DocuSigning Their Lives Away

This morning, I got an email with a DocuSign packet about 30 pages long.

You know, the usual:

• Yes, I know what IVF is
• Yes, I know what you're going to do to me
• Yes, I know that it might not work
• Yes, I'm aware of alllll of the reasons it might not work
• Yes, I know there might be multiples
• Yes, I know progesterone-in-oil must go in the butt.
• Yes, I know there are risks
• No, we don't want genetic testing
• Yes, we want to freeze remaining embryos
• In the event of one or both our deaths, the embryos will go to.... wait. What?

Yes. There is a section where you decide what will happen to your embryos in the event of:

• One or both our deaths or incapacitation
• Separation or Divorce
• Not using all available embryos
• Change in Wife's physical condition which will render her incapable of carrying a pregnancy to term
• Breech of contract

I was just initialing my whole way through there until I got to that part. There's all kinds of things you can to do your embryos - transfer "custody" of embryos to a third party agent, transfer custody to a needful married couple, transfer custody for disposal, transfer custody to medical research, or grant sole custody to one or the other.

We're talking about itty bitty blastocyst babies here.

I promptly text Jeff and said, "Uh, hey, this is kinda heavy I think Imma wait til you get home tonight, mkay?"

Yep. Just signing the lives away of our yet-uncreated children.

That's a weird thought.

Hallmark Behaviors of an Infertile Myrtle

Today we went into the doctor to do our infections disease blood tests (don't worry guys, standard operating procedure for every patient. Lets them know if any extra precautions need to be taken and, if there were any present, would require a slightly more cautious method of cry-storage of all remaining embryos.).

After both of us getting a few vials drawn, we went to meet with the accounting lady and sign the biggest check we've ever written.

The strangest thing happened - I didn't even blink writing that check (or the separate check for the anesthesiologist). I'm just so. stinking. excited. to be making progress. A little scared too, maybe, but mostly really excited.

It got me thinking - infertile chicks are weird. We do some weird stuff. We have some weird behaviors and thinking patterns. So if you know one, or you are one, take a minute to appreciate this:


HALLMARK BEHAVIORS OF INFERTILE FEMALES:

• You have bought enough pregnancy tests in your life to stock a Walgreens for the duration of its useful life
• You knew none of them would be positive

• You could host a medically accurate seminar on reproductive function, lack thereof, and appropriate medical intervention for any number of issues- without spending a day of your life in medical school.
• When dropping your pants for a stranger was once traumatic, now you can't get your panties off fast enough.
•  You have developed a coping behavior so distracting you don't even notice when they finish drawing your blood (thank you, Insta).
• Oversharing? What's that? 
• You acquire the unique ability to guess who among your friends and associates is within days of announcing a pregnancy.
• You pay more money for fertility treatment than you've paid for a home, a vehicle, or any other typical life expense and you don't even care.

IVF Take 1 Protocol

We (finally) got our protocol from the nurse. The hoops she had to jump through to get records from our previous doctor were unbelievable and it took a solid week and a half..but they got there.

It gave them enough information to put together our protocol for the month and barring the addition of ICSI - or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (YOU GUYS THIS IS WHERE IT GETS GRAPHIC FOR A MINUTE) which is bypassing normal fertilization by choosing the very best swimmers and injecting them right into the egg - no plans have changed.

My mom is going to be so proud of all the big medical words I've been learning from this - with proper pronunciation and everything.

This Monday, we're going in for a quick blood draw to complete the standard and required tests for infectious diseases, Saturday is our IVF class where they tell you what's about to happen to you, how to give yourself shots, how not to be a crazy broad, etc. etc. and then we will jump right in.

It goes little something like this:

CD3:
Monitoring Appt - CD3 - suppression check (ultrasound and blood draw, review injection mixes and dosages)
Start Stimming - FSH injections, low dose HCG injections

CD6:
Monitoring - blood draw only - continue stimming injections

CD9:
Monitoring appt - blood draw and ultrasound

CD12:
Monitoring appt - blood draw and ultrasound
Estimated start date of antagonist (cetrotide, ganirelix) - they are waiting to see the largest follicle hit 14-15mm

CD13
Expected monitoring appt - blood draw and ultrasound

CD14:
Expected monitoring appt - blood draw and ultrasound

CD14:
Expected date of "trigger shot" - which is high does of the HCG hormone that will trigger ovulation
Stop FSH, HCG, Antagonist injections

CD16:
Expected date of egg retrieval (in which they knock you out and retrieve all of your follicles via large needle.) I'm super looking forward to this.
ALSO: ICSI date- in which our tiny embryos are created.

