IVF Timeline

Still doesn't really exist. :( Because of the timing of my periods and the vast number of vacations we have coming up, we still don't have a set timeline for our IVF. At this point, the soonest would be mid-October

Our IVF consult last week went well. It was extremely overwhelming for Bob (poor thing). It was a little easier for me to understand because I already knew what all of the medical terms meant... he had no idea what the nurse was referring to half the time. Thankfully, I think he's got it down now :)

As of right now, the tentative plan is to move forward at the end of August... which pretty much means that when I get my next period at the end of August we wait 21 days, and then actually start something. The nurse gave us all kind of handy calendars and reference sheets to look at and told us at least 5 times that if we EVER had any question, even after hours or in the middle of the night, to just call the on-call dr or nurse. Its nice to know that they aren't going to get upset with me for calling at 2am asking about one of my injections. :)

For about 8-10 days I'll be on an injection to suppress my ovaries... they want the stimulating meds to do all the work! Then, once I get my period (again) they'll lower the dose of suppression meds and add stimulating meds. All of which, of course, are injections. Most of them at SQ inj, which I can easily give to myself, but the IM ones are going to be a little tricky.... The nurse asked Bob if he's be able/willing to learn how to give them... he turned white as a sheet and starting shaking his head no. (he HATES needles!) Fortunately, I think there are some other people I can convince to help me there :)

Anyways, because I'm "super sensitive" to all meds, I'll need to go in every other day for ultrasounds and bloodwork to monitor follicle development and make sure my estrogen levels don't sky rocket. We were told that once I start the stims I'm not allowed to do any bouncing at all. This gave us a good laugh. At first we thought she was kidding, but apparently, because your ovaries are being hyperstimulated, they're bigger and heavier than normal, so any bouncing or jumping could cause them to twist, cutting off the blood supply to the ovary. (that's not scary or anything) So, needless to say, they'll be no trampolines or jet-ski-ing for this girl any time soon!

Then comes the retrieval (which I won't go into detail about). But it is amazing the things we have to decide and the number of papers we have to sign prior to the retrieval. Bob had to sign a form giving me permission to decide how many embryos to implant in case he's unable to be there; we have to decide if we want to fertilize all the eggs retrieved and if not, we have to decide whether to discard them or donate them; we have to assign guardians to any and all frozen embryos so that if we were to both pass away, the guardians could "carry out our wishes;" We have to decide who would get custody of frozen embryos in case of divorce (which won't ever happen, but we have to decide anyways).

So many things I never thought I'd have to think about! That was way more overwhelming to me than the explanation of the process. I already had a general idea of how things were going to work, but this stuff... this stuff I never even saw coming!

We also found out its going to cost more than we originally thought. Because Dr. D wants to use general anesthesia on me for the retrieval, that's a whole additional cost. It looks like it will now be around $12,000-$15,000!

We'd appreciate your continued prayers as we have a lot of decisions to make and information to process. We also have some, obvious, financial concerns. As much as we're eager to move forward, that's a TON of money to spend all at once and in a just a short amount of time.

We're both looking forward to having the month of August, and most of September medication free!! At times its sad that we aren't moving forward immediately, but I think we need this break. For our sanity, our health, and our hearts.

Thank you all for your love and support!