Our TTC Story

My hubby and I got married in November 2000. The plan was to wait 3-5 years to start trying to have children. I decided to got back to school to become a nurse in 2003. Actually, the career change was to find a more flexible job for becoming a mom. So as soon as I graduated from nursing school in May of 2005, we began TTC. About 8 months later we had my hubby tested since I was showing no signs of issues. In January 2006 we found out we were dealing with male factor infertility. Count, motility and morphology of the sperm were all low and IVF/ICSI was our only option. We started with IVF/ICSI in May 2006 at RSC of the Bay Area. We thought for sure our first cycle would work since I was under 30yrs and MFI was our only issue. I responded well and we got 19 eggs, 15 mature.... but unfortunately only 5 fertilized. We were devastated but still hopeful. We transferred 3 embryos on day 3 that were all okay quality. The cycle was negative ten days later. Our RE thought it was a fluke and we should stay on the same protocol (long lupron FSH only). ...so in July 2006 we tried again. 11 eggs were retrieved all mature and only 3 fertilized! Three embryos were transferred on day 3.... okay quality but the cycle ended in a BFN. Our 30% fertilization rate was not a fluke and I knew we needed to try a different RE.
I consulted with Dr Zouves and CCRM in Colorado but choose Dr Zouves as he was nearby, very positive and accepted us into his 90% back program. He said we needed to add in some LH since the lupron in the long lupron protocol cuts the LH to zero and the eggs need some LH for quality.Some women do fine without LH, but some need it on this protocol. Our cycle was in November 2006 and it went much much better. We has 17 eggs retrieved, 14 mature and 8 fertilized. The fertilization rate greatly improved and our embryos also grew much better. We transferred 3 on day 3- 2 perfect 8 cells and a good quality 10 cell. Ten days later I got my first positive pregnancy test ever!!!! The pregnancy was uneventful for the most part and we had our son on August 23rd 2007! It was so nice to finally be a mom and forget all the IVF stuff for a couple years and enjoy watching our son grow.

In July 2009 we decided to start trying for a sibling for our son. We had four frozen embryos from the fresh cycle that created our son. These embryos were frozen the old style way (not vitrifed) so the embryos had a decreased chance of survival from the thaw. Two of the embryos did pretty well but all four were transferred on day 4. We did get a positive pregnancy but unfortunately at the first u/s there was no heartbeat :( I had a d&c which showed a "normal" embryo 46XY. So, we are not sure why we lost this little one. Dr Zouves does immune testing and my NK levels showed to have elevated to 17%.... so I guess this could have been the cause?? (although I hear that Schoolcraft doesn't believe in this) We then did a fresh cycle in November 2009. I was on the long lupron protocol and 17 eggs were retrieved, 12 mature and only 5 fertilized. I was pretty upset, but tried to stay hopeful. We transferred 3 embryos on day 5. They all were good quality but two were behind in growth. We got pregnant and saw the heartbeat at 7 weeks! What a relief! We were so happy! Our RE said the risk for miscarriage at this point is quite low at about 5%. But at 8wks I went in for another u/s and our little one was gone... the heartbeat had stopped just a few days before. I had another d&c and the baby showed to have "Turner's Syndrome" or one X chromosome. At least we had a clear answer for the loss this time around. After I recovered, we began yet another fresh IVF cycle. This time around Dr Zouves wanted to get more eggs since we had fertilization issues so we did the MDL flare protocol. 27 eggs were retrieved, 20 mature and 12 fertilized. This seemed to be our best cycle yet! We were so happy. We decided to do PGD this time around to avoid another miscarriage and weed out the bad embryos. Since we had many to choose from we thought this was a good decision. We transferred 3 normals on day 5. 2 were behind in growth so that's why Dr Z allowed 3 embryos. Unfortunately, ten days later I got a negative result. Ughh!

My DH and I decided we'll do one last cycle but we're going to the "best" this time. I had consulted with Dr Schoolcraft back in January after our second miscarriage and had considered going to CCRM at that point. But our current RE had a good plan and was willing to let us do the 90% back program again so we stayed locally. But at this point, we are ready to move on after 2 miscarriages and another BFN. We feel like CCRM is our best chance and we hope to do CGH as well. We have our ODWU scheduled for May 17, 2010... if my AF arrives on time! The success rates at CCRM are amazing... and we know it can work. I am hopeful that we will find success in Colorado!