Are we having fun yet?
Are we having fun yet?
The answer is no, nope, not at all. It's actually pretty hectic over here, trying to get all of our ducks in a row before the 25th. Friday I had my baseline blood work and ultrasound. I had to have everything within normal limits before we could move forward with our IVF protocol. Like every baseline I had, we're all set. And the ultrasound probe and I continue to cultivate our relationship, while my poor right AC vein remains the primary source for blood tests.
Matty and I had our IVF nurse consultation this morning at Highland Park Hospital. We met Barb, our IVF nurse. She's fantastic. IVF nurses remind me a lot of ER nurses, incredibly smart and with a twisted sense of humor. AKA, the best kind of people to know. Helen is my nurse out of the Buffalo Grove clinic and I love the woman. She returns every crazy email from me in record speed, and has given me more hugs than I can count. Especially on the days I drag my hiney to the office at 7:30am after working the night before and being on the verge of tears. She's an angel, seriously, she has to deal with me.
So we barely made it to our appointment at 9:30, Highland Park is about an hour from our house, BUT it is the hospital we had Scarlett at! That's a good sign in my book. Anyway, so we met with Barb and discussed what the next month of our life is going to look like. It is hectic to say the least. I have an extensive medical background and I STILL was struggling to keep up. In the span of this next month I will be taking 10 medications, with five hormonal medications being the most important.
On Friday I dropped my script off at Walgreens, where I had been getting my medications prior, and hit a road block. The five hormonal medications (HCG, Gonal, Menupur, Ganirelix and Leuprolide) were denied by my insurance. Becky, the most lovely and patient Walgreens employee, was able to find out what it would cost out of pocket. That price being 6k. Which is 5,675 dollars more than our actual IVF. Of course we cannot afford that, can anyone? I filled the other medications and had to call my work's specialty pharmacy. I've been dealing with their nonsense since. I've been on the phone everyday trying to get them to approve this medications, and still they have not. The earliest we'll know the approval is Wednesday and at that time we'll find out what the cost will be. I'm assuming I'll have to sell my left kidney, so is life. The good news is that they'll be able to overnight the medications so I will have them by the 25th.
Back to our appointment.
Barb, the IVF magician, had us go over all of the consents. What had to sign our lives away, more or less. We had to first agree to IVF (done), and agree that we understood the chance of multiples (obviously), the cost of embryo storage ($1200 the first year and $500 after) and then the morbid forms. I guess there has been a lot of issues with embryo ownership, with the current story being around Sofia Vargara and her ex. Which makes sense, they are potential tiny humans. And when you think about it, it's a great responsibility. I'm am so grateful that Matt and I have always thought very similarly when it comes to our cryobabies/embabies. If one of us were to pass away, the other would have the right to make a decision about the embryos. If we both should happen to perish we opted not to surprise a family member with a clutch of frozen embabies at their disposal. We also agreed that if we were to be divorced (of course no plan for that ever to happen, but life happens sometimes) that the embryos would be donated for research. We feel very strongly about embryo donation. There have been some incredible advancements with stem cell research, and we feel that if we could contribute to the greater good of humankind, why not!?!? I know that everyone feels differently about this topic, and that's ok too. For us, this was a no brainer.
So after all of that fun time deciding the fate of our non-existent children, we went over the actual process. As I mentioned we would be doing FET (frozen embryo transfer) as it holds an 11% additional success rate for us. While I still want that fresh transfer, because we are approved for four IVF treatments a year and I want to get the most bang for our buck, what I want the most is a successful transfer and pregnancy. They will evaluate my progesterone and endometrium after the retrieval and potentially do a fresh transfer if everything is favorable.
While Matt and I felt pretty comfortable with the majority of the information, I already know how to give injections, reconstitute medications and dispose of sharps. We did learn two new things. The first is that our fertility clinic does ICSI and assisted hatching.
ICSI: Inracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, basically they isolate a healthy sperm, take a hollow needle and inject the single sperm into the egg. This increases the chance of fertilization by taking direct action...I totally was calling it forced fertilization, but ICSI is nicer.
Assisted Hatching: This is where they "knick" the outer covering of the embryo which helps it "hatch" or better adhere to the endometrium, thus increasing the chance of pregnancy.
I consider it a good day when I learn something new, and yay! Learned something new. I also will be placed on weight restrictions at work, starting on the 28th (my first day of stimulation) and will not be able to lift more than 10lbs. This is because my ovaries will be so large while being stimulated and are at an increased risk of ovarian torsion. I'm already at a higher risk of this because of my teratoma, so I need to be extra careful. I can otherwise proceed as normal, and hopefully wont have to change too much of our life for these few weeks.
