Lindy’s Egg Donation Update

Well, talk about a long-overdue update. Sorry about that. It has been nearly a year since we updated you on our egg donation process. Life kind of got in the way of writing an update, but better late than never!

When I last updated in February of 2020, some of my labs had been looking better. I was going to acupuncture to try to improve my fertility and working on my kids’ sleep. Some things never change I guess, as I am still working on this!

I went back to the fertility clinic in March for additional testing and my numbers were once again poor. They were worse than the January numbers I had tested at a local lab. For those of you familiar with fertility numbers, my FSH was 23.19, my AMH was 0.225, and my estradiol was 28.15. The high FSH indicated I wouldn’t respond well to fertility meds and the low AMH suggested very poor ovarian reserves.

Casey, Jamie, and I felt very disappointed with these results. The fertility clinic was not willing to even try using me as a donor, which was frustrating. Our naturopath suggested another clinic that we could go to, so we established care there. It was smaller and had a better feel to us, more personal. My initial labs also screened a bit better. My FSH was down to 12, so it showed I may respond to fertility meds, and my AMH was 0.508, still not great (they want >1 for an egg donor), but better than March.

The doctor started me on birth control bills to control my cycle and then I began the stimulation medications late June. I admit, the box of medications that was mailed to be was a bit intimidating, even for a pharmacist! The fertility clinic of course provided me a detailed schedule of what to take and when. The regimen involved four injections daily and five oral medications.

Luckily, aside from some bruising at the injection sites, I really didn’t have side effects from the medications. Toward the end, prior to egg retrieval, there was a bit of bloating but otherwise I didn’t notice much. The hardest part was just making sure I was able to stay on schedule and take the medications on time, which was sometimes hard with the kids around!

During the 13 days or so that I was on the stimulation medications, I went to Portland and had a vaginal ultrasound and lab work every 2-3 days to monitor any follicles that were growing. Prior to starting medications, the doctor saw 8 follicles between my two ovaries. Unfortunately, not all the follicles grow, so by the time we were ready for egg retrieval, that number was down to four (all on my right side, interestingly. The left was a dud!). With so few eggs, we knew we couldn’t split the eggs between Casey and Jamie so we decided I would give this round to Casey and then take it from there.

Leading up to egg retrieval, there was yet another Covid test (standard protocol that you must do regularly throughout the process and within 48 hours of retrieval) and then it was time to take the “trigger injection.” Casey got to do the honors of giving me the shot with the very large needle right into the behind. The fertility clinic was nice enough to draw a big circle for her with Sharpie on my haunches, so there was no missing the target!

The next day, about 12 hours after the trigger shot, I started to feel pretty crappy. The trigger shot contains human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), which sends the message to the ovary to release the eggs. HCG is also known as the “pregnancy hormone” and is what pregnancy tests check for. I had pretty bad nausea and vomiting during my pregnancies, so that trigger shot took me right back to feeling like I did when I was about 8 weeks pregnant! Luckily, Casey and I had booked a hotel in Portland so I was able to go and relax the night before donation.

Sunday, July 12^th was egg retrieval day. Casey and I arrived by 8am as instructed but they didn’t call me back until nearly 10am, as these things seem to go. I was put under general anesthesia for the retrieval, but afterwards the doctor informed that she got 3 big eggs and 1 small one from the left ovary. I had a little bit of bleeding after the procedure, but then they released me to the lobby to go meet Casey. Nurses, never listen to stubborn patients when they tell you they don’t need the wheelchair. Casey said she could hear me refusing the wheelchair and I stumbled out a bit like a drunken sailor! Then I started vomiting while we were waiting for the elevator. Oh, the joys of anesthesia on an empty stomach.

Once I got some food in my stomach and was back at the hotel, I felt much better. We stayed in the hotel again that night, which was nice to relax. The Hunger Games series happened to be on TV, so I binge watched that! I was a little crampy and tender, but by the next day I was fine. We got word the next day that only the 3 large eggs were mature, but luckily they had all fertilized with Jeff’s thawed sperm.

After that, it was another waiting game to find out how many of the fertilized eggs made it to the “blastocyst” embryo stage. We found out on July 17^th that 2 out of the 3 made it and were sent off for genetic testing.

Unfortunately, we got the update on July 24^th that both embryos tested abnormally. They both had chromosomal abnormalities, so we were defeated. It was a big blow to all of us to go through that, which is a time consuming and expensive process, and get nothing. I felt bad that likely my eggs were the culprit in the genetic problems, as sperm typically doesn’t show a lot of chromosomal anomalies until later in a male’s life.

We decided to try another round of egg donation for me and I started the stimulation meds up again mid-August. At my initial appointment, there were about 7 or 8 follicles, but by my first follow-up after starting the meds, there were only four that were growing. It was basically the same situation as the first round. So, knowing how that one went and the attrition that happens at each stage in the process, Casey, Jamie, and I decided to pull the plug. I would have to go through many, many rounds of donation to even get them enough embryos, and who knows if the embryos would have been viable or had genetic issues again.

This is certainly not the ending we had hoped for with my egg donation story, but like so much in life and especially in 2020, things just didn’t go our way. I am proud of how we all handled it though. Of course, I am very disappointed I didn’t get to help my sisters have babies the way we were all hoping. I had weaned Archer specifically for this process and had really thought I would get lots of eggs for them. But, we tried and that’s what matters. Better that we know the outcome rather than not doing it and always wondering what could have been.

Casey and Jamie will provide an update soon on what they decided to do next.