So today was follow up apointment from failed treatment #2 today and a counselling sess which is what brings me to these parts. Between them they have given us plenty of food for thought.
We talked about the poor spaff results this round (very different from 6 months previous) which meant we had to go to ICSI and only one egg of 5 fertilised. Basically this put us on the back foot which meant the odds were not in our favour and that's pretty much all there's to be said.
I really don't think the clinic addressed this problem properly or communicated the clinical implications to us. They admitted fault in this so we now have a spaff improvement plan for ROCH and they have offered to pay the ICSI costs for this one and a future cycle and also free testing and analysis in July as a gesture of goodwill.
We could do some spaff testing, DNA fragmentation and the like, but basically the treatment is the same, antioxidants, vits and mins and a healthy diet/lifestyle. Definitely gonna get us some MeniVit from Australia Bugs, it came highly recommended and I remember your amazing stats on it. Low count most likely due to the virus he had at Christmas but ....? Please let us not both be fucking broken in the reproductive department. Is the universe conspiring against mini coconuts?
I asked about immune testing for me and despite the previous doctor we saw trying to ram this down our throat, the consultant today didn't think we would warrant it yet. She is however, prepared to treat empirically with a half dose of prednisone if we go again. Hurrah!
Interesting news on scratch theory ladiees. Latest thinking is that it benefits IVFers on a fresh cycle most of all because the stimming drucks interfere with lining development. I'm only too happy to knock that one off my list shudder.
We saw the counsellor too and discussed abroad treatment (which has implications of anonymous v traceable donors), adoption, next steps etc. Upshot is we're going to 1.) do healthy eating and living and retest spaff in July 2.) Look into attending an adoption event to find out a bit more about the process to help ROCH in his decision making and resolve our question marks. Thanks for your input into this Rasp if you're reading! 3.) Think carefully about when and where it feels right to go again of we're up for a third go.
But not yet! It's a bit of a relief to have a buy till July on all of this when maybe we'll pick it up in the autumn. And if you've got to the end of this then I salute you!