Keep on Walking

I am fairly certain that my first clinic (which shall remain nameless) wanted me out of there the moment I stepped through the door. I was 41 at the time and had a balanced translocation – a double whammy. Even if I were 10 years younger, having a baby would have been substantially harder for me. Despite my FSH of 6, I was a difficult case. But isn’t this the main premise behind a fertility clinic? To help someone with lower odds of success have a baby?

This didn't seem to be true of my clinic. Perhaps they welcomed the 'slightly infertiles,' but their doors did not appear to be fully open to someone as hopeless as I. People often refer to the greedy as seeing dollar signs in their eyes; this clinic must have seen flashing red lights around a billboard that read “Danger: Will Lower Stats.” Not only did they push donor eggs in our consult and both regroups (actually, not an uncommon occurrence) before ultimately dropping me, but they were hesitant to modify my protocol or attempt to come up with anything new, even after my first failed cycle. In retrospect, I'm surprised they even agreed to cycle me in the first place. Maybe the chance of getting another over-40 pregnancy on their books was so compelling that they were willing to give it a lukewarm whirl, which they did.

My very first try was a miserable Microdose Lupron cycle in which I was over-suppressed and produced only 4 eggs. I was so disappointed. Considering it was my first cycle, I would have thought the doctor would have been somewhat open to the possiblity that my doses and/or protocol needed adjusting. (Cycling is, to some degree, trial and error.) Instead, our regroup went something like this:

ME: Is there another protocol we could try to make me respond better?
THEM: There’s not much else. Donor Egg is your best shot. I’m so sorry.
ME: There's no other protocol? No other meds? Nothing at all?
THEM: Nothing that would really change your response. I'm so sorry.
ME: I’ve heard of Antagon, what about that? Would that help?
THEM: Well, we can try it, but don't expect a big difference.

In my very next cycle, I had twice as many eggs and embryos on Antagon. I would call that a big difference. It was the same thing with Estrogen Priming (EPP), except that my doctor actually said, “Estrogen Priming hasn’t really been shown to help with poor responders.” Hmmm. Perhaps I'd been confused. She finally agreed to try it, but not without registering her irritation at being convinced to do something against her will. After EPP, my antral follicle count doubled -- something that proved to be very helpful to this poor responder.