What Did Not Work for Us

Over the last week, since we made our happy announcement here, I have had multiple inquiries through facebook regarding what I did this particular cycle to led us to achieving pregnancy after so many months without success.

When I lost our baby girl in September of 2012, I knew our chances would be slim of getting pregnant again based on some discoveries about my health and that if we did, it would likely cost of quite a bit of money--money that we didn't have and could not have saved up for several years.

I began cycles of 50mg clomid in December 2012 and January 2012, prescribed by my OB/GYN but completely unmonitored.  When those didn't work, they increased my dose to 100mg. Those cycles were started in March and April of 2013.

It was then that I scheduled an appointment at Shady Grove. By then I had researched our insurance and knew that all of our diagnostic testing would be covered as well as any medications that were prescribed for a timed intercourse cycle.

It wasn't much, but it was better than I'd expected and I also knew that we'd have the option of changing our insurance to something with significantly more coverage during open enrollment at the new year.

We completed all the testing.  I had 21 vials of blood taken (David had 6 and had his sampling done), an HSG, and an ultrasound. The only thing that came up from our testing was that my anticardiolipin antibodies were elevated. The best part about this test is that we now had an explanation for my 4 confirmed losses and the reason for my other 2 possible losses (positive hpt but negative beta the following day).

There's a pregnancy protocol for women with the antibody problem: Lovenox.  But by golly I had to get pregnant first!

After 1 cycle with my RE on clomid with 50mc clomid, monitored via blood work and ultrasounds, and only one mature follicle, I was bumped up to 100mg.  The first cycle I had 1 mature follicle but 2 that were close behind when they had me inject my HCG trigger shot. I was then able to complete 2 more cycles on 100mg, but each of those cycles had 4 mature follicles.

It was a horrible irony that the doctor had to discuss the option of pregnancy reduction if all 4 eggs matured and implanted.

None of them did.  Either month.

So I set up an appointment with the RE in late October to review everything and get the ball rolling for IVF in March.  At that point, we knew we would be changing our insurance over to a Kaiser plan that would provide 50% coverage for the cost of IVF as well as most of the medications needed.  The out-of-pocket cost for IVF and meds would have been in the vicinity of $13,000, so 50% coverage is huge!!

With plans set to do a mock transfer in December, I left the office resolved to get my body as healthy as possible between then and now. We had a plan and I was going to put that plan in motion.

In all, I had completed 9 rounds of clomid in 16 months, with only the first round resulting in a pregnancy.  I felt hopeless and very let down by my body.  Everything was lining up perfectly each month.  Mature follicles, good uterine lining, and perfectly timed "TI".

Why wasn't any of that working???