All Roads Lead to. . .IVF?

I would say that I can’t believe that it’s been over a month since I last posted, but that would be a lie.  I’ve been on the down-low for a long time for various reasons.  It makes me wonder–what happens to all those bloggers that just disappear?  I was perusing my reader the other day and saw quite a few posts from some folks that I thought had long since quit blogging, but have happily resurfaced.  My first thought upon seeing those posts was, “Who is this?”  Then after a reading a while, I said to myself, “Oh, yeah.  I remember her now.”  My point is that I hope I don’t become one of those people who other bloggers no longer recognize because I’ve been so absent from the online world.

A few days ago I had my first appointment with a new RE, one who does more testing and performs IVF.  We talked a while and she confirmed what I knew:  I should have been pregnant long ago.  In a way, the news bothered me because I guess some small part of me was hoping that maybe I just time babymaking at the wrong interval.  After all, it’s much easier to deal with the things you can control, like timing, over things you can’t, like your body.  But no–eventually you do hit the right time–if you don’t have any other problems.  Obviously, I have other problems.

She did offer two possible explanations for why it hasn’t happened.  1)  Implantation failure (meaning antibodies, autoimmune, or Natural Killer cells) or 2) Male Factor (sperm antibodies).

Number 1 basically means that your body rejects the pregnancy you create.  It never even has a chance to implant in the uterine wall.  If it never implants in the uterine wall, your body never gets the chance to produce HCG, so you don’t even see a positive pregnancy test.  In other words, you never knew you were pregnant.  This is actually where most miscarriages occur, though women never know they had them.

Number 2 is a more complete analysis of semen.  A typical semen analysis looks at things like volume, count, motility, mobility, etc, but according to the doctor this is not a complete picture at all.  A more in-depth analysis looks at possible antibodies and other things that I can’t remember.

The RE thinks that if you can offset these possible problems in the beginning, you have a better chance at a successful IVF.  And that’s where I am headed.

Of course I have concerns, but the biggest is money.  How will we pay for this?  We have some insurance coverage, but there is still a large amount of money that needs to be paid, money we do not have.  Money that needs to be paid in advance very soon if I am going to do a late summer cycle.  Then there’s the stress of anticipating the actual event.  You plan months in advance for IVF, and that leaves plenty of time to worry and obsess and Google every concern known to man.

I worry about these implantation failure tests.  They are quite expensive for one thing, but there’s a lot of issue over whether things like antibodies and Natural Killer Cells attack the baby.  From what I understand, these issues could possibly be a cause of infertility, but there is no concrete evidence that supports this.  Then, of course, I wonder if I do have these problems, can they can be resolved.  From what I understand, you have to take steroids or have some type of transfusion to suppress the levels.

Worry, worry, worry.  The other day I said to my husband, “I worry that. . .” but had to stop mid sentence because there were so many things to worry about that I couldn’t remember the correct thing I was supposed to be worried about.

I could sit here and list all my worries, but I guess I’ll save them for another post.