Hump-D Dump-T sat in an ovary....Well you know the rest of that story. Hump-D fell and broke! Well just like anything else in my life, my Hump-D is special!!! Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about my ovary!!!!! The eggs in my ovaries broke at the thought of falling!
As many of you know, I had a terrible AMH score in September of 2012. When we went to our first RE appointment , we discovered that my AMH was .76. The doctor wanted it to be and really was expecting it to be a 2.0 or higher. Dr. D told us that it was POSSIBLE for the score to go down as much as half in one year. That would have made our chance of a successful pregnancy and live birth almost impossible. So Kevin and I decided that we would wait until July 2013, have my AMH retested, and make a final decision from there.
I went to the doctor's office on July 19 to have my blood drawn so it could be retested. The results of that test will determine the course of action. It will tell us if Hump-D is scrambled or sunny side up with a thumbs up. We had an appointment set for July 31 to get the results. But my phone rang while I was at work on Friday July 26. I saw it was Dr. D's office and literally could not breathe for a minute. Interestingly enough, I debated about whether to answer the phone or let it go to voicemail. Seriously? (Side note: The last time I got the score, I had missed the call and the nurse left a voicemail. I listened to it on the way home from work and was totally unprepared for the .76 that came out of her mouth. Luckily, I was really close to home. That meant I didn't have to auto-pilot for too long. I had started crying uncontrollably and couldn't see as a result.) So I decided that sitting in my office, where I could shut the door and sob safely and privately, was the best option at that time.
I had pretty much decided that it was going to be bad. I had a weird feeling/understanding that whatever this number was it would make a clear cut decision for us. But if you look at the .76 score, along with all of the information that I had learned since September, that pessimistic feeling makes sense. For Dr. D's clinic, there was a 41% success rate for an AMH of .76. Now that isn't broken down for age groups, that is for the clinic as a whole. The average age for an AMH of .80-1.0 is 35.5. So our chances would have been a tick better since I am only 29, but not much. So if my AMH went down, that would have put us in the .20-.70 range where the average age is 37.7 years old and success rates plummet to 14%. Again, my age would have likely cause us to have a little bit of a better success rate percentage, but not much. If it went up, it could keep us in the same success percentage or make it better.
Focus ADD. Sorry, saw something shiny and got distracted. Back to Dr. D's office calling me at work. I decided to answer the phone. It was the nurse saying "I have your AMH results!" I tried to analyze her voice because that's what I do, analyze EVERYTHING!!!!! The best thing she could have done was just spit it out. That's exactly what she did, so fast that I almost missed it. DRUM ROLL PLEASE (imagine the drum roll because I don't know how to spell that). My AMH score went up to 1.04!!!!!!! Wooo Hooooo! Not a huge increase, but it increased! So I asked her what that meant about our success rate. She gave me an age/AMH specific success rate of 55-57%. It may not sound great to you. But if you have mulled over 41% for the past year, 55-57% is AWESOME!!!! So we got off of the phone and I started bawling. SKKKUUURRRR! Crying? Why? That was good news. Is crazy lady back? Why do we cry when we get good news?
So I tried to get a grip and call Kevin. Of course, he didn't answer the phone. He didn't answer the phone when I passed the Bar Exam either. (No, I haven't forgotten) I tried to call my mom, she didn't answer. She didn't answer the phone when I passed the Bar Exam either. So I called one of my co-workers who was just a hallway away. Ironically, she is the one who answered the phone at the DA's office after I found out I passed the Bar Exam. But I digress!!! She came into my office and celebrated the good news with me and helped me stop crying. BTW she is a fellow infertile, so she got it.
Finally (about 10 minutes later), Kevin called me back. (I ended up having to forgive him for not answering the phone when I found out that he physically couldn't answer. He had locked his phone in the car and locked himself out of the car. Poor Punkin.)
So in January of this year, Kevin and I decided that if our score went down by July we would either adopt embryos or adopt an already living child. If the score stayed the same or went up, we would try an IVF cycle. Well this past Wednesday we met with Dr. D and discussed our options. We found out that there was about a 50-60% percent chance for a successful live birth on a fresh cycle and about 50% of the time couples with similar age and AMH have embryos to freeze. We talked about how I was doing emotionally and mentally. Understanding that I was emotionally and mentally "SPECIAL" even before infertility, Dr. D was proud of the progress that I had made in the past few months.
We discussed money, specifically how much an IVF cycle (excluding medications) would cost. Our insurance doesn't cover IVF, so it will all be paid out of pocket. Just for the medical procedures leading up to IVF, the retrieval, fertilization, transfer and ultrasounds after the transfer it is a large 4 digit number that is not quite at 5 digits. Then we found out that he would put me on the highest medication protocol that they have because of my low AMH score. That means that our medication costs will be greater. The number that we heard, without insurance coverage, was $5,000-$6,500! BAHAHAHAHAHA. Can I throw up now. No one can give us a certain number because we won't know how much medication I'll actually need until we are in the cycle and monitoring how my body is responding.
Wrap it up, Katy. So what's the big decision?
KEVIN AND I ARE DOING AN IVF CYCLE STARTING IN OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!!!
We are thinking positive thoughts and trying to keep crazy lady at bay for right now. I will, as always, keep you posted as things happen! So we'll see if we can re-write that old nursery rhyme to say:
All the doctor's nurses, doctors, and sperm analyzing men, may be able to put Hump-D together again.
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