Pulling Down the Moon

Fertility Centers of Illinois (FCI) has a special relationship with a a place called Pulling Down the Moon(PDtM). PDtM offers holistic treatments for fertility that can be used in their own or in conjunction with Western Medicine. There are several locations throughout the Chicagoland area. Some of the services offered are yoga for fertility, acupuncture, nutrition and massage. The founders of PDtM also authored a book called Fully Fertile. I had been noticing fliers for PDtM when I would be at FCI and finally decided to attend one of their workshops. Today, my sister-in-law, Meghan, and I went to a Fully Fertile Book Group at the Arlington Heights location. It was led by Beth Heller one of the authors and founders of PDtM. It was such a nice experience to meet Beth and to talk with other women also experiencing infertility. The Fully Fertile book is excellent. I highly recommend it.  I knew instantly that this was a place I wanted to start visiting throughout my fertility treatments for additional physical and emotional support. You can learn more about Pulling Down the Moon at www.pullingdownthemoon.com

Surgery #1 post IVF

Dr. Topel performed a hysteroscopic myomectomy on the morning of August 31. It went well. He was able to remove many of the fibroids, but due to my fluid absorption needed to stop before removing all of them. This was similar to what happened when Dr. Beltsos performed the surgery a year ago. We met with Dr. Topel this afternoon to discuss the plans for the next surgery. He showed us some pictures of a "normal" uterus compared to mine before and after surgery. It was evident that he had removed a lot of the fibroids, but there were still more that needed to come out before trying to conceive again. We discussed plans for a second surgery and the possibility of it being an open abdominal procedure in an effort to avoid the fluid absorption problem. We would touch base with Dr. Topel after a normal cycle to start scheduling the necessary appointments prior to the second surgery. When you are going through infertility, it seems like the entire time is filled with waiting...waiting for the next appointment, waiting for the next cycle, waiting to find out the next plan of treatment, waiting to talk to the doctor, and here we were again faced with more waiting. We are anxiously awaiting this next surgery so that we can try an Embryo Transfer with our one frozen embryo.

Summer 2010

The process of seeing a new surgeon and getting surgery scheduled turned out to be a lot longer than I expected. I was hoping to have gotten the surgery done during the summer months, but had no such luck. With the new surgeon, it seemed like I had to make an appointment for each little part of the process. It started with an initial consult. The next appointment was for a pelvic exam. The next appointment was for the Saline Ultrasound, which is a special ultrasound that allows the doctor to see all of the fibroids and map out the location and size of each one. This was followed by another consult to determine what type of surgery would be needed. The doctor suggested doing the surgery in 2 phases, due to the number of fibroids present. he would be going in hysteroscopically, as it was done in the past. I had to schedule a pre-surgery physical and finally by the middle of August I had the first surgery scheduled for August 31st.

Post IVF Consult

Today I had my post IVF consult with Dr. Beltsos. My mom came with me because it was a busy time at work for Greg. Dr. Beltsos said that the cause of the two failed IVF cycles was mostly my uterine fibroids since everything else had looked good. She referred me to a surgeon in Skokie to have my fibroids removed before pursuing any more fertility treatments. I called him as soon as a I left Dr. Beltsos and was able to get in for an initial appointment next week. I am looking forward to getting in to this new doctor to get my fibroids removed and get back to the fertility treatments.

IVF #2

We started our second fresh IVF cycle at the beginning of June. My medication protocol was pretty similar to the previous cycle with the exceptions of a few medications. It was a lot easier to schedule all of the monitoring appointments with the school year winding down. I had another good response to the stimulation. On June 16th, I went to the River North IVF Center for the egg retrieval. 13 eggs were retrieved. 10 of them fertilized and on June 21st, two blastocysts were transferred. For some reason, I was pretty negative during this "two week weight". I am not exactly sure why. I think that part of it was because I had been so excited during the first IVF attempt and hearing a "no" hurt so badly, that I thought if I didn't get my hopes up another "no" might not hurt as much. Unfortunately, this strategy did not work. On July 1st, we got another negative pregnancy test and it was just as horrible as the first one. I felt very discouraged. We would meet with Dr. Beltsos soon to discuss the negative outcome and the next plan for treatment.

Post IVF consult

Greg and I met with Dr. Beltsos shortly after our first IVF cycle to discuss the outcome and plan the next steps. At our consult, we decided that we would try IVF again. After learning how involved an IVF cycle is with monitoring appointments and medications, we decided that we would time this cycle with the start of my summer vacation so that things would be a little less hectic. Dr. Beltsos put me on a birth control pill for the month of May and our next IVF cycle would start at the end of May/beginning of June.

Injectables-March/April 2010

Typically when going through treatment for infertility, doctors have you try treatments in cycles of three. Because we wanted to become more aggressive in a faster timeframe, we moved right from the cycle with Clomid to a cycle with injectibles and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). Injectables are medicines that are injected subcutaneously or intramuscularly. Their function is to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple follicles. These medicines are ordered from special fertility pharmacies which deliver your medications right to your house. I was on a medicine called Gonal-f. During this cycle we were traveling to Texas for our cousin's wedding. Traveling with the medicine was easier than I expected and the hotel that we were staying at provided me with a Sharps container for disposal of the needles. When stimulating with this type of medication, proper ultrasound and bloodwork monitoring is necessary. One can typically expect to be visiting the doctor's office about every three days for ultrasound and bloodwork. It can be more frequent as the follicles get close to maturity. This type of monitoring allows the doctor to track the growth and number of follicles as well as hormone levels. The morning after we returned from our trip to Texas I was scheduled for monitoring. That afternoon I received a call from my nurse saying that my body responded too well to the medication and I had about ten follicles. We would either have to cancel this cycle (unless we wanted to end up on a reality tv show) or turn it into an In Vitro Fertilization(IVF) cycle. We decided to turn it into an IVF cycle. I continued the medication and monitoring for a few more days before I was instructed to give myself the shot of Ovidrel to induce ovulation. (At FCI, IVF cycles can be performed at the River North or Highland park IVF centers. Mine was scheduled to be at River North, which means that the doctor on the schedule for the day, would be the one doing my procedure). Exactly 36 hours later, a different doctor in the FCI practice performed an Egg Retrieval in which he retrieved 13 eggs. Of the 13 eggs, 12 were mature and 5 fertilized. 5 days after the retrieval, two beautiful embryos were transferred into my uterus. The pregnancy test was scheduled for today, the day after my birthday. I was so excited about what a great birthday present this would be. Not knowing any better, I answered the phone during my lunch hour when the doctor's office called with the results of the pregnancy test. The news was not good. Neither embryo implanted. I was absolutely devastated. I went into the office in my classroom and broke down into tears. I am lucky to work with a supportive group of co-workers. Several co-workers stepped in to cover my classroom so that I could leave for the rest of the day. Greg and I spent the night grieving together. We would meet with Dr. Beltsos on Monday to review the outcome of this cycle and determine the next plan.