overwhelmed

Today I had an appointment so we can get started with a FET. I am feeling overwhelmed and disappointed, which is how I seem to feel after most of my appointments. I may really consider switching clinics sometime over the next few months because I just consistently feel like we're not being given the very best shot at success. It is difficult for me to tell whether this feeling is just a consequence of my general negativity or whether there is a deeper nugget of truth in it. In short, my 5 frozen embryos are much poorer quality than I thought. My RE would like to transfer an 8-cell B (our best remaining embryo) with a 5-cell BC (in the same straw) for this cycle.

I am not going to lie, the 5 BC sounds really crappy (no offense to you, little guy!) and I am just not feeling it. My RE would then like to do a 2nd FET following this one to exhaust all of our so-so frozen embryos before moving to another fresh cycle. This just sounds like a really low-yield plan to me and it seems unrealistic that all of them will thaw successfully anyway. Perhaps I am just impatient but I find this plan pretty disappointing. Instead, I proposed attempting to thaw all 5 and then culturing the ones that survive the thaw for a couple of days in an attempt to push them to the blastocyst stage and using this as a selection device to weed out the less competent embryos.

My RE was not a fan of this idea and my best guess why is $ - it would be more labor intensive and costly for the lab staff to attempt to grow my embies to the blast stage and it would also mean moving on to another fresh cycle sooner if the FET fails - more costly as well. Just some of the less nice realities of socialized medicine and full IVF coverage. The RE pointed out that by thawing everything and attempting to culture them to the blastocyst stage, we might lose everything and that that would be very disappointing for us. In truth, I would find it much more emotionally draining and disappointing to go through two FETs with not so great embryos and a very low chance of success than to lose all of our embryos and never make it to a frozen transfer.

I guess all of this is sort of a moot point - first we have to see how many even thaw successfully. If we are poised to transfer the 5BC and I am still feeling very negative about things, I could insist on adding in a third since one of our embryos is in a straw by itself. Since we are more or less unexplained at this point (I'd say the mild ovulatory dysfunction/lean PCOS is debatable and I would have gotten pregnant via ovulation induction and IUI if it was the main issue), I asked about the possibility of considering endometriosis or immune factors but the doctor felt that at this point, further testing is unnecessary and would only delay us further in proceeding with treatment.

Lastly, the RE implied (though did not directly say) that he agreed with me that my ER was probably a couple of days too late and that this could have potentially affected the outcome. Tomorrow I go in for bloodwork and ultrasound and if I get the green light, I will start estrogen for the FET tomorrow. So....that's where we're at and as usual I am praying to be pleasantly surprised.