The First Appointment: Ultrasound, Tests & Infusion

It's Wednesday, June 30th, and today was our first appointment at our fertility clinic since arriving here.  We were nervous, and the drive was long from Mike's parent's house all the way passed south SF where our clinic is.  

On Monday, we went with Mike's family on a day trip to San Francisco where we walked the California Academy of Sciences there for hours.  We had lunch, then walked some more.  Afterward, we drove to Barnes and Noble to walk around and read books while we waited for our nephew's basketball game.  It was getting late and I needed to take my injections, so Mike's mom drove us to his sister's house nearby so we could do them--we had brought them along knowingly.  I was exhausted and my ovaries hurt.  They had been hurting ever since a couple days before our flight, and have only been getting worse everyday.  Monday evening they were throbbing fiercely and I was ready to pass out, so Mike's sister and mom went on to the ball game without us so I could rest.  We later met them at a restaurant for dinner after the game and it wasn't until 12 hours after we'd left the house that morning did we get back.  Only later that night did I read online that when you are stimulating your follicles, you shouldn't do any strenuous activities, or you could cause them to burst!  Oops.  Won't be doing that again.

So, the first thing we did upon arrival at our clinic earlier today was fork over another $700 for my impending IV infusion.  Unexpected, but then I realized we were actually warned about that.  I just forgot.  Part of their policy is giving each female patient intralipid infusions dudring their IVF process to help boost the immune system and increase the chances of embryo implantation.  At our clinic, these infusions have taken the place of the previously used IVIGs which are blood products, take several hours and much costlier.  The Intralipids are much less expensive, take less time, and also have the advantage of not being a blood product.  They are made out of soy protein and egg!  I joked that it looked like an IV bag of soy milk going into my arm.  The nurse laughed.  Everyone at the clinic is extremely kind and welcoming, and I found that refreshing compared to my local doctor's office.  The nurses there actually knew how to draw blood!  What a change from my lab.  I think I had so many bruises on my inner elbows the last time I went to the lab, the girl didn't know which one was better to take from.

So, after filling out more paperwork and spending the unfortunate fortune, we were sent to wait in the waiting room where a nurse called us back for the ultrasound.  We met our doctor once again whom we hadn't seen in about 2 years!  The first time we went was when he diagnosed me with PCOS and I was 28 years old.  I'm now almost 31 and we're finally here.  After inserting the probe inside me, he quickly eased my fears by informing me that I had a great uterus!  It looked pristine: nice and ready for implantation, he said.  And then he looked at each of my ovaries, starting with the right.  Interestingly, my right ovary has been swollen up and hurting way more than my left.  It always seems to do this when stimulated, as I learned when I was on Clomid all those months we tried "naturally" and did our 3 failed IUIs.  This time was a lot more interesting for me because I got to see my follicles!  Before with our fertility treatments I never got any ultrasounds, which I've since learned was wrong of them.  It's really bad practice not to monitor your patients when they are on such intense fertility medication, and I obviously had some really unprofessional doctors back then.

My kind fertility doctor showed me each follicle I was growing, and I pressed on my ovaries as he took ultrasound pictures of them.  There were 8 on the right side and about the same on the left, but we can't exactly remember.  We were too enthralled in watching the ultrasound to look at the numbers he was typing and telling the nurse in the room.  But anyway, my point earlier was that as he looked at my right ovary (big black blobs in my own point of view), he seemed surprised and exclaimed "Whoa!  Mike, you've got a cheap date here!" then laughed before explaining that he meant it didn't take much to get me stimulated. HAHA!  I am ahead of schedule!  The follicles on my right side are plump and plentiful!  The ones on the left were slightly smaller, and seemed rightly so since I hadn't noticed much pain on that side until yesterday.  I just thought it was weird that he had confirmed what I had felt happening.  Shows you really do have more knowledge about yourself than you think!  

So the whole point of this story was the fact that as he looked at my left follicles, he said he'd like to see me again for another ultrasound in a couple more days to check their progress--until he looked at my right side again and compared their sizes.  Then he said "Second thought, I'd like to see you back tomorrow!"  It looks as though, if his predictions are right, we may be looking at an earlier egg retrieval than we thought, within the next couple days, putting it on or around the fourth of July! 

