the real deal

It's so nice to feel as comfortable with your doctor as we feel with Dr. Browne.  And vice versa.  For the first time today, I felt like Dr. Browne spoke to us in a very realistic manner.  Not to down her for being so optimistic before, but I felt like we left today with the real deal.  And the real deal is that this ain't working.  We're going for another IVF cycle, but she cautioned us that once 4 tries don't work, our "prognosis changes dramatically".  What does this mean?  Well, she says that as long as insurance is paying we should still go for it.  She also said that she could never, in good faith, take money from us.  That means that if we were paying out of pocket for this, she would not agree to do it.  That's significant.  And reassures me that we're working with an excellent doctor. And it means that she thinks it won't work.  She said that if we wanted to continue after this cycle (should it be unsuccessful and insurance runs out), she would want to move on to donor eggs.  We are not interested in that (at least I'm not - though we (Russ and I) should probably have a real conversation about it first), so for us it means moving to adoption which is what I'm ready for.  Not to put down donor egg people, it's just that I don't have some burning desire to be pregnant - I just want our baby, Russ's and mine.  Would it be great to have one that was half his?  Sure.  But it wouldn't be "ours" and I'm not sure I can deal with that.  Plus it would mean money and egg transfers (even if it's not my eggs) and no guarantees of a baby.  Adoption = baby even if there might be heartbreaks and hassles along the way.  Plus we don't even know if cycle 5 is it.  Maybe there will be a cycle 6, right?  Or maybe cycle 5 will bring us our fabulous little baby. 

Oh and did I mention?  She wants to put back 4!!!  4.  That's right.  Wow.  She really thinks it's not gonna work.  But we'll try...

OK, so I just posted and realized that I left some important info out...glad I can come back and edit.

So...  the reason why it seems so bleak is because my eggs appear to be pretty f-ed up.  While I did have 3 grade A quality embryos to put back last time, the other guys were all sorts of messed up!  Two embryos had 2 nuclei and that's just not right and indicates that it's one f-ed up egg.  I need A LOT of hormones to get my ovaries working and that has always indicated that maybe my eggs are old and tired.  So all of this put together tells us that our chances are slim.  But there is a chance, so we keep moving forward.  There is nothing that can be done to improve egg quality.  They're my eggs that have been with me since I was born.  Personally I feel disloyal talking about them so disparagingly.  =)  There's gotta be one potential baby in there!  Let's just hope that we find it.