A wish and a prayer

(Image by Natalia Drepina)

This morning, all I could think was how desperately I wished that I could hold my four little embryos. As silly as that may sound and as impossible as it is, that was what my heart hoped for. To be able to hold them in my hands and to tell them how much I love them and how very much they mean to me. To tell them all that I, and their daddy, have been through just to create them, just to get to this stage. The stage where life can begin. As painful as it has been — physically, sometimes, and emotionally all the time — I would do it all over again. Cut me open, test my blood, poke needles in my belly. Tell me the challenges that lie ahead… and then tell me some new ones. I would endure it a thousand times. I don’t want to, but I will. Because I love them, more than I thought a person could ever love a microscopic cluster of cells growing in a lab. Nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed. Four today, gone tomorrow? I don’t know. But right now I love them, and they are everything to me. I can’t hold them, as much as I wish I could, but they are in God’s hands, and the good, comforting news is this: He cares for them, too.

IVF Update | On Fertilization... and Faith

(Image via PocketFuel)

Since I slept most of the afternoon away yesterday, I didn’t go back to bed until about 2 a.m. this morning. I tossed and turned and although I wasn’t that comfortable, I wasn’t ready to drag myself out of bed when the dogs tried to rouse me around 8 o'clock. Just as I dozed off again, suddenly I heard my phone ring. It was 8:30, and it was the clinic.

My heart stopped. I cleared my throat and I answered the phone, running downstairs as I said hello to the doctor on call. When I reached the living room, I saw my husband sitting on the couch, and I turned on the speaker so he could hear.

At first she just asked how I was feeling, if I was recovering well after the retrieval. I told her I felt OK physically. Any nausea or vomiting? No, I replied. How did the spot look where my IV was placed, how was it healing? Just fine, I said. Was I in any pain, and if so, how much? None, I told her. Other than still feeling bloated, I explained that I felt like my normal self, like nothing had happened. A bit surprised, the doctor said I was recovering better than most and — finally getting to the good stuff — that my eggs were doing better than is typical, too.

Of the four retrieved, all four fertilized.

I could hardly believe my ears. My husband leapt from the couch, up into the air, fist bumping, smiling as wide as could be. As he came back down he grabbed me, as if to shake me into the reality of what the doctor was telling us. I immediately started to cry tears of joy as the doctor continued speaking, letting us know all four embryos looked good so far.

After a moment, I finally managed to squeak out a few words. I can’t quite remember them now, but something along the lines of how grateful I was for the good news.

Hearing the emotion in my voice, the doctor sympathized about how hard it must have been getting just four eggs yesterday and how worried I must have felt. Nevertheless, all four were mature and fertilized. They had beat the odds. She cautioned that we still have a ways to go and as relieved as I feel, I don’t want to get ahead of myself either.

And yet, I want to celebrate today. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but today we received the most wonderful news. The best news we could have gotten after yesterday.

The doctor and I said goodbye and as I hung up the phone, Greg and I embraced. I weeped happy tears in his shirt, big gulping sobs. I felt myself begin to release every worst fear, every bad thought, that clung to my heart and mind before the call. I laughed and cried simultaneously.

My sweet husband, whose optimism always helps to light my way, offered more reassurance.

“We have babies,” he said. “And they’re strong. They’re fighters, like mommy and daddy.”

Yesterday, I felt like my body was betraying me. I had so much doubt. But God is bigger than my doubt. And maybe He gave us just four eggs because they were the best eggs.

“You’ve done so good through all of this, babe,” Greg continued, rubbing my arm. 

Those few words were the validation I desperately needed to hear. As a woman struggling with infertility, I put so much pressure and even more blame on myself. I have been trying to do everything right and yesterday I kept thinking: Maybe I hadn’t done enough.

But my husband says I’m enough. God says I’m enough. And four eggs can be enough.

My prayer now is that our precious embabies will continue to grow and develop in the lab. That the embryologists will take good and careful care of them. And that God would be the guiding hand in all of it, providing His protection as they continue to form into what we so sincerely hope will be our miracle baby, or babies.

(Image via PocketFuel)

IVF Update | Egg Retrieval

Hopeful and smiling, prior to the egg retrieval.

I've been avoiding writing an update all day, but the day is almost done and I can't hide anymore. I spent most of the hours after my egg retrieval crying, or sleeping in order to forget and not cry. I feel just fine physically, but emotionally I'm shattered. 

