And so it begins....

Most of my life I would think, “is it time for my period AGAIN? Didn’t I JUST have one?”. It always seemed that a month flew by so quickly and “Aunt Flo” (as many infertility websites term it) was never a convenient and fun thing. Then when going through years of trying to get pregnant, a month seemed to drag by and take an eternity, but you still didn’t want to see that period at the end. So this last month, the waiting for my period to start has been excruciating. I’ve never wanted to bleed more in my entire life. Well, I got my wish a couple of days ago. So now we are at the beginning of the IVF cycle.

The most important instruction that the clinic had was that I must call on the day I start my period. So I did and in turn got the calendar for the entire cycle. A couple of dates are set in stone and the rest are approximate. I’ll outline it below so you have an idea how it will progress. Unfortunately, this process isn’t free; so another important note is that we must also pay within 3 days of receiving my plan. Needless to say, my stress level hit DEFCON 1 in that same day. It’s so overwhelming because within the span of 2 days I received my cycle plan, mailed checks totaling about $15,000 and was contacted by the pharmacy to pay for all my injectibles (roughly $3000). I’m coming down from the anxiety A LITTLE and I think that the public is now safe from the potential of me picking people off in the parking lot of the clinic from the roof sniper style…for now. But just wait until I start shooting myself up with all the injections and jacking even more with my hormones…you might want to purchase some Kevlar to wear just in case.

So here’s what is going to happen and when:

2/26 – 3/18 – I will take birth control pills for the first 3 weeks. This helps keep me from ovulating and also helps prevent ovarian cysts during the cycle.
3/3 – 3/8 – Both Brandon and I will take an antibiotic. This helps clear out any bacteria that our bodies may have in them.
3/12 – I start giving myself injections of Lupron. This drug is used to regulate the ovaries and prevent spontaneous ovulation during the process.
3/22 – I have an appointment called a Suppression Check. This appointment includes a host of tests including checking my estrogen level, ultrasound, physical etc. Basically it’s to check how well my ovaries have been suppressed and if they are producing multiple follicles of similar size. At this time it will be decided what dosage of further drugs are needed to proceed. We’ll even get a voicemail box that I will call daily to check for instructions from my IVF nurse.

From this point on the timeframe becomes approximate. Everything will be based on periodic blood tests and ultrasounds. I’ll get more detailed about this when the time comes. But this process should complete around the week of April 5th…and then the waiting game begins.

But for now, all I have to do is take several oral meds and treat myself as if I’m pregnant. That means no alcohol, caffeine, take folic acid (which I’m taking an extra high dose of because I don’t metabolize it properly) and only take “pregnancy safe” drugs (Tylenol, Sudafed, etc.) if needed. I’m already struggling with the no caffeine. I’m not really a caffeine junkie, but since early last year, I stopped drinking many carbonated drinks because I get the hiccups so easily. And I switched to sweet tea……damn, I miss that already! Oh well, small price to pay and I’ll survive…I think.

Well, that’s what is happening now. I know I’m not supposed to be stressing….but you know me. Anxiety is my middle name. I’ll let everyone know what happens at my first appointment (3/22). Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

More later.

Learning Day

We went to Nashville today to attend a required IVF Class. This was the last of our prerequisites. We were with 3 other couples and it took about 3 hours. Oddly I wasn’t as overwhelmed today as I was on our first visit; possibly because I was able to read up on the process before we got there. All I usually need is time to process the information and let it sink in…it doesn’t happen instantly for me. Brandon was…..well, Brandon! I think it’s no secret that the love of my life is basically a 6’2” 12 year old. When we walked into the conference room, laid out in front of each couple’s seat was an array of medical equipment like syringes, needles, epipens, vials and even a fake belly. Guess we were going to learn how to give injections….YAY! You can imagine that I was not thrilled because I was eventually going to be the recipient of those injections (and for more days than I ever expected). But Brandon was like a kid in a candy store. He had disassembled the epipen and opened a syringe before I even had my jacket off…I had to contain my want to scold him like the 12 year old he is! I didn’t even really pay that much attention to how to administer the shots because Brandon is adamant that that’s what he going to do FOR me. Works for me because then I can complain and blame him when he hurts me! Sounds like normal girl logic, don’t you think? If I was doing them myself, then who am I going to blame?

