Reciprocal IVF Check-in

maggiemay33

I thought I would set up a space so those of us doing reciprocal IVF can check in with one another. Especially since it is kind of a long, multifaceted process that can be difficult and tiring to explain. 

maggiemay33

I'll go first! My wife and I finally feel like we are doing something. After a few months of tests, etc. she is finally on BC. So we're just waiting for me to be able to sync up; too. We are planning to use her eggs and I will carry. Just another set of blood tests until we can really nail down a donor. 

Even with this though, we don't have a real schedule which is making me a bit nuts. At this rate though, retrieval and implantation should be June or July I'd think.

healz413

We are now 12 weeks pregnant with twins from our reciprocal (or partner, as we call it) IVF.

If folks have questions or want to talk things over, let me know.

maggiemay33

healz413. Twins!!

maggiemay33

Had an appointment today with our fertility Dr. We are dealing with a myriad of unexpected issues which we did not anticipate and have been referred to another fertility Dr. with whom we can't get an appointment until mid June. 

I don't have it in me to break down the details but basically our whole plan has been upended. We're pretty devastated. 

Hope everything is going a little better for everyone else.

2MamazInSeattle

Lurking on this checkin. I'm so sorry you got derailed. I know the feeling, and its so hard. We went from "let's start with a few IUIs" to "you have to get both your tubes removed, go to IVF, and your egg reserve is crap, so is your wife's, so you need to use donor eggs." That sucked. So know we all are here to support you as you need!

maggiemay33

Thanks so much! It sucks that other people have an equally shitty experience, but commiseration is nice.

Manada

maggiemay33 said:

Had an appointment today with our fertility Dr. We are dealing with a myriad of unexpected issues which we did not anticipate and have been referred to another fertility Dr. with whom we can't get an appointment until mid June. 

I don't have it in me to break down the details but basically our whole plan has been upended. We're pretty devastated. 

Hope everything is going a little better for everyone else.

Sorry to hear about this. 

Our fertility plan was upended many times in the process, and it was really hard for us.   We started out "dreaming" of reciprocal IVF, but not being able to afford it -- then we went through a bunch of fertility complications for us both.

Good luck sorting yours out.  It can take time, but possibilities may open up that you hadn't thought of that are wonderful in other ways.   When we were going through this I read a poem that was actually writing by a parent of a child with a disability that said something like "We thought we were going to spain, but ended up in Amsterdam"  -- and talked about how you were all ready for one thing, and it can take awhile to get out of the shock in ending up somewhere that you didn't expect, but that sometimes there are things to appreciate there too.

I dunno.  I may have wanted to punch myself for my optimism if I was talking to me during our infertility struggles.    Fair reaction, but I have been there too.

I hope it works itself out and you find clarity soon.

maggiemay33

Thanks @Manada. 

My own mind vacillates between letting things happen how they happen and try to be open to the goodness that is in the ride... and wanting to punch everyone within arm's reach in the face. 

Things just seem way more grim than I anticipated. I was talking to my wife the other day about hating how our experience was kind of couched in the negative, with the infertility treatments, etc. when the only thing we're really lacking is sperm. Today as we sat in the parking lot of our doctor's office and cried, she said "Oh hey! Now we're the couple in those infertility brochures!"

 

Manada

Yup.  Ours was totally negative as well.   We spent a year and a half going to the RE's office when every.single.thing they had to tell us was a negative.  When we didn't think it could get worse, it did.  Right up to our successful IVF cycle/retrieval and transfer.  It was traumatizing.  

Get therapy now if you can, it'll give you time to fire the therapists who don't get it, or who deserve a throat punch, before you find a decent one (we never did therapy, but we also have the odd panic attack now, and occasional emotional breakdowns when we think about it).    We got bitter, jaded, and have both developed relationships with our bodies and the medical profession that aren't exactly built on trust.

If you need friends, we are here.  There are others too who have been through a lot and have the scars to show for it.   And all of us who have known infertility are still there in some way - the damage lingers - it just changes as we get used to the new realities and adapt to survive.  

Ha.  I'm still pretty negative about infertility I know.  It's where I am.  We had success, and are carrying twins that are healthy and still growing (knock wood!) -- but we definitely thought we were buying that metaphorical plane ticket to Spain when we started out and I suspect we may have landed somewhere in Australia

maggiemay33

Hey, @TwoMomsInTX - thanks so much. 

And thanks to everyone for the support in general. 

