April Randoms

chichiphin

So, I thought I'd post this here. I had b/w done when I had a 22mm follicle post-first AF after loss. My beta was still a 20. I have no retained tissue, etc based off of u/s.

SO you can still have an AF & O with hcg at that level. I just couldn't find much about hcg levels for AF/O without the basic "wait til zero". 

40momma

A good friend just told me she's pregnant and I burst into tears and now I feel like crap. I truly am happy for her, I just wish I could be pregnant as well. She knows about one of my losses but I don't think it even crossed her mind initially as I'm not very open about my struggles. This all just sucks. 

splashmountain

@40momma I'm sorry you had to go through that

**tw pregnancies and dumb advice**

A few weeks ago at a family gathering, my pregnant sil was telling my sister that if she wanted to get pregnant with a girl, all she has to do is have sex right when her period ends...works every time. I gave her a "you're a dummy" look and just kept my mouth shut.

40momma

@splashmountain I literally just rolled my eyes reading that 

ruby696

@splashmountain Wow. Seriously though, how are people so clueless about their bodies? And why is it so easy for them to have babies???

@40momma I'm sorry about your conversation with your friend. I'm sure she'll understand. Hugs.

chichiphin

uh wtf. I'm so sorry @splashmountain that is one of the dumbest things I've heard. 
@40momma I'm so sorry... hopefully she understands and will be mindful going forward with talking about it.

char245

@40momma I’m so sorry, all of this just sucks!! The day I had my last chemical my best friend told me she’s pregnant again. It’s so weird to be so happy for someone and so sad for your self at the same time!

@splashmountain that’s so ridiculous! Do people not understand science??

So super random but every time I have a CP/miscarriage I am super itchy from head to toe!! I forgot about this lovely side effect that comes along with the rest of
this crap! 

splashmountain

You guys, it took all my effort not to school her on how science actually works, I love her, but damn!

char245

So my beta increased from 15-19 which is just annoying because I have a full period but they still want to track me to zero. So this just means more blood work next week. Ugh.

in other news, this has made us get much more serious about embryo adoption. So I made a few calls to get more information on that today. We’ve agreed to keep trying on our own until at least June when my RE comes back from maternity leave but until then we are also going to try and get all the information we need so we are ready to move forward if/when it’s time. 

Mack2342

@char245.  I’m sorry.  I’m glad you have a plan moving forward though

40momma

@char245 I'm so sorry you're dealing with this crap. Hopefully your RE will give you lots of good answers 

kaeineurope

@char245 that's so annoying, they should just let you be instead of making you go in for extra/unnecessary blood work. I'm so sorry you are going through this.
@splashmountain I've heard similar ridiculousness here in Italy! But here they still believe that being out in the cold can give you the cold virus... argh.

In other random news, I was at the pharmacy the other day and I was completely in shock to see AT-HOME blood pregnancy tests for sale. Basically you prick your own finger and suck drops of blood into a little catheter and it gives you a result. It's called "First to Know" and claims to be even more sensitive than First Response because it's getting HCG levels from blood serum. Crazy - right?! Totally not for me.

Then looking the product up on Google, I learned that most urine pregnancy tests can also be used with blood. It's a little trick of the trade they use in hospitals when they are trying to figure out when a patient is pregnant but can't get a urine sample. Also crazy. 

A bit random, but I was so shocked that I thought i'd share this new knowledge.

The more you know.

char245

@kaeineurope wow I didn’t know any of
that! Crazy! Now I’m tempted to try it 

chichiphin

uh what @kaeineurope I assume these are not available in the US... 

kbrown2385

So from posting for NIAW this week, both of my maternal aunts messaged me to tell me they both had losses and needed clomid to have their kids. One of them told me any testing she had done came back clear and she had no answers for her losses. Clomid worked twice for her. She also mentioned my grandmother took DES to get pregnant back in the 50’s. It’s no longer used as it caused all sorts of issues but now I’m wondering if it’s all tied together. Google of course doesnt help 😬🤦🏻‍♀️

char245

We’ve given ourselves a timeline, we will continue to try on our own until August. In the meantime we are doing all the necessary steps to adopt an embryo. If it doesn’t happen by August we will hopefully do a Frozen Embryo transfer in late August/early September. I just feel more relaxed now that we’ve put another plan in place for ourselves. 

