New beginnings

It's been quite the week for us. So many changes, so many difficult choices to make, so many ups and downs in our optimism. I don't suppose I ever anticipated getting a hot chick knocked up would be so hard and take so much out of us! Where to begin, where to begin...

I suppose the most logical place to begin is at the beginning...

So, last Wednesday, we had our follow-up Skype appointment with Dr. Braverman. We were anxious to talk to him because we really wanted to know what his protocol would entail. Mind you, neither Heidi or myself are doctors. We are not immunologists. However, we have fully established what her issue is and how it is going to be corrected. Granted, it's in simple black and white, not in technical terms, but we have the general idea of how we are going to rectify this challenge. See, it's simple enough...if Heidi's immune system is on overdrive, then we introduce something into her system to reduce this effect. Simple enough. Again, we are not doctors so of course we figure this out in our layman's terms, hardly using big doctor vernacular. Concept is the same though. How hard can this be? Seriously. They can put a frigging man on the moon, most certainly they can get my wife pregnant.

Now, aside from the fact that the doctor was fifty minutes late for our Skype appointment and despite the fact that we watched him sit and review our blood tests while we waited another ten minutes, because, well, Heaven forbid you do that ahead of time, and despite the fact that he talks well above our head, because, well, that's how we know he's smart...big words. Well, despite that here's what we walked away with...

1. Based on the blood test, it appears to be an immune issue. (I'm going to go ahead and throw in a "No Shit" here...)
2. Despite the exorbitant number of vials of blood Heidi donated for his blood test, he advises that he really would like to see our first rheumatologists blood test and the results of those tests. Huh...
3. Something about inflammation and interfering gamma something...I know. I should have asked for elaboration but let me lay it out on the line here...I'm a little more than annoyed and frustrated right now and I'm pretty sure anything I ask may come out sounding like I have a raging bitch disorder. I don't want that. I just don't. This could be the guy that helps us have a baby so instead, I take notes while he talks above my head and I let Heidi do the talking. Yes, shocker, I know.
4. Finally, it was confirmed that Heidi is a true, full-on bad ass. Actually, I believe what he said was that she has elevated natural killer cells. I construed that to mean that she's a bad ass. Uh, does your wife have something that contains the words "natural killer"? No. Point proven. Oh, and she can break boards with her bare hands. Exhibit B. I digress.

So, this leads to proposed protocols. First is IVIG (Intravenous immune globulin). Not really an option for us. Heidi looked up some stuff on it prior to this meeting while scouring the internet so she was already familiar with it and not interested in participating in it. In short, it entails having one or several transfusions using donor plasma to help negate the immune responses that seem to attack a fetus. Well, it involves several risks, including several transfusions that last two to twelve weeks (at approximately $4000 a pop, mind you) and take several hours per transfusion. Side effects, aside from the potential infection from donor plasma, it can cause damage to internal organs. It just wasn't something we were interested in trying because of the associated risks. We're trying to make a baby, not risk Heidi or her health.

Second suggestion - leukocyte therapy with the donor. Um, well, that won't work. We don't actually know our donor. He's a number from a sperm bank. I'm almost positive he's not going to also agree to continually send us some of his blood so we can acclimate Heidi to his, um, fluids, in the hopes that she will not send her Natural Killer Cells out to kick the ass of his sperm. Pretty sure that'll be a big fat negative from the donor.

Third option is a drug called Neupogen and Lovenox. Lovenox we knew about from our last meeting. It's actually what we were anticipating while practicing our doctoring skills referenced above. The other one was new on us. It would be administered in a daily shot from ovulation through baby delivery. It is not actually a drug created for fertility. It's actually created for cancer patients going through chemotherapy to help build their white blood cells. Fertility is an off-label use for this drug. Oh, and it's about $4000 for the full cycle. The Lovenox would also continue throughout the entire pregnancy. Per the real doctor, this protocol will increase her chance of pregnancy. We just have to sign a consent form to use it. A consent form? Whhhyyyy? . He advises he'll fax us the consent form and we can sign it and send it back. We ask a little more about him working with our fertility doctor and sending him the recommended protocol for review. Dr. Braverman says if we have our doctor email him and request the protocol, he'll send it to him. Now, mind you, each meeting with Dr. New York runs about $350 and lasts, on average, 15 minutes. I'm no math whiz, but my PC calculator estimates that to be about $23.33 per minute, I thought that maybe he could take one more fricking $23 minute and send the f**king email to our doctor. I know my wife hates this word, but SERIOUSLY??? So, yea...OK, we can go ahead and do that. I mean, we kind of have to. Why? Because we aren't actually doctors. We can't seem to do this alone.

Well, now we need to check with our fertility doctor. We've been with him for almost two years and we really need his feedback on what he thinks of this protocol. We knew from our last meeting with him that he had to be agreeable to the protocol and it couldn't be unethical or dangerous. Good...those were kind of our benchmarks as well. Alignment of thought. Excellent. So, we call the doctor's office, give a little info about our conversation with Dr. New York and ask the nurse to find out from the good doctor what his thought is on this suggested protocol.

I'm going to take a sidebar here. We love our doctor. We have friends who have told us to go to their fertility doctor (said doctor who successfully gave us our Godson). We've always declined because we love our doctor. We love their staff. We love the welcome feeling we get when we go in. We love that they cry with us when we're sad and they laugh with us when we're happy. We are friends with the nurses. We love them. Sidebar over. I just wanted to put that out there.

Back to the regularly scheduled program. So, we put out the protocol to our doctor and we wait to hear back. A day goes by, two, three...nothing back. I text. I call. I leave messages, no returned call. Over a week has passed, no response. I'm not going to elucidate here the frustration and disappointment we feel but it's overwhelming. We feel like we have such short windows between cycles and adding over a week to our not knowing is nerve wracking to us. Not responding to us, a little heart breaking.

So, it is with a sad heart that we reached out to our friends and got their doctor's name. Our next appointment is June 5th. A new beginning we supposed. Maybe this was how it was supposed to happen. We loved our doctor and his staff, but we're trying to make a baby. Almost two years later and we still haven't been successful. Maybe this was God's way of making us move on.

Incidentally, we sent a question to the new doctor about our situation and suggested protocol. They were back to us, with detailed information on their opinion about this protocol. It wasn't favorable. That's all we wanted. Feedback. Someone to help us understand the risks. Someone to guide us. I mean, I know we're doctors and all, but still...we need to just be patients.

New beginnings are on the horizon, my friends. New beginnings are on the horizon...