I went into the procedure with more optimism than my pragmatic (sometimes cynical) self usually can muster. But I really felt hopeful. Even knowing that I wasn't expected to get a ton of eggs like other women might, I was OK with the 7-8 my doctor estimated. For some reason that number felt safe. And I was so bloated from all the injections, I took that as a positive sign. I had so much hope, and I was trying so hard to trust and have faith. 

But when the doctor who did my retrieval came into recovery with the news, my hopeful heart broke. Only 4 eggs. That's all they got. Apparently the large follicles were still there, but nothing inside. He said sometimes when they get so big the egg dies. Unfortunately, I had a wide spread of follicle sizes, and he told Greg and I prior to going in that he expected to get "a handful," but I still wasn't prepared for the outcome. My husband, like me, said his heart dropped upon hearing the number, that it felt like "a punch to the gut." I wish I'd had the presence of mind to ask the doctor more questions, but it took everything in me not to burst out crying. One tear slid down my cheek before he left the recovery bay. 

From there I quickly sank into a deep depression; to say I was devastated doesn't even fully describe it. I cried as I left the clinic, cried on the drive home, cried when I called my mom to tell her the news. I felt all my hope slipping away. But I know it's not over yet. I know "four is better than nothing" (even though it doesn't feel that way when you know the statistics). Maybe we will beat the odds. Maybe. Hopefully. So that's where I'm at: Trying to fight my way back to hope tonight.

(Image via PocketFuel)

IVF Update | Cycle Progress, 9 Days of Stims

My three-shot cocktail.

Work and a general feeling of fatigue have kept me from posting an update here the last few days. But I'm off work today and there is quite a bit to report!

We started our IVF cycle on Feb. 13 and I have now had nine days of injections and four monitoring appointments. 

My medication dosages have remained consistent; 300 units of Gonal-F (FSH, a follicle stimulating hormone) and 150 units of Menopur every evening. As I mentioned in my last post, we added a third injection, Cetrotide, which I began taking on Feb. 18, the day after my first monitoring appointment. I didn't expect to begin taking the antagonist (to prevent premature ovulation) that soon, but one of my follicles in my left ovary was growing much larger and faster than the rest, and we wanted to give the other follicles a chance to catch up.

So for the last four nights the hubby has mixed and administered three injections and to say we are both a bit over it would be an understatement. My belly is so, so bloated from all the hormones — Greg, thankfully, gave up the sweet husband act of trying to say it looked fine and normal — and I feel like I'm running out of new places to be poked. But we persist because we know it is all worth it. Every single prick, every scan. Every cramp, every headache. It will all be worth it in the end.

IVF may take the mystery out of baby making, but it doesn't steal the love.

Things are progressing well, it seems. Each monitoring appointment has shown my follicles are growing. (And my estrogen levels have increased, as they should, along with my follicle size.) A sixth follie popped up in my left ovary at my second monitoring appointment, giving us 10 total follicles. And we still have one large, overachiever on the left.

These are my numbers from this morning's scan:

On the left: 

26mm, 24mm, 15mm, 12mm, 11mm, almost 11mm

On the right:

two 16mm, 13mm, 11mm

Endometrium (uterine lining):

About 10mm, which is good. The doc likes to see it above 8mm for transfer.

When I was able to check my phone at lunch yesterday, I had several missed calls and messages from my clinic. Even my doctor had called! (Normally I just get instructions from my nurse or, if it is the weekend, the nurse case manager on duty.) Because of my large, overachieving follicle on the left, they are planning to move up my retrieval. As much as you want your follicles to grow, you don't want them to become too big. It's a balancing act. Initially the egg retrieval was tentatively scheduled for this Saturday, but now we are looking at Friday, Feb. 24. 

A chart at my clinic that illustrates just how big my follicles have grown, and why my tummy looks so huge.

The final word will come when I get my instructions this afternoon, but it seems most likely that I will be triggering tonight! (During IVF, you take a final "trigger" shot of hCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, which completes the final maturation of your eggs prior to retrieval. The trigger shot is usually administered 36 hours before the retrieval.)

The past 10 days have been a little surreal and I could hardly believe it when I heard we were already at trigger day. I told my nurse I was excited and nervous and, unsurprisingly, she said that is a common response. When I got home from work yesterday, Greg greeted me at the top of the steps all wide-eyed. He's excited, too.

