to talk the infertility clinic we’d been referred to into even doing a second IVF attempt after only getting a single egg the first time. This may be surprising to some people (‘Isn’t helping people get pregnant sort of the whole point of infertility clinics…?’), but the way they explained it is that with such a poor response, the risks of IVF start to outweigh any potential benefits.

That second attempt, we got three (poor-quality) eggs and transferred two — neither of which stuck.

Then we had to switch clinics (and countries) to get to a third try. The new clinic had me on different medication (both for the hormone therapy and for sub-clinical hypo-thyroidism), and I had also drastically altered my diet, so I was kind of hopeful that we’d get a better outcome. With that said, we went into it knowing it was likely our last shot, and the clinic suggested that we do a 5-day embryo transfer instead of 3-day like my other attempts, with part of the reasoning being that this might help us get ‘closure’. Indeed, when the single egg that fertilized (of a measly two retrieved) didn’t even survive to transfer day, that did help us close that chapter.

Was that an easy decision?

No — obviously that was still devastating. Just like normal, fertile people (lucky bastards…) can’t truly understand what it’s like to go through infertility/IVF, I think that those doing ‘regular’ (non-donor-egg) IVF can’t understand what it’s like to ‘give up’ on your eggs. (The same holds for the use of donor sperm, donor embryos, surrogacy, and etc.) For my husband and I, making the leap to donor eggs was a far bigger leap than ‘just’ doing IVF in the first place.

If undergoing ‘regular’ IVF was the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree, accepting that we needed donor egg IVF was the equivalent of writing a doctoral dissertation.

With that said, I knew that I just really wanted to experience being pregnant, and if it took donor eggs to get me there, I was willing to make that leap. Luckily, my husband felt the same way.

Considering the whole spectrum of cases, I can imagine that making the decision to use donor eggs or not would be harder for those whose ovaries aren’t as geriatric as mine apparently are. When you’re only getting a tiny handful for poor-quality eggs each cycle, like we did, the decision basically makes itself for you. If you’re getting a larger number of eggs, or the reason behind the failed implantation is less obvious, the decision is much less clear-cut, of course. If this applies to you, then my advice would be to talk to your clinic and decide ahead-of-time if a non-donor-egg cycle will be your last one. That way, you can grieve appropriately during the cycle.

How are we feeling about it all now?

So now that we are finally pregnant through donor egg IVF (i.e. DEIVF), how are we feeling about our decision? The short answer is that we feel super excited and ridiculously grateful. Before it worked for us, I used to worry that any eventual DE pregnancy would be bitter-sweet, with each exciting milestone marked by an equal amount of grief for the lost opportunities. (I’m clearly not at all dramatic/prone to melancholy.)

Now that we have made it to the other side and things appear to be going well, I’m happy to report that I am just thrilled to be pregnant, and I don’t even care that it took donor eggs to get us here. Obviously, it being a donor egg pregnancy does raise unique issues — which I will continue to explore in this blog — but the important thing is that my husband and I are 100% happy with our decision. If anything, it just makes us both even prouder of what we’ve endured to get here.

xx

The contents of my uterus

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You know those people who talk about the baby like it’s a person before it’s even born? As in, ‘Bradley just loves when I eat ice cream’. Or, ‘Bradley’s nursery will be complete as soon as I hand-stencil the Desiderata on the wall’?

Well I’ve always found this behavior sort of odd, which is part of the reason I didn’t want to tell anybody the name before the birth.

That’s right — we have a name. Some people are surprised we have one ‘already’, but they really shouldn’t be. We’ve had YEARS to figure this out, guys. And actually, we had the name before we even started trying, and well before all this infertility nonsense started. My husband and I both distinctly recall discussing the name as a given already 10(!) years ago*, which means we’ve had it for at least that long.

The only thing we weren’t sure of was whether the gender would fit, because for some reason, we only had a female name. But at our 20-week scan we found out that it will…because, as luck would have it, it’s a girl.

To tell or not tell?

Everyone keeps asking if we were hoping for a girl or boy, and honestly — after years of infertility, failed IVF attempts, and ultimately egg donation — we’re still just over-the-moon that we’re pregnant at all. Our main excitement over learning it was a girl was realizing that we could finally use the name we’ve talked about for so long.**

My husband was so excited he wanted to immediately tell everyone the name, whereas I wasn’t even sure about revealing the gender at first. I admit the initial excitement almost swayed me. But in addition to finding it weird when people refer to an unborn child by a name, I’m also suddenly feeling a little…private?…about it all.

