Roadblock

Yesterday we received the first batch of medications needed for the stimulation phase as well as what is needed for the egg retrieval and embryo transfer.  (More is on the way!)  Although I somewhat fear the stimulation injections, I got butterflies when opening the box of mail-ordered fertility drugs.  It really hit me that we are only days away from starting the injections and literally only weeks away from creating a baby.

Today, however, we hit a roadblock.  It saddens me to say that all of which I mentioned has been put to a halt.  I had an appointment with my reproductive endocrinologist (RE) this morning for, what they call, the baseline ultrasound.  Up until this point, I have been doing Estrace priming--part of my IVF protocol.  So, at this ultrasound, my RE would be happy to see a perfect uterus and no follicles on the ovaries.  As the ultrasound started, she described the lining of my uterus as exactly what she was hoping for.  The right ovary looked good.  But, then over to the left ovary....a large cyst.  Normally, if a cyst is found at this stage, they aspirate it, or drain it, in simpler terms.  However, the cyst I have has solidified and is more of a blockage, which means it can't be drained.  This caused some concern, so my RE had blood drawn to check my estrogen level.

A few hours went by, and I got a call from our fertility nurse with the bad news.  My estrogen level is elevated.  Following Estrace priming, at baseline, my estrogen level should be really low.  It's like my ovaries are not properly responding to the medications I have been taking daily for almost 2 months now.

This can negatively impact the IVF cycle, which means that we cannot continue at this point.

So, where do we go from here?  We wait...we wait until I start another period.  We don't know when that will happen, because it should already be here following the Estrace priming and Provera.  But, it's not.  So, we wait until that happens, and then blood will be drawn again to test the estrogen level at that time.  It is possible that the cyst will go away once the period starts.  If this happens fairly quickly and the estrogen level drops, we can proceed, and the next step is stimulation by injections.  If this does not happen quickly and too much time passes, we will have to start the whole Estrace priming phase over again.  We could ultimately be looking at several more months before we get to the point we are profoundly hoping for.

I can't help but wonder if the universe is trying to tell us not to have more babies.  We haven't been able to conceive on our own for 18 months.  We haven't been able to conceive following a laparoscopic procedure in which my tubes were unclogged and adhesions were removed (both due to endometriosis).  So, we turned to IVF, but we struggled with the financial aspect of this process.  And now we've hit a roadblock.  It's heartbreaking, the lengths we (and other couples just like us) have to go through for a process that should come so naturally.  I question a lot right now, especially when, every single day, there is a new story in the media about a child being abused or neglected or killed.  And I question things when I see babies being born as drug addicts or with fetal alcohol syndrome.  Why are those people able to conceive?  And why aren't we?