Both plan A and B, together, in harmony

This week we faced our future head-on. We made it back to my clinic for a second opinion. I thought about going to the other top rated clinic in state and getting a second opinion. But, being honest, I trust the doctors at my clinic, and I wasn't down for the retesting and establishing a new relationship with anyone.

Our second opinion was with the female doctor at the clinic, my manfriend LOVED her. I don't blame him. She's a woman with great bedside manner, good communication skills, and listened to my crazy ass babble on about the end goal.

This doctor confirmed what The Man told us, our 3rd IVF cycle has a less than 10% chance of working based off of our two previous cycles. And, that doesn't include biopsing for a normal embryo. If we had just our 1st cycle numbers and my blood results to work with, they'd say go for IVF cycle #2 (which we did). If we had just our 2nd cycle numbers and my blood results to work with, they'd say go for a donor egg cycle. There is no right (or wrong) answer at the moment. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

We discussed changing protocols for a potential third cycle, trying some drugs/supplements that are supposed to help with bringing the few good eggs I have to the forefront (usually prescribed for women who have poor egg quality/AMH, and increases your testosterone....bring on the acne!) for the third potential cycle, and the potential of using a donor.

Risks for a third cycle were also discussed. She calmed any fears about cancer, and reminded us that the only true risks are OHSS with complications of fluid ending up in my lungs and the risk during egg retrieval at which there could be some uncontrollable internal bleeding. That doing IVF cycles 3 months apart would not effect my already established egg health (which according to my blood work is perfect). Nothing too serious, eh? Oh, what we women wouldn't do for a baby!

She told us that if there were any 'what-if's' to go forward with a third cycle, eliminate the what-if, after all it's covered by insurance. Or, if the end goal was more important, to move straight to a donor cycle. The what-if is already weighing heavy on the manfriend, so we're moving forward with cycle #3 while we start our donor process. We both have little faith in this cycle working, but we are ready to have a family. So, by having that donor process started we can be one step closer to the end. :)

I explained to this doctor that I've been looking at the donor website since we first started IVF, and that around the time of our second cycle I had my girl picked out. She was shocked. She mentioned that most women are still focused on 'me' at this point and have a hard time letting go for various reasons. I told her that I more focused on the end goal. A healthy baby.

There are three different routes you can go with a donor cycle. One, use an anonymous donor that the clinic has already approved and is local. Two, use a donor agency to find an anonymous donor that is out of state. Three, use frozen eggs (you only get 6) from an anonymous donor. We want to have multiple children with the same set of genes, so option one is the right choice for us.

So, while I go through with my usual drug ingesting and shot injections, we'll start looking/considering donors. Since the testing has already been done on both ends, our donor should be ready to start linking cycles with me right away should cycle #3 fail. We're looking at our donor like an IRA account. Our backup. I have been confident since cycle #1 failed that a donor is how we are going to get our healthy baby, our family. Curse my balanced translocation!

This confusing and detailed journey has just provoked more questions...

Let the donor selection begin.