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I Could Really Do Without the Drama April 20, 2005

I called my RE’s office first thing this morning to check on the biopsy result situation. Apparently there was some big brouhaha over my beta 3 integrin results thus the lack of notification.

My results came back negative for the beta 3 integrin. Not a good thing. The report appeared incomplete, however, because of a comment stating “unable to interpret without histological date.” My RE’s office had been trying to get clarification on that from the lab that does the test. They were told that the only person who could help them with that was on vacation until next week.

So, this is what I learned this morning. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. I was told I would get a call back when they figured everything out, and I set off to scour the internet on the beta 3 subject. It’s not like I hadn’t done any research before the test, but that’s the only thing I could do while waiting for more information. Lack of information drives me insane.

When I hadn’t heard back by early afternoon, I called my RE’s office again. They were finally able to speak to someone at the lab who could explain my results. Before I go into it, there are three possible results for the integrin test:

1. Lining in phase, integrin present
2. Lining in phase, integrin absent
3. Lining out of phase, integrin absent

Option 1 is what you want. I didn’t get that. Option 2 means that your lining has developed how it should, but there’s still no integrin present. That’s the worst case scenario and when you get to break out the 3 month Lupron treatment. Option 3 was me.

Here’s the deal. When the lining is out of sync for whatever reason, there is a very, very good chance that the integrin won’t be present. It’s missing because the lining is out of phase not because of some inherent problem. Thus, there is no result 4 where the lining is out of phase with the integrin present.

Apparently the stroma of my endometrium were maturing way faster than the glandular tissue was, 4 days faster to be exact, resulting in a dyssynchronous endometrium. This, of course, is the most inconclusive result possible. Nothing can be black and white for me apparently.

I did not like hearing this information, but it honestly doesn’t surprise me. This biopsy was done during my first natural cycle since July. It was also done during a 44 day cycle following a chemical pregnancy. Yeah, no wonder my lining was fucked up.

The dyssynchronous lining thing doesn’t bother me so much. The endometrial lining does different things during a medicated vs. natural cycle, so simply doing a medicated cycle could cause everything to sync up. Plus, just because your lining does something one cycle does not mean it will do it the next. The thing that concerns me is that we don’t know if the integrin would be present once my lining gets itself in gear and is in phase. There’s no way to know that without retesting, and even then there’s no guarantee of finding out.

So, now we have to decide what the fuck to do with this information. The way I see it, we basically have two options: do another biopsy to repeat the test or forge ahead with our FET cycle. We haven’t decided yet, but I think I’m leaning in one direction.

I talked to my IVF coordinator about our options, and she said she didn’t feel comfortable giving me advice in this situation. I should hear my RE’s opinion on the matter tomorrow, but quite honestly I doubt her opinion will weigh too heavily in our decision. Not that I don’t want to hear what she has to say on the subject, but it’s quite easy to get someone to say what you want to hear when you know what you’re doing. Plus, she’s really good at being ambiguous. I don’t expect her to have a definitive say on the matter.

I’ve done the research, and I know what I’m dealing with. This is a controversial test with a wide array of opinions as to its applicability. I just don’t know how much weight to give this result. There just hasn’t been enough research done to know how important this whole beta 3 thing is. It’s really hard to make a decision based on scanty information.

This is a tough one. On one hand, I don’t want to waste our embryos on a less than ideal cycle. On the other, I don’t want to waste time and money on something that may not give us any more information or may not even be meaningful to the situation. That’s the problem with dealing with these newfangled tests. Man, I kind of wish we hadn’t done it in the first place.

My other endo biopsy which tests for infection came back fine, so at least there’s some good news. So, it looks like I’ll either be repeating the biopsy this cycle or we’ll be transferring our frozen embryos (assuming they survive the thaw) next week. Anyone want to weigh in?

• Posted in : IVF Part 4: FET #2, testing, testing, 1,2,3
• Author : amanda

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