Saying that may seem at odds with the fact that I’m doing so on a public blog — raise your hand if you’ve heard me talk about my uterine lining! — but it’s actually pretty logical. I still believe strongly in raising awareness about infertility and egg donation, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a naturally private person. Infertility steals so much from you — my husband and I couldn’t conceive without getting literally dozens of people involved — and now that we are finally pregnant, I’d like to keep something back for just the two of us.

It’s an…it

In the meantime, my husband and I continue to refer to the baby not by name, or even by gendered pronoun, but as an ‘it’ — including in private. Maybe this will change as the pregnancy progresses further, but for now we’d like to ask our friends and family to do the same.

In addition to my newfound (& somewhat surprising) desire to keep the contents of my uterus private, I think part of it, for me, is that it seems somehow presumptuous/overly familiar to refer so intimately to a person we’ve never met. Another part of it may have to do with the fact that it’s a girl, and I’d like to delay society’s expectations (why is everything so PINK?!) for as long as possible. But I’m also no dummy, and it’s likely that a major part of it has to do with the trauma we went through to get here, and a natural tendency to shield oneself in the event of a loss.

So until this baby makes its grand debut, we will continue to refer to it as an ‘it’, and we hope you won’t mind following along.

xx

*We know this conversation took place exactly 10 years ago because we were trying to adopt a deaf corgi with the same name after we’d already decided we liked it for a kid. When that adoption fell through (and we wound up with our current neurotic fluff-ball instead), the silver lining was knowing we wouldn’t have to choose between finding a new kid’s name, or naming a kid after our dog.

**Ironically, the name we chose over a decade ago on the US is quite popular here in Holland. I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed, but least it will be easy for people here to pronounce…

Pregnancy after infertility

~ femmephysicist ~ 1 Comment

Apologies for the radio silence, and rest assured that it’s not because anything has gone wrong. It’s partly because I’ve been really freaking busy with work and visitors, and also partly because I’m still figuring out how to talk about pregnancy in an infertility blog.

First, there are the questions about my blog name/Instagram handle. Then there’s the matter of adjusting to a new reality after such a long road. And finally, there’s the fact that I still don’t look or feel particularly pregnant. Let’s tackle them each in turn.

The formerly bunless oven?

“You’re not bunless anymore! You’ll have to change your name!”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this over the last couple months. The thing is, this donor egg IVF pregnancy — while a scientific miracle — doesn’t change the fact that I’m infertile. I don’t mean that in a mopey please-feel-sorry-for-me way, but as a matter of fact. Obviously I feel immensely lucky that modern science ultimately still made pregnancy possible for us. Nevertheless, that doesn’t just erase everything it took to get here.

There’s also the issue of ever having another kid, assuming this one makes it out alright. We’re extremely fortunate to have three more frozen embryos from Marie’s eggs, which is a luxury many people don’t have. Still, if we ever wanted to try for a 2nd — a decision most couples make over a casual dinner, or not at all (#bonusbaby) — that means more hormone therapy, long drives to Belgium, and potentially even finding a new egg donor in yet another foreign country to start the whole process from the beginning.

So in summary:

  • Super grateful to have gotten where we are today
  • Still definitely keeping the name.

Fitting in with the ‘fertiles’

Transitioning from the infertility community to the pregnancy community has been strange, to put it mildly. Many people assume that the transition happens instantaneously the moment you get the news, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Going through what we did was a massive emotional and physical burden — I didn’t just magically wake up pregnant one morning like all the other women in my pregnancy yoga class. I feel like a warrior among lottery winners, and coming to terms with the full extent of this new reality will take some time.

One of the ways this manifests is in the way I feel comfortable talking (or not) about the pregnancy. I’m not the type to gush about baby stuff or write carefree ‘Lovin’ pregnant life!!’ posts anyway, but this has made me probably even less so. Part of this is because I’m super-conscious of all the couples still struggling — I’ll be the first to admit that pregnancy-related posts were a big trigger for me during our multiple IVF attempts. But it’s also because it’s hard to endure so many years of failure without experiencing a little bit of post-traumatic stress. When you finally get something that you’ve fought for for so long, it’s natural to treat it more seriously than those who ended up there by chance.