I'm trying to hold onto the bit of excitement I have as well as stay calm. This message from Dr. Willman provided reassurance that my cycle is progressing positively, and that gives me some comfort as well as the strength to keep going:

"I'm thinking we'll get about 7 or 8 eggs, which is a nice normal number. It's not high but it's not low either, so I think you're in good shape. You're young, we should have good egg quality, so I think you're doing just fine." 

-Dr. Willman

(IVF card by Levi & Roen In Print, via Anchor of Hopes)

When you have diminished ovarian reserve, you are expected to be what they call a "low responder," so Greg and I knew going in that we wouldn't get a ton of eggs. (I wouldn't be getting the 15-20+ that other women without DOR might get.) But we are pretty happy with our team of follies and we hope that once retrieved that a high percentage of the eggs will be mature and fertilize normally.

My prayer for now, though, is that God will continue to protect these little (and kinda big!) follicles that are growing in my ovaries for a few more days... That the stragglers and intermediates will continue to grow and that they'll be in prime, embryo-creating condition once retrieved.

Prayers for His protection and my health (this cold is lingering...) in these last few days before retrieval are so very much appreciated!

My prayer.

P.S. If you don't already, follow along on Instagram @dreamingoflullabies. I tend to post updates more frequently there!

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IVF Update | 1st Monitoring Appointment, 4 Days of Stims

Looking at the monitor during my first monitoring appointment.

After four days of stims (that's what we call injections in the IVF world), I had my first monitoring appointment this morning. While I've managed to stay relatively zen this week, likely in part to focusing on self-care and kicking my cold, I did feel a bit nervous as we neared the clinic and I wondered what the monitor would show. Fortunately, my husband was able to come with me to this initial appointment. I know he won't be there for every ultrasound and blood draw, but it was nice to have a little extra moral support this morning!

There was an immediate sense of relief when the ultrasonographer very quickly found my left ovary. Typically, my left ovary is very difficult to find and it can be quite the uncomfortable search on my end. But there it was, clear as day. We knew that must mean that follicles were growing inside.

The technician continued to scan around, left and right, measuring the diameters of the visible follicles as well as the thickness of my uterine lining. Normally looking at the screen gives me the heebie jeebies (I'm not sure why!) but I decided I needed to watch today. And I honestly don't know how they can make heads or tails of the blurry mess on the screen. Good thing that's not my job! The sonographer informed us that I had four follicles in the left ovary and five in the right. Most were generally around the same size except one large fella in my left ovary. And my endometrium measured at about 7mm, which the tech said was good. She couldn't speak to whether or not the number and size of the follicles was good or bad; every woman and every cycle is different. And, of course, she doesn't know the details of my specific case, either. She printed out a copy of the results and I figured I would have to go home and Google.

Follicle count during my first monitoring appointment, four days into stimming.

Luckily, my nurse case manager, Valeri, called me before I had a chance to fall down an Internet rabbit hole. (Though, I did find this informative article about monitoring from a reputable source.) I told Valeri that I had my results from my monitoring appointment but that because I wasn't sure what the "goal" was today, I wasn't sure how well I was doing. First, she said that my only "goal" is to take my medications correctly. As long as I'm doing that, I'm doing everything I can, and how my body responds is not really up to me. So true! And a good reminder. Second, my nurse echoed the tech's comments that every woman and every cycle is different. But, given that I was worried I wouldn't respond well, she thinks that I am "off to a good start" and that the number and size of the follicles is average. I told Valeri with a laugh: I'll take average!

Obviously, the more follicles the better, and she said that a few more may crop up between now and the egg retrieval. Plus, when I am under anesthesia and the doctor can do a bit more digging, they might find follicles not visible during the ultrasounds.

For now, we're happy with and optimistic about my progress. I've been instructed to continue taking my FSH (follicle stimulating hormones) at the same dosage, and to add my antagonist (Cetrotide) tomorrow night. That injection is used to prevent premature ovulation. Since one of the follicles in my left ovary is substantially larger than the rest, Valeri said they want to hold that guy back a bit while giving the other follies a chance to catch up and "join the party." 

You hear that ovaries? Grow, follies, grow!

My next monitoring appointment is scheduled for Sunday morning and then I'll be back in Tuesday for another ultrasound and blood draw as well as a pre-op consult. Egg retrieval is about a week or so away!

Making Baby Thilgen: IVF #1

Greg diligently mixing my medications the first night of IVF.

