Moving onto IVF

Hard to believe that my last post was shortly after my accident in June without an update on my final cycle for the study. Well, I think needless to say, the final cycle didn’t work either. I can’t remember stats but I do remember feeling like I couldn’t wait for all this to be over so I could go on a much needed vacation to Florida. I started July 5^th or 6^th and left for vacation on July 9^th. So I was all happy to be on vacation period free and free to drink any consumption of alcohol I wanted. No worries, I did not drink myself silly. Not even close. But a good time was had by all. Disney World, Sea World, swimming with dolphins, zip lining over alligators, watching Morgan swim in the ocean. It was all just so wonderful!

We came back and did not focus on getting pregnant. It was so nice not having to worry about appts, ultrasounds, bloodwork and repeat. We certainly needed a break. That study made me not want to go near another IUI procedure ever again. I was tired of the disappointment with the very little increase of odds. It might as well have been the equivalent of us trying naturally with poor sperm. Just ain’t happening.

We do have some news. Being that this month marks 3 years of trying to get pregnant, we have decided to move forward with IVF. The highest form of reproductive technology out there and the best odds of getting pregnant. I know quite of few people who have done IVF and it worked the first time. John and I had a consultation with Dr. Singh at the same clinic as the study. They have great success rates, the staff are wonderful and they participate in the ARC program (Advanced Reproductive Care). They work with clinics across the country to come up with predetermined, discounted pricing on fertility treatments to help make it more affordable. They also provide financing.

We decided to go with the package which includes 1 fresh IVF cycle and 1 FET (frozen embryo transfer). Basically, this means that I take a bunch of meds to produce A LOT of eggs – hopefully close to 20. They aspirate them out of my ovaries and inject sperm into each egg - this procedure is called ICSI. ICSI usually costs extra, at least $1,500 extra. But it’s rolled into this package. Yay! 3 days later they will know how many eggs were actually fertilized and developed into embryos. It’s not typical for all to develop. They will transfer 2 embryos into my uterus (yes, twins can be a high possibility) and then they freeze the remaining embryos for a later time. IF I become pregnant and we end up with a live baby, then the package is done and we do not get to do the FET. But IF I don’t become pregnant or if I miscarry, then the FET is there for me to do the next cycle at no additional cost. Ultimately, the goal is to have a live baby, obviously! And this gives us a greater chance at that with 2 cycles being offered.

We are financing about $9,800 for the procedure, monitoring (which includes office visits, bloodwork and ultrasounds) and ICSI. Then the meds on top of that is an additional $2,600 which we are putting on a new credit card that we opened with 0% interest for 12 months. Total out of pocket is just over $12K. Lucky for us, I have some left over meds from my injectable cycle I did last October. The leftover meds are worth about $1,800. The meds expire in February so that was another reason why we wanted to start right away so we don’t piss away that much money. Seems dumb. I did look into switching insurances to see if my insurance would cover any fertility treatments. Mine would provide up to $5K in meds (lifetime) but it would cost us an additional $250/mo for the insurance than what we are paying now. So in the end it really wasn’t worth it to us. Plus, if we waited til the beginning of next year, we would have either a Nov/Dec baby and I really didn’t want to have a baby around the holidays.

Where are we at right now with this cycle? Well, I’m just waiting for my period to start. Should have been today. So hopefully soon. As soon as I start, I call the nurse and I will come in around day 3 to have some bloodwork and ultrasound and get prescribed birth control pills. Birth control, you ask? I know, sounds completely in the wrong direction of what we are trying to accomplish. Birth control is given prior to IVF cycle to allow your ovaries to rest before running a marathon when I start injecting meds. I will be on birth control for 2-4 weeks. Then I start “stimming”. Stimming = stimulation of your ovaries with meds. Depending on how well my body responds to the meds depends on how long I will stim. Some people respond great and stim for 7 days and others may have to stim for 14 days. Once your’re ready, I will be put under for the procedure where they go in and take out the eggs. At this time, John provides a sample. As soon as they have both eggs and sperm, they get to work right away fertilizing them. We will get a report the next day to see how they are doing and then the following day. Some IVF protocols transfer embryos on day 3 or day 5. I believe this clinic does it on day 3. They will grade the eggs A,B,C. A being the best, they will implant the very best 2. Then they do a blood test 2 weeks later. If all goes as well as I think it will, I will know if I’m pregnant by Thanksgiving. And will have a due date in July/August. Close to Morgan’s bday!

I can’t believe this is really happening. We need all the thoughts, prayers and support we can get. I will try to be very diligent with updating this blog as I want as much of this process documented as possible.