Welcome to today's edition of Connections Abound. The Face-to-Face Lost and Found page is permanently located beneath this current post. Old Connections Abound can be accessed via the date or subject archives listed on the sidebar. Check the submissions page, FAQ, and ways to get involved for additional information. Email me at thetowncriers@gmail.com with any questions/concerns.Lost and Found is open to anyone in the infertility, pregnancy loss, adoption, pregnancy-and-parenting after infertility, assisted conception, living child-free after infertility or loss community (as well as anyone I inadvertently missed on that list). Please support the list as well as anyone posting announcements below.
Connections Abound
MISCELLANEOUS NEWS
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- Sign-up opened today for the next book club selection: Eat, Pray, Love. Everyone is welcome to join. This book rocks and will give you a lot to think about (and I can say that because I'm halfway through it right now).
- Question: Let's call her the Library Lady. LL does not have a blog, but she has a question. She asks: "I would love to hear from women, while going through IVF, who decided to not have 'extra' embryos created. We are considering only fertilizing 2 or 3 eggs. Is there anyone else out there who has made this same choice and how did things turn out? Regrets? Success stories?" In other words, regardless of the number at retrieval, only fertilizing 2 or 3. Please leave your response on this post and she will collect answers from the comments section.
- Invite Only: Scrambled Eggz went invite only. If you haven't received an invitation, you can email her to be added.
- IComLeavWe kicked off last week. Come on...a measly week is much more do-able than a full month, nu?
- If you notice another loading slow down or receive error messages for Stirrup Queens or Lost and Found, please let me know. Now I'm nervous every time I add anything to the side bar!
- Finally It Could Be (old blog; new digs)
- Good Egg Hunting is celebrating her birthday today. Go over and sing her a little song.
- Waiting on Life is celebrating her birthday on Thursday. Go over and eat some cake with her.
- I'm an Ova-Achiever celebrated her 5th anniversary last week!
- (Un)complicate Me is celebrating her birthday this upcoming Saturday. Go sing her happy birthday a bit early.
- Dancing with Infertility celebrated her fifth anniversary on Saturday. It's not too late to send congratulations!
- It was Jojobee’s birthday yesterday. You can still go over and sing her a song.
- Roadblocks and Roller Coasters had her blogoversary this last weekend. When she started her blog, she was mourning the loss of her twins. So it was a bittersweet anniversary. Please go over and give her congratulations and hug.
- None Today.
- No Swimmers has finally received the report for the twins and there was no exact cause of death. They have finally found out that they were having two girls that they have named Karis and Addison.
- Helen has a sad post up right now and is collecting supportive messages for a friend: "My dear friend Vicki - who had preemie twin sons in April after 5 rounds of IVF - lost one of her sons, B, on June 22nd. She's having a hard time. She doesn't have a blog, but if you want to comment on my post today, I will forward it to her."
- Emergency: Brenda has posted that S&N at BabyQuest have been sent to the hospital because S’s waters were bulging and are now leaking. Please go over and give support.
- Blessed are the Barren were chosen by a placing family to adopt their embryos! They are over the moon!
- JJ could use some advice/comfort-she's been diagnosed with a subchronic hemorrhage.
- Nat got a negative on her pregnancy test and could use some support.
- Kathy is having a hard time right now emotionally after the loss of Molly. Please give her a hug.
- Life After D&C got a faint positive and a low beta at 17dpo. Give her your support as she awaits her second beta tomorrow.
- New Midlife Mommy is now in the 2ww after a FET of one embryo. Wish her the best.
- Just Nesting had to put her cat to sleep last Thursday. Though there isn't a space to leave comments on this blog, her email address is listed on the sidebar.
- CC at Inconceivable No More is having bleeding at 14 weeks along. She's scared and could use some hugs.
- Schatzi is down for the count and will be horizontal the rest of the pregnancy. Her doctor is worried about preeclampsia.
- When All Else Fails... is on bedrest due to a shortened cervix.
- Geohde is on increased rest too as she keeps in the twins to 32 weeks.
- Crowded Uterus Syndrome is on bedrest.
- Milenka is on bedrest due to low fluid.
