CCS Results

It was a strange evening...arriving home after work to a rainy evening. Watching the rain flow down my living room window (on the outside) prompted me to check the normal leaks and identify a new one coming from the floor and baseboard. Moved furniture, laid down blankets and just waited. Slightly annoyed but distracted by the electricity going out in one room. Several attempts to get the breaker reset failed and I was searching for electricians to contact. While dialing one electrician, I noticed a 303 area code. Colorado. My heart skipped a beat.

Hello? Dr. Surrey could hear the panic in my voice and commented on it. He sounded up beat and calm. I tried to catch my breathe and do the same. And then he said it, "of the 6 embryos tested, one was determined to be healthy"

ONE?

I could feel the lump in my throat. My heart begin to race even more and I just listened. He continued stating that a few of them had multiple choromosomal issues, one had an extra chromosome 18 and one had a deletion in chromosome 15. Dr. Surrey said that clearly these embryos would've caused miscarriage. He went on to say that the one that was graded as the "best" looking embryo, 5AA, actually had multiple chromosomal issues and wouldn't have survived. He said that the lone survivor was the embryo graded as 5BB. Last man standing.

Dr. Surrey explained I had 2 options. Move to transfer my one embryo. Or if I wanted more children in the future I could attempt another round of IVF. He recognized that this was expensive and I didn't have IVF coverage. I reminded him that I wanted one child and had been on this journey for 2 years. He agreed. Transfer the one remaing embryo and said chances were good it would stick. I did share that I was disappointed that there was only one and no back up in case this transfer didn't work. I shared the bad reaction I had to the betadine from retrieval and was still dealing with it. He apologized for that and said that Betadine isn't used during transfer but would make a note on my chart. Still,  he sounded excited by the news of my one lone embryo. Told me my nurse would call me tomorrow but I shared that we were already in touch and had a tenative date of August 24th. Wonderful, he says.

Hanging up the phone, I lost it. Tears began to flow and they didn't stop for hours. The kind of tears where you just can't stop yourself. Where you can't talk with anyone and your chest feels like its going to cave in. I sent a couple text messages that the results were back. One. 5BB was the last standing embryo.

The response (although meant to comfort me) that it only takes one made me so angry. I didn't want just one. I wanted all of them or at least two. I wanted one as a back up in case I have been miscarrying for other reasons. My biggest fear was that none of them would make it. So, I should be happy that one had survived. All I felt was sadness and disappointment.

An evening of crying and puffy eyes turned into a slow morning the next day. I was moving to transfer in August and as a reminder I had to pick up my to be refrigerated Lupron from Fedex that morning. Oddly, as I was picking up my package, a man in scrubs was also picking up something and saw my package stating "please refrigerate". He commented (gotta love the sensitive medical professional), "what you have in there, something good I hope?" Really dude? Its an injectible medication. Can you be in my business anymore? Disassembled the large box and put the medication, needles and sharps container in my bag and attempted to leave quickly.

I needed to grieve the loss of my other babies. I thought about asking the gender of the other 5 but felt it didn't really matter at this point. They weren't healthy and I couldn't use them. I am thankful that I went through the CCS testing. I can't imagine transferring those "highly graded" embryos and experiencing another miscarriage. A deep fear.

That fear is still there. There are no guarantees that a healthy embryo will result in a healthy live birth. The fragility of life still amazes me every moment. All the moments when something can go wrong from fertilization to implantation to everything in between. I have been trying to focus on one step at a time and was doing extremely well up until the news of one embryo.

What if this doesn't implant? What if I miscarriage again? What if my clotting disorder also affects my pregnancies? Should I do the Lovenox that I had discussed with my OB?

Feel like I am just moving with the calendar. Still trying to heal from retrieval and had to start a steroid pack to get rid of the contact dermititis due to Betadine. Started Electro-Stim Acupuncture. Ordered my other meds and will pick them up on August 1st. Moved some meetings that were scheduled for August 24th and booked my flight this morning. Haven't shared the information with my family as I haven't wanted to worry them or make it more of a reality.

Still trying to process the rest of this journey. I know i can't worry about the What Ifs but it consumes my mind these days.

BB, as my embryo has been nicknamed by BP, is waiting for me to get to Denver. I guess we will see if its time for me to meet my rainbow BB or not along this journey. Only time will tell. Only BB knows the true answer.