Friday, April 3, 2009

Pharmacy, Microarray/CGH, and Three Embryos

I picked up my two big boxes of meds for IVF #5 yesterday. I spent about 30 minutes last night confirming the order and organizing them last night. We have a built-in storage unit/dresser in our master bathroom and everything is neatly lined up on top of it. I am hoping to take a picture and put it on my blog, but L accidentally dropped my camera last week and we need to go tomorrow to see if it can be fixed or if I should get a new one. I didn't really like my camera anyways, so I am hoping that I need a new one. Anyways, I digress. So, DH came up last night and looked at all of our meds and said, "Jeez. It looks like a regular pharmacy in here." I don't think that either one of us quite remembered how many meds are involved, nor are we looking forward to pumping my body full of them again, since we did our last fresh IVF cycle in August.

My friend, Niki, from http://myjourneytomylesandbeyond.blogspot.com/2009/04/todays-appointment.html, wrote on her blog yesterday that our RE is participating in a study to do Mocroarry/CGH*. I called and left a message for my nurse at my local clinic to see if I could participate in this study. Even though right now it looks like they are only biopsying the embryos to collect data (vs. biopsying them in order to select which embryos to transfer), DH and I decided that we want that data! It would be nice to know if we are creating any chromosomally normal embryos before we haul our asses out to CCRM to find out. I left a message for my nurse to call me back so that I can find out more info about the study they are conducting. This would potentially provide us with answers we so desperately need.

I also received the consent form from my clinic to allow me to transfer three embryos. Since this is differing from the SART guidelines, they need my signature to okay it.

Things are coming together for this cycle, but I can honestly say, I'm still not excited. After we have gone through so many failed cycles, really, how do you even get excited?


*Microarray and CGH provide essentially the same information, but are two different procedures to determine if embryos are chromosomally normal or not. Dr. School.craft did a great explanation of how both of these procedures are performed, but I won't attempt to:)

4 comments:

Jill M. said...

I have my own personal pharmacy as well, it's CRAZY the amount of drugs we take for one cycle.

I sooo know what you mean about not being excited about doing IVF anymore. After so many failures, hope is damaged.

Best wishes!

Niki said...

Kris, I can understand that you aren't super excited to do the cycle and are just going through the motions, but you must have a little hope?! Why else would you do it? I guess if we act like we don't care, then we can't be as disappointed, right?!

You'll have to let me know what Dr. S has to say about getting into the study and whether or not they release the information. I didn't ask that because I just assumed they did.

I do understand the difference between microarray and CGH, but lumped them b/c Dr. S said they are doing both types of testing. Of course his explanation to me of what is done was weak at best, but I already have a good grasp of biotechnology procedures since I teach it. Anyway I guess I should go back to my post and clarify that. Honestly I didn't think anyone would know the difference, but I see I have a biology nerd among my readers! ;)

kayjay said...

You are all set to cycle and yes, after so many heart breaks, it is hard to let yourself open up to be that vulnerable where you feel the hope again. That's really exciting they're offering the CGH/microarray testing and I hope that you get into the study!! GL!

Sue said...

I had the same problem - it is very hard to get excited or hopeful after so many failures. But, deep inside of us there must still be hope otherwise we wouldn't be doing it, right? Hugs! You will do great.

Cool that your clinic is doing CGH/microarray now! I agree - it is always great to learn something.