Chat with Dr. Colver

First, we decided to wait on investigating adoption until we talked with Dr. Colver about our options. We're not giving up on it, but we watched an informational DVD from the law firm who is pretty influential in Indiana and decided we just don't have the energy or time to dedicate to an adoption search right now. Besides, the DVD kind of turned us off of that firm. Lots of information, and we don't doubt their sincerity, but it just felt wrong for us.

Second, we chatted with Dr. Colver Thursday by phone. He said we can move forward with transferring the frozen embryos whenever we are ready. The way it works is they thaw out three and see if they revive. They keep thawing them out until they have three that are progressing and they implant all three in Jessica the next day. So, the first three could revive, leaving us with 5 remaining frosties, or it could take all 8 and none could revive. We'll just have to see. But, he was hopeful that doing this in the course of a natural cycle would produce results for us better than a transfer two days after Jessica's been pumped full of hormones for weeks. Also, the embryos that were frozen look fantastic, so that's another thing going for us.

However, Dr. Colver did throw a warning wet blanket on things. Because we changed tactics this past IVF cycle, we don't have anything to base our experience off of. First time we transferred on Day 5. Things looked so good on day three that we pushed it back. Between Day 3 and Day 5, the quality and viability of our embryos fell off rapidly, to the point that only two were kicking on Day 5, and them not looking hot.

Because we went on Day 3 this past IVF cycle, we didn't have an opportuninty to see if the same thing would happen a second time; that things looked good on Day 3 and fell off by Day 5. We'll probably find that out to some extent because of how the frozen transfer works (implantation on Day 4, essentially). We have to be prepared that if we notice a falling off of quality and viability, this just might not be meant to be. My sperm could just be such bad quality that this isn't going to happen, no matter if it's Day 3, 4, 5, or 15.

But, we don't know, and we have frozen embryos, and they look really good, and we don't have to pump Jessica full of estrogen, so there's no reason to not give it a try. Dr. Colver just warns us that the pessimistic perspective has a real good shot at being reality. We kind of knew that. We've kind of known that all along. I think, though, that this is the first time that he was so blunt with us.