Kate&Mylan

hi everyone!  my name is Kate.  i am in the midst of reciprocal/partner ivf with my fiancee, M.  i had searched for a reciprocal IVF board back in march and started a thread that dead ended before moving to babycenter general ivf as well as glbt ttc which is not ivf specific, but i did another search today and see that this has been started since!  which is awesome.  because we don't know anyone else going through this even online. 

first of all i wanted to say i'm sorry for those of you experiencing delays and roadblocks and other difficulties.  this is such a bizarre and difficult process. 

so our story is i'm 31, M is 37.  she has a pelvic nerve disorder and her docs recommended against carrying (can lead to nasty stuff like permanent fecal incontinence, no thanks).  we are very fortunate in that my brother has agreed to be our KD and my family is super supportive, and also that M has fabulously liberal insurance that covers 85% of IVF for us just for being same sex (for her only, not for me).  however that insurance is tied to a job from which she was laid off, and after april 30th we had to start paying a hefty cobra fee, which would eventually negate the benefit.  we found this information out in february and decided to jump in right away to take advantage of it.  given that my brother is our KD and M can't carry, we're using her bun and my oven.  M did one round of stims in early march resulting in 14 eggs that all fertilized and were immediately frozen at the 2-cell/zygote stage.  we took once cycle off and she had her second ER last sunday which resulted in 12 eggs of which 11 fertilized, and we are scheduled for ET (my ute) this coming friday. we did it this way b/c we likely won't ever have coverage for this again and we wanted to get as many embryos as possible for future cycles or sibs, but we also wanted to do a fresh cycle since for our clinic the success rates are notably higher.  we also decided to do PGD for chromosomes given M's age and b/c it boosts our clinic's success rate from about 45% to about 80% for two embryos.  we are planning on putting in 2 if everything works out (our last update was tuesday b/c of the holiday, where we got the report that 11 were growing normally at day 2. they were biopsied today - day 3 - and apparently no news is good news til we show up friday).  

the first cycle was super easy for her.  she had a migraine on CD 2 that was pretty terrible and lasted all day, but after that basically nothing and was back to baseline the day after ER.  this time however she got mild OHSS and has been pretty miserable (i would hate to see anything worse than "mild" b/c she was basically bed ridden for 3 days and screamed in pain from moving, eating, farting, you name it).  today she is finally a bit better.  

anyway, i am so happy to see this board exists and look forward to hearing from you guys on your journeys to becoming parents.

maggiemay33

Hello kate&mylan

This is really hard to talk about with people who aren't/haven't gone through this process so I'm glad this thread took off. 

It sounds as if you guys are well on your way into this process, which is awesome. I wish you guys good luck and look forward to seeing how things progress. 

We received some interesting news today. Our fertility specialist had a revelation which might get us over the logistics hurdle that is currently stymieing our progress. We need to see another specialist, but if all goes well, we might be able to continue using the Dr. with whom we started this process and really, really like so for the first time in about six weeks, I'm feeling very positive. Suddenly I'm hoping not to be able to drink at all the fall weddings we need to attend! 

Manada

Welcome K&M.

My partner and I also did partner IVF and I am now carrying (or rather on bedrest growing) our twins.

We have had a hell of a week so I don't have the energy today to update, but there are more ppl on here who have done it as well. I am happy to talk about or answer questions about some of the social-emotional stuff that came up for us in the process as well.

Kate&Mylan

Wow, awesome to see so many folks going this route, and so many successes too!

twomomsintexas - is the TTC checkin on this thread or a different one?

fortunately M has really improved over the last 1.5 days or so and is able to move around comfortably, drive, etc.  

i had the ET today which was so cool.  of our 11 embryos, 1 arrested and 10 were biopsied.  4 were normal per PGD, 2 XX and 2XY.  one of each was in the early blastocyst stage and therefore not graded on the blastocyst scale, but showed minimal fragmentation and were deemed good enough quality to freeze.  one XX was a 5AA blastocyst on the cusp of being fully hatched/6AA and one XY was a 4AA blastocyst.  we transferred those two.  other than the fact that i was apparently dehydrated b/c despite drinking 40oz of fluid my bladder was not full (which resulted in them catheterizing me and filling my bladder with saline - not fun), everything went really well.  my RE recs 48 hours of "modified couch rest," up to eat at the table and go to the bathroom and such, but no exercising, cleaning, etc.  i slept so little last night due to excitement and anxiety that i came home and took a 3 hour nap.  now...  we wait!

so glad to have found this place

maggiemay33

So I thought I would touch base again. After waiting to figure out some unexpected and annoying issues, we are currently back on track. My wife and I are both on BC and lupron. I feel puffy as shit and to top it off my foot is injured. I'm a big runner and the hormone + injury combo is not awesome. We will have a retrieval and then transfer sometime next month.

Hope the rest of you are doing well.