We started our first round of IVF this week. After having to postpone our cycle in January, the weeks of waiting felt like forever. And yet, of course, when Aunt Flo finally returned, I suddenly felt unprepared. Suffice to say, things have not gone quite as expected.

Per usual, following a couple days of spotting, my full flow arrived right on time, in the afternoon on Saturday, Feb. 11. That is the date my period tracker gave me and that is the date I gave my nurses to build my IVF calendar around. Based on that date, my calendar said I would need to come in Monday, the 13th, for my baseline sonogram.

I had to work on Saturday, so I didn't get a chance to call and report CD1 until my lunch hour around 3 o'clock. Unfortunately, my clinic was closed and I had to leave a message with an answering service. They said someone would call me back the next day with instructions. Since I also was scheduled to work Sunday, I decided to be proactive and call back before my shift that morning. And it's a good thing I did because after putting me on a brief hold, the nurse informed me that I needed to come in ASAP. 

I was still in the bathroom, finishing my makeup, about 10 minutes from leaving my house to drive to work. And they wanted me to come in now? What happened to coming in Monday? I was instantly frazzled, tears were shed. I called work and quickly got dressed while waiting to talk to my manager. I apologized profusely as I told her I would be an hour or two late. She completely understood, of course, and told me to stop stressing, but I was upset. This was the exact thing I wanted to avoid. I work retail, I work shifts, I have bridal appointments to attend to. It's not as easy for me to come in late, take a long lunch, or call out sick. I didn't want IVF to affect my work.

So much for that.

The good news is, the baseline appointment went well. I didn't even need to have blood work done because my lining and ovaries looked good. I arrived to work just an hour late and all was well. I later received an email that I could start my FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) injections the next evening.

While I felt nervous about the injections, the busyness of work fortunately kept me from dwelling too much on what awaited me at home. And then, toward the end of my shift, I felt it — DUN DUN DUN — a cold coming on.

Seriously? Yes, seriously. I came down with a cold hours before my inaugural injection. At first it was just a sore throat. I tried to kick it with lots of fluids and Vitamin C. But I woke up Tuesday feeling dead on my feet; foggy-headed, low energy and completely exhausted. I couldn't tell if it was from the cold, the injections, or both.

I worked Tuesday, pushing through the fatigue and trying to stay as upbeat as possible for my brides. Luckily I was already scheduled to be off Wednesday and I did my best to rest up and get well. I emailed my nurse case manager to tell her about my cold, hoping for reassurance that it wouldn't negatively affect my cycle. But she did seem concerned. She said as long as it stays mild (no fever) and I get over it quickly, then it shouldn't be an issue. She just doesn't want me to be sick too close to the egg retrieval. This terrifying thought then popped into my head: Oh crap, don't get your husband sick!

Because he's a player in this game, too. We need his swimmers strong and healthy.

So the poor guy got booted out of our bed last night, just to be safe. And on the advice of my coworker and mother, I did the thing I never do and hate to do: I called out sick from work today. There comes a time when you just need to put yourself and your health first, and what better time than when you are paying boatloads of money to try to get pregnant?

I'm feeling a bit better today. I'm going to keep resting and guzzling fluids, per my nurse's orders. I'm off Friday too and my goal is to be all better by then. Especially since I have my first monitoring appointment in the morning! I'm hoping that this cold will have had no negative effect and we'll see some growing follicles on the ultrasound monitor.

All in all, this week has been a bit surreal. I might not believe we were actually doing IVF if not for all the dots on my belly from the needle pricks. My best friend asked if I felt any different and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary. No mood swings yet. Only a little bloated. Tired, yes, but that could just be the cold.

Loved ones have lots of questions about the process — how long do you do the injections? when is the retrieval? when is the transfer? how many are you going to transfer? — which I totally understand. It is a confusing and complicated thing, IVF. But right now I'm just trying to stay calm and take it one day at a time. And I'm getting a strong sense that God is trying to use this cold to break me down. He's telling me to take it easy, to care for myself, but also to realize that I'm not in control and I can't do this alone. Sure, I have my friends, my family, my husband and my doctor. But I need Him.

