Halloween Fun

Halloween is always a time for some good ole fashioned fun, no matter how old we get!
This year I decided to have a little fun with our journey, but wasn't able to talk hubby into dressing like my "donor". But he made a great Maverick!

I hope all of you were able to have some fun this Halloween weekend! I always look forward to all the little trick-or-treaters but the past few years was always bittersweet. This year however, I will be anxiously greeting them all with handfuls of candy and thinking of my little goblin soon to come....

The ABC's of IVF

I thought I'd take a step back for some of you who aren't as familiar with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and explain the process a bit more.

The first step is to stimulate the ovaries to increase follicle production, which is done by daily injections and other medication. During a normal cycle, you typically produce 1-2 mature follicles, but with stimulation, we're trying to produce 10-15 (inside each follicle contains an egg). During this time, I'm closely monitored with bloodwork and ultrasounds to make sure my ovaries aren't being over-stimulated and to watch the growth of the follicles.
Once they've matured, an injection of hCG is needed to induce ovulation, but instead of letting the eggs naturally ovulate, they are retrieved through a minor surgical procedure (called follicular aspiration) which uses ultrasound imaging to guide a hollow needle through the vaginal wall and into the ovaries. The eggs are removed from the ovaries using the hollow needle and stored in a vial. Don't worry, sedation and anesthesia are used for this procedure!
For insemination, we've chosen to use a procedure called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Through this procedure, a single sperm is injected directly into an egg to achieve fertilization. It's amazing what they can do with such small cells! This almost ensures fertilization, rather than putting the eggs and sperm into a petri dish to duke it out. Once the eggs are fertilized, we now have embryos!
The embryos are closely monitored for cell division and allowed to grow for 3-5 days. During this time, the embryos are "graded" for quality and the decision is made when to transfer them and how many. Some embryos may not make it through this process and the ones that do and are not transferred, will be frozen for future cycles.
The transfer is much like the many IUI's I had, and is much simpler and quicker than the retrieval. And after this...the waiting game and the prayers begin. I'll continue with progesterone medication to balance the hormones in my body to support a pregnancy, if in fact a pregnancy occurred.
If we have a failed cycle, we can use our frozen embryo's for our next cycle(s) and if we don't have any frozen's to use, then we'll start the process all over again. And when we're lucky to achieve pregnancy, our frozen embryo's can be stored up to 10 years for use later in life when and if we decide to add to our family. Imagine telling your child they were once frozen!

Hopefully this quick overview helped! There is a lot to know and it still overwhelms me when I think about what we're going to be tackling, but knowing we're one step closer to the end of our journey makes it all worth it.

IVF Cycle 1 - Let the fun begin!

I know it's been awhile since I last posted (sorry!), but we've just been doing the waiting game on my natural cycle, then a few weeks of birth control and finally our big Program Start appointment this morning. Now I have LOTS to post about!

Today we met with our new clinic and doctor to go over all our paperwork, do some pre-screening tests, review medication and discuss our protocol for our first cycle. And I thought the IVF seminar was information overload...not even close to what we reviewed today. After an hour and a half of paperwork, it felt just like when we closed on our house. Some big, expensive decisions to be made but the outcome will be so worth it.

We decided on a warranty program called HOPE. This includes three cycles and if after that we're still without a baby, we get our money back. Now that's a guarantee worth paying for! A cycle not only includes our fresh embryos, but if we have extra embryos to freeze, we'll implant those before moving on to the next cycle, so we have a lot of opportunities for this to be successful. Our program also includes all the weekly monitoring appointments (bloodwork and ultrasounds) as well as all the stimulating medication, which can be anywhere from $3-$5K per cycle. This program is perfect for us since our insurance doesn't cover anything. We know the cost upfront and have one payment so no more stress from medical bills in our mailbox. This allows us to solely focus on what we're doing, stay positive and stress free! (or at least we hope!)

After all the big decisions were made and we signed our life away (okay, it's not that bad), there were some pre-screening tests I needed to have. The first was a trial transfer, which is just a practice round of when they transfer the embryo(s). This allows the Dr. to measure my uterus so at the time of the real transfer, he knows exactly where to implant. For this I needed a full bladder, as that helps position the cervix, so after drinking a lot of water during the first half of the appointment, I was starting to get uncomfortable. As soon as the Dr. got started, he told me my bladder was too full and I needed to empty half of it. HALF of it?! How do you do that?! Turns out that if you can't stop and stand up, you will stop peeing. (in case you ever need to know)
Once that was done, I was able to finally empty my bladder before doing the sonohystogram. This test allows the Dr. to see my uterine cavity by filling it with saline and then doing an ultrasound. The saline simply 'inflates' the uterine cavity to check for polyps or cysts or anything irregular. Sounds worse than it is and everything looked great.

The last part of our four hour appointment (I told you it was information overload!) was reviewing all the medications and reviewing the protocol for our first cycle.
To give you an idea of the medication, here's my list (everything that is checked):

Did you get all that? I think I may have earned an MD degree after all this! I can't even pronounce some of them, but no need, I'll swallow and inject whatever I need to make this work. Ready to become a human pincushion!