The Hearts Have It

I've been putting this post off, because what I'm about to say next terrifies me. When I said I was "crapping my big-girl-panties" in my last sign off, I was partly feeling like I was getting yelled at by Dr. BloSunMyCha and partly feeling like, "holy crap, I might actually do this?!" I also wanted to take the weekend off from talking about fertility treatments and infertility. This last month has been so stressful, from the follow-up with Dr. BloSunMyCha, to the weighing of our options, and trying to decide what to do next. I had my first "hypnofertility" session last night. I'll post about that later. I will say that it relaxed me. Now, I just need one of these every night!

I really appreciated you gals getting all up in arms in my defense! Let me just say that I am not angry at Dr. BloSun. Actually, after the e-mail I got yesterday from him regarding my recent questioning of taking preventive antibiotics, I may take that statement back. More on that later. I think Dr. BS is mostly just doing his job, making sure I know what I'm getting in for. However, I see this as negative hypnosis. I know what he said had a huge emotional impact on me. In my heart, I still wanted to try one more time with my eggs and see if what I have been doing the last three months have been making a difference. My cycles have been basically very similar to what they were a year and a half ago when I last did IVF. My head was telling me the logical choice was to move on to donor eggs as it has the best statistical chances for us.

I thought I would never make a decision based on going against the "facts". I thought I would be a "smart" person. I also did not want to make any decisions based on fear. The fact is that by going right to donor eggs, I was allowing my fear of failure to get the best of me. I do not want to go into DE with any regrets. I do not ever want to wonder, "what if?" I can see how it affected the woman from my friend's baby shower. I see the shadow of regret and doubt in her face when she said to me, "so you got pregnant with your own eggs?" I could go straight to DE, but I also do not want that shadow the rest of my life. This is the only way to know.

We are following our hearts against the "medical experts". I feel happy about this decision, and terrified at the same time. We are trying one more time with my eggs. I also feel that it's fair that Dr. BS put some conditions on how many follicles he wanted us to have before going into egg retrieval. Frankly, I would rather he make that decision, than coming to us and saying, "what do you want to do?" I've been in that position before, and it's a hard decision to make. I also feel like I've got it in me to make five mature follicles, at least, I think I do!

Today, I started the est.race for the estrogen priming protocol. If you want to know what this protocol looks like, go over to Heidi's blog and click on the menu on the right where it says "The Protocol That Worked". Be forewarned that there is a picture of her infant daughter on her last blog post that you will see when you click over. The difference between her protocol and mine is that I'm starting the est.race on CD1 (today) and not taking it as long, as she extended hers because of a vacation. I think I will be on max stims too (been there, done that). I don't have my full calendar yet. I take the est.race orally, so I will not be among the blue skid marked smurfettes that Jill so colorfully described in her FET protocol. Maybe I'll just turn blue, but it will be out of the anxiety of holding my breath, not from the blue pills!

I'm also preparing to move this whole show over to Word.press. I'll transfer all my posts over, but I feel like I just need that password protect option. I've stopped posting on my other private blog. I need to move on from the past for the sake of our spirit baby. I'll miss some of the nice features of Blogger, but I need to ensure my privacy. I'll allow anyone access that asks to my private posts. I'm still going to need lots and lots of support through this!! I just do not want to feel like a celebrity reality show, providing entertainment to the masses. If you want to lurk on my private posts, that's fine. I just want to know who you are. The other nice feature of Word.press is that I can block IP addresses. Not that I'm planning on doing this, but if I get any harassment, which happened to me on my old blog that no longer exists, I can do something about it now. It will be a few weeks probably before I actually make the move. I'll be password protecting all my posts that have the details of my IVF cycle.

Here's the antibiotic story I mentioned earlier: My nurse called me and told me I would be taking antibiotics this month, which surprised me, since I'm not doing any procedures. I'm not a big fan of antibiotics, as I think it was one of the factors that led to me getting leaky gut syndrome and developing food sensitivities. BigShotClinic makes their patients take antibiotics every time they pass your cervix, which is ridiculous. I never did this at my old clinic, and I was just fine. For the third time, I had to send an e-mail to Dr. BS asking if I could forgo the "preventative" antibiotics this month. His response was something like, "yes, you can forgo the antibiotics, but I strongly recommend that you take them, or else your cycle may not be as successful". Now I really felt like Dr. BS was living up to his new acronym and just trying to strong arm me. I also told him that I would be happy to do IV antibiotics and that this would be my preference for egg retrieval. This is what I did at my old clinic, in lieu of oral antibiotics. I basically skipped my whole gut, but still got the antibiotics. Dr. BS responded to this, saying that IV antibiotics would not reach the uterus as well as oral antibiotics. WTF?? Doesn't the oral antibiotics go into the bloodstream from the gut, and wouldn't the liver and intestinal enzymes break down some of those antibiotics? I was so baffled by his BS, that I ran this past Dr. F, my acupuncturist who has never given his two kids antibiotics EVER. He supported me 100%, which made me feel better about standing up to Dr. BS. Oh, and Sweet Georgia hit the nail on the head when she said the polar body testing was for their study, not for my benefit. I really feel the coercion after realizing that (grrrr).

It scares me how narrow an RE's knowledge is. I know I am going to get comments like, "can you change doctors?", but they are all narrow-minded in my opinion. Dr. BS is the 4th RE I've been to, and I really don't think it's going to get any better than this. I just want to get my eggs to BigShotClinics fabulous lab and hope they do their magic there for some viable embryos!

Holy crap, I really am doing this!!