Back in the Stirrups Saddle Again

Aaaaand the fertility treatments break is over. Kind of. I won't be taking any medicines or doing any treatments this cycle, but we'll be getting some preliminary testing (re)done and consulting with the new doctor to decide exactly what we're going to do next. Yesterday morning, I visited my new clinic for a blood draw and baseline ultrasound. According to the results, my estrogen, FSH, and LH are all in tip-top shape, and I've got plenty of antral follicles hovering around in each ovary. Aaron has also had some tests done recently. His initial semen analysis at the new clinic showed some bacteria in the sample, so he took an antibiotic for a bit and then re-tested. The second analysis was clear. His counts and such still look about the same - all within the range of normal, but on the low end. It's encouraging to know that things haven't gotten any worse for either of us, but hey! we're still infertile.

Next Wednesday afternoon, we meet with the doctor to talk more about our options and finalize our choices. To recap, here's what the good doc suggested at our previous consultation: Option 1) Give the okay for embryo freezing and proceed with standard protocol IVF with ICSI. Option 2) If we don't approve embryo freezing, take a step back and do IUI with injectables instead of Clomid. Since we still have convictions against freezing embryos, we hope to persuade the doctor to agree to a compromise, an Option 1a) Do IVF/ICSI, limiting the number of eggs fertilized to 6-8, letting the resulting embryos grow to blastocysts, and transferring all that make it to that point. We'd be fertilizing more eggs than we did in past IVFs, but due to the new information revealed by this doctor (that only 1 out of every 5 eggs is genetically viable), we're okay with that. We'd most likely be transferring back more than the recommended 1-2 embryos, but we're okay with that, too, and ideally the doctor will approve (even if reluctantly). If not, then we'll probably go the IUI route, while looking into new alternatives, like donor embryos or adoption. Please pray for wisdom all around, that my current contentment would withstand the upcoming barrage of tests and appointments, and that God would bless us.