Sobering News From the Lab

I've been quiet on the details of the T42 efforts but... here's a sobering update.

I was the luckiest girl ever with a beautiful child walking around in the world plus nine, yes nine!, blasts on ice.

I decided that I wanted to be more careful this time around, and to send my blasts off for PGS (pre-genetic... sequencing? it's when they count the chromosomes). My RE warned me I might lose some, but then the RE in charge of the lab bragged they had a 98% successful thaw rate. So I signed on dotted line. And expected to hear results in 1-2 weeks.

Yesterday, after three long weeks and many, many phone calls to follow up on supposedly missing paperwork, I got a confusing voice mail from the nurse who coordinates PGS.

"Hi Abigail, just wanted to let you know we successfully biopsied your four embryos and the cells have been sent off to the outside lab for sequencing."

I smiled at her mistake. I mean, anyone would be confused by the fact that I had so many embryos. So when we spoke on the phone yesterday, I was shocked to hear her confirm that only four embryos, of my nine, survived the thaw well enough to be biopsied and refrozen.

Suddenly, everything changed.

I know that I'm lucky to have blasts. But given that I had nine, I went into this T42 effort assuming I had it made.

And now, with 35 year old eggs/embryos (I'm now 39 and a half) averaging 1/2-2/3 abrnormal... statistically speaking, I'm most likely to only get one normal embryo out of this five thousand dollar debacle.

To be fair, I wouldn't have been able to transfer these slushy embryos, either. So it's not PGS that did them in.

But I'm suddenly grappling with the idea of doing IVF again. A line that I had decided I wouldn't cross. Back when I thought nine blasts meant nine separate tries.

IVF at 39.5 is a totally different prospect than at 35. I think my odds of becoming a mother again are now dramatically lower than I imagined. I'm still reeling.

And then, my PCOS is just out of control. Metformin was working for a while, along with intense exercise and a pretty careful diet, but now... I feel like I'm gaining weight by the day. It's terrifying. But I comforted myself with the thought that at least I was very likely to get pregnant.

I'm feeling very much like the rug has been pulled out from under me.

I know that hope is not lost, and I am holding on to that. And my precious girl is giving me extra hugs and comfort. When I came home so sad yesterday, she clung to me and we rocked. Such a solace. Thank god I have her. Thank god I'm a parent. Another child would be an amazing blessing, but without her, life wouldn't be worth living.