Nothing to see here

The final reason I haven’t posted much is that even now at 17 weeks, I still don’t feel (or look) particularly pregnant, and not much has been going on. We had two more ultrasounds at 10 and 12 weeks when I tapered off the estrogen and progesterone, but everything looked perfectly normal. We also had another small bleeding scare at around 12 weeks, but thankfully nothing more since. The genetic testing came back with no evidence for Down’s, Edwards, or Patau syndromes. In addition, my blood work all came back looking excellent, and my blood pressure has always been extremely low. Aside from the whole prematurely-failing-ovaries thing, I’m really the absolute picture of health. Honestly, the most exciting thing to happen during the last couple months was learning that my blood type is not O+, despite having believed that my whole life. (My real blood type is apparently A+, which seems perfectly fitting if you know me at all.)

Since everything seems to be going well, we finally announced our pregnancy to our wider network a few weeks ago. So in case you haven’t already seen it, here’s our long-awaited pregnancy announcement featuring all of the used needles from our IVF attempts:

“Today we want to introduce a project that we’ve been working on for over half a decade*. After a very difficult journey, including 6 attempted IVF embryo transfers, 5 medicated (and >55 unmedicated) two-week waits, 4 separate egg retrieval surgeries, including 3 for Allie in 2 different (foreign) countries, and ultimately the generosity of 1 amazing friend who donated her eggs, we are happy to report that we are finally expecting our miracle baby. *This is longer than it took me to get my PhD in Physics. I think I should get to put this in my tenure report.”

A poor quality embryo success story

~ femmephysicist ~ 7 Comments

Last week, after what has been a 5+ year battle with infertility culminating in a donor egg IVF pregnancy, we had our first ever ultrasound not at a fertility center. Instead, we went to a regular old midwife practice…like normal people. I know some IVF’ers who have felt out-of-place when they make this transition, as if they still don’t belong. I kind of felt the opposite, to be honest — like after the number of ultrasound wands I’ve had shoved up my hoo-ha to get here, they should present me with some sort of elite membership card.

With that said, we went into the appointment with significant trepidation. I’d had a non-negligible amount of red spotting/bleeding two days before, which left me completely panic-stricken. Combined with the strong cramps that started the next day, things weren’t looking so good. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to go through a miscarriage too” I cried pitifully to my husband from my perch on the toilet.

You see, what’s been in the back of my head this whole time is the knowledge that the embryo we transferred was not the best quality. It was rated a 3BC before freeze, and had developed into only a 5CB upon defrost. The number is the stage of development, and the letters (A–D) rate the appearance/quality of the inner cell mass (which becomes the baby) and trophectoderm (which becomes the placenta), respectively. Since both things are required to make a baby, both grades are important. For a 5-day blastocyst transfer, the ideal grade is therefore 5AA. Since D-grades (=poor) aren’t even frozen, this meant our embryo barely made the cut.

While you have a chance with any embryo, studies show that the quality of the embryo correlates strongly with both the chance of implantation and the ultimate live birth rate. The best quality (5AA) embryos have a pregnancy rate >60% and a live birth rate >50%. With the embryo I transferred, on the other hand, I had only a ~30% chance of a positive pregnancy test, and only a ~15% chance of a live birth. In other words, although I had managed to beat the odds and become pregnant, my chance of miscarriage was a whopping 50%.

To make matters worse, those statistics were compiled for ‘ideal’ 5-day blastocysts, but our little dude/dudette didn’t make it to blastocyst until day 6. That means it was growing at a slower-than-normal rate, and that our true chance was likely even more pessimistic. Combining these statistics with my sudden bleeding and cramping, my husband and I went into our first pregnancy ultrasound unsure of what we would find.

The 8-week ultrasound

After explaining our situation to the midwife and having her narrowly stop me from taking my pants off (…old habits…), I climbed onto the exam table for my abdominal ultrasound. I was in tears before the exam even started, so conditioned by our ‘journey’ to expect the worst. But almost immediately, she told us it was good news — she could see the growing embryo!