I cried in my pillow last night as I prayed to God. I asked him to heal me of this cold, to not let it thwart our efforts. I told him that I know He cares for me and knows our desires to grow our family, and I asked him to help me trust Him and His plan for us. It is so hard for me to trust sometimes. I prayed that his hand would be in this IVF process, that his hand would guide my husband's as Greg gives my injections, and our nurse's and doctor's as they perform the retrieval and hopefully a transfer. I asked that Greg would be protected from this cold and I prayed for peace in my mind and heart. We don't know how long our journey to baby will be, we don't know where the path will lead, but God knows and I just need to have faith and patience along the way.

My first injections: Gonal-F and Menopur.

Stay tuned: I'll be back tomorrow with an update after our first monitoring appointment!

Ignorance would be Bliss

(image via)

When Greg and I met with our first RE in January 2016, the consultation ended with both of us having our blood drawn. Standard procedure, I believe. But in addition to running the usual endocrine panel, we were asked — actually, encouraged — to also give samples for testing by an outside laboratory, called Recombine, which would perform a full genetic screening. This added test came with a steep added cost, $99 per person, but we agreed to it because, even though we were TTC newbies, it seemed like an important and worthwhile thing to do.

Of course, we didn’t anticipate negative results. But two weeks later, Recombine called with the news, and we were dumbfounded, to say the least. The lab screens for more than 300 genetic diseases that you may potentially pass down to your future children, and it found that Greg and I both carry copies of a gene that give us a 25% chance of having a child with mild to severe hearing loss. 

While we have been relatively open with our struggles to conceive, particularly since starting this blog last month, we’ve only shared this information with family. Partly because it is quite personal and mostly because it isn’t a certainty that we will have a deaf child. (Flipping the statistic feels much better, we have a 75% chance of having a hearing child.) But also, if I’m being honest, we didn’t share because we really didn’t want to remember this bit of knowledge that we had learned through the testing of our blood.

During that phone call, we were too shocked to cry. We were just trying to take it all in and understand. The crying came later, for me anyway. Greg and I talked through the different scenarios and possible options, as well as how we felt about the potential of having a child with a disability. At the time we weren’t financially ready for IVF, so it was easier to make the decision: We wouldn’t pursue genetic testing of our embryos to determine if they were affected. We would take the risk of not knowing.

Weeks ago, we signed the required consent forms to start IVF, with one of those forms addressing pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). We initialed that we had already been screened ourselves and would not be testing our embryos. But, to our current RE’s credit, she reached out to us yesterday to confirm that we understood our options and our risk. We are days away from starting IVF and she wanted to be sure — sure that we knew our odds and that, while the condition isn’t life threatening, deafness would “have an impact on quality of life.”

Reading those words is so hard. It’s a punch in the gut to even think about your baby having medical problems from birth. And I started to wonder, are we being selfish? Is PGD the right thing to do? Yes, it will add about $5,000 to the cost of IVF and yes, it will delay the transfer (going from a fresh cycle to a frozen embryo transfer), but is it worth it? As good parents, should we spare our child from pain and suffering if we have the ability to do so? Do we have a responsibility to stop this genetic disease in its tracks? Because even if our child isn’t affected, they could end up being a carrier, too.

And yet, at what point do you stop relying on science and instead lean on faith?

I don’t have that many eggs. We are not expected to make that many embryos. What if we only have one good blastocyst, we test it, and it has nonsyndromic hearing loss? Greg and I both agreed we wouldn’t feel right about “tossing out” an affected embryo. 

I sobbed when I said this to Greg and my eyes are welling up now: That embryo is our baby. It deserves a chance to live.

If we weren’t struggling with infertility, if we didn’t need to use IVF, we would never have known about our 1 in 4 chance. We would have been like every other blissfully ignorant couple that gets pregnant in the bedroom and imagines a perfectly healthy baby for themselves. And in this idyllic circumstance, if I never gave birth to a deaf child, then we would continue on living our lives never knowing the risk we faced, and overcame.

They say that sometimes you just have to let go and let God. So after another lengthy talk that ended with tear-stained cheeks, we have again decided to ignore our fears and walk into the unknown. As I wrote in my reply to our doctor, we are going to move forward with hope and faith... and accept whatever path God has planned for us as parents.

Whether our embryos are affected or not, it doesn’t matter. As Greg said to me, with words that will forever be emblazoned upon my heart: “I’d love them all. They’re our kids.”

