Finally some light was shed on our situation!

Today is my 34th birthday. I would never have thought several years ago I would be spending it on the phone with fertility clinics setting up consults and trying to figure out what to do next. My belief then was getting pregnant is easy- it happens when you want it to happen!!!!!!! Boy was I WRONG! We were hoping to be 5 weeks along today after our IVF cycle. Unfortunately it failed, so we are trying to fit the pieces of this crazy puzzle together.

We met with our dr. yesterday am and finally got some answers. I have now been moved out of the "unexplained infertility" category to "egg quality infertility" which honestly doesn't make this feel any better. Our doctor was very kind and patient with our list of questions. I really like him, but I just don't know if this clinic is the perfect fit for us. That's why we are going to get several other opinions at other clinics across the country. I am not a MD, but from going over the cycle, I am wondering why they didn't catch some of the issues. It's almost as if they were overlooked.

We went over my IVF cycle and these were his observations:

With egg factor infertility my eggs are not functioning as well as they would like. They need to make more estrogen. The max I reached on my HCG trigger shot day was 1064, which they would have preferred double this. So...why didn't they try to fix this before the HCG trigger shot and egg retrieval, knowing this was a major red flag? Each follicle is supposed to make 200 of estrogen, so with my 12, mine definitely fell very short!
He also thought I should have produced more eggs. This could have been that they started me off on a very low dose my first 3 days and my stimulation was terrible right out the gate. I know it is all about adjustments, but I feel wish they would have familiarized themselves with my previous records from my two IUI's and gone with a plan to get my estrogen up.
the next thing he mentioned were the receptors the eggs and how important it is for the medicine to interact with the eggs through these receptors. He is worried mine may not be doing that good enough.
There is an issue with my left ovary because the right side is the one producing the follicles.

So...where do we go from here???? He suggested IVF #2, rather than a frozen embryo transfer for our one blastocyst. He likes to have two to transfer due to the 30-40 percent chance of the blast not surviving the freeze. he wants me to have more eggs.
The dr. wants to do a Flair protocol, rather than an antagonist protocol (which is what I did first cycle) with a microdose lupron that would give estrogen a push right at the beginning. If it didn't go up, then the second IVF would likely be a failure again, which is so scary to think about.

brian and I are looking into other clinics around the country and have phone consultations with CCRM in Colorado, and Sher Institute in St. Louis late September. We also may travel to St. Louis this Friday for an appointment with Dr. silber at Infertility Center of St. Louis. He seems really advanced in his practice and Sarah Jessica Parker actually went to him for fertility issues. It will be interesting to hear what protocol other providers would want to do with me now that something is pinpointed. Ideally I would love to stay here in memphis to avoid the stress of travel while going through this difficult process, so we will see what others say!
We are going to figure this out one way or another, no matter what it takes!