I'm of course relieved to have seen the doctor finally, and gotten confirmation and reassurance about all that we're going through for this.  It just made me relax better than a visit to the acupuncturist!  Especially after my amazing spa treatment infusion afterward!  I was completely pampered in a luxury chair, warm blankets and hot coffee.  They even offered to let me watch a movie on their portable DVD player, but I felt bad watching any without Mike, and he was---hehem!---busy in the other room giving HIS all important portion of this whole deal.  But, it didn't take long before he was back at my side relaxing with me.  My nurse was very nice.  She numbed my arm before starting my IV and was very professional about the whole infusion.  It lasted a good 2 hours, but I listened to my iPod and half slept through most of it.  It felt great.  Still not sure if my $700 IV bag of soy milk was worth that much, but that we will see in a few short weeks, I guess...  If ever luck needed wishing, it's now! 

To California! Five Airports Later...

I never want to fly again.

Of all the things to go wrong yesterday, wouldn't you know it, we missed our flight!  You know, the one that we bought a month ago to fly to California for our IVF procedure?  What was I saying about irony?  Yeah, I'm telling you fate does not want us to succeed!

Early yesterday morning we arrived at the airport at 6am, a whole hour before our departure.  It's a small airport with only 1 flight to Seattle per day on one of those little propeller planes.  Upon check-in, we were told that our luggage would cost us $70 since one of the bags was 8 lbs overweight.  Rather than sit down and unpack them to try and even out the weight, we opted to fork out the money and rolled our eyes.  We figured something would go wrong that day, but little did we know that would be the least of our worries!

We then went to stand in the long line at the security check point and watch as they checked people through and inspected everyone's stuff as they do, you know.  They were taking their own sweet time and there was this poor elderly gentleman who they sent in and out of the metal detector about 20 times because he kept setting off the alarm.  Finally, when he was nearly stripped of all clothing, they got him through.  I was getting rather irritated because I was carrying a bag of injectable medication.  Filled with needles and syringes and liquid vials--all the things that airports freak out about.  Of course I declared my bag of drugs and they had to take everything out and search it, then give ME a "random" search while they pulled out and inspected everything in my bag.  When they were done, they handed me back my bag in a bin with all the drugs they pulled out and told me to hurry up and pack it back up because they were going to close the gate.  I did so and met Mike at the gate with several other people who were just all standing there watching out the glass window at the plane.  

Five minutes later everyone was through the security checkpoint and there were about 20 of us standing there watching as they rolled the stairs away and shut the door, then pulled away.  "Are you serious?" people started asking each other, obviously shocked.  No one could believe they would actually just leave us all there!  It wasn't even 6:50 yet, and our plane loaded on our "overweight" luggage and took off without us and 20 other passengers!  Imagine how much weight 20+ people are compared to 8 lbs of an overweight bag.  Along with an angry mob of passengers, we went to the front desk in order to figure out what we were supposed to do then, and the woman there only yelled at us all and blamed US for being "late"!  That wasn't very well accepted by anyone because we were hardly late!  There was a lot of yelling going on between her and the other passengers, so by the time Mike got up there, we knew all we could do was transfer our tickets to another flight and I went to call back my brother who had dropped us off an hour ago by then.

$200. later, we got a flight to Seattle out of the next airport an hour away which left at 9:15am.  If we wanted to make that flight, we would have to hurry.  My brother came back and we were on our way by 7:30.  We made it in plenty of time, even though I was once again subjected to a "random" search and my bag of medication was clawed through and searched for a second time.  We got to Seattle at about 10am and finally relaxed and had breakfast so we could take our pills.  The next flight was a half hour flight to Portland at noon which we were separated halfway across the plane from each other during, and our final flight to Oakland, CA didn't leave until about 2:30, so we had plenty of time to wander around and find a horrible place to eat a spot of lunch before leaving.  This final flight was our original flight to Oakland, so we had caught up with our luggage finally and arrived at 4pm, as planned.  While waiting for Mike's parents (who were caught in traffic) to pick us up, we thought about how much money we had spent on this trip (over $1,000) and vowed that next time, we might as well DRIVE and save ourselves the insanity!!!!

IVF Injections & Travel Plans

It's Friday, June 25th, and I am exhausted.  I don't really have time to be writing this post, but I'm going to because I can't seem to do anything else until I stop panting and sweating.  I've been cleaning doing house and yard chores all day long in preparation for our early morning flight tomorrow.  We'll be gone to California for three weeks to undergo IVF.  The day has finally come, and of course I am naturally not ready.  HAH!  At the same time, I am thinking that FINALLY we are doing this!!!

