Our Itinerary

*Disclaimer - Often times on this blog I may use words like Aunt Flow (period), uterus, vagina, ejaculate, etc.  If these words make you squeamish I suggest you stop following my blog and grow up. :)

Many of you may be wondering when we will begin all the madness.  At first J & I were not going to disclose this information because we did not want there to be pressure in the event that things do not work out as we hope.  But since our schedule is a little different then we originally thought, we have decided that we are going to share half of it with you.

Confused?

Well, let me explain....

After doing my research on our facilities outcomes, there were a couple of percentages that J & I took special note of.  The first one is that SRM has a 50% rate of success rate with doing an embryo transfer 3-5 days after the egg retrieval (I'll get more into the science stuff of the embryo in a later post) on the very first try.  So 50%...pretty good, right?  Especially considering that any given "healthy" female only has about a 7-15% chance of getting pregnant on any given month anyway.  Well as I continued to read, the success rate went up to 65% chance with those that did genetic testing (aka; PGS) on their embryos before transfer (I'll also explain genetic testing in a later post).  And reading even further into the report, SRM's statistics showed that cases that did  IVF with PGS and then froze all of their embryos in order to do the transfer several weeks later had a 75% chance of success on the first try.  WOW!  This time "off" allows the female body to regulate after all the IVF meds and return to it's normal state.

Soooo...J&I decided that we are definitely doing PGS, which means that we will be doing the actual embryo transfer several weeks/months later.

It is at this point in our journey that we will not be sharing any details.

Ok, enough already, right?

When is the BIG SHOW starting?

Well right now I am waiting for Aunt Flow to arrive, and then I will begin 

Birth Control NEXT Friday (Aug 15th).

Yes, you heard me right...Birth Control.

Believe me, this is the weirdest thing to wrap my head around, too.  Why the heck is a woman who cannot conceive naturally anyway, going on birth control?  Well this is just a normal part of the process with most  IVF cycles.  The doctors use it to suppress the ovaries and not allow any follicles to form at all during this time.  Then when the actual stimulation meds are started, the hope is that the meds work to get all of the follicles to grow at the same rate.

Not sure about how all this works?
 Well I think it's probably best to just watch the video below.
It would probably get really confusing if I tried to explain it all.

The only difference is that with IVF, the goal is to get several follicles to grow and keep growing in order to produce several mature eggs.  On average, women during this process will have 5-14 follicles which in turn produce 4-13 mature eggs.  It is possible to overstimulate the ovaries and get upwards of 20-35 follicles and LOTS of mature eggs, but this could lead to a severe complication known as ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).  If you really want to know more about this click HERE, but I advise not to because it can be some pretty scary stuff.  To prevent this from happening, doctors are monitoring blood levels and ultrasound images every other day once stimulation injections have started and take necessary precautions to prevent a woman from developing OHSS. 
Ok, no more tangets.  I'll go more into the steps in a later post.

So, like I said...I start birth control in 5 days.  On Aug 21st, I have to take an injection class.  I know, yet another crazy hoop to jump through even though I probably can give the injection in my sleep.  ;)
On Sept 3rd, I have a suppression check where they look at my ovaries and make sure they are nice and quiet with no cysts (keeping my fingers crossed for this one as I have a
significant history with cyst issues).
And then I start the IVF Injections on Septemeber 7th!
I will be taking Menopur & Follistim to stimulate follicle growth.
Ganirelix to stage off ovulation until the follicles are at a certain size.
And then triggering with hCG.  This is essentially like hitting the "go" button for the eggs to be released from the follicles.  Ovulation generally happens 40 hrs after the trigger shot is given, however, the doctors want to get the mature eggs out of the follicles right before they are released which is why egg retrieval happnes 35-36 hrs after the trigger shot.

Here is my complete IVF schedule (click to enlarge)

We are so excited to get started.  Yet it still seem SO far away!  Luckily we have a VERY busy schedule up until this time, so hopefully the wait will go fast.