Green Light. Red Light. Yellow Light.

Does the drama ever end?

I've gone from getting the green light, to getting the red light, to getting a yellow light -- all in an action packed morning. And once again, the worry begins before we're even out of the gate!

Let's start with the good news...

This morning we had our meeting with Dr. Schoolcraft, and he gave us the green light! He went over our test results and concluded that there isn't any red flags that would indicate IVF can't work for us. Here's a quick recap:

Lisa's E2 -- 48 (Good -- they like to see less than 50)
Lisa's FSH -- 6.54 (Good, they like to see less than 10)
Lisa's LH -- 4.22 (Good, they like to see less than 10)
Lisa's AMH - 3 (Good. Anything less than 1 is low reserve. Anything between 3 and 5 could indicate POCS)
Lisa's Thyroid (Synthroid pills) -- TSH 1.6, T4 1.2 (Good, like to see it below 3)
Lisa's Pap - Normal
Lisa's endometrial Biopsy to test for BETA 3 INTEGRIN -- Positive, I have the integrin that allows for implantation.
Lisa's Chromosome Karyotype -- All 24 Chromosomes Normal
Dave's Chromosome Karyotype -- All 24 Chromosomes Normal
Dave's Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay (dna frag test) - 13.7% (Excellent fertility potential <15%, Good-Fair 15-30%, Poor >30%)

Dr. Schoolcraft concluded that our official diagnosis is male infertility. Dave's sperm morphology is so low that it would likely never penetrate an egg on it's own, complicated by the fact that Lisa has antisperm antibodies that attack sperm. So together, we will never get pregnant without assistance. We basically already knew this, but it still makes me cringe for all the years we tried on our own, all the IUI's, and trying to time everything perfectly. Man, we were naive! Makes me feel like a bit of a fool thinking back to all those times when I hoisted my legs in the air and waited for those two little lines on the evil stick, month after month. But I digress, we're supposed to be talking about good news here! So let's get back on track...

Dr. Schoolcraft said that IVF with ICSI is our only hope. And he is encouraged by fact that once Dave's sperm is injected into the egg, there should be no reason that it can't make a normal embryo since the DNA analysis came back okay. Since we've failed twice before he chalks it up to immature eggs or lab conditions or just bad luck, but he did not find anything that indicates that it can't work for us. So after a little more discussion about our protocol, he gave us the green light to start our Lupron injections tonight!

Meanwhile, our drugs arrived by Fed-ex, and we had to rush to our pre-suppression ultra sound with our local clinic.

This is where the red light comes in...

We requested an ultra sound today, even though the doctor doesn't normally do an ultra sound until 10 days after suppression medications, because we are paranoid about cysts. We've had a cycle cancelled before due to a cyst and we aren't keen on starting the process and taking the injections if we already know a cyst is present. Who wants to go through 2 weeks of injections to find out, when we could find out before we even begin with a simple ultra sound? Needless to say, we wanted the ultrasound. And sure enough, our ultrasound showed a pretty big cyst! 18mm. UGH! So we came home, called one of our nurses -- who put on the brakes -- until she talked to the doctor to see what he wanted us to do.

Which brings us to the yellow light...

Our nurse finally had a chance to talk to the doctor and call us back. He wants to us proceed with our calendar and start the lurpon shots tonight. Hopefully the lupron, then my period will help to suppress and clear up the cyst before I have to start stim meds. But there are no guarantees and if it's not gone, we will either have to stay on lupron another week or so -- MORE SHOTS! -- or cancel the cycle at that time. There is unfortunately no way to tell at this point, so for now, it's proceed with caution and hope for the best.

Now we are feeling deflated before we even begin and are having memories of our cancelled cycle, which was very hard on us. We are hoping we do not have a repeat. And hoping that this cyst is not a sign of bad things to come. I suppose there is nothing to do but try to think positive and take our first shot and pills tonight.

And hope for the best.