I've been taking oral prescription drugs for months now in preparation for this procedure, but not until last week, June 13th, did I have to start actually injecting myself with more of them.  We have our own personalized IVF calendar that tells us when to start which drug and how much and when to decrease dosages, get blood draws, appointments, etc, and it stays stuck to our fridge at all times.  It's like our step-by-step IVF instruction manual.  We couldn't survive without it.  It all started out with Lupron injections in the stomach.  They aren't bad at all, because all you have to use is an insulin needle (they are puny) and if you do it right (in a quick darting motion) you won't feel a thing.  Poor Mike was really nervous about learning how to do my injections right.  He does them for me most days because no matter how much I tell myself it's not going to hurt, I can't seem to stab myself with a needle!  I guess I am a little unstable upstairs or something (my mom won't let me say I'm retarded).  Okay, I did it once, but I took 10 minutes trying to trick myself into doing it.  SO, I apparently have a thing for needles.  Thankfully, my dad (who is an RN) was kind enough to teach Mike how to do the injections and has even done a few himself for me when Mike wasn't there.  He's amazing at giving shots, I should add!  I never feel a thing.  Mikey is getting much better too, and I can tell his confidence is rising.  

Just this week we had to add a new shot to the mix; the FSH/hSG injection.  This one is slightly bigger and more complex because you have to mix it before injecting, but still a sub-q injection (small needle) into the abdomen as well.  And it stings!  Along with the new shot, we were instructed to begin even more oral meds!  I had to add a pill to help with embryo implantation, and Mike & I both have to take an antibiotic to clear us of any possible infections before the IVF.  So, I am getting pretty confused with my pill situation, and have had to seriously organize my ever-increasing pill bottle collection, but so far I'm handling it.  Just for kicks, here's my current med list (just keep in mind it is only going to increase the closer we get to the IVF date as there are several more injections I will need to take starting next week!):

ORAL:

Cipro: AM & PM (with plenty of water and NO calcium within 1 hr of taking)

Dexamethasone: AM (with meal)

Metformin: AM & PM (with meal)

Baby Aspirin: AM (with meal)

Prenatal Vitamin: AM (with meal)

Calcium Supplement: 2 in AM & 2 in PM (with meal)

Folgard: PM (with meal)

Tylenol (in case the injections get painful--but I refuse.  Enough drugs already!)

INJECTIONS:

Lupron: PM injection daily

Bravelle/Menopur (FSH/hSG): PM injection daily

As for Mikey, he is only taking a multivitamin and Cipro, and that poor boy has a tough time remembering about those. LOL!  But I shouldn't be mean, he's doing great now that we're so deep in this process.  We only forgot to do my Lupron injection once, and we were only 1 hour late.  Can't be as bad as all that since I know first hand how long it takes nurses to pass noon meds at work!  (News flash: not everyone gets their noon meds at noon! There has to be a flexible time for them).

Well, that's the update for now!  I need to go take a shower.  Mike will be home in a few minutes and before I know it, it will be time for my injections!  Then we are going over to my parent's house for dinner and to drop off our dog for them to take care of for the next 3 weeks!  (Sniff... I'll miss my Roo-Roo dog!) Then my brother is coming to my house to stay while we are away and take care of the cats, fish and yard.  It is summer, and that means everything is growing and needing water and care!  IF we ever do this again, I must remind myself to do it in the Fall or something.  Summer bad.  Signing off everyone!  Until we meet again in California!!!

Controversial IVF

IVF = In-Vitro Fertilization. 

And what is In-vitro Fertilization?  "Is that where they mix eggs and sperm in a petri dish?" people often ask me.  For lack of a better explanation, um, Yes.  

Obviously, there is much more to it.  IVF is one of the biggest wonders of science.  So many people find themselves where my husband and I are, unable to conceive on their own and want to know why.  As with any and all other medical problems, there is always a reason.  Though it's not always easy to discover right away, there is most definitely always a medically scientific reason a couple cannot conceive a child.

