Catch up

I haven't posted in a while, even though I have had a few events and tidbits of information on the IF scene. More importantly, however, is this news: we're getting a puppy!!! Yay! We went on Saturday to see some Golden Retriever puppies that I'd gotten a lead on from our local AKC club. There are only 4 puppies, the male is already spoken for as is one of the 3 females. We wanted a female dog anyhow. We got to meet the mother and the grandmother and got pictures of the father (aka the sperm donor) who lives across the country. Got all of the hip, eye, elbow and cardio certifications for both mother and father. But really, they were just SO DARN CUTE!

So, we put a deposit on one of the females and we'll go back on the 25th to pick her up. One of the other people has first dibs on the females so we didn't get to specify which one yet, but they were all so cute that we'd take any one of them. So, in less than two weeks we'll be proud owners of a new Golden Retriever puppy!

And, you know I wouldn't be an infertile if it didn't occur to me repeatedly through all of this how I wish it were just as easy to get a baby. sigh

In other news: Mr. Right and I met with the geneticist last Wednesday. It was a requirement to meet with him in person before they let us start the next cycle. We learned a few things, although there weren't any big revelatory moments. He explained the process and we discussed 3 day and 5 day PGD testing. They'll do microarray (all of the chromosomes) In all likelihood since I'm a poor responder and we'll be darn lucky to get any eggs retrieved let alone enough to warrant allowing any that actually fertilize to grow to blastocyst stage (day 5), we'll likely be doing 3 day testing. The rate of damaging the embryos is a little greater at day 3, but it's still relatively low, apparently. The real danger is that all of my not-so-many embryos will be abnormal and we'll have to junk them all and will have none to transfer. But, at least we won't be transferring a chromosomally abnormal embryo that might decide to implant leaving us with another horrifying NT scan, right? I guess the real new thing we learned is that *if* we were to miraculously have enough embryos to do day 5 testing, they would be cryo-preserved for another cycle since it takes 48 hours to get the results of the tests and apparently they can't let the embryos hang around that long. Which would put us out yet another month. But, that's so unlikely to happen I'm not going to worry about it at this point.

In somewhat good news, we also learned that day that our karyotype testing had come back and it was normal for both of us. Which was to be expected, probably, since the odds of having a balanced translocation are something like 10% I think? (or lower?) I say somewhat good news, because there was just a little part of me that perversely hoped if my karyotype came back with a translocation that we'd be forced to move straight to donor eggs (which was the hypothetical recommendation of Dr.Dry) I guess that shows my ambivalence about this next attempt with my own eggs.

I honestly don't know if I'm so pessimistic about my own eggs because I just want to be done with the uncertainty and pain of all of this or because I'm really ready to move on. And I know I'm probably building up donor eggs to be much more of a 'sure thing' than I really should. Because they won't be a sure thing. But it sure seems like they could be a sure-er thing than my own eggs. And then, of course, there's the real deal of no longer having a genetic link to my child. Right now, it feels like I'm letting my "I'm done with these crappy eggs" moving-on mentality outweigh the still-lingering desire to have a child with my own genetic makeup.

Of course, having just said all that, recall that we decided to go ahead and play Russian roulette this month trying on our own. Of course, we have probably less than a 5% chance of getting pregnant on our own so maybe it wasn't that much of a risk. Can you believe I actually bought HPT box yesterday (I had a $5.00 coupon!!!)?? Even though I'm probably going to also request a beta for next Monday (CD 29) if I don't get AF by then.

But because we are having guests Saturday night at our house and I *so* don't want to torture myself with another alcohol-less weekend for naught, I worked out a deal last night with Mr. Right that I'd POAS on Friday and Saturday mornings and unless it was positive I'd treat myself to a couple of glasses of wine Saturday night. I'll keep taking the progesterone until we get results of the beta on Monday (and that's all if I don't get AF first - although in several past cycles AF wouldn't show until a 2 days after stopping the progesterone).

Anyhow, that's about it for this past week's info. Dr.Dry's office actually called and schedule a 'phone consult' for me with him today. Not exactly sure why but since he's not the world's greatest communicator, I'll take what I can get. Maybe he's changed his idea for my super special protocol? Or maybe the karyotype results prompted him to want to talk to me. Not sure.

Then, Mr. Right and I will go together for counseling session on Wed. afternoon. I haven't been in 3 weeks since we were trying to get scheduled for a time Mr.Right could join. I'll also be attending a RESOLVE support group called "IF Crossroads" on Wednesday night for the first time - for women considering next steps including donor eggs. Phew, and that will be enough IF for this week!!

Meanwhile, we need to pick a puppy name. I've submitted one for consideration so far. Mr.Right has submitted two. We haven't established how many vetoes we each get yet. Maybe if I let him have the puppy name, he'll let me have our first child's name? :-) Doubt it......