The winter's tuning up...

This morning we had our follow-up appointment at the clinic with Dr C. She was very considerate and sympathetic and spent a lot of time with us discussing our questions about the future. Our first question was whether the reason we hadn't had a successful outcome was because of a problem or simply because of seemingly random factors outside anyone's control.
I was relieved to hear that it does seem to be a combination of factors, all of them adding up to the normal kind of selection that happens naturally. It just so happens that none of the embryos we've created so far have been able to continue growing and it's no one's fault. Poor D has been blaming himself a lot lately for the situation we are in, so I hope he is feeling better about things after hearing that. Apparently my chances wouldn't necessarily be any better if I was with a younger man, much to his relief! As for me, I do understand that there is no particular reason for our failure and I certainly don't blame D.

We were both clear that we wanted to try again, so we talked about costs and dates. Dr C would like us to have a three-month break, so I will telephone the clinic at the beginning of August to book on for treatment a month later. Charges have recently risen, so the cost of a cycle plus medication is going to be more than we expected, around the $12,000 mark. My father left me a small amount of money when he passed away last year and we have been saving hard, but it does feel a little scary to put all that money towards this goal. Our house could use a lot of work and we have always wanted to travel, but we really do want to give this one more shot, even if it does feel like a big gamble.

As part of our conversation, we talked about our chances of success. It seems that there is statistically a 36% chance of our next attempt being successful (and there may be multiple attempts during our next cycle if more than one embryo is suitable). Dr C mentioned that she would consider transferring two embryos, which may result in twins but would avoid the risk involved in thawing a frozen embryo later.

So it wasn't an entirely positive conversation, but at least there was no bad news. In the spring we will get on the rollercoaster again, but in the meantime I will (gratefully) think about other things for a while!