The Consult

We had our consultation with Dr. Gertcheff, our IVF doctor last Monday! We love her and we feel very confident being under her care. The appointment itself was pretty uneventful. We just discussed the IVF procedure in depth and went over the risks that are associated with this invasive procedure. We also talked about how many embryo's we should transfer and when we should start IVF.... This has been weighing heavily on my mind since. Originally, we thought we would transfer two embryo's because that seems to be the norm and the chances of it being successful are higher if you transfer two. However, after talking with our doctor she really encouraged us to just transferring one embryo for the reason being of the risk of twins or triplets. The thought of that scares me with my little body. eek. So we have a pretty big decision to make...

Which brings me to our next question, when we will start the IVF process. We have spent the last week praying fervently and really trying to figure out what would be best in our situation. As of right now we are thinking we start when my next cycle starts! Which should be in about a week or so. The entire IVF process takes about 6 weeks from start to finish. Which means on the first day of my next umm... ahem...period (awkward saying that in public) I will start birth control. This seemed weird to me at first because we trying to get pregnant, not prevent pregnancy? hello! But my doctor explained that research has found that IVF is most successful after stopping birth control. So back to the first day of my cycle, I will start birth control and will be on it for a few weeks until my doctor tells me to stop it. Once I stop the birth control I will start some very, very intense medications. Like $6,000 worth of medications. The purpose of these medication's are to trick my body into producing multiple eggs, rather than the normal 1 egg a woman produces a month. My eggs will be monitored by by ultrasound during this process to make sure I don't hyper stimulate and produce too many eggs. My doctors goal is about 15 eggs. Once these eggs look mature via ultrasound I will go in for surgery. This surgery entails me being put under general anesthesia and then the extraction of those eggs I have produced. Those eggs will then be fertilized in a lab and monitored for the next 5 days by an embryologist, and the best quality eggs will be transferred back inside of my uterus. We will then hope and pray that those embryos/embryo will stick and grow into a healthy baby. 12 days after the transfer of the embryos/embryo we will be able to take a pregnancy test.