manillabar

@kaeineurope whoa, my first instinct was to say that’s crazy, but my second thought was that this is pretty much how people check their blood sugars at home so I guess not too crazy? and not gonna lie, I’d totally try it if I could 😂

@kbrown2385 my husband and I marveled at how much more open people are to talking about losses and fertility issues once they know you’ve gone through something similar. Even within my own family, I had cousins and even one of my sisters tell me about losses that I had no clue about. The fact that your grandma had taken DES is definitely interesting. I remember learning about its effects on the children of women who had taken it but not that it would affect their grandchildren. Granted, I’m not an OB so that’s the extent of my knowledge, and maybe there wasn’t enough research on that when I was learning about it. But I wonder if your RE might have some extra insight. 

kbrown2385

@manillabar from what I’ve found online (like the cdc and nih) the grandchildren are now just coming of age to be having issues so there isn’t much research or studies on them. I’m not 100% sure that it was taken when she was pregnant with my mother so once that’s confirmed I’ll definitely be mentioning it to my RE.
      When I had my first loss it was overwhelming learning how many people around me had had losses as well. As I’ve gotten further on my journey it’s been surprising how many people have been having fertility issues as well. 

manillabar

@kbrown2385 I’d definitely be interested in hearing more (however much you are comfortable with sharing) as you find out more!

kaeineurope

@char245 @chichipin @manillabar The brand I saw in the pharmacy is only available in the european union. I wasn't able to find any US brands. I'm not surprised though, in Europe there is a whole different mentality when it comes to diagnostics and medicines here. Blood work is extremely common, even just for a wellness check-up. Also self-injection kits are really common for certain medicines -- when my SO had kidney stones they sent him to the pharmacy to get an injectable pain medication. Most people have someone in their family who has been trained to give injections, otherwise you can get it done for free in any pharmacy. Also here, it doesn't matter if you need OTC medication or prescription -- you need to ask at the counter and speak to a trained pharmacist to get what you need -- for anything. Really great until you have to announce within earshot of everyone in the room that you need medicine for a yeast infection. 

Mack2342

We went to fundraiser last night for an infertility organization.  It was very nice.  However, we didn’t win the IVF raffle.  I didn’t expect to win but still hoped we would.   It hit really hard afterwards that this month is our last time trying.   This journey just sucks.  I did meet another woman at the event with similar experience to mine and we exchanged numbers so that might be nice to have someone else to chat with.  

char245

@Mack2342 I’m sorry, I was really hoping you would win that raffle! That is nice though that you met someone you can talk with in real life that understands all of this. 

40momma

@Mack2342 I was wondering when the raffle was, I'm so sorry you didn't win. Holding out hope so hard for you this cycle. 

splashmountain

I'm sorry @Mack2342 I'm sure making the decision for this to be your last cycle was freaking hard. I'm rooting for you so hard!

Mack2342

Thanks ladies.  It’s a bummer.  The organization Parental Hope offers grants with zero cost but they don’t pick couple until like October and I just can’t wait that long.   There were a couple people that traveled from out of state and one won.  So if any of you ladies out there are interested in it check it out.  It’s out of Cincinnati 

manillabar

Sorry about the raffle,@Mack2342. I’ll be crossing all my fingers and toes for you this cycle. Hopefully you’ve at least made a good potential friend out of that night!

kaeineurope

@Mack2342 So sorry about the raffle. I just can't believe how expensive IVF is in the states. 

ruby696

@Mack2342 I'm so sorry. IVF costs are obscene. We can't afford it either and now I'm about to start my last cycle too. It's such a hard decision to make.

kbrown2385

@Mack2342 I’m sorry about the raffle 😔

kaeineurope

Can we just talk IVF here for a second if you guys don't mind? Because i'm a curious soul and i've been living out of the US for 12 years now so sometimes feel a bit clueless when it comes to certain things in healthcare. So, cost. So, here (Italy) an IVF round in the private sector with genetic testing is going to run about 8-9k in euros. That drops 20-30% about if you head deeper into the european union (eastern europe). If a couple is eligible within the socialized health care system, its all free but there is a long wait list which is why the private cost isn't so high - which goes for pretty much any medical procedure. There, privately, how much does it run? I hear about 18k?

