The Official Start of my IVF Cycle

Ahhhh the time has come, it's the OFFICIAL start of my upcoming IVF cycle. What starts the cycle, you ask? Birth control pills!! Hahaha, so funny, right? Did you know that a typical IVF cycle is 6 weeks?! Gosh that feels like such a long time haha, I kind of just want to fast forward ahead to February! LOL. No, it's all worth it of course :D So I started my pack of birth control pills tonight and have received my official calendar.

The course of events is as follows:
12/27 -- Start birth control pills
1/1 -- Call insurance to activate IVF coverage
1/2 -- Mock transfer
1/12 -- Start Lupron (1st injectible medicine)
1/16 -- Last active birth control pill
1/19 -- Baseline blood work and ultrasound
1/23 -- Start the injectible medicine to stimulate my ovaries to grow follices (Follistim)
1/26 -- Blood work to check estradiol levels
Week of 1/26 -- more blood work & ultrasounds
Week of 2/2 -- more blood work & ultrasounds; then when my follicles are the appropriate size we will stimulate ovulation (ovidrel) then have the egg retrieval!
5-7 days after egg retrieval is the embryo transfer -- the plan is to transfer 2 embryos
Then we WAIT! AHHHH!!!

I'm really excited but I'm also super nervous as well. We've never had many great embryos in the past so this makes me nervous, all it takes is one though (Hello, Mr Hank <3)!! So hoping for more embryos this time, would even be nice to have some to freeze. IVF is a very emotional process, so I'm not really looking forward to that. And last time I didn't have a toddler running around keeping me busy too so I'm sure I'm going to be extra tired. I always make sure to schedule the earliest appointments so I can get back to work so I don't have to use any time. So that means leaving my house around 6 am (yuck!). So that'll be hectic with daycare and what not too. Normally I take Hank to daycare at 8 am, but Casey will have to take him before he goes to work on days that I have monitoring up in Buffalo, so he'll have to go at probably 7:15 am to give Casey time to get to work. So I think we'll all be tired for that couple of weeks there! Keeping the end goal in sight will definitely help us all! I am so excited to hopefully give Hank a little brother or sister!! :D Keep us in your thoughts & prayers please over the next 2 months, we will really appreciate it!!

The Two Week Wait

Ahh the two week wait (2ww), anyone whose seriously trying to have a baby or going through the infertility process knows exactly what the 2ww is. Sometimes the 2ww is shorter or longer than 2 weeks depending on what you end up doing or what the doctors end up deciding. Either way, it's complete torture. The 2ww is the time between ovulation and "Aunt Flow (AF)" (your period)/positive pregnancy test. For those going through IVF the 2ww can be the time between the egg retrieval or embryo transfer and whenever your doctor decides to do the test. During this dreaded wait, you over-analyze every little thing! Even if it's something that literally happens every day, all of a sudden you're wondering if it's a pregnancy symptom. It is complete mind torture. It's a mind game, that's what it is, for me I play a mind game with myself for most of the 2ww, it's hard not too, especially if you've been through it before and have actually gotten a positive. Also, progesterone can mess with your "symptoms" as well, it can make you believe you have pregnancy symptoms when really, they're symptoms from your daily hormones.

Here are some of the mind games that happen:

• All of a sudden you notice a funny smell, yup you must be pregnant. 
• OMG you have an upset stomach, that's definitely a pregnancy symptom (even though you're prone to upset stomachs), but it's different this time.
• You're cramping...now this one goes back and forth. One second you're pregnant, the next you're fully convinced that this didn't work and you're going to have to do this all over again.
• You get a 5 second burst of heartburn, yup you must be pregnant because you only get heartburn when you're pregnant.
• You get a headache every day for a few days, that's definitely a pregnancy symptom.
• And the list goes on...

Sounds fun, huh? On top of all the "symptoms," I refuse to take a home pregnancy test. I am one of a minority here as many TTC (trying to conceive) people are POAS (pee-on-a-stick) addicts! They start testing the second they inject the trigger (which contains HCG) so they can see when the HCG leaves their system, so they know for real when they get a positive. I stopped POAS a LONG time ago! I got so sick of "being slapped in the face twice" (negative test, then AF), that I decided to stop using them all together. So while I'm analyzing every little thing, I refuse to POAS. So it's truly a waiting game. The day of beta (HCG blood draw) is the longest day of your life. Time moves slower than you could ever imagine because you honestly have no clue what to expect. You've convinced yourself so many times you're pregnant, then convinced yourself so many times that you're not pregnant, that you honestly don't know what's going to happen. So you continue wondering until you get the phone call...did it work? or did it not work? Only time will tell...

