Ingredients Needed..

After countless months of disappointment and negative tests, Brandon and I sat down and talked about our options. We had three different “next steps” to choose from. We could try Femara and timed intercourse instead of the Clomid, we could try doing IUI or we could try and do IVF. What are these three different options? Let me tell you!

Femara is a medication that is off brand used for infertility. They found it can help make your follicles grow, like Clomid, but not have the same negative effects. So hey, there is an option. But, we only have a 15% chance of becoming pregnant for the medication/timed intercourse combo and lets face it, we’ve come up empty about eight times now with trying that method (if you were keeping track). Ok so Femara option one is out.

IUI. Well this one sounds promising. I take medications (the same as timed intercourse, probably Femara as Clomid was wreaking havoc on my uterine lining) and we monitor my ovulation cycle (I don’t on my own so I would have to do the trigger shot) and then they would take a semen sample from Brandon and inject it through my cervix into my uterus. The hope is that placing the semen higher and closer to where the egg will be would increase the chances of getting pregnant. So yeah, this could work, why don’t we try this option then? Well, again, it is really only a 15% chance of getting pregnant even with this option. Plus it cost more money and would start eating away at the little infertility insurance I have. So nope, option two is out of the question.

IVF. The holy grail, mother of all infertility treatments. The one I cried over in the beginning thinking it would be the worst thing ever if I had to go through it. Ha! Oh how my thoughts have changed. Now it is the best option I’ve ever seen and I don’t know why we didn’t just do it from the beginning?! Why did we put ourselves through months and months of let downs? Because we had to. We had to get to a place in our minds and hearts where IVF would be our saving grace. Where we weren’t dreading it, where it is only positive thoughts when we think of it. Where we can imagine us finally being closer to being parents. So here we are, at the start of August sitting on our couch debating what the next step we should take should be and we choose IVF. And we have the biggest smiles on our faces because we know it is the right choice for us, it will hopefully (no it will be) our final destination in this roller coaster ride.

So IVF, explain it to me a little Bri, I’ve heard of it but don’t really know what all it entails. If you guys want a very scientific answer, please see yourself to google and the countless medical journals and websites that can offer it, I however will be explaining it how I’ve come to learn it in the simplest terms over all of my interactions and meetings with the nurse and doctors. So stay tuned for a long winded explanation.

August 8, 2017, day one of IVF.

So first ingredient needed: putting me on birth control! Seems slightly counter productive but then makes sense all at the same time. They want to be in control of all my hormones and pretty much “turn them all down/off” in which the birth control can do that. I have to be on it for twenty-four days and then the real meds start to happen.

For the most part, this step is just really like a throw back to my earlier years. Some pimples (really could do without these), nausea and other minor side effects from birth control. Luckily nothing crazy like with my hormone meds, lucky for Brandon!

August 16, 2017. Let the list of ingredients grow!

Meeting with anesthesia and my nurse for a pre-op evaluation and then going over what to expect over the next few weeks. So Brandon and I had to wake up super early to drive across town during rush hour of course to get to the doctor’s office as anesthesia is only there from 7:30-8:00am. Joy. But hey, we were super excited to get this process going, so waking up that early on our day off wasn’t that bad. The whole way there Brandon kept asking me if I was ok, as I was being very quiet the entire drive. I reassured him I was fine just nervous for the pre-op eval from anesthesia. Being a heavier girl, I was worried that maybe the doctor wouldn’t approve me for anesthesia.

We get to the office and sit in the waiting room for what felt like an hour (really only like ten minutes) before he called us back. We sat down in the room and the guy just jumped into it. Telling me the reason I’m here is because I’m overweight and he isn’t comfortable giving me propofol during the retrieval of the eggs. There it is, the one thing I was worried would be said. Great. He said a few things in the evaluation that for sake of time ill leave out. However, I felt as if he was making assumptions about my health based on my weight and leaving it at that, I felt like he was shaming me in the words he said to me and the worst of it, it was all in front of Brandon. It just didn’t sit right with me what all he had said and to top it off, once he was done he tried to make small talk. No sir, I am through here, do not ask me where I work and tell me you’ve worked there too. We are done.

