Really Bad Luck

Nick and I had planned a day and time when we’d both be at home to schedule our appointment with Dr. W. 

Unfortunately, Nick had to go to Minnesota unexpectedly for a funeral. Rest in peace, Uncle Doug – you will be greatly missed. It feels like both our families have had too many funerals this year.

Read more: Really Bad Luck

We decided to keep our appointment so we wouldn’t have to reschedule. 

The day of our phone call with Dr. W. arrived. I have to say, it’s probably the most expensive phone call/doctor’s appointment we’ve ever had, but it was worth it. Dr. W. called, and I conferenced Nick in. 

Dr. W. was kind and did his best to explain everything to us. A lot of the info he discussed had been covered by the first genetic counselor we saw, but it felt like there was more counseling as part of this appointment. 

When we asked about percentages, his answer was unexpected.

“When it comes to the percentages or stats, I don’t think those are all that helpful. You either have a healthy baby, or you don’t. So it’s either 0% or 100%; there’s really not an in-between.”

It was certainly a point I hadn’t considered. 

When I asked if it would be worth trying a second round of IVF, his answer was expected. 

“That’s really something you’ll need to decide together, but it is possible for you two to have a healthy baby.”

Digging deeper into the outcome of our first IVF cycle, Dr. W. was encouraging.

“Considering the results of your embryo’s genetic testing, it seems like you just had really bad luck. I would’ve expected you to get at least one viable embryo if you started with 12 mature eggs.”

Two of our three embryos had abnormalities caused by Nick’s translocations, but one was missing chromosome 15. That’s something that happened spontaneously – it could’ve been from Nick or from me, and it wasn’t because of his translocations. Essentially, if that hadn’t happened, we would’ve had a viable embryo.

Regarding my egg quality, Dr. W. thought it was good Growth Hormone could be used to improve it in a second round, but he also thought that maybe it wasn’t as bad as the clinic would have me believe. 

“Embryos missing a chromosome 15 will always end in a miscarriage. The issues with chromosomes 8 and 11 can lead to a variety of health and developmental problems. If you said you’d only get three embryos at Day 5, that wouldn’t surprise me. What surprises me is that all three had chromosomal abnormalities. The abnormalities you had are less likely to get to Day 5 for testing. Those three, statistically, are bad luck. Your egg quality for those embryos obviously wasn’t that bad for them to have survived as long as they did.”

Once again, there were a fair amount of tears during this conversation – from both Nick and me. 

Dr. W. brought up the idea of using a sperm donor. Something Nick and I haven’t discussed, except for in passing. And his reaction to it at the time was pretty strong – he was against it. 

Through our lengthy conversation, Dr. W. helped us process everything and develop a plan. A second round of IVF is worth a shot. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll consider egg and/or sperm donors. 

We might not have learned a lot of new information from this appointment, but we certainly left it feeling like we had a much clearer path ahead than we did before. 

We ended the conversation with Dr. W. promising to write a letter for Dr. G. explaining our conversation. And that’s where we’ll pick up next week.