IF Testing & Treatment w/o Feb 26

britters314

**This is a place for those of us who have already started TTC, but have started infertility testing and/or treatments. You can express your thoughts, feelings, and frustrations on infertility. TTC can be a long journey naturally, then add in the difficulties associated with infertility, and it becomes a whole new ballgame. The road to infertility can be lonely, frustrating, and complicated, so let's make this a place where we can vent, ask questions, and support one another. Feel free to resurrect this thread at any point in the week if you have something to say. Treat this as an ongoing conversation.

Diagnosis (if you've been):

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched):

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?):

How are things going?:

Any questions?:

GTKY: What is your favorite holiday?

britters314

Diagnosis (if you've been): Unexplained

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched): Benched (possible Zika exposure)

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?): Home study for embryo adoption and testing

How are things going?: Good. I’m basically just waiting on H to finish his home study paperwork and then we can schedule the home visit

Any questions?: I have a saline sonohystogram tomorrow. Has anyone else done that? What should I expect?

GTKY: What is your favorite holiday?
It used to be Valentine’s Day, but now I’d probably say Easter

*edited to add my question 

wyndikathleen

Hello! My name is Wyndi, and I am an editor at The Bump, currently working on an article discussing the recent law changes affecting IVF in the state of Alabama.  We would love to hear how you feel about the law and the resulting impact, if it has made you reconsider your fertility approach and how it is affecting you and your community. Feel free to answer in the discussion below or to email me at wkappes@theknotww.com.

aisleofviewtwo

@britters314 I’m pretty sure the SHG is what I had last fall during diagnostics. They’ll use a catheter to inject saline into the uterine cavity and check for normal anatomy (via ultrasound), and may also send a puff of air into each fallopian tube to see if they are open or blocked. I felt cramping with the catheter insertion and a fair bit of pressure/pain with the saline injection, but didn’t really feel the air puffs happen. The good news is that the discomfort was short-lived—it came in maybe 10-20 second bursts, and I felt back to normal pretty much immediately after the procedure. If your clinic recommended painkillers beforehand as a preventive measure (mine said 600mg ibuprofen), definitely do so!!

Hope all goes smoothly for you—keep us posted!

aisleofviewtwo

Diagnosis (if you've been): Unexplained

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched): TBD

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?): waiting for genetic testing results 

How are things going?: Pretty okay! Glad to have a new job (first day was literally the day before my retrieval 🙃) to keep my mind occupied while we wait for PGT results. My RE seems convinced we’ll have enough embryos to move forward with a transfer* but I’m not holding my breath. CD1 came up over the weekend so I’m back on birth control so we can knock out the repeat TET and also be ready to go for a March retrieval if need be!

*She said they expect 1-2 of my 6 to be abnormal, which is, uh, significantly better than the 55% normal statistic we were told to expect for my age by the genetic testing lab? And also higher than what the lab said an 22-year-old egg donor should expect (60%)?? That would be incredible, obvi, but like I said, not getting my hopes up.

Any questions?:

GTKY: What is your favorite holiday? Thanksgiving! Far and away the best food holiday IMO, plus I’ve been making an effort to focus on gratitude for the many good things in my life, so I appreciate the opportunity to really reflect and give thanks.

inthewoods23

Hey ladies, sorry I've been MIA. Little update on me... We've put TTC on hold indefinitely (hopefully just a few months). Currently dealing with some marriage problems and I'm going through a bit of a mental health crisis that I really need to take care of first. I'll be lurking from time to time if you need me 🙂

britters314

@inthewoods23 I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you get the help you need and that you and your SO are able to work things out!

@aisleofviewtwo Hopefully your testing comes back as mostly normal embryos. But if you do have some that are abnormal, you might be interested in a video I had to watch as part of my embryo adoption home study stuff. I'll put the link below, but it is about how the PGT testing isn't actually that useful in determining which embryos are most likely to lead to successful pregnancies and plenty of healthy babies have been born using embryos that tested abnormal. Obviously you will want to use the normal embryos first, but it might be something to consider if you use up your normal embryos and want to try doing the abnormal embryos instead of doing another egg retrieval. (Of course if you are testing for specific genetic conditions that's a different story and you can ignore all this lol)
Link in spoiler

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28347334/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC78PSsAhfo

AFM, my test went well. Everything looks normal. My doctor's exact words were "move-in ready" lol so now I just need to get some embryos so we can move them in!

aisleofviewtwo

@inthewoods23 Sorry to hear you’ve hit a rough patch, but it sounds like you’re doing all the right things in seeking support and working things out first. Will be thinking of you, take care of yourself, and hope to see you back here again soon!

@britters314 Thanks for sharing! I do know there’s a lot of controversy about mosaic embryos. Our testing regimen does include PGT-A but was primarily put together for PGT-M, which is developed for a specific monogenic disorder. How we proceed will likely depend on how the results of the two tests do or don’t align, so this is very good food for thought while we wait for results.