char245

@kaeineurope we just lost all of our fertility coverage because my husband switched companies so I’ve been looking into this a lot. We were just told that if we wanted to do another round of IVF using my eggs it would be about $25,000. The egg donation program ranges at my clinic from $18,000-$58,000 depending on number of tries and guarantees. Then there is the embryo adoption option and you can have one try for $8,000 or six tries with a guarantee for $16,000 (but it does not include medications which range from $400-$600 per transfer). It’s all sadly so expensive!

ruby696

@kaeineurope It depends what your dx is and what state you're in. Since I have early stage DOR and my ovaries do not respond well to standard meds, I'd have to use stronger meds. That bumps the cost up to about $18k. However I'm in California. I can go to Arizona and do it for $5k to $10k.

dpchickens

kaeineurope   When we looked into IVF, we estimated around $30,000 a cycle.  The problem is, that you don't know how many eggs you're going to get or how many will work out to be implanted, etc. AND you don't know what the actual cost of your medication will be (up to 10K per cycle) until you're taking them... so we estimated 30K to ensure we'd have enough.  Ours would be entirely out of pocket with NO insurance help in any way, shape, or form.  And since they've no idea what the problem is with my losses it's not worth it since they can't guarantee it'd help at all.

ruby696

To add to what @dpchickens said, my ovaries are only producing one follicle, even with injections, it's very likely that we would only get one or two eggs at retrieval and no guarantee of a healthy embryo (in fact, the opposite is likely since I have DOR). I would think that not very many people would qualify for free IVF, even in socialist countries, because my understanding is treatment is geared towards people with a high chance of success. People with unexplained RPL or DOR, probably wouldn't qualify (assumptions on my part). Of course, OOP over there is still much more affordable, so there's that.

dpchickens

ruby696 is absolutely right. In the US anyway, fertility clinics seemed more geared towards A) financially supporting themselves and B ) success rates.  Hence one reason why they send you for a ton of tests, and when they aren't sure after that, they push IVF down your throat if they think you have a chance.  Also, those 'shared risk' programs are betting that you'll get KU within 1-2 cycles with a take-home baby so that they make money and oftentimes they try to exclude people like myself who would be high-risk for IVF due to the fact that they have NO idea if my RPL would benefit from IVF or if there's some other problem that modern science just hasn't caught up to where I"ll just keep losing babies no matter what.  They want to be able to say "Last year we saw 1000 patients and either through diagnosing a problem through the tests or IVF, 90% of them had a baby within 2 years." and "Our shared-risk program guarantees that you have a 95% chance of a living baby within the X number of cycles within the program."  It's like how colleges want to go on and say that of their graduates, 85% went on to get a masters degree and the other 15% found jobs in their fields within a year of graduation.  They don't want people in there that are going to skew those statistics.

chichiphin

@dpchickens those shared risk programs are such bullshit when you fully explain it/think about it. 

dpchickens

chichiphin I mean, do NOT get me wrong, there are TONS of women who have only been able to figure out their fertility problems and/or have a baby through IUI/IVF/RE's offices.  However, the bottom line is still that these fertility clinics are basically a BUSINESS and their bottom line must support that.

ruby696

Hey all. I posted this in TTGP, but wanted to post here too so you didn't think I just disappeared. Sorry for anyone who gets to read it twice! As expected, IUI #2 was unsuccessful. MH and I have decided that we are ending our TTC journey at this point. However, we've agreed that in order to complete our family, we're going to start the adoption process. We plan to get the ball rolling to adopt a foster child who has either lost his/her parents or whose parents have had their parental rights terminated. We won't be looking for an infant, but a toddler feels right for us. So wish me luck and know I will be lurking the hell out of this board and rooting so hard for each of you! 

Mack2342

Best of luck to you @ruby696.  I hope the adoption process goes smoothly for you! 

manillabar

So sorry, @ruby696. Wishing you all the best moving forward!