Crazy, right?? We took this picture to forever remember what it took for us to have a baby. Who knew that IVF involved all of this?!? I certainly didn’t. So, I officially started the meds on April 29, 2010. And if you didn’t know the meds for IVF are shots. I have never been a good shot taker...I don’t like them and they make me nervous. These shots are are subcutaneous and I should have been able to give them to myself... Yeah right. So, I made sure Jon knew what he was doing and employed him to be my shot giver. I could not and will not give a shot to myself. I looked back in my journal from this time and here is what I wrote regarding the first shot. Shots were given first thing in the morning...”That night I woke up in a cold sweat thinking about those shots. Then I felt sick the whole next day. The night before the first shot I barely slept. Jon said he was restless too. So, he got up and showered like normal and then woke me up. Ugh, I was so nervous. These needles were short and went in my upper thigh. After all my worrying it didn’t really hurt, though I did flinch.” So, those shots weren’t too bad and I felt pretty good, no real side effects.
Our IVF start appointment was on May 4, 2010. They check hormone levels and do an ultrasound to make sure everything looked ready to go. Also on May 4 was the first day I didn’t flinch during my morning shot :)
The doctor went over the next set of shots with us too. These shots required some mixing on our part and they went in my stomach. These made me a little nervous as well... We were also told that the egg retrieval would fall between May 17 and 26. It was all happening so fast, it was scary and exciting all at the same time. We were praying so hard that this would work, that we would only have to go through this process once to get our precious baby. But, I am a very pessimistic person and always felt like it wouldn’t happen. I always doubted, always thought that it wouldn’t work.
Here is another journal entry regarding the newest shot, “The bravelle and menopure shots STING going in. It hurt so bad that I flinched and have a HUGE bruise on my stomach. Sunday I started using ice beforehand and it helps but it still stings. We went to the doctor on Saturday and they did blood work and an ultrasound. We have 10 follicles and an estradiol level of 298, last Tuesday it was 20. The nurse said they want it to reach 1000. I went to the doctor today and we had 12 follicles ranging from 7-14mm. Dr. Winslow said that we should be ready fro retrieval on Sunday or Monday. I asked off Monday either way, either for retrieval or just to relax. I just pray that this works and part of me really thinks that this will really and truly work. The odds are good for us. It just seems unattainable though and I get so scared sometimes. We would be great parents. I know this. I just have to keep my fears and feelings in check and trust God.”
Retrieval was set for Monday, 5/17/10. I was off that day and was told that it wouldn’t hurt that bad. I would be put to sleep and they would get the eggs. It sounded easy enough. Meanwhile Jon would have to tell them how many eggs to fertilize. When they retrieved the eggs since I would be asleep/out of it Jon would have to tell them how many to fertilize. We had talked to some of the nurses at the practice about our beliefs, about when we felt life truly began and what we could do to feel good about this process. Like I said before, I didn’t want a lot of frozen embryos sitting around. One of the nurses told us we would freeze some of the eggs and only fertilize some of the eggs. She said that frozen eggs can be used later if we wanted more children but that frozen embryos would work better. But, I felt better about this. To me a frozen embryo represents a life whereas an egg does not, this was definitely something I wanted to do. We realized that frozen eggs may not work as well as the frozen embryos but I felt better about in my heart, I knew that this was the right thing to do. So, Jon and I discussed this over and over again. What was a good number...how many would we do...half of however many eggs they got...6...8...10... It was a constant conversation for us. We didn’t want to do too few because they usually put 2 embryos back. So, we prayed and continued talking about it. We decided we would do 8. That would be assuming that they would all “take.” Embryos are given 5 days to mature properly and then they are put “back in” so to speak. I have read stories where 10 were fertilized and none made it to day 5. So, it was scary making this decision. I didn’t want to go through all of this and end up with nothing... We had to choose our number and stick to it and pray that we at least got one baby from all of this. That is all we wanted.
May 15 at 9pm Jon gave me my HCG trigger shot. This was a different kind of shot. It went into the muscle on my upper backside region, if you know what I mean... I was SO nervous about this shot. We watched a movie that night, tried to relax (yeah right...) and then about 5 minutes til 9 we got up and iced the region to prep for the shot. The nurse had drawn a box with a sharpie on the place that he was to give me the shot. It didn’t hurt at all!!! We were on our way. My retrieval appointment was at 7am on Monday and I was called back at 7:30. They took me to the OR and told me what was going to happen. They said after the procedure to take it easy, drink LOTS of fluids especially Gatorade for the next 10 days or more. They said the more eggs they retrieved the more liquids I need to drink. I was so nervous... The eggs were retrieved and I had 19!!!!! Wow!!!! Our odds were looking very good!!!
More to come... :)
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