Egg Retrieval to Embryo Transfer

So Friday was the egg retrieval and we collected...drum roll please...11 eggs!! This is 4 more than last time, so definitely much better!! On Friday, I was very sore and rested all day. On Saturday morning just before 9 am, I got the phone call that 7 of the eggs fertilized, and 4 were normal and growing strong! Yayyy! Doctor was very pleased as we only had 1 viable embryo last time. Even with 1 embryo, it did turn into a pregnancy, so we're hoping this time is successful as well and the baby stays put for 9 months! On Monday morning, we transferred 2 top grade, beautiful embryos! One had 10 cells and the other had 8 cells! We still have 2 more embryos that are growing and hopefully will be able to freeze. We will know more about these ones and if they make it to freezing within the next few days. Yesterday after transfer, I rested all day! I'm back to work today and now we enter the dreaded wait where I'll analyze every little thing over the next couple weeks to see if this works! So we're keeping our fingers crossed that this works for us! Please be thinking and praying for us. Below are pictures of our beautiful embryos!

 Here is the 10-cell embryo

Here is the 8-cell embryo

The Road to IVF

So we had our consultation with Dr. Sullivan on Thursday (1/12), it went really good but of course I always think of one million questions after I meet. Anyways, I found this really great website that explains the whole IVF process from me starting a new cycle to hopefully finding out that it worked. The article is called Understanding IVF Treatment Step by Step. It's helped me understand things a little better but I think I still need to make a phone call to talk to the IVF nurse to answer a few more questions.

Our percentage of IVF working is even greater than IUI, so I really hope it is successful...IVF is going to be the beginning of an end of an era for us, whether it works or not. I am of course still very hopeful that I'll be able to have my own children. One of the things we took from the meeting was that our percentage of having twins is now 50%!! This is super exciting for us. Within days of dating, Casey and I both talked about wanting twins. It's just something we've both always wanted. So maybe the reason we have to go through all of this is to get our twins...who knows. Of course we would be ecstatic to get one baby, but we'll be excited if we get two as well! Anyways, after all the scientific talk and what drugs I'll be taking and what not, Dr. S. talked about how well I've responded to the Follistim in the past (ie the reason we had to cancel the current cycle - I responded too well for IUI), so he thinks he'll be able to get 10 good oocytes out of me and about 70% will likely become embryo's. Dr. S. will transfer 2 embryo's into my uterus. This could leave 5 healthy embryo's leftover which will be frozen for possible future use. So if this IVF doesn't work or if we decide to have more children in the future, we don't have to go through all the hassle we've gone through this time. I would just have my body "tricked" again then when the time is right, embryo's would be transferred in. If we decide not to use them, we can have them destroyed, can give them to someone else we identify within the practice (huge hassle though as he pointed out, plus I don't know if I could let someone else have "our children"), or they can be donated to research which would be ideal for us if we don't use them.

Once I start my new cycle, I'll get started on birth control and then Lupron to trick my pituitary gland. Essentially, the doctor will have total control over my reproductive system. The meds he gives me tells my body what to do and when. Pretty crazy how we can take control over our bodies! Then I'll be back on Follistim and a new drug for me called Ganirelix. Then once Dr says it's time, I'll take the Ovidrel shot and have the egg retrieval done 36 hours later!! I'll get an IV of "Michael Jackson's favorite drug" Propofol (don't worry, it's a very safe form of an anesthetic when given safely and as prescribed) to put me to "sleep" while they retrieve the eggs. I'll then add another drug in there after retrieval (can't remember the name of that one right now)...this is a lot to remember!! Lol. Then, 3 days after egg retrieval, he will transfer 2 embryo's into my uterus. So after the embryo's are transferred, I will start the daily Progesterone (brand name endometrin) and have the dreaded two week wait to see if it worked. So stay tuned, this is a fairly long process. So that's what IVF is in a nutshell, the link above probably does a better job at explaining it than I have, but that's where we're at...

To end, in 7 days and 10 hours, we will be on that big bird to Las Vegas!! :-)