MTHFR-I Have It. Do You?

"Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) is a rare genetic defect that can lead to complications in pregnancy. Many people do not know that they have this defective gene until after they have had several unsuccessful pregnancies. Others may carry one pregnancy to term and not discover until afterwards that they carry the defect."

You can call it MotherFucker.   We all do.  Even the nurses at the RE Factory!

Before we started this donor egg IVF cycle, I made sure they did an RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss) panel on me, even though I only had one m/c.  My acupuncturist seemed pretty certain 2 of my other cycles were early losses and I wanted to rule out everything possible to make sure this cycle had the best chance of success.

Now I know that I have one mutation of MTHRF (C677T).  That means I am heterozygous. It is reported that nearly half the population is MTHFR heterozygous.  This is the best case scenario when it comes to MTHFR.  This is rather easy to work with, thank goodness.

I wished I'd had this test done sooner, because I could've been taking something as simple as a baby aspirin a day + extra folic acid, vitamins B6 and B12 to achieve a successful pregnancy.  Had I only known.

Here's where it gets tricky:  How much is enough?  My RE is content with the baby aspirin but I think I might need to add more to the mix (like Folgard?).

Here's what I'm currently on:

• Prenatal:800 mcg of folic acid, 15 mg of B6 and 25 mcg of B12
  
• B12/Folic Acid/B6 tab with 2mg B6, 1000 mcg B12 and 800 mcg folic acid
• In addition I add wheat germ to a smoothie every day with "20% folic acid"

I've read that you should have 2.2 mg Folic Acid, 25 mg B6 and 500 mcg B12.  So, bare with me on my math skills here, but it looks like I've pretty much got the B's covered and it's just the folic acid I could be lacking, is that right??

So confusing and complicated.  What I don't understand if if a baby aspirin can't hurt, why don't they just have most TTC women on it??

Also, those of you out there who suffer from migraines (I'm thinking of you Carrie) this gene has also been linked to migraines.

If any of you have any advice for me...I'd love to hear it!

Trying to Escape from Funky Town

This has got to be the hardest time period of TTC I've ever gone through.  I never took a BFN this hard, never got this down about a cancelled IVF cycle, but this...this is the worst.

To get me down even further, New York is going through a period of endless gray, cool, rainy days that are not helping my psyche at all.  It seems like the sun has completely disappeared and is never coming back.

I am trying to be optimistic and hopeful about this new cycle, but I am so damn scared.

It has been very, very difficult to come back to NYC in the rainy, cool season--jobless, in an economic crisis, faced with the realization that you can't have bio children.

Last week was the worst of the depression.  That was when I found myself seriously wondering if I had any worth at all and maybe the world would just be better off without me.

The thought was only a fleeting one and I wasn't contemplating anything, but the fact that it popped up in my head was a giant warning signal.

I have suffered from depression in the past, but I have med free now for almost 5 years.  It's been wonderful!

Now, I find that I'm having to work a little bit harder to be 'normal'.  That scares me.  

But after I got over the 'due date' of last week, I did find myself lifting up.  I didn't think it would be so difficult to get past that day--but it was--especially seeing other blogger's births posted that were born the same day/time.  Ouch.  That fucking hurt.  I mean, I'm happy for them, don't get me wrong, but fucking ouch.  Sometimes I just have to step away from the blogs....  

K has been wonderful throughout all of this.  She gets me out of the house and encourages me to workout, cook, take a walk outside, get off the computer.  We've walked down to Chinatown multiple times, exploring new streets, making lists of places we want to eat, gorging on Vietnamese food, shopping in the produce markets and getting Chinese massages in dodgy palours.  I love that she knows I'll feel better after getting an "Asian fix".  And I do, I always do.

But let's talk about meds/donor egg cycle now.  Tonight is my last birth control pill, yeah!  I've had 6 Lupron injections and (knock on wood) so far, so good on the side effects.  As in glory hallelujah, I've had none of the insomnia, migraines, etc, etc.  I cannot blame the depression on the Lupron as that started long before the injections.  But I am hoping the Lupron does not make my depression worse.  Only time will tell.

My SIS (saline sonogram) was painless and the RE declared me "clean as a whistle" so I'm good to go on that.

The RPL blood panel came back fine and there's nothing to worry about there.  My RE is going to have me take baby aspirin starting at the time of the retrieval as a precaution.

K's genetics blood work panel passed with flying colors--everything looks great.

Next on the list:  K goes in to the fertility center this Friday morning for blood work to make sure she ovulated (I saw the EWCM, it looks like she ovulated!).  Once they call her back telling her the bloods show she ovulated, she'll inject a micro dose of Lupron.  Lucky her, she only has to shoot up Lupron once!

That's it.  It's getting better, it really is.  But this month (well, April, May has been better) has felt like I'm rock climbing and I can't see the top of the mountain and my arms are getting really, really tired.

Thanks for all of your wonderful comments on my last post and for pulling me up the mountain.  I feel all of your strength and I couldn't make it without you.

If you've called me or emailed me and you haven't heard back from me...please forgive me.  I haven't been myself.

Pill Poppin' (Baby) Mama

So....I've been getting emails asking what's going on and when am I going to blog again.  Well, there's been a lot going on, but I've also been waiting to see exactly what that is.

I can now officially say "Game ON"!

  

Last week Kate went in for all of her genetic testing, blood work and baseline ultrasound.  This was the moment we've been waiting for because K is not a 'proven donor' and until we saw the ultrasound we were damn nervous.  I didn't even realize I'd been shaking the entire time we were in the office until we went to look at K's lady business and our RE said "whoa look at that!" 

And there we had it, a basket full of eggs.  There were at least 15 antral follicles on her left ovary and about 8-9 on her right.  The RE wasn't going to count them at first saying "you have nothing to worry about, she's going to produce a lot of eggs" and I countered with "we're paying a lot of money for those eggs, count them."

While we were there, I also insisted on an RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss) blood work panel for myself.  Not that I've had recurrent losses, but at this stage in the game, I want to have every single thing checked out.  We caught my thyroid almost by mistake and I'm not assuming everything else is fine.  At this point, I want every test done.

  

So now we're waiting for the blood work to come back for both of us.  That should be another week.  The good thing is that even if something in the genetics testing came back wrong--because she's my partner, we get to decide if we want to go forward whereas if she were a donor the cycle would automatically be cancelled.

In the meantime, Kate has started her period and we've already been back for a Day 3 u/s.  Once again everything checked out A-OK and it's cute to see K preening around boasting about her bumper crop of eggs.  You can almost see her feathers all fluffed up; she's very proud of herself.  I think she was scared of her body letting me down.  We are both breathing a sigh of relief around her.  So far, so good.

I started birth control pills yesterday, CD3 and will be on them for 15 days.  So far, just one little pill has wreaked havoc on my system.  It gave me insomnia last night and made me feel so nauseous I had dreams of barfing.  I spent the entire night tossing and turning and woke up retching.  I couldn't eat, was shaking and felt completely out of sorts.  K knew it was serious when I refused my usual (decaf) cappuccino!  I went back to bed by 9am and slept through until noon.  I really hope tomorrow is better, because otherwise I am going to be worthless.  Hopefully my body just needs a bit of time to get adjusted.

If all goes as planned (famous last words...) we should be doing egg retrieval/transfer either the last week of May or the first week of June.

Moving right along now....