A Fresh Start: Cycle Number 1

The husband's process:
Take an antibiotic for about a week, come in and leave a back up deposit.
Take one more pill, leave a deposit on the day of the egg retrieval.
Wash your hands and pat yourself on the back.


My process:
If you haven't every been through infertility treatments or are just starting out, the one thing to prepare yourself for is a lot of shots, a lot blood draws, and more shots. So, if you have any type of needle phobia, you'll have to get over it quick. Our first cycle we started with lupron and menopure, two subcutaneous injections (belly shots) that basically stimulate your egg growth and keep you from releasing them. Along with the shots, they had me take a general antibiotic, to keep my body as healthy as possible, baby aspirin to keep my blood thin, and a prenatal vitamin in preparation for pregnancy. For the first few weeks, we did injections almost daily and then went in for blood work and ultra sounds at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. With the ultrasounds they look at your ovaries and your eggs and measure them to see if they've matured and are ready to be released. Towards the end you're not really allowed to do much because your ovaries are super heavy and they don't want you to flip them or cause any other problems. After around a month of stimulating and growing, we were ready for the egg retrieval though!
The egg retrieval is the only surgical part of IVF. Everything else is pretty simple and not too uncomfortable. I had only been put under once before when I had my wisdom teeth taken out in high school. I have no fear of anesthesia, but when I woke up from having my teeth removed my mom told me there was a lot of crying and concern about people stealing my teeth, so I thought I should prepare James for that. My egg retrieval went very well though and there was minimal crying after coming out of anesthesia. They were able to retrieve 21 eggs, 19 of them fertilized, and 12 of them divided into successful blasts (day 5 embryos). We were so excited for our embryo transfer a few days later.
The transfer is a simple process. They do an ultrasound to decide where to place the eggs in your uterus and then just push them in there with a catheter. Then you lay there for about a half hour to let gravity help out a bit (see I wasn't totally crazy) and you're on your way. For the next three days you do nothing but sit on the couch and make people wait on you. We had a mobster movie marathon ended up only consisting of Scarface since we couldn't find The Godfather anywhere. So instead I watched Twilight (really wishing I would have watched something else) and my G-ma joined me for Somewhere in Time.
Then we waited. Ten days. What seemed like the ten longest days of my life.
Beta test (pregnancy test): Negative.