They really took time to go over the entire IVF cycle in detail and let us know what to expect and why things were done certain ways. We got to meet our IVF nurse and it was comforting knowing that we have only one person to deal with throughout the entire process. Also discussed was the optional process of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). This is a process that we are very interested in. While it’s possible that the majority of my miscarriage problem was because of them being ectopic, it’s also very possible that the eggs have had some type of abnormality as well. Embryos with abnormal chromosomes have very high miscarriage rates. So we are not going to pursue the genetic testing for the purposes of being genetically selective. But rather to ensure that we have a live birth…we are willing to take whatever issues a child might have (even if it’s something like Downs). We just want to make sure that all the eggs that are transferred have the best shot possible.

Then they moved on to the cost. Not really much I can say about this other than……OMG WTF! Enough said.

So……what’s next? We just now have to sit back and wait until my next cycle. Well, actually we are waiting for my CURRENT cycle to begin (hopefully any day now) and then once the next one starts…it’s on. Looks like mid- to late February is when we will start the IVF cycle.

I’m going to go outside my comfort zone and protective shell for the first time by saying that, after today, I’m really starting to feel more excited about this process. It feels like the right step to take and that it just might work (that one was for you, Susie). Learning the details was in an odd way comforting for me. I’m not a “big picture” person and I definitely can’t see the forest for the trees. Details give me a focus but the “big picture” makes me retreat to my happy place……that’s right, I’m pretty much Rainman. Ten minutes to Wapner.

More later.

Our IVF Journey Begins...

To catch everyone up on our fertility saga...we had our 7th miscarriage in early December 2009. Unfortunately it turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy and my tubes ruptured. My doctor had to remove both my fallopian tubes during an emergency surgery. I recovered just fine; but our conceiving options were narrowed down to 1...In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Because of my age (36), we know that we don't have a very long time to wait so we decided to get started as soon as possible.

Today we went to the Nashville Fertility Clinic to have a consultation for IVF. We are familiar with the doctor because she helped us a few years ago in our search for answers regarding the miscarriages. After bringing her up to date on my recent history, she told us that we are good candidates for IVF. The only issue that was mentioned was my weight. I am above the weight recommendation for candidates but since I have lost so much weight recently and given what we've been through, she was not going to make it an issue (but I'm going to try to lose as much as possible before we start).

We told the doctor that we wanted to start the process as soon as possible. So we got as many of the prerequisites done today as possible (prelim ultrasound and blood tests). The only other prerequisite is an IVF class that we will attend on January 20th. After that we only need to wait for my next cycle to begin and we can start the IVF process. That will hopefully be early to mid February. I won't get into the details of how that works because I'm just learning myself! But what I can tell you is that once started, the IVF cycle will take roughly 6 weeks. At the moment, we're not sure how many cycles we may do if unsuccessful on any of the tries.

So that's all the details that we have so far. Now I'm going to get into something I've never really done before with everyone...how I'm REALLY handling all this. Maybe this will help me get through it all...

Let me start by saying that Brandon was off the charts excited today. Between all the information the doctor was giving and Brandon asking a million questions and interjecting stuff, I almost retreated into my happy place. It was WAY OVERWHELMING to say the least. It doesn't help that I've been the most emotional in my life since the surgery last month (sometimes feeling one step away from bipolar). Another thing I'm going to have to try to overcome is my pessimistic attitude. It's been my defense mechanism over the last 4 years....outwardly expect the worst and hide my optimism so I look like I'm handling it better because I expected the worst. It's demented logic (I know) but it's what I've been doing. So if you talk to me and I downplay our chances or seem very matter of fact about it all, know it's because I'm not good at opening up about feelings...mainly because I can cry at the drop of a hat and that just makes everyone around me uncomfortable. Brandon's the lucky one that gets to deal with my tears when they come (he's such a trooper!).

Well, I think that's enough therapy for one day! This was just the first day of this process that may possibly take months and I'm already exhausted physically and emotionally. Thanks to everyone for all their support, it is very needed and appreciated by us both. More to come....