IVF

So I was going to write a post on gluten but I've been in Utah for the past week and a half and I forgot to watch the webinar I had registered for as I was half asleep for the majority of that day recovering from the awesomeness that is egg retrieval. Since I don't have anything prepared I thought maybe I'd just share what IVF is, at least in  my experience.

I have had several friends through the years that I have shared different portions of this journey with and it makes a real difference when people understand the difficulty of what you go through to get to the IVF point. So I guess that is why I want to share this, so that when you run into someone who has dealt with infertility and IVF that you can truly comprehend what that is beyond words like "expensive" and "injections" which was my basic understanding a few years ago.

When someone is considering IVF it is usually because they have just found out that there is no possible way for them to conceive normally or they have tried everything else and nothing has worked. We're in the lucky second category - the unexplained infertility. It is a confusing place to be, trying to figure out what you should do next. Trying to decide whether you should just keep waiting and hoping or if you should push the limit medically. In the past 2+ years we have tried clomid, IUI's, injectable meds, etc., I even ventured briefly into acupuncture - which is pretty radical for me. Getting to the IVF point took a lot of introspection, fasting and prayer. It took me a while to get there and so when I finally did get there it was a big deal.

On to what IVF looks like in layman's terms. For me it meant a month of birth control first with various doctors visit interspersed in there with some ultrasounds and blood draws. These aren't the on your belly ultrasounds, these are vaginal ultrasounds people, so a probe shoved and twisted around. Not something new to me in this journey but not something extremely pleasant. You also sign a bunch of consents - financial and otherwise. You have to basically consider all the potentialities, such as: what happens if you both die and you have frozen eggs, what happens if you divorce, do you want to consider this and this procedure, do you want to have such and such testing done, etc.

Then stop the birth control and on to real business. More ultrasounds and blood draws but add on the abdominal injection each night to stimulate the ovaries to produce lots of eggs. You take the stimulation drugs for a little over a week. Every other day checking the blood to make sure the dosage is right and the ultrasound to check how the follicles are growing. As you get closer you hit daily doctor visits. For me that was a week after stimulation drugs and this is also about when you start the antagonist drugs to keep your eggs from being released prematurely. So now we are at two abdominal injections each night all to be taken at the same time each night.

Then you hit the right follicle size and you have one last injection. A trigger shot that will tell your body to get ready to release the eggs. This is timed exactly 36 hours before the egg retrieval. Egg retrieval is basically a minor surgery where they go in vaginally and then put their needle through the vaginal wall to get to the ovaries and vacuum up your eggs on each side. You come in fasting and ready to get knocked out. Pretty soon you wake up and keep repeating "that was so fast" over and over to your spouse while apparently encouraging him to take pictures of you making silly faces to text to your family.

Recovery wasn't that rough but rougher than I was expecting so it seemed terrible. I was just real sore, stiff and in pain for 3-4 days. For some reason I had this idea that I would just be back to normal the next day. Um, yes, it is a minor surgery. They did poke their needle in my insides.

At this point in the journey it is mostly out of your hands and you wait to see how many eggs you got, how many fertilized and wait to see how they mature. Then on to the decisions of what to do with them. How many are we going to put in? Which ones can we freeze? Not all the embryos are even capable of being frozen because they don't meet the criteria. That is sort of a difficult thing as well as they are life at its very beginning. It feels very much like trying to play God and knowing you aren't qualified.

Then after 3-5 days of growing and maturing the embryos selected are placed inside the uterus using a speculum and catheter. To me this was a sacred experience as we were able to see the embryos under the microscope and then even see the little flash of light through the ultrasound as they were injected inside my uterus. It was completely amazing. It was precious to me to have that. So much of this process is invasive, uncomfortable or painful that I struggle sometimes to not feel bitter towards everyone that can get pregnant and enjoy getting pregnant (like being intimate and stuff). It is not enjoyable for us. It is stressful, it is expensive, it is confusing. But this one moment was precious and joyful with Ammón by my side holding my hand watching our hopeful little flash of light.

So now we wait and see. I hope I don't come off as bitter about this process above, I just wanted to spell it out with the hope that if someone ever opens up to you about considering or doing IVF that you can:
1. Appreciate that it takes courage to open up about a personal thing such as IVF
2. Understand the gravity of that decision

I hope that you will respond to that person with love and maybe just a simple statement like "Wow, that's amazing. How are you feeling about that?"