# 25 The debrief and the words we didn't want to hear.

Due to my husband working away, we had to delay longer than we had wanted the debrief, as we both needed to be there. Over the weeks, many questions and many concerns have been roaming constantly in my head. Over the weeks the sadness has turned into anger/frustration for myself. I desperately wanted to make sure emotions didn't take over and I needed to keep my calm.

Mid day on 11th August, we finally were back in the clinic finding out all the information that we needed to know for our next steps and discoveries. Fortunately I kept my calm. I made a point of saying 'hindsight is a wonderful thing'. Looking back, I wish we had stopped with the process after the scans were showing a poor number of follicles. As I've said in the past, not every follicle contains an egg and not every egg is of a good quality or mature enough. The average statistics is also that only 60% of mature eggs will make an embryo. The numbers were never in our favour. 3 eggs, 2 mature enough. 1 degenerated (broken by the needle, likely due to poor quality) the other 1 didn't make an embryo. I also made a point of saying the 2 days of stress caused by the worry over ICSI causing Billy's condition was an unnecessary worry as they had not done their study of our notes or read the genetics testing on him. Once I got that off my chest, we listened to what they found. It is UNKNOWN why my AMH was high enough (17) but my egg count is so low. They have pointed out though, that the egg quality on this round was not good enough and that the eggs appeared dark under the microscope, a sign of poor quality. It's no longer a 'low number' game, it's now a 'low AND poor quality' game. Whilst medication can enhance a few more eggs, unfortunately there is nothing that can provenly increase egg quality and no tests that can be done, the only testing is to go through the IVF process and egg removal. The doctor has told me about some tablets (DHEA) which are over the counter available in America, but not available to purchase over the counter here yet. This could be the only thing to try and improve the quality. We discussed the possibility of upping my medication again. When we conceived Billy I was on 4 ampoules, upped to 5 last failed round. We could up it to 6 but the risk is it could still make poorer quality eggs by over medicating.

They are not ruling out that my eggs are unusable yet, but time is only going to decrease the eggs. It's not impossible, yet it's not going to be easy. (A complete head f*ck). So I asked about egg donation...yes it's likely that could help, but with the addition of my husband's complications too, it's still not guaranteed. Plus it's an additional expense AND up to 2 YEARS WAITING LIST in this country. They actually advised us to consider an embryo donation. In that horrible moment hearing all the news you didn't want to hear, it was a no. I want our baby. But it was the heat of the moment. It's not something we are now ruling out.

It's safe to say, after an uncomfortable and horrific conversation all night long and still continuing into this morning we are still no better off of knowing what to do. I'm proud to say our marriage has been one that has been tested and made only stronger by many hurdles in our path. Losing Billy initially made us the pinnacle of strength, but sadly, infertility can break marriages. My need to carry my baby and be a mum to a child that can survive is testing us. I'm having counselling, doing exercise, meditating and having acupuncture. But nothing can cure the ache in my heart. My husband has a career and a future with or without a child. Right now, I have no career, I don't see a future without my baby and never felt more alone in my life.

This morning I have done my research on poor quality eggs. In one article I read that with age eggs can become abnormal with their DNA, also known as “aneuploidy,” these eggs don’t fertilise at all. A small percentage of poor quality eggs may fertilize, but result in miscarriage, and an even smaller percentage may result in genetic disorders for the baby. Declining egg quality is why we see miscarriage and conditions like Down syndrome at much higher rates in women over 35. Women are born with all the eggs they’ll ever have, typically 1–2 million, losing around 1000 eggs a month after puberty. At 35 you have only 6% of the eggs you were born with. I've sat all morning wishing that I froze my eggs in my 20s!

When I looked back at all my previous rounds I've had 35 eggs removed, 14 mature enough. 7 made embryos and only 2 made it to a healthy usable embryo. 1 in 2019 didn't take inside of me and the other in 2020 made Billy, a baby with a rare genetic condition that was too poorly to survive.

So, what do we do?!?

Choices...

1. give it one more shot as previously planned (stopping the process before egg removal if needed)

2. give egg donation a go (abroad as a shorter waiting list and no legalities)

3. go straight to embryo donation.

I managed not to cry whilst in our meeting yesterday. I explained that if we never experienced Billy, we would have thrown in the towel by now. But every motherly instinct and every movement I felt of my 6 months with him, it's even more of a never ending desire to feel again, I honestly never knew this love existed, I thought it was a fairytale. But watching him forever asleep, I will never ever forget that feeling. That love. That desperation. That yearning. That admiration. That heartache.

Our friends have had a baby boy recently. Only a few weeks after Billy's due date. We shared our pregnancies together over facetime regularly when we were both in the early stages together. But then, it became slightly more difficult when the scans kept picking up all of Billy's abnormalities. I wanted so badly to be able to still share the excitement, but our dream turned into a living hell and we would talk less, but I loved them the same. I struggled to see what could have been our bump, our baby. Now he's born, I look at his pictures. I see Billy's lips. I see the little boy that we never could have had. Numerous more pregnancy announcements are still coming thick and fast and they obviously always will. That's life. NO, actually that's everyone else's life. A moment of love that leads to a positive pregnancy test. Something so natural for so many, but so impossible for us.

Right now, I'm rather lost. I'm unsure what to do. Do we do whats going to give us the best possible outcome? Or do we go with my heart?...I just want our baby. But how?...