Still in the game

When I started my blog almost a year ago, I put a lot of thought into what I was going to name it.  I very nearly went with "Ute Overload", which is a play on one of my all-time favourite time-waster websites, Cute Overload (you're welcome).  But then I figured that a lot of people might not get the reference, so I opted to go with "It Only Takes One".  It seemed to be the phrase that popped up most often on message boards when I was reading about Diminished Ovarian Reserve, so I thought it would be funny and ironic to use it as my blog name.

Little did I know that the universe has the maturity level of Barney Stinson and would view said title as some kind of throwdown.

As you may have guessed by now, we have one frozen blastocyst.  Again.  One embryo arrested on Day 2, one somewhere between Days 4 and 5, and the final one was a morula on Day 5 but hadn't blasted by Day 6 so end of the line.  And if even one of you fuckers says "It only takes one!" in the comments I am going to crawl through my computer screen and bitch-slap you.  (Just kidding.  Kind of.)

Obviously, I'm happy we have one, and upset that we don't have more.  Same as last time.  There's not much sense repeating myself.  What I can say is the following, based on a conversation I had this afternoon with my RE:

1.  She's also disappointed we didn't get more blasts, based on the supposedly vastly improved egg quality this time around.  That said, she is very happy with this one, which is graded 3AA.  They didn't tell me what I had last time around, so I had no ability to Google it to death, but rest assured I will this time.  Preliminary results are encouraging: according to this study, 3AA blasts or better have a pregnancy rate of over 60%.  About time I was on the positive side of some IVF stats!

2.  This will be our last attempt at IVF with my own eggs.  Having tried three different drug protocols and spent significant amounts of time on the two primary recommended supplements for egg quality (CoQ10 and DHEA), we have ended up with the exact same results twice in a row.  And you know what Einstein had to say about that:

3.  With respect to the outstanding lining issue discovered during my Endometrial Function Test, I'll receive my first Lupron shot shortly after my next period starts.  I get another one a month after that, with my period expected to return in 6 to 8 weeks after the second shot.  I asked whether we should repeat the EFT before attempting a transfer  My RE replied that when conducting his research, Dr. Kliman re-tested his subjects post-Lupron and discovered that the injections appeared to clear up any endometrial synchronization problems 90% of the time.  Meaning that we could re-test, if we wanted to waste another $500 and two months, but it's probably not necessary.

So that's pretty much it.  The end of IVF #3, and the start of a long wait before FET #2.  Before we knew the fate of any of our embryos, I commented to M that having nothing to freeze would be like an athlete going to training camp for months, busting his ass in tryouts, and getting all dressed only to find out that he wasn't even going to get to play.  It would suck on so many levels.  Fortunately, at this point we're still in the game.