CD18:
Start progesterone-in-oil injections. These will go in my backside. Good thing I have plenty of real estate back there 'cause I hear these ones bruise and leave welts.

CD21:
Expected date of embryo transfer, in which we will transfer either 1 or 2 embryos that have hopefully reached "blastocyst" stage and are the highest grade possible. If we have any left over, we will freeze for a frozen cycle - please pray we don't need this - or any future attempts at having children.

The dreaded "two week wait" commences and we will know sometime in early March if it was successful.

I am excited beyond words.

IVF Take 1: Pending February 2016

We got in to see our new RE here in Sandy, UT. I was a ball of nerves most of last night and all morning - I'm not sure why, probably something to do with getting naked for yet ANOTHER person I don't know - this time a dude - and desperately not wanting things to fall through again.

I will start off by saying this Dr's office is AMAZING. We didn't wait longer than 5 minutes to be seen and he spent 2 hours with us reviewing our case, previous treatment, and planning ahead.

He suggested trying IUI again - but from our previous experience of having to cancel not one but two IUI cycles, I had no interest in trying a third or fourth or fifth time at just 10-20% chance of success each time. We opted to go straight to IVF as planned with our last doctor.

Fortunately, there is a trial ending this month that would allow us to do PGD or preimplantation genetic diagnosis on our embryos for FREE. Is that good luck or what? So, the plan is to begin birth control this week and start stimming the early part of February, which will make possible a March transfer. We could theoretically have a baby by the end of 2016!

We'd be following either a moderate or normal stimulation process, depending on how many eggs we're looking to harvest and freeze. Because we're only planning on 2 children at this point, I don't see a reason to have an enormous quantity of embryos in storage so we'll see what happens.

Also, it was AMAZINGLY awesome to only have a $30 copay for the consult, as well as an ultrasound, rather than the $350+ price tag we've had at our previous doctors for that same service.

Other blessings: This cycle, even at its highest cost, will be 40-50% less expensive than it would have been in Texas. Happy side effect of having awesome insurance and more than 2 practicing reproductive endocrinologists in your town.

We're hopeful and optimistic that 3rd doc's the charm.

A beginning.

I started this blog specifically to keep a journal of our IVF experience. I don't want this on our other blog - the one that's been neglected for years - because I want this to be a separate part of our lives.

I also wanted to put this out there for any other friends or strangers who might be wondering where all the others like them are.

Being childless Mormons, I am constantly searching for other people like us - married a while, no children, no prospect of having children naturally - and so far, everybody can fit on one hand!

So for those of you who feel like unicorns, let me fill you in.

We've been married for five and a half years and trying to have children for nearly three of them.

The first year, in 2013, we were all set and just certain that a positive pregnancy test was just around the corner. Around the 6 month mark, with no luck, I was antsy and probably spent what could have been a retirement fund on pregnancy tests and the concern was mounting.

Almost at the year mark, I knew something was wrong. Without getting into the details, my body wasn't functioning properly and after a fair (and by fair I mean countless hours and days and weeks) of research, I was pretty sure I had PCOS. A doctor's visit and ultrasound confirmed - PCOS, and I still remember hearing the words: "It's going to be extremely difficult for you to get pregnant."

A few months later, we started treatment with our first RE. She reaffirmed the diagnosis of PCOS and steered us toward an IUI cycle with Clomid and Gonal-F. On minimal doses of both of these medications, we had to cancel the cycle due to 9 nearly mature follicles. Read: putting Octo-mom to shame. With many tears and out a few thousand dollars, we opted not to go back for a number of reasons to that doctor.

The next May, we met our new doctor who's praises I can't sing highly enough. After many bloodtests and observation, she diagnosed hypothalamic amenorrhea in conjunction with lean PCOS. She wanted to try another IUI but this time with Femara in hopes of stimulating less follicles, and after an extended 3 weeks - I repeat, 3 WEEKS - of stimming, we had to cancel for the same reason.

She kindly explained that we were one of 2 cases she had ever seen of this combined diagnosis and while she would like to try a 3rd IUI, there was no reason beyond faith and hope to expect it to turn out differently and strongly recommend we consider IVF.

In my heart of hearts, I knew she was right and that was what we would need to do. We put a brief 3 month hold to get our minds and finances in order to proceed.

In that time, we got a job offer that brought us back to our home state of Utah and are now preparing to meeting with our 3rd RE to finally do IVF.