She then asked me to remove my pants for a trans-vaginal ultrasound (see!) and she told my husband he could get out his phone. (She had told him phones weren’t allowed earlier in case it was bad news…won’t fall for that twice.) The raspberry-sized embryo was measuring right on track for its age, and we could even see a heartbeat. Despite our worst fears, everything was progressing just fine.*

At this point, I should note that I’m still taking two different IVF medications: a form of estrogen (orally) and a form of progesterone (via vaginal suppositories). I assumed this was self-evident to the midwife, both because she knew it was a donor egg IVF pregnancy and because the progesterone leaks out in massive white chunks. I was therefore caught off-guard when she started delicately hinting that if I noticed any symptoms like discharge, itching, or redness, I should call my doctor. I smiled politely and tried to rack my brain (“Have I noticed any itching??”) when my husband piped up that I was on vaginal progesterone, to which she replied “Ahhhh, that’s what it is then.” From this, I learned two things: 1) They apparently don’t get many IVF patients, and 2) From the amount of white goo leaking out of me, she must have thought I had a vaginal infection to rival all vaginal infections. So that’s not embarrassing at all.

Success with a poor-quality embryo

Technically, our embryo wasn’t poor-quality, it was fair-quality. Still, this seemingly minor distinction didn’t ease my anxiety during the two-week-wait when confronted with the dozens of ‘Perfect 5AA!’ embryos that my fellow IVF’ers seemed to post about online. Perhaps there’s some bias where people only post about the grade if it’s good?

Since I had such a hard time finding success stories for anything less than BB, let me add our own small success story here for those still in the trenches. Our embryo was only a 3BC (and by day 6, at that), our donor (Marie) was a month shy of 37, and while we won’t stop worrying ’til the very end, here is the 8-week scan of our bean.

* When I called Ghent to share the good news, the midwife I spoke to thought I had used the eggs of ‘my partner’. So either known donations also aren’t that common, or Marie and I come off as an adorable lesbian couple.

A different kind of two-week-wait

~ femmephysicist ~ 10 Comments

Trigger warning: This post discusses a positive pregnancy test, which means that I’m now one of those annoying ‘pregnancy bloggers’ I used to avoid like the plague. My sincere apologies.

You’d think that after finally receiving our first ever positive pregnancy test, the anxiety would have subsided. After all, this is what we’ve been working toward all these years, right??

Wrong — what we’ve been working toward is a fully formed, living and breathing baby, and we’re still quite a ways from having that in the bag.

I’m not complaining, of course — a positive test is the first necessary step, and it’s one that eluded us cycle and after for >60 months (not that I’ve been counting). But after working so hard for it, and waiting for so long, the very real possibility of a miscarriage has not escaped my notice.

I realize, of course, that the odds are in our favor — which is definitely the first time I’ve been able to say that in this whole painful process. But while being a member of the online infertility community has been a HUGE support, I think I may have finally discovered one downside. In particular, seeing daily posts from other women having trouble getting (or staying) pregnant has given me a heightened awareness of everything — and I mean everything — that can possibly go wrong*. (Having severe cramps in the middle of the night on Wednesday didn’t help either.)

2nd blood test (‘beta’)

Luckily, one good thing about getting pregnant through (donor egg) IVF is that we’ll be followed fairly closely through the process. Our mythical Big Fat Positive (BFP) was originally confirmed via an HCG blood test (‘beta’) over a week ago now, and last week we had a second beta to see how things were coming along.

In a normal pregnancy, the level of HCG in the blood should double approximately every ~48 hours. With an initial beta of 160, and a second beta scheduled for 6 days later, I was therefore hoping for a number greater than 1,280. From the amount of dizziness I was experiencing, and from peeing on sticks like a madwoman, I was pretty sure my HCG was rising — I just didn’t know by how much.

Have you ever waited to hear if the only pregnancy you’ve ever achieved — a pregnancy which took multiple years and donated genetic material — was still viable? I can tell you that it’s not completely stress-free, no matter how much you want to ‘Just enjoy it!’. After a tense day of glaring at my silent phone, and multiple communication issues between my local clinic and Ghent (one involving a fax machine, because apparently it’s 1995…), I finally got word from the nurse: My second beta came back at 4,815. I’m definitely still pregnant – or at least I was as of last Thursday!

Another two-week-wait

What they don’t tell you is that after you get pregnant, the two-week waits don’t go away — they just change into a different form. Now that the clinic is satisfied with my HCG level, our next step is a 7-week ultrasound. That means another two-week-wait, which I’m finding nearly as nerve-wracking as the first one.

