Our first actual IVF appt.

Long post warning!!

We had our first IVF appointment today!! It was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. They did our initial prescreening bloodwork and they took 6 vials from me!! I'm kinda surprised I didn't get a little light headed. Jared also had blood drawn but I don't think it was quite as many vials. They are testing both of us for HIV, Hepatitis, and a bunch of other diseases. After that, Jared went to do his semen analysis while I got an ultrasound. The ultrasound lady told me that I "passed with flying colors". Even though we are still quite a ways away from the actual IVF, it was nice to have a positive report already.

Next, we both sat down with the nurse who gave me my calendar. I will start birth control pills tonight and will continue through the middle of March. I am at work and left the calendar in my car so I am doing the dates by memory so they might be a little off. Since I am overdue for my annual exam, I will be going to a local OBGYN to have that updated on Monday. I'm kinda excited about that because I wanted to switch doctors anyway in the chance that this works because my friend used this guy for the birth of her second child and LOVED him. This gives me an opportunity to meet him and check him out! I will go back to the RE on Feb. 17th to do a saline sonogram of my uterus to check for polyps or anything else that might prevent an embryo from sticking. They will also do my mock transfer on that day. This will give my RE and idea of the position of my uterus and give him a "practice round" before the actual transfer of embryos. Basically, he will be putting the catheter in and pretending to place the embryos into my uterus.

I will start the Lupron injections around the second week of March. These basically trick my body into thinking I don't have enough follicles. Then I go back in towards the middle of March and if all looks good, I will start the Follistim and Menopur to stimulate the growth of my follicles and prevent me from ovulating early. From this point, I will stim and be monitored until the follicles are ready and we have a tentative retrieval scheduled for March 27th and the transfer 5 days after!!

Whew that was a lot! And I felt overwhelmed after leaving the RE's office too. This is the first time that I told Jared, "I'm nervous." We pay for certain things at different times throughout the cycle and today's total was $2,800! I am 1,000% positive that I won't give a damn how much this cost us if the end result is a baby in our arms, but what if that's not the end result?