Wednesday, February 29, 2012

2/29/12 - Blood Work, Trial Transfer, Payment

This morning before work I had blood drawn and a "Trial Transfer". 

The Dr said he was sticking a cathiter in to measure the depth of my uterus so they know how far to go in when they transfer the embryo.  (I'm not great at the technical lingo).  It was a very uncomfortable experience.  Felt a lot of cramping.  I told the Dr I've been bleeding (lightly) since yesterday morning and he said that was normal. 

I paid my co-insurance today of $800 for IVF + $1,100 for ICSI (sperm count and quality is too good for ins to cover it) + $1,350 for embryo freezing = $3,250.

The IVF Coordinator called this afternoon and said the blood work "looked good" so I'm on track to start injections March 7th!  This is really happening!!! :)

2/29/12 - Aygestin, Birth Control

Feb 6th I went in for blood work in preparation for March 7th IVF start date.  They found that my estrogen levels were too high, which could mean I have a cyst on my ovaries that needs to be cleared, so they had me start taking Aygestin once a day.  I had follow up blood work on Feb 13th where they found that I STILL had high estrogen levels so they told me to double up my dosage of Aygestin.  More blood work on Feb 21st... estrogen levels were now down but they had me stay on Aygestin until Feb 24th and they started me on LoLoestrin birth control which they expect to have me stop taking on March 2nd.

2/29/12 - Where it all began...

After I decided to start In-Vitro Fertilization I immediately began googling “IVF Blogs” to read about other women’s experiences with the process.  I was obsessed with gathering advice and tips to help me understand the procedure.  That’s when I thought it might be a good idea for me to write down MY experience as I go through IVF, so that hopefully someday it will help another nervous IVF-er that might be googling “IVF Blogs”.

A little background info:
My husband and I have been married for 7 wonderful years.  We’ve been trying to conceive for 5 ½ years.  I remember the heart break I felt EVERY MONTH for the first few years.  We were ready to start a family and had all our duckies in a row, but it just wasn’t happening. 


After about 1 ½ - 2 years we saw a fertility specialist (one of the BEST in the country) to have both of us tested to see WHY it wasn’t happening.  After MANY tests we were informed that NOTHING WAS WRONG.  :o 

You sort of HOPE they find something, so you can fix it and move on.  But with the NOTHING IS WRONG diagnosis we figured we just needed to learn a little more about patience and give it time. 

Our fertility specialist DID say I MIGHT have endometriosis because of the severity of my cramps during my cycle, but that the only way to know FOR SURE is to actually have the laparoscopic surgery to fix it.  So I said “Sign me up!”.  My OBGYN did the surgery the next month and said he found a LITTLE bit of endometriosis which he cleared up.  The surgery was easy and recovery was quick.  I had a great surgeon.  :)  But... Nothing changed.  2 more years of nothing.   

I bought all the infertility books, took ALL the advice that people gave me (from taking baby aspirin every morning, to drinking Robitussin before ovulation, to meditating, to “just relaxing and going on vacation”, and many more tips), used ovulation calculators and kits, did 4 monitored cycles of chlomid, one cycle of IUI with my OBGYN, AND left a very stressful job that I was convinced was partially to blame for my infertility.  I found myself crying at baby showers and feeling bitter when church lessons were about Motherhood.

I will tell you that my emotions got a lot easier to handle once I decided on a PLAN.  After a few years I came up with a plan (in my head).  I decided that I would always know what my next step would be.  I would tell myself… “ok, we’re going to travel a lot and not worry about it for the next 2 months THEN we’re going to start chlomid and if that doesn’t work we’re going to see the specialist and start IUI and if THAT doesn’t work we’re going to do IVF.  MY advice to anyone going crazy with infertility is to figure out YOUR PLAN and just feel peace in knowing what your next step would be if this month wasn’t “the month”… again.

That brings us to the summer of 2011.  I went back to the specialist.  He did ALL the tests again, in case something had changed over the years, but everything was still normal.  

I did 3 cycles of IUI with the specialist and after January 2011’s IUI didn’t work we scheduled to start IVF on the next start date which is March 7th, 2012.