As of this morning, our first IVF cycle has officially failed. We headed to Dallas at 3:30am with our antsy pants on ready to retrieve all the eggs we've been growing. Everything thus far has been smooth sailing so we had no reason to expect a negative outcome. I responded extremely well to STIMS and my levels of AMH, FH, LH & HCG were all in the normal-good range (these levels indicate healthy mature eggs). I went into surgery with all the confidence in the world. Doug and I were even making bets on how many they would retrieve. Unfortunately, we were both way off. Dr. Pinto was only able to retrieve 2 eggs and 1 of them was not viable. He canceled my cycle and said we had nothing to transfer. Apparently all of those big beautiful follicles I had grown, contained nothing. No eggs. Nada. And to top it off, I somehow managed to fall into the 0.2-7% of IVF patients that this happens to.
He sent us home with a list of vitamins and supplements to take over the course of the next month, and said we'll try again in October. It's hard to be positive on a day like today, but sometimes the only alternative is completely breaking down (which I managed to do anyway). When we asked the big "why?" and "how?", he said it's just one of those very rare and weird things that happen. It's called EFS (Empty Follicle Syndrome). EFS, although rare, is a frustrating condition where no eggs are tiered in IVF, even though ultrasound and estradiol measurements show the presence of many potential follicles. It's a complex phenomenon that cannot be explained. EFS first reported by Coulam et al.[3] in 1986, may not strictly be a syndrome, but a sporadic unpredictable event.[4] It cannot be predicted by the pattern of ovarian response to stimulation, either sonographically or hormonally. Consequently, the diagnosis of EFS is retrospective.
It could be that I just produced a "bad batch" of eggs and that the next round will be just fine, it could be that my eggs are bad (He and I both find it odd since I'm only 30. This is common in older patients trying to conceive through IVF, but not at my age) OR it could be that we just need to adjust my STIMS next time. There are so many factors that could've played a part in the failure of this cycle, and unfortunately IVF is a very expensive and emotional form of trial & error. So that's what we'll do, we'll try again next month and hope for a better outcome. That's all we really can do. In the meantime I'm taking CO-Q-10, Royal Jelly, Baby Aspirin, Wheatgrass, Prenatal w/ DHA, Vit D-3, DEAH & Selenium and going to acupuncture 2x a week.
Luckily I had already made an appointment for acupuncture for this afternoon, and Doug convinced me not to reschedule. I'm not sure how effective my first visit was since I bawled the whole way through, but overall I liked it. I'm pretty sure he needed a mop when I left. So other than being emotional, it was a good experience and I look forward to the next appointment so I can really try and benefit from it. I went to Kaleo Chiropractic - Downtown Tyler if any of you want to give it a shot, they are wonderful there and it's good for all sorts of things. In my case, it will ease stress, calm my nerves, and most importantly increase blood flow to my ovaries and uterus so that we'll hopefully have better results next time. I went ahead and put myself on the books for twice a week from here on out. What can it hurt right?
Our hearts are broken, and this is obviously not the outcome we saw coming. I was prepared for the possibility of failure after transfer, but not now. Not this. The unknown is so frustrating and the struggle is very real. I've been up since 3am, sobbing since 8am and I entered a state of delirium somewhere around 3pm. It's been a rough day here at the Willis house. God's plan is fuzzy right now, but I know that he has one and I trust it. I'd being lying if I said I wasn't angry at Him for making this so hard on us, but it's the hard times that we tend to lean on Him most, and that's exactly what we'll do.