I met with Dr. Christman last week to go over what happened. I asked him about my UTI and whether that would have had any effect on the embryo. He asked me to remind him of when I noticed it, and then he didn't really say whether he thought it did or didn't cause it. He mentioned once again of how up to 40% of embryos can have chromosome issues. I asked about doing embryo genetic testing and he said that the clinic is just now partnering with the #1 genetic testing company to test the chromosomes of embryos more easily. They offer it now but mostly just to those who have had recurrent miscarriages or diseases they don't want to pass on. The testing rules out whether there are any chromosome abnormalities and increases your success rate of a viable pregnancy to around 70-80%. Because of this success rate, the clinic is discussing whether they want to make every couple get this done after their fresh cycle no matter their history. If I were insistent on testing our embryos now, it would be about $5000 to thaw and test them plus added shipping costs. I decided it was not worth it for me to also risk the viability of the embryos by thawing them twice! I believe our life is planned out for us and what is meant to happen, will happen!
Now on to the exciting stuff. I was able to get the calendar for the frozen embryo transfers for next year. If I got my period before November 13th (Sunday), then I could make it for the first transfer of the year January 9th! Well the most exciting thing happened today- MY PERIOD CAME ON MY OWN! It had been 34 days since my miscarriage and I was one day away from calling the clinic and asking for progesterone again. What a blessing it was. (haha I'm so weird) But no for real- I feel so much better like God is telling me that this is good timing and go ahead and do the transfer in January! I have been trying to control my carb intake which has led to less insulin overall. Lots of insulin can shut down your ovaries so I wonder if my body is happy with my control lately and that's why my period started.
Well we are on the schedule for the first transfer of the year- January 9th! I start birth control in 2 days and the same meds as last time next month. I am a little bummed that I will have to worry about all the patches and shots during the holidays but WHATEVER! haha
We signed our consents and this time we will be transferring 2 embryos! (AHH SO SCARY!) Scary in the fact that we will have a 50% chance of a pregnancy again and 30% chance of it being twins! Also scary because if this doesn't work, then literally 1/3 of our embryos will be gone and I will seriously feel like we have something wrong with our genes. I always feel better if I do the math, so if 40% of embryos are bad and we had 4 "good" rated embryos- that means up to 2 of the good ones can be bad. We already had one bad one so there has to be at least one good one if we transfer 2! haha I am remaining hopeful.
I also asked Dr. Christman if he could run any immune testing on me to see if my body was killing the embryos since diabetes has an autoimmune component and my body attacked my pancreas cells. He said there really is only a few disorders where they would have anything to treat the immune system and therefore he would be testing me for lupus, antiphospholipid disorder, and if I had b2 glycoprotein. He said that normally they do not send the tests unless someone has recurrent miscarriages but if it would ease my mind, he would try to code it as "miscarriage" and see if insurance pays. If not, it would be a few hundred dollars. I decided to ease my mind and go for it. So far, I am negative for lupus and I am waiting for the others to come back. The treatment would be to put me on Lovenox (blood thinner injections) to prevent my body from clotting the pregnancy.
The nurses are going to go ahead and order my medications. I am all stocked up with leftovers right now and there is more to come!
The financial lady gave me great news today as well. She said that since my meds start in December, technically my cycle starts then as well and payment is due that month. That is GREAT because I have met the out of pocket maximum so I get this years prices!! I couldn't be more happy to save another $600 or so. We should be paying about $2744.
So now I need to speak with the nurses next week and confirm when I need to pick up my calendar with my med schedule and do the mock transfer. Let the fun begin once again!! Continue to keep us in your prayers. I will try to update when I can!
No comments:
Post a Comment