Just for the record, I don’t actually have my period. But it is due today and it feels so much like I’m going to get it any second that I am jumping the gun and getting ready for it. I feel crampy, bloaty, and heavy. But this cycle could still have worked, right? (Insert obscene hand gesture here).
After doing a ton of research and sleeping on it, I have come up with a new plan. I am going to stop taking progesterone to delay my period, because I’m no longer interested in trying one more IUI at the end of the month. I think it’s a waste of money. So starting right now I’m going to go au naturel and let my body do what it needs to do. And if I never get my period, great! But I think it’ll show up sometime today.
I found a clinic in Orange County that specializes in mini IVF so as soon as ol’ AF shows I’m going to schedule a consultation. They also have a free seminar in about three weeks so I may go to that as well. I have a lot of questions. Can I use Femara instead of Clomid during the stimulation phase? Can we do three cycles of retrievals and then put the embryos back in a few months later when it works better with my schedule (I think this is how they do it anyway but want to double check)? What if I end up with NO viable embryos after three cycles? If I get more than I need can I freeze them for later, and how much does that cost? Am I a candidate for this procedure? This clinic offers a three cycle package for $8400. Considering the minimal medication, there’s not much more on top of that. Sure, that’s a huge amount of money, but it’s just under my comfort zone where I know I can scrape it up somehow, whereas conventional IVF is totally out of the question (I couldn’t beg, borrow or steal that money).
There’s a lot of confusing information online about mini IVF. Many RE’s (including the one I saw in Glendale) poo-poo it because honestly, of course if you’re just retrieving an egg or two per cycle, you’re not going to have these fabulous success rates as when you hyperstimulate with tons of drugs and get tons of eggs. However, practitioners of mini IVF swear that their method is all about “one good egg”, that it’s better to have fewer of better quality than more of poor quality. I still don’t understand if they just take the “lead egg” or if they go into all the follicles around and take those immature eggs, too – I know I produce lots of follicles but (at least this last time) I only get one mature egg at the time of ovulation, which is natural because as one becomes dominant the others fall away. Can they get those other follicles, too? This is another question. So, there are lots of articles citing poor success rates and how this is useless for older women – and yet the mini IVF clinics tout this for older women. It’s all very confusing. One thing for sure is it’s such a new practice that there’s not much reliable data on it.
There have been a couple of game changers for me as far as moving away from IUI. One, as I mentioned, was the Choice Mom discussion about IUI vs. IVF and every woman on there saying she wished she’d moved on from IUI earlier. Then yesterday I found an article from an RE (tried to find it today to link it but can’t find it again) saying that IUI for women over 38 is pretty much a total waste of time, that the success rates are almost zero and you shouldn’t even bother with it. Wow! For me that was it – time to stop spinning my wheels. Now I’m in the mindset of “how did I ever think this was going to work???”
I feel so RELAXED when I think of taking the summer off to get my event underway, knowing that I’ll start up mini-IVF in Sept when I’m here to be monitored, spend the fall doing retrievals, get to participate in that event over New Year’s that’s so freakin’ important, and then start trying to implant early next year. That works brilliantly with my schedule. And best I can see what’s going on – see how many eggs they get, how viable they are, if they create any viable embryos. Still not sure what to do if they don’t – I really want to know how often this happens, and if there’s any kind of refund policy if you go through all that and don’t even get anything to implant. It’s hard to predict how I’d feel at that point; but I think I can assume that, at nearly 40 at that point, I’ll come to the conclusion that it’s just plain over (unless I suddenly win the lottery and can afford conventional IVF). Hey, maybe my eggs are just no good. You won’t know until you pull ‘em out, shoot sperm into them, and see if they create anything. Personally, I want to know what’s going on down there.
At the moment I’m kind of bemoaning all this wasted time – the canceled cycles, the bullshit around my lack of ovulation, the wasted IUIs – but I accept there was just no way of knowing any of this at the beginning; I never would have been the type to get all medical and aggressive right away, especially when the standard protocol is to assume you have no fertility issues and act as if you’re still a young, fertile woman when in fact you’re not. But do I wish I had acted with more urgency and saved my money for something like this in the beginning? Absolutely. I feel like a whole year has been wasted, and I’m really pushing it now as I am a month shy of my 39th birthday. Still, I don’t feel bad, I feel hopeful. I’m so glad this mini IVF thing exists, that it’s an option, that I can (kind of) afford it, that I can get through it alone with minimal stress to my body, that all in all it will actually be kind of interesting. Talk about a science experiment! Actual petri dishes will be involved! Crazy.
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