Welcome - ICLW

Welcome from ICLW!  I am looking forward to meeting new people going in the ALI community, and getting to know your stories.  I thought I'd start off ICLW with an intro post.

I was a bit ambivalent about wanting to have a child until I hit 30.  I think that once my father-in-law died, I realized that I wanted a baby above anything else.  We started trying shortly thereafter.  Being a "Type A" personality, I immeditely bought a OPK, and started having se.x on a schedule.  As you can imagine, we hated the scheduled aspect of things, so we decided to "just relax" and "let it happen."  It didn't.

I wasn't too concerned at this time as I thought we were just not hitting the timing right.  I made excuses.  Meanwhile, last November, my husband headed to his GP for a regular check-up and was diagnosed with varicocelle.  He pushed them to ask what that meant for having a family, and the next thing he knew he was in the andrology lab finding out that he had a MFI diagnosis. 

I met with my RE, Dr. B for the first time in February.  We were sent right to the top of the fertility treatment chain - IVF with ICSI.  Way to go overachiever!

Our first cycle started in April, and ended up with a retrieval on May 31st.  The cycle was threatened to be cancelled a few times.  I wish they would have done so, since the retrieval netted 0 embryos.  Did I mention that May 31st was my birthday?

IVF # 2 started in July and ended with a retrieval in August.  Things went better this time.  We ended up with 2 embryos and a BFP!

Unfortunately, I miscarried my baby on September 11th at 7w3d.  Throughout my short pregnancy, I had several occasions of severe bleeding.  At the D&C, they weren't able to get any tissue, so there is no way to know for certain what went wrong.  Dr. B is theorizing that it was chromosomal. He has plans for a new protocol (antagonist without estrogen priming) for my next cycle.  It would be nice if that would give me better results.

I am currently grieving my loss and coping with my new reality.  It's harder than I thought sometimes.  I am working on losing weight and getting in shape now before starting my next IVF cycle in January / February.  I am hoping that the time away will help me get my head together to tackle another IVF cycle.  I'm hoping that losing weight will improve my fertilization results, and will give me a better chance of getting a take home baby. 

So, that's where I am now.  I have the best husband in the world.  And, the best family. And the best pets. They help me get by and make me feel whole.