And just like that, another year has rolled on by! 

Hello 2018

It has been quite a while since my last entry, so I thought I would catch you up with where things are at. 

I have been seeing a naturopath. While my embryologist, nurse and doctor told me there is nothing I can do to improve my egg quality, my naturopath said there was. 

I like my naturopath.

She told me my diet was excellent (Thank you! At times it has been very hard work, especially over Christmas!) 

I was also told that I had done a really good job at self prescribing my supplements (Thanks to the book 'It starts with the Egg!')

This is what my morning looks like:

And my evening:

Apparently, linseed is really good for egg health so I now have 1/4 cup of ground linseed in my smoothie every day. Everyday! And let me tell you - this is no easy task. Linseed is a great thickener. I make my smoothies the night before and by the time I get the opportunity to drink it, it's incredibly thick and quite a challenge.

And one of the supplements I am taking gives me nausea for half the morning most days. I keep telling myself that this is good practice for when I'm pregnant and experiencing morning sickness.

I spoke to our embryologist late last year about our embryo development and found out some interesting things. The first was that they had used Time Lapse Morphometry Imaging, (TiMI) on our embryos. This costs about $900 and it was not an option we requested or paid for. Thank you Fertility Associates! 

TiMI photographs each embryo every 10 minutes to capture development milestones that are missed when embryos are only inspected once a day. As they had the photos they were able to look back and give us a bit more information about their development. This is what we were told:

The embryos did not display the usual fragmentation that we see but there were some instances where the embryo formed large fragments. In the usual culture system, these would probably be interpreted as cells but with the benefit of watching them develop, we can see that they are fragments.

There were some unusual divisions noted and the overall picture was one of poor embryo development. 

We have been told the problem, they think, is due to poor egg quality. I must admit, I have a hard time excepting this. I am so fit and healthy, probably the most I have ever been in my life. How can my eggs be such poor quality? 

My naturopath suggested that Flex Thunderstache gets a sperm DNA fragmentation test done. This will help us to see if there is any problem there, or if it really is my eggs. We are still waiting for the results of this test. Hopefully we will have them in the next couple of weeks.

This is the year of no regrets. I will do what I need to do - persevere with the glue consistency smoothies and push through the nausea. Regardless of what happens with our next IVF cycle, I will not look back with regrets. I know I have done everything I can. The rest is up to God.