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Not So Easy to Attain

(image by Natalia Drepina)

Ever since we decided to pursue IVF, we've been working under the assumption that we would use the Attain IVF program, which basically offers bundled plans of fresh cycles and frozen transfers at a discounted price. The idea is that committing to a course of treatment up front, and paying for it up front, will reduce stress and increase your chances of success. And you can reap a savings if you do end up needing multiple cycles to have a baby, which most people do.

The risk — of course, there has to be a risk or else Attain would be too good to be true — is that if you end up getting pregnant and have a baby on your very first try, you will not reap a savings. Instead, you will have actually paid more than you would have if you had opted instead to pay-as-you-go directly with your clinic.

This part of the deal has bothered me from the beginning. How would I feel if we did miraculously find success with our first cycle? Would I be upset? Or would I be happy and not care about the extra cost? My nurse as well as a few close friends that I confided in all said that I would fall in the latter camp. That I would be so ecstatic to finally achieve this thing that I've wanted for so long that the money wouldn't even matter.

So, my husband and I decided to accept the risk and move forward.

But we still wanted to do so cautiously, which is why we decided, after much deliberation, that we would use the 50% refund plan. You pay a couple thousand more for the package (2 egg retrievals, 2 fresh transfers, and unlimited frozen transfers) but you get a safety net: If after you've exhausted all your Attain plan options you still don't "take home a baby," you will receive a refund of up to 50%. (There is also a 100% plan that, again, costs a few thousand more.) It's like paying for travel insurance; if something happens that prevents you from arriving at your intended destination, it's not all a total loss.

Unfortunately for us, as it turns out, we won't be able to have this peace of mind as we go through IVF.

At this point, all systems are a go for starting IVF except the financial component. We've been trying and trying and trying to get it all squared away but it's been difficult and time consuming because there are too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak: Our clinic (RSC), Attain, and the loan company. Our clinic needed to submit an application to Attain for us, Attain needed to verify information with the clinic, the loan company needed to verify information with Attain, and then we needed to sign a contract with Attain and finalize our loan documents.

I finally got our contract from Attain on Tuesday and when I opened it I was surprised to see not only a higher price tag than I was initially quoted but also that we were slated to use the "Core" plan —  also known as the no-refund plan. When I spoke with my RSC financial coordinator yesterday, she was not much help. She didn't know how to answer my questions and was as confused as I, and told me to just call Attain. Fine. I did.

My Attain rep, on the other hand, didn't miss a beat: We don't qualify for the refund plans because my AMH level is too low. They look for an AMH of 1.2 or higher and mine is definitely not that. My AMH level is 0.4.

I had hoped that it was just an oversight, that my financial coordinator had applied for the wrong plan, or that maybe it was because the folks at Attain thought we would be using ICSI (we are still not sure). But no. We don't qualify for a refund because of me.

Now, let's read between the lines because, well, that's what I do and I think what all women do, especially infertile ones:

We don't qualify because I am too risky. The likelihood that I will get pregnant through IVF is not great and Attain doesn't want to have to give us any of our money back when it doesn't work.

We can't kid ourselves. Fertility clinics and programs like Attain are in the business of making babies, yes. But they are also in the business of making money. And the odds are they'd lose money on me. I'm not worth the gamble. I was willing to throw the dice and use Attain, but they are not willing to bet on me.

After getting off the phone yesterday, all my questions answered, I felt hurt and angry. Sad that the (seeming) sense of security we would have gotten from the refund program was stripped away. Depressed that it was all because of me and my shoddy egg supply. And angry that the refund plans were ever presented to us as a viable option. My AMH level has been known since before coming to RSC. This is not new information. Even while I was on the phone with my financial coordinator yesterday, before talking to Attain, she kept insisting that we qualify for all the plans. BUT WE DON'T. I called her back and left a not-so-nice but not-as-mean-as-I-should-have message with the update.

We're not sure where to go from here but we spent the evening pricing out various scenarios on a pay-as-we-go basis to compare to the Attain Core plan. At this point I'm leaning toward pay-as-we-go because I think all value in Attain has been lost. If we get pregnant on the first go, we're screwed (we've paid double what we needed to). If we don't get pregnant at all, we're screwed (we're in the hole $25,000+ with no baby to show for it). To make Attain worthwhile, we would need to have one failed round of IVF, followed by a failed frozen transfer, then another failed IVF cycle, and then a frozen that finally takes. That's the only way the numbers make sense.

I don't have a pretty bow to tie up this post with, so I'll just go back to the beginning and state the obvious: IVF is most certainly not easy to Attain.