It's amazing how invested I have gotten in the fertility stories of strangers on the internet, so the update is appreciated.
One embryo, man, that is really hard. Have you considered an egg donor? In the U.S., it was prohibitively expensive until 3 or 4 years ago when clinics started doing shared donor programs, where 2 or 3 recipients share the eggs from one donor cycle. That brought the cost way down into something that normal people could actually contemplate. Don't know if that is done where you are, or if it's even the direction you want -- if it were me, I bet that I would just throw up my hands at that point and adopt, but ymmv of course. I know someone who was an egg recipient. She had several failed IVF's -- her ovaries tested out okay, but it became clear that she was a "poor responder," which I think is medical speak for, "yeah, your ovaries aren't really working, but we couldn't tell before oops." So she went from cycles getting 1-2 embryos to her donor cycle where they implanted 2 (and ended up giving birth to 1) and froze 6. Just, very different math.
We are in a holding pattern. It turns out I have an ovulation disorder. Which, ha, well. I came into the clinic and said, "I'm clearly not ovulating," and they said "okay, testing, let's figure this out." And after all the testing, the verdict was, "you're not ovulating!" Uh . . . yeah. Thanks. But we're very optimistic -- all my numbers look great, and it looks like there's lots of eggs in there. We just have to kick my pituitary hard until they come out. So the plan is IUI with clomid to start, fingers crossed. But we have to wait six months (the sperm has to be quarantined, it's a thing the U.S. does because of HIV). If we were using an anon donor we could just go now, but for legal reasons, this is all waaaay easier if we don't. Though, of course, this way is much more expensive. So I figured well, if we're waiting six months anyway, I might as well see what I can do about my damn ovaries on my own. So I'm trying a lot of traditional chinese medicine treatments (herbs, mostly) and some minor dietary tweaks. Trying to find that balance between doing enough to be useful, but not getting totally crazy invested over it. I haven't ovulated yet, but just 5 weeks in my cycles are already less disrupted, and for the first time ever in the range of normal length. So I'm very hopeful that I'll get somewhere with this.
Combining fertility stuff with big life stuff is brutal. For a while we thought we'd start cycling just as we moved apartments and my girlfriend had radiation, and just the thought made me want to curl up and cry a little. I just wanted to be able to focus on it, relax, all of that. So good luck to you. Perhaps third time is the charm.
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One embryo, man, that is really hard. Have you considered an egg donor? In the U.S., it was prohibitively expensive until 3 or 4 years ago when clinics started doing shared donor programs, where 2 or 3 recipients share the eggs from one donor cycle. That brought the cost way down into something that normal people could actually contemplate. Don't know if that is done where you are, or if it's even the direction you want -- if it were me, I bet that I would just throw up my hands at that point and adopt, but ymmv of course. I know someone who was an egg recipient. She had several failed IVF's -- her ovaries tested out okay, but it became clear that she was a "poor responder," which I think is medical speak for, "yeah, your ovaries aren't really working, but we couldn't tell before oops." So she went from cycles getting 1-2 embryos to her donor cycle where they implanted 2 (and ended up giving birth to 1) and froze 6. Just, very different math.
We are in a holding pattern. It turns out I have an ovulation disorder. Which, ha, well. I came into the clinic and said, "I'm clearly not ovulating," and they said "okay, testing, let's figure this out." And after all the testing, the verdict was, "you're not ovulating!" Uh . . . yeah. Thanks. But we're very optimistic -- all my numbers look great, and it looks like there's lots of eggs in there. We just have to kick my pituitary hard until they come out. So the plan is IUI with clomid to start, fingers crossed. But we have to wait six months (the sperm has to be quarantined, it's a thing the U.S. does because of HIV). If we were using an anon donor we could just go now, but for legal reasons, this is all waaaay easier if we don't. Though, of course, this way is much more expensive. So I figured well, if we're waiting six months anyway, I might as well see what I can do about my damn ovaries on my own. So I'm trying a lot of traditional chinese medicine treatments (herbs, mostly) and some minor dietary tweaks. Trying to find that balance between doing enough to be useful, but not getting totally crazy invested over it. I haven't ovulated yet, but just 5 weeks in my cycles are already less disrupted, and for the first time ever in the range of normal length. So I'm very hopeful that I'll get somewhere with this.
Combining fertility stuff with big life stuff is brutal. For a while we thought we'd start cycling just as we moved apartments and my girlfriend had radiation, and just the thought made me want to curl up and cry a little. I just wanted to be able to focus on it, relax, all of that. So good luck to you. Perhaps third time is the charm.