A lot has happened since May of this year. We entered may with high hopes that the surgery in February had succeeded. Through June and July though we came to the painful conclusion that it had failed. We don’t have a certain reason why it failed, but hormone level test indicate that the ovary transplant did not work out. This was a hard fact to face for both of us. We both had fully believed that this would work out and we would be well underway to conceiving this year. At the same time we knew from the start that this was an experimental procedure, and there was little data to really have any certainty on the outcome.
It took us some time to get complete with that phase of our journey and start looking ahead to the next phase. Sometime in the summer we started to look for a fertility clinic in our local area, San Francisco. We finally came to UCSF Fertility center. After our initial visit and the orientation we both really felt this was an excellent fit for us and chose to enter their IVF program. Using IVF was something we had talked about prior to starting to look for ovarian transplants, so the choice to move forward with this was rather easy. Joy’s sister Becky generously jumped onboard as our egg donor. We started the first round with all the tests, forms, meetings, doc appointments, and by end of September we had a schedule that would lead us to end of October for an implant.
The egg retrieval was great. Then a day later came news that non of the eggs had made it past the first day for fertilization. This was some of the toughest news to take, as it was really unexpected. Of all the ups and down, this really was one of the most down! for me. a few days later we met with our doctor and we talked over what happened. We then took some time to think about what to do. We now have made the choice to do another round of IVF with the same center, some changes will be made to the protocol, and now are scheduling the when of it all.
When we started I didn’t expect such a long journey, or more like I hoped for a shorted one. Today I am glad that we have so much support so that this longer journey is not done alone.
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