My last blog post at the end of January was after the transfer of our second (and last) donor egg embryo had failed. We were mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. We had NO IDEA what was coming.
Four days after the transfer failed, our 11-1/2 year old yellow lab (our actual child), whom we had raised since she was 12 weeks old, fell and hurt herself, and after a very long, emotionally painful, and sleepless week during which she rapidly declined, we had to say goodbye to her barely a week after the failed transfer. The pain of the failed transfer was nothing compared to the devastation of watching our furbaby decline and then having to say goodbye to her.
My husband and I decided that between the failed transfer and losing our furbaby, we had earned — and desperately needed — a vacation, and would put off any decisions about fertility next steps and/or adopting a new dog until after the summer. We didn’t take a vacation last year because of the fertility stuff and the various house renovations. We decided that I’d take off the month of July (my husband was already not teaching that month) and spend several days driving up to Pennsylvania, staying with various friends on the route along the way. We’d spend a week on a vacation together, then spend a week with his family, a week with my family, and then visit friends on the drive back down to Georgia. I didn’t have time to reach out to any friends to coordinate plans because I was busy getting ready to attend CookieCon. This was a week-long, much-needed distraction at the end of February (reports of a rapidly-spreading virus overseas were just hitting the news reports).
Four days after returning from one of the best experiences of my life (seriously), our basement flooded after several days of rain. Not the usual there’s-water-coming-through-the-walls wet, but water-is-coming-up-from-under-the-house-seven-inches-on-the-ground wet. Thanks, 2020.
Our super-awesome contractor dealt with the water that day (Thursday), and on Friday I left him in charge of dealing with the additional 7 inches that had seeped back in overnight as I had to drive up to Atlanta for a consult with a potential new fertility doctor. After the failed donor egg transfer, my current fertility doctor basically told me that I should start thinking about a gestational carrier (surrogate) with donor eggs if we wanted to have kids. I felt like that was as good a time as any to get a second opinion. I went to this new doctor, recommended by someone who knew him, and was less than impressed. About two minutes into meeting him, I knew that I wouldn’t be back. My plan was to reach out to a third doctor who had been recommended to me, and I did make the initial call, but after a few days of phone tag with his scheduler (I was trying to find out if he would do a telehealth consult), the covid-related closures began, my main contracting job began to reduce the amount of work available for me, and fertility treatments took a back seat to the pandemic.
In early April (and coincidentally the same day I learned my main contracting job was laying me off), I decided to reach back out to the third doctor because I (correctly) assumed they were only doing telehealth consults due to the pandemic. My goal for a consult was to find out if it even made sense to try to get pregnant with donor eggs, or if that was a lost cause entirely. The video appointment was set for April 27.
Yesterday I met with that doctor via video conference and spoke with him for more than an hour. I learned about his and the office’s philosophy on various treatment protocols and tests along with their donor egg options, and I gave him my long fertility background and asked a bunch of questions. Basically, he believes that my donor egg transfers failed because of the eggs (they were from an unproven donor, which means those eggs hadn’t been used in anyone else yet so pregnancy rate was unknown), and that getting pregnant with donor eggs isn’t necessarily an impossibility for me.
There are some tests he’d like to run on me (a uterine exam and a sonohistogram to see where my existing fibriods live) and my husband (an updated sperm analysis, genetic testing to ensure a donor doesn’t carry the same recessive genes, if any exist), but those can be done before we decide whether or not to move ahead and try donor eggs again. If my medical exams show that pregnancy isn’t possible without surgery to remove fibroids again, I’m not sure I want to go through that again.
But, the biggest question I had for the doctor was on timing. If we decide to try donor eggs again, would the chance of success be significantly reduced if I wait for several (or many) months before beginning treatment? Given the pandemic, I’m not comfortable driving up to Atlanta on a regular basis (and staying overnight, since their office is on the far side of the city and would be close to a 4-hour drive one way) for testing and treatment and monitoring and whatnot. The doctor doesn’t think it will make a big difference whether we try now or try in early 2021, but realistically, nobody has any idea when it will be safe to be near other people again.
So here we are. It’s almost May. We finally had a weekend without a severe storm threat and worries about basement flooding. We adopted a new dog last week because the house was empty and we’re obviously not going anywhere in July this year. We have a potential new path forward in terms of fertility options, but can’t act on it until it’s safe to be around other people and travel, and that date is a complete unknown. Yes, thinking about fertility treatment in the midst of a pandemic feels weird, especially as I watch so many parent friends struggle and pregnant friends worry, but it’s definitely on our minds, even if we’re not as vocal about it right now.