I'm actively avoiding driving off a cliff right now...I'm just SO fucking frustrated. Oh, remember when I said I should have results today and the only bad news I could get would be "we need to do more tests, which means more waiting??????" Well surprise, surprise, we have to do MORE testing. I recognize I should be happy that they are covering all their bases, and I am...I'm just so frustrated with this process. I was PISSED when we were leaving the dr's office. So pissed that my ears were ringing. Since then I've been able to calm the hell down...a bit.
Ok...so I have elevated cytokines. WTF are cytokines you might ask? Well (if I understand this correctly) they are a type of white blood cell. Having elevated cytokines can mean that my immune system is essentially killing my babies. The cytokines are seeing the baby as something bad and need to attack it. Um...awesome. They can also cause implantation issues as well. Basically, my immune system might be rejecting my embryos.
That's not all. Oh no. Of course not. There's more. I also have 3 different genetic mutations. Thanks for all that cigarette smoke when I was in utero, mom! 2 of them I would never have any symptoms of, but they showed up on the blood work, so Josh is having to have the crazy amounts of bloodwork done too to see if he carries the same mutations. If he does and we did end up getting pregnant and going to term (oh, because my body didn't eat my babies) then there's a 1 in 4 chance that our baby could have severe seizures, inability to walk or function, and something like 85% of them die within one year. That's not so much what we are going for here. So they're checking him for everything to make sure we don't make mutated children and if we do, luckily, there's an option. One option...the only one. IVF with ICSI. (ahem...that's like 12k PER MONTH) That's doing IVF, but being able to genetically test the embryos before implantation and only implanting the ones that check out safe. That's pretty cool, but also weirds me out that my future children would be a science project. But who am I kidding, my entire reproductive system is a damn science project.
The 3rd mutation I carry has some long ass name that means my body doesn't absorb proper amounts of folic acid from food. So WTF, I eat all my leafy greens for no reason? Shit, I'm going to start eating chicken fingers and fries every day. Jokes...I'm already getting fat from my inability to do cardio (ps I'm going to start doing yoga I think to stay in shape) They're writing me a prescription for prescription strength prenatals with a specific kind of folic acid that my body will be able to absorb.
Now, if it comes back that Beyonce (my uterus's new name because it's completely tilted to the left - get it? 'to the left. to the left. everything you own in a box to the left') is eating my babies (yes I know it's not actually my uterus eating it, it's my immune system attacking it) then there's treatment for that too. I would have to have 2 infusions of intralipids. One at the beginning of my cycle and one after I find out I'm pregnant (I'll believe that when I see it) which will apparently tell my cytokines that baby cohen is not a space invader and can stay in there for 9 months. All that accompanied by Letrozole (the ovulation inducing drug) and IUI (intrauterine insemination) That's about $1500-$2k per cycle with a 20-25% chance of becoming pregnant. Good thing we have cash under the mattress...oh, wait a second...
Dr P. said that if after 2 failed IUI attempts (that's $3k-$3500 for anyone that's following) we move to IVF because after 2 failed IUI's your odds go way down. So that could potentially be $3500 for nothing THEN paying the $12k per cycle after that. We need to win the damn lottery.
You know what's bullshit? That 85-90% of couples get pregnant for free. FREE. Actually, I would say they're getting paid. In sexual favors. Whatever, I'm just bitter betty right now.
Thank God my girlfriends and I had already planned a girls night tonight. I plan on having FAR too many holiday cocktails.
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