Overall we're doing pretty well here. Nervous and excited. I am very sensitive to hormones and am scared that I'm going to be very sick during this, but I keep reminding myself it is for such a short amount of time, and hopefully we'll get enough eggs/embryos and not have to do another retrieval in the future. Scarlett is doing well with all of this, I haven't be successful finding a child friendly IVF book. Her and I talked and I agreed to try and write her a little book about it to help her better understand. Wish me luck!
The answer is no, nope, not at all. It's actually pretty hectic over here, trying to get all of our ducks in a row before the 25th. Friday I had my baseline blood work and ultrasound. I had to have everything within normal limits before we could move forward with our IVF protocol. Like every baseline I had, we're all set. And the ultrasound probe and I continue to cultivate our relationship, while my poor right AC vein remains the primary source for blood tests.
My dear friend, probe
So we barely made it to our appointment at 9:30, Highland Park is about an hour from our house, BUT it is the hospital we had Scarlett at! That's a good sign in my book. Anyway, so we met with Barb and discussed what the next month of our life is going to look like. It is hectic to say the least. I have an extensive medical background and I STILL was struggling to keep up. In the span of this next month I will be taking 10 medications, with five hormonal medications being the most important.
On Friday I dropped my script off at Walgreens, where I had been getting my medications prior, and hit a road block. The five hormonal medications (HCG, Gonal, Menupur, Ganirelix and Leuprolide) were denied by my insurance. Becky, the most lovely and patient Walgreens employee, was able to find out what it would cost out of pocket. That price being 6k. Which is 5,675 dollars more than our actual IVF. Of course we cannot afford that, can anyone? I filled the other medications and had to call my work's specialty pharmacy. I've been dealing with their nonsense since. I've been on the phone everyday trying to get them to approve this medications, and still they have not. The earliest we'll know the approval is Wednesday and at that time we'll find out what the cost will be. I'm assuming I'll have to sell my left kidney, so is life. The good news is that they'll be able to overnight the medications so I will have them by the 25th.
The medication and needles so far
Back to our appointment.
Barb, the IVF magician, had us go over all of the consents. What had to sign our lives away, more or less. We had to first agree to IVF (done), and agree that we understood the chance of multiples (obviously), the cost of embryo storage ($1200 the first year and $500 after) and then the morbid forms. I guess there has been a lot of issues with embryo ownership, with the current story being around Sofia Vargara and her ex. Which makes sense, they are potential tiny humans. And when you think about it, it's a great responsibility. I'm am so grateful that Matt and I have always thought very similarly when it comes to our cryobabies/embabies. If one of us were to pass away, the other would have the right to make a decision about the embryos. If we both should happen to perish we opted not to surprise a family member with a clutch of frozen embabies at their disposal. We also agreed that if we were to be divorced (of course no plan for that ever to happen, but life happens sometimes) that the embryos would be donated for research. We feel very strongly about embryo donation. There have been some incredible advancements with stem cell research, and we feel that if we could contribute to the greater good of humankind, why not!?!? I know that everyone feels differently about this topic, and that's ok too. For us, this was a no brainer.
So after all of that fun time deciding the fate of our non-existent children, we went over the actual process. As I mentioned we would be doing FET (frozen embryo transfer) as it holds an 11% additional success rate for us. While I still want that fresh transfer, because we are approved for four IVF treatments a year and I want to get the most bang for our buck, what I want the most is a successful transfer and pregnancy. They will evaluate my progesterone and endometrium after the retrieval and potentially do a fresh transfer if everything is favorable.
While Matt and I felt pretty comfortable with the majority of the information, I already know how to give injections, reconstitute medications and dispose of sharps. We did learn two new things. The first is that our fertility clinic does ICSI and assisted hatching.
ICSI: Inracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, basically they isolate a healthy sperm, take a hollow needle and inject the single sperm into the egg. This increases the chance of fertilization by taking direct action...I totally was calling it forced fertilization, but ICSI is nicer.
Assisted Hatching: This is where they "knick" the outer covering of the embryo which helps it "hatch" or better adhere to the endometrium, thus increasing the chance of pregnancy.
Our IVF protocol
Overall we're doing pretty well here. Nervous and excited. I am very sensitive to hormones and am scared that I'm going to be very sick during this, but I keep reminding myself it is for such a short amount of time, and hopefully we'll get enough eggs/embryos and not have to do another retrieval in the future. Scarlett is doing well with all of this, I haven't be successful finding a child friendly IVF book. Her and I talked and I agreed to try and write her a little book about it to help her better understand. Wish me luck!
You should write and publish a child-friendly IVF book! Scarlett can draw the pix!
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