After meeting with anesthesia we sat in the waiting room of the office until we would be called back to talk with our nurse (who we LOVE). She is seriously the best, most caring person and I am so thankful she found her calling and works at this office and gets to take care of us. I sat there, in that waiting room, feeling embarrassed, angry at the doctor, angry at myself, scared and sad. I sat there with silent tears rolling down my cheeks, fighting back every urge to ugly cry. Brandon didn’t quite know what to say, how could he? There is no right thing to say when your wife is hopped up on emotions/hormones and is crying, it’s usually a lose/lose. The wait to get back to see the nurse literally felt like an eternity and I was growing impatient. I just wanted to go home. How could they let us spend all this money to go through with IVF, order all these meds, spend countless hours on the phone with pharmacies, insurance, finance people and get us all excited to then send us in to get denied for anesthesia. Seriously?

Our nurse finally was able to come get us, we walked down the hallway and into their special teaching room, closed the door, sat down and then I lost it. The tears started and they wouldn’t stop. The nurse just took one look at me and asked what anesthesiology had said. Brandon had to do the talking for me for a while until I could calm down. Eventually I was able to express my concerns. I was just upset about what was said, I’ve recently been working out and losing weight and then to be told I was still too heavy sucked, I was scared for having to go through the retrieval without being put under, I was overall just so frustrated. The nurse reassured us that conscious sedation was the go-to method long before propofol was being used and not to be worried. They would give me a lovely amount of versed in pre-op to relax my nerves and my brain. By the end of the meeting I was feeling more at peace with what would be happening. She also went over several consent forms and filled us in on the next steps. Ok, now it’s getting even more exciting. We can see these dates coming up and they’re coming up quickly!

August 19, 2017, Picking up all the meds.

You know those big Tupperware containers that you put your holiday decorations in and then store in your garage or attic? Those big ones? Yeah, well that’s what the lady brought out for me when I went to pick up my meds from the pharmacy. I straight up laughed when she came out with that. I’ve never seen so many boxes of meds in my life for just myself. I was starting to feel like one of my patients that I’m handing countless pills over to every morning for them to take. I always joke with them that I’m giving them their second breakfast. Well, here was mine! The lady behind the counter spent about five minutes trying to pack all of them into these two large brown paper bags. Oh lordy, what am I getting myself into? Each one of these meds are injections as well, some I will have to do on the same day, some of them (let’s face it with my skin all of them) will cause irritations on my belly. But, one super big positive is that NONE of them are intra-muscular shots. They all just have to go into fat, well that will be easy, ha! But seriously, I’m so thankful for that.

I drove home quickly that day, as most the meds need to be kept in the refrigerator. I got home and decided to lay them all out to see what I was getting to work with. Now mind you, each box has a med that can be used for multiple days, so it’s even more than what is seen.

Ok, so what do these meds do? Gonal F helps to stimulate my follicles to grow nice and big and make large enough eggs to be harvested. Cetrotide I have to take if I start growing the follicles too quickly, it will slow the process down. Novarel will be my HCG trigger shot to clue the follicles into getting ready to release/ovulate and Lupron is the same, just a different medication incase I need that instead of the Novarel. Then there are some oral antibiotics to take pre-op and post-op just to protect me from any infection from the retrieval.

August 23, 2017 lab work, ultrasound and med prep.

Again, up and early for my appointment. It seems as though all of them will be about the same time every day, 7:30am. Rush hour time. Oh well. Today I go for a baseline ultrasound and lab work. From here they will know what dose to start me on for my medications. All goes well, I have eight follicles on my right ovary and about ten on my left. My lining is still pretty thin from the darn Clomid but I am told that it will thicken up perfectly by the time for transfer. The nurse goes over a few last details and gives me my next set of instructions. August 24th, stop taking birth control pills. August 25th call into my special patient mailbox to listen to a voicemail telling me what dose to start with for the Gonal F injection. August 26th, give myself the Gonal F injection. Then every other day starting on Tuesday the 29th I will go in for ultrasounds and lab draws to see the progress of the medications and determine future doses.

Tentatively the week of September fourth we will be doing my egg retrieval! SO DANG EXCITING.

So here I am, sitting here and typing away trying to explain the process. You now know all the ingredients involved thus far. It was slightly difficult getting to this point in the IVF cycle, but all the phone calls, stresses, meds and struggles were worth it. We are here and we are moving forward. No set backs now. We’re only going up from here!