It's been 2.5 years since our last update. A lot has happened in that time with my reproductive health and our journey, and I swear, you can't make this stuff up. 😆
In those past 2.5 years, we continued to explore ways to grow our family. We started the process to foster and foster-to-adopt....twice. But each time, as we got further into the process, we realized it was just not the right time for us to complete the process and become foster parents.
In early 2019, we started looking into a donor egg cycle again (the last time was in early 2017). We started comparing fertility clinics - cost of cycle, success rates, location and feasibility - and we actually landed on consulting with the very first fertility clinic that we worked with years ago. We were very hesitant, because there was so much that we were unhappy with at that clinic, but we felt good about the cost of the cycle, the clinic's success rates, and how convenient the clinic is located to us (and really, that fertility specialist was the first to ever tell us that we should use donor eggs). We set up a consult and got started with the process as soon as we could. But, right away, we were reminded of why we became so unhappy with that clinic years ago. Disorganization and lack of communication topped the chart.
In the middle of this, I started having a lot of pelvic pain, which is normal with endometriosis, but it was feeling more severe this time. I was often doubled over in pain and had trouble moving from one position to another, like laying down to sitting up or sitting to standing up. At that point, our fertility specialist started the work-up and testing to see if I am even able to carry another pregnancy (still), and she found that I had large endometriomas on both of my ovaries, so severe that medical intervention was not an option. The recommendation? To have both of my ovaries and tubes surgically removed. The first hiccup in this donor egg cycle. This surgery, supposedly, would improve my quality of life (no more pain) and still give us the option to go through a donor egg cycle (since my uterus looked ok for pregnancy). However, this would put me in early menopause.
After numerous discussions and consults, I opted to go through the surgery to have both ovaries and tubes removed. Because of the severity of my endometriosis, a gynecologic oncologist was called on to perform the surgery. I went through that surgery in August of 2019. Immediately, due to our gut instinct and the recommendation of the gynecologic oncologist, we called back our third fertility clinic, Conceptions, and started moving forward with the donor egg cycle there.
It was taking some time, but I finally came to terms with being in early menopause. Except that I wasn't...
In November, I started a period. What?? And that started some labwork, ultrasounds, and testing that found that I still had ovarian tissue somewhere in my body that was causing me to have hormone levels consistent with a young menstruating female. Hiccup #2 in this donor egg cycle.
My fertility specialist, the gynecologic oncologist, and my ob-gyn all discussed this and decided that the hormones could be controlled with medication during a donor egg cycle, and that the remaining ovarian tissue could be removed during a c-section if there is a successful pregnancy. So, onward!
At Conceptions, I then started the work-up to make sure that my uterus is capable of carrying a pregnancy. At ultrasound #1, the sonographer took a picture and labeled it "right ovary." Oh boy... At ultrasound #2, a different sonographer took a picture and labeled it "left ovary." Part of me wanted to chuckle because my reproductive history is such a joke. But part of me felt angry that the surgery I recently went through wasn't 100% successful. My fertility specialist, however, assured me that this is not a problem for pregnancy with a donor egg.
Ok, so we continued to move forward. The next step was to choose an egg donor! Because we are older and cannot go through too many more pregnancies at my age, we needed to choose a donor that is eligible for a "split cycle." This means that we and another couple who is seeking eggs would split the eggs from one donor. When there are two couples (or recipients) who are sharing the eggs, one is termed primary and one secondary.
There's some advantage to being primary. If there are an odd number of eggs collected, the primary recipient gets the extra egg after an even split between the recipients. Or, if the egg donor is not producing enough eggs in the cycle, the doctor may decide to offer the entire batch of eggs to the primary recipient rather than splitting the eggs between the two recipients.
To become the primary recipient, you must be the first recipient to "match with" or choose a specific donor. Once you match with a donor, you then have to wait until another recipient chooses the same donor to move forward. This could take a week, three months, a year...it's hard to say. But, if a recipient chooses a donor who has already matched with another recipient, the primary, then that recipient becomes secondary, and things can move along quickly from there.
Andrew and I spent some time going through the profiles of the available egg donors. We compared their age, physical characteristics, medical history, family medical history, any prior pregnancies, and any prior egg donations. We finally landed on a donor. Her physical characteristics were close to mine, she was younger than me, had her own successful pregnancy, had twins in her family, had successfully donated eggs previously, had a good family medical history....it was all lining up. We matched with her and found out that we were the secondary recipient. Ok, no problem, we thought. And a little while later, our nurse called to tell us that the donor made a decision to move to Europe and could no longer donate eggs. The third hiccup in this donor egg cycle.
Back to scratch looking for an egg donor. And then, COVID hits and fertility treatments are stopped. We couldn't do anything at this point but wait until treatments were able to be resumed. Hiccup #4.
Three months later, we were ready to roll again. However, we had to sign documents noting that if any party (us, the other recipient/couple, or the donor) tests positive with COVID during the donor egg cycle, the entire cycle could be cancelled. We decided to take our chances, and we started comparing profiles again. We finally landed on another egg donor who actually had Chase's physical characteristics (blonde hair, blue eyes), and everything else looked great and lined up with what we were looking for. Her AMH (egg quality) and resting follicle count looked AMAZING. She had never donated eggs before, but the doctors at my fertility clinic had no doubt that she would produce a fantastic number of high-quality eggs. Surprisingly, the other couple that we had matched with on the first donor wanted to match with this donor, too. On the positive side, it helped things move along quickly.
But on the negative side, we became secondary with this donor. Even though we matched with this donor first, the fertility clinic gave the other couple primary since they were primary with the first donor/match. We were a little bummed, but felt ok given her AMH and resting follicle count. Our nurse even predicted that primary vs secondary would be a moot point given what they expected this donor to produce.
So, we moved forward. The donor started stimulating to create follicles that would hopefully hold mature eggs. But as the updates from the clinic started rolling in, we were becoming less and less excited and more and more nervous. The donor wasn't producing. At the final update, she had 8-9 follicles present, when we were all expecting around 40. The doctors and Medical Board at the clinic had never seen anything like this before (in fact, our nurse said this whole situation took the breath out from everyone), and had to make a decision - either cancel the cycle (meaning neither recipient gets eggs and both are out the money that was spent on the donor's medications) or offer the entire cycle to the primary recipient (instead of splitting between them and us). They choose the latter, and the primary accepted. Therefore, we got zero eggs. Hiccup #5.
For the third time, we had to choose another egg donor. The available donors change on a daily basis, so once again, we had to start from scratch. But we found another donor that we became excited about. She has a positive egg donation history and some physical characteristics like me. We became the primary recipient (woohoo!) and then just had to wait for a secondary. Luckily it was only a couple of weeks that we had to wait, and things have been moving quickly ever since.
Yesterday, 9/25 she actually donated her eggs. After they were split, we ended up with 10 eggs, which is awesome! With Andrew's sperm, 7 of those eggs have fertilized, with a possible 8th (they will keep an eye on that one). So far, everything is looking great! We will get another update from the embryologist on Wednesday 9/30 with how many of the fertilized eggs made it to the blastocyst phase (aka blast) -- that will be day 5; ideally, you want the embryos to grow to the blastocyst phase by day 5. But we will also get an update on day 6 with any remaining embryos that might make it to blast by day 6.
The next step will be to take a DNA sample of any blasts and test them for chromosomal abnormalities. That usually takes 2 weeks. By mid-October, we should know how many viable embryos we have to transfer.
Here's to hoping the next few weeks go quickly!