Part of the problem is that ever since that bout of bad cramps last week (which were the night before my 2nd beta), the dizziness I experienced in the first few days has mostly gone away. Since that was really my only symptom, that means that I no longer feel particularly pregnant. I’m really hoping that it’s just the normal ebb and flow of symptoms, but it’s hard to know so many women who have experienced losses and not be a little paranoid. I may come to regret having said this, but right now, I would really kill for some morning sickness.

xx

*For example, if you are in the very early stages of pregnancy, I highly recommend NOT — under any circumstances — googling ‘blighted ovum’.

The outcome of embryo transfer attempt #6 is…

~ femmephysicist ~ 16 Comments

I often plan my posts several days in advance in my head, but I’m not really sure how to begin this one. Ever since my last post about our 6th embryo transfer attempt, I had been planning to start this post with an analogy between an infertility ‘journey’ and being stuck on the side of the freeway in a broken-down bus next to a smelly drunk guy. But then my blood test results came back, and now I’m not really sure that’s accurate anymore*…

Because I’m pregnant.

I’m freaking PREGNANT, guys. After >5 years trying, 6 embryo transfer attempts, and our 3rd attempt with our friend Marie’s donated eggs.

I found out on the train to a marathon five-hour work meeting. The local clinic where I had my blood drawn earlier that morning was supposed to fax my results to Ghent, who would then call my husband so that I wouldn’t receive bad news during work. When I saw my phone light up with our local clinic’s number, I therefore thought ‘Maybe they’re calling me because it’s actually good news?!’ In retrospect, I think I hadn’t properly communicated to the local clinic not to call me as well, so I narrowly avoided what would have been a five-hour nightmare.

Did this two-week-wait feel any different?

The classic question that any woman undergoing a two-week wait (2ww) wants answered is: Did this 2ww feel any different than those that resulted in a negative? Now that I’ve actually experienced a successful cycle, I can say that the answer is (for me): not really. The progesterone side effects always hit me hard, and this 2ww was no different. I had the same cramping, bloating, and backache that I’ve become accustomed to during our failed cycles, and my husband can attest that I was equally delightful company (i.e., super moody).

I also didn’t have any of the early symptoms you read about if you scour the 2ww forums: boobs weren’t the slightest bit sore even after being prodded from every conceivable angle, and I definitely didn’t ‘just feel’ pregnant. What I felt like was a woman on a sh*tload of hormones who desperately wanted the 2ww to be over.

That’s not to say that there weren’t a few possible signs this cycle. The day before my blood test, I started feeling sort of dizzy/drunk during the departmental colloquium (which I was definitely not drinking during) and had to leave work early. I was also absolutely freezing. Then when I was lying down at home, I sneezed, and every muscle in my abdomen cramped up in unison for about 3 seconds.

While these things did strike me as sort of odd, literally every past cycle has resulted in at least one new ‘symptom’ as well, and they clearly never resulted in a positive. My coldness this round could easily be explained by the frigid weather, and if you google progesterone side effects, dizziness and cramps are two of the main offenders. What’s more — these ‘symptoms’ (which I dismissed anyway) only presented themselves the very last day before my blood test. So in summary, if you don’t feel any different after your transfer, don’t automatically assume you’re out.

What happens now?

I’m technically only 4 weeks pregnant, so it’s still very early days. Our clinic told me that around 1/3 of such pregnancies end in miscarriage, which is an uncomfortably high number. And while I’d like to think that the universe wouldn’t be that cruel after such a long struggle already, I have definitely seen it happen.

Thankfully, the dizziness/drunk feeling has stuck around and even increased, which, at least at this point, I find very reassuring. I think it might just be low blood pressure, but it’s like I can literally feel my hormone levels increasing. I have another blood test to officially check my progress this coming Thursday, so we’ll be on pins and needles until then.

In the meantime, I made my husband go buy an at-home urine test so I could see it with my own eyes. So here it is, ladies and gentlemen: our first ever Big Fat Positive.

xx

*This is not to say that the bus-trip-from-hell analogy itself no longer applies. It’s just that the bus driver has finally gotten the engine to start, and the smelly drunk guy seems to have temporarily locked himself in the bathroom.