For Mike & I, we arrived at this point to try IVF after a long LONG 8 year road of trying this and that, finally introducing a doctor in the equation after a year, then gradually getting more and more medically involved as the years went by.  After every other type of fertility testing and treatment had been exhausted, IVF was our last resort.  The highly expensive, highly emotional, and little did we know at the time, HIGHLY controversial choice.

Only after we began our venture into the scary world of IVF preparation, did we begin to see the huge controversy about it.  For us, it felt downright offensive that anyone actually thought we shouldn't do it.  Their reasons?  Ranging anywhere from people claiming to be naturalists to the Godly righteousness of some so called "Christians", these people think that because IVF is a science, it interferes with all that is natural in the world.  For the religious stand point, it's the belief that humans are playing the hand of God, and therefore, IVF shouldn't be an option.  We should just accept the fact that we are barren and infertile and live our lives out without children--or of course, just adopt (see post on Why don't you just adopt?).

Before I get any further in the explaining the IVF process, let me first just say this:  If you are one of those people who believe that people shouldn't have the right to undergo scientific treatments like IVF in order to conceive a child, I suppose you are also against abortion & vasectomies for sure, but you should also be against pre-natal care, basic doctor check-ups, blood tests and surgical procedures, even chemotherapy and radiation for cancer patients.  Because you should know that everything in the medical field is science-based and if you allow them, you are just being ignorant.

And as for the "will of God" people, do you really believe that scientists are trying to "play the hand of God"?  This is one of the biggest reasons I don't abide with any church religion anymore.  Any God I believe in wouldn't be so ridiculous as to create such an intelligent species who he knew would excel at science, and then expect them not to use it! 

If I have already mentioned this, let it just be an emphasis on the fact that INFERTILITY IS A MEDICAL PROBLEM, NOT A CHOICE!!!!!!!!  And, honestly, if you have a problem with couples choosing to do IVF to have a child they would normally never be able to have, go ahead and believe what you want, but please... until you've walked a mile in their shoes, don't judge.  We don't need to hear things like "I could never do that!" or "We don't believe in interfering with God's plan for us."  Statements like these are just tactless and offensive.  Chances are, you don't know what you'd do if you were in our shoes.  There are a lot of things I used to believe before going through such a life altering thing as infertility.  Life changes us, and regardless of what you might believe at one time, I think everyone should allow themselves room for change.  We never stop learning.  Life is a school, and experience is your teacher.

Okay, now that that's settled, I will try to explain to the best of my knowledge (in the form of several posts from here on out) the long, detailed and exciting process of undergoing IVF.  We are about ready to begin our first IVF cycle.  (And I should mention I am on several hormone altering medications, hence the above paragraph.  They make me more bold, but honestly, I did mean every word.)  The 6 months prior to this have been spent completing the required various "pre-IVF" testing, which includes several blood tests, genetic testing, and reviewing previous medical records and surgical procedures.   These help alert our fertility doctor of any conditions or problems we might have or need to take care of prior to undergoing IVF, and help us gain the best chances at success.

This past week, we made all the finalized plans and pretty much signed our lives and life savings away in commitment to IVF.  We completed the loan process for the remaining amount of money we didn't raise for it, ordered our $3k worth of fertility prescriptions, and bought our plane tickets for the 3 week trip to California where our fertility clinic is.  Everyone is paid as of today, and we are once again flat broke.  With me out of a job and my husband the only one working, we are a little concerned for the months following IVF.  It was our hope that we could get a loan big enough to pay off some of our debts and take care of some really neglected home & car repairs so that we would be prepared for life with baby... but unfortunately, we were unable to do this.  The bank says we don't make enough money.  Yeah, I was stumped too.  I'll use my husband's exact words:  "Naturally!  If we did make enough money, why would we be asking you for a loan?!?!??!!!"  This was especially confusing because our primary reason for the loan was to consolidate our debts.  Seriously.  Banks need to send their policy-writers back to school.

So, where was I?  Oh yeah, our prescriptions arrived today via FedEx overnight in a big box.  In it includes every medication we'll be needing to complete our IVF cycle, including all the needles and a free sharps container for disposal!  What we get to do is watch a video in order to teach Mikey how to inject me with hormones everyday for a month.  We start Sunday with the first injection.  I can't help but be a little apprehensive about allowing my husband to shoot me up with a needle, being as I am the medical professional, and he is the librarian.  LOL!  But I will be strong and have immense faith in you, sweetheart! :)