- It Will Happen is on bedrest for a shortened cervix.
- Gas Passer is on bedrest for the rest of her pregnancy.
- JJ is on bed rest until further notice.
- Mel at Where's My Belly? saw the heartbeat on ultrasound for the first time!
- Antigone’s doctor has told her she needs to get more calories during the day, if anyone has any suggestions.
- Luv Bug is a girl (and Z’s husband got the job that he wanted).
- Summer had a good OB appointment. TK’s NT measurements are fine and everything looks good!
- Blood test proves it! RCB at Les' Make a Baby is pregnant! Go do a happy dance with them.
- Misty River at River's Bend got a positive beta and is hoping for good second beta tomorrow.
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Kami has posted LB’s birthstory and it’s very touching. Congratulate her again.
Read and Support
5 comments:
Library Lady, I'm also interested in the scenario you've suggested, as I'm gathering my thoughts about IVF and freezing.. I'll be watching the comments as well.
While I understand your reasons for not wanting to create extra embryos, I think you should take into consideration that (in most cases) many of the eggs fertilized do not become viable embryos. Take my case (healthy 31yr old). I had 17 eggs, 12 mature, 10 fertilized, and by day 5 we only had ONE blast. Now you may be one of the lucky ones and end up with 10 embryos out of 10 eggs, but you just never know. I would hate to go through all the physical and emotional pain of IVF, fertilize 2 or 3 eggs and end up with no embryos to transfer.
LL, if you are concerned about creating embryos that will not be used, I would consider "natural ivf." Some clinics do this, it is ivf basically without the stimming process; they harvest the one egg you produce and do the fertilizing, transferring, etc. with just that one. I haven't used this method myself, but I am friends with someone who has, I could ask her to email you if you want.
For Library Lady - We did 2 IVF cycles where we limited the number of eggs fertilized to 4 in order to avoid excess embryos. That resulted in 2 embryos to transfer our first cycle, and 1 blastocyst to transfer our second cycle. Neither was a success, but I do have lots of information if you want to email me (see my blog for my email address). If we end up doing IVF again, we will probably increase to 6-8 eggs fertilized (now based on our previous experience and information from a new doctor), and we will transfer all viable embryos. Whatever you do, I'd recommend getting stats from the embryology lab at your clinic and doing the math backwards to figure out how many eggs you want to fertilize to end up with your ideal number of embryos to transfer. In many cases, the first IVF cycle is somewhat "experimental" anyway, as the doctors see how you respond to meds, so it doesn't hurt to start with a more conservative number, see the results, and go from there. Yes, there's a risk, as Kelly mentioned, of having nothing to transfer, but better that than having too many embryos if that goes against your wishes.
Library Lady,
I haven't done what you are asking about, but I think I will do something similar if I ever do IVF again.
I have done 4 cycles that produced a total of 13 embryos (4, 4, 2, 3). I have been pregnant once, with a singleton, now a healthy toddler, and have one embryo on ice. I was never willing to put more than 2 back, so there were two FETs in there and in one, one embryo didn't survive the thaw. I plan to do one more FET and to be honest feel much more comfortable knowing that each of my embryos has had (or will have, with the one remaining one), a chance.
Anyway, if the FET doesn't work and I get to do IVF again -- though it's not obvious my hubby will go for any more fresh cycles -- I am seriously considering doing natural cycle IVF and aiming for just one embryo. While it's true this puts a lot of faith, or at least hope, on one egg, I do not want twins (a recognition of my own limitations, not a criticism of anyone else's choices) and am not happy to think about having left over embryos -- and there is no way on this earth my hubby would intentionally try for 3 kids (i.e. allow additional FETs if a fresh cycle works...).
All of which is a convoluted way simply of saying that there are other people out here struggling with, or at least thinking about, these issues. Also, I'll add that in my observation -- despite the points others have made -- statistically, you don't gain a lot by putting back more than one or two embryos, if your goal is a healthy baby (or two). So many factors affecting the healthy of the embryos are common within a cycle (though not well understood) that while failure is common, multiples are, too -- and bring additional risks.
Good luck finding and implementing a plan you are comfortable with.
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