What's Next

Of course, I did what every woman does after being presented with crushing news of yet another cycle wasted/failed, I asked Mr. DD what he wanted to do next.

Big mistake.

Let me backtrack to this morning. When the clinic hadn't called by 7:30, which is when Nurse Wonderful said they would, I called them at 7:50. After being on hold long enough for me to realize things were bad, Dr. Blinksalot got on the phone. "The embryos stopped dividing and so we have nothing to transfer." Really? No kidding. Without missing a beat, she asked me what we wanted to do next. How was I supposed to answer a question I was hoping against hope I would never have to answer again?

She added that with the last IVF and positive beta, even though "not technically a pregnancy", we were just on the wrong side of the odds. She was hopeful, since I was a good responder to the meds, that another IVF could get us the pregnancy we had been seeking.

I responded, "How many times do we need to end up on the 'wrong side of the odds' before we knew it was time to up?" Obviously she could not answer that question any better than I could answer hers.

So I just had to ask Mr. DD on the way to the funeral what he wanted to do. His response? "We should just take some time and try on our own."

Let's take a moment and just remind everyone here why we are not pregnant: Mr. DD's SA showed poor count and even poorer motility. The possibility of conceiving on our own is less than 5% based on prior consults (let's not forget to throw in my "old eggs"). So I asked how long he wants to try it that way before realizing AGAIN that it just won't work that way, AND I just don't have that kind of time. I'm going to be 39 in a few months. I don't want to be gambling on the chances of a pregnancy in a year. When we started down this road, I mentally set 40 my limit. He says I'm giving up before we even start and that I'm being negative about the possiblity of conceiving on our own. I don't feel like taking another 6 months out of our lives just so I can say "I told you so," at the end of that time. Dr. Blinksalot felt we could get pregnant with donor sperm, but Mr. DD is adamently against that, so that's why we went to IVF.

So let's wrap things up by answering some of your questions:

Email question: "What is your husband's hesitation to the donor?"

Quite frankly: he doesn't ever want to look at that child and think to himself that it isn't his. His words, not mine.

Comment question: Why did they keep the embryos in culture for so long?

Our clinic's protocol for FET is to transfer them once they reach blastocyst stage. That normally occurs during day five on a fresh cycle. Fresh transfers will be done either on Day 3 or Day 5 (blastocyst), hence all the fancy 3dp3dt (3 days post 3 Day Transfer) or 3dp5dt (3 days post 5 Day Transfer) that you see in so many posts when describing their IVF. Anyway, my embryos were thawed successfully on Monday, which takes only a couple of minutes. It would be like watching a snowflake melt into a flick of water. They were noted to be at Day 3 at that time. So, Tuesday they were Day 4, Wednesday Day 5, and Thursday Day 6 - and dead - in my case, anyway. What would've been more accurate is that yesterday they were probably more like Day 4 1/2 due to not being Grade/Code 1 embryos, which divide more consistently then mine at Grade/Code 2. In other words, if they had been of better quality, they may have been at blast stage a little earlier instead of what happened.

But as Nurse Wonderful said yesterday when I asked her if they really though the embryos could go another 24 hours in a hostile petri dish, if they couldn't make it in the dish, they wouldn't make it in utero. Mr. DD said the same thing this morning: it's better to find out now that they didn't make it then in 2 weeks. And he's right. I'd rather know now then later.

Lastly, thank you all who thought I deserved more. Maybe that's my problem though. I already have X, why should I deserve more than that? I haven't solved the world's hunger; I didn't invent post-it notes; and there are actually moments that I can't wait for X to go to bed because he is driving me insane.

I don't know how much I have left in me. Mr. DD is set in his mind that we will not be trying anything outside of the home for a while. I am desperate to change his mind. I even asked again about adoption. He says to wait on that as well. He doesn't understand that THIS doesn't resolve itself with time. Time is our worst enemy. It is what has put us in this situation. I have to do something or know that we are moving onto something or else I fear I will have such bitter resentment towards Mr. DD that our possibility of conceiving naturally will be reduced to -0- on account of me cutting him out of the marriage bed in spite.

So...I just don't know what we are going to do next.