Fertilization

I talked to our clinical coordinator today about the whole process of IVF. It was really starting to scare me. Both R and I felt as if there were too many unknowns about the process and we wanted some answers. She answered a few questions that I had, and we set up a time for both R and I to talk to her.

Since we told her about our belief of "life at conception" and that we did not want embryos discarded, she gave us a few options: freezing embryos, freezing oocytes, and limited fertilization. Not all embryos make it to blastocysts. The 8-12 celled blastocysts are what will be implanted. Just because we fertilize 10 eggs, does not mean that those 10 eggs will "take" the fertilization and become embryos and then divide into blastocysts. I feel like this whole "fert" thing is like playing Risk.

Freezing embryos - freezing the number of embryos (over the 2-3 we will implant) and saving them for later use. There could be 20+ embryos that need freezing and would require future IVF procedures.

Freezing oocytes - freezing the left over eggs they did not fertilize. Seems random to me.

Limited Fert - fertilizing only as many eggs as we will implant. Or fertilizing a specific number of eggs with the idea of freezing what goes above and beyond the maximum of 3 SIRM will implant.

First round of Labs

This is my arm 1 day after the first round of intensive lab work. It doesn't hurt as bad as it looks, but is definitely tender. They took 13 vials from this arm alone - then they had to switch to the other arm for the last 5 vials. I'm scared that this is only the beginning. I hate needles; I freaked out. There's SO many more to come......

The Road of IVF

I guess we decided to give IVF a chance. Dr. S wants to get the ball rolling, because we're young and hopefully will have better results. We're scheduled on the January 25th cycle. My RE is fantastic....she's with Sher Institute of Reproductive Medicine (SIRM, from now on).

I started by taking Provera to induce a cycle, and will start birth control pills tomorrow, so that they can "take control" of my cycle for the IVF procedure. I start injection medications on Wednesday, January 6th. (I have lots of mental preparation before that!!)

We have our Group Calendar meeting on January 4th - both R and I are hungry for info about this whole thing. We feel lost.

The next few months are going to be scary, difficult, and, PLEASE LORD, rewarding.

1st Day w/ RE

Today was the first day we saw our RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist). She spent over an hour talking about our "mechanical problems" and offering us a lofty "promise" that we will be parents. How, you ask? Through IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization). I've never really researched the in's and out's of IVF. Basically, it's creating embryos in a mock environment and then tranferring those 8+ celled embryos to me.

R and I have a HUGE decision to make in the next few months. We'll be spending a lot of time praying for guidance and peace.