5 miles in on a 10 mile journey

On the journey that is IVF, we are about 5 miles in on a 10 mile journey. I'm thankful that things are about to speed up! I've done a little over a month stint of birth control. Done with that, thank goodness! I started Lupron about a week ago, and now got to drop the dose down. Friday we start our Follistim injections and it's a speeding train from there!


Let's see, some of you are reading that like--"OMG what's with the birth control? And what in the heck is Lupron and Follistim?" I'm glad you asked! We were on birth control to suppress my ovaries from producing eggs. It turns out that if you suppress your ovaries the month before IVF, you have a better chance to produce more eggs. Who knew?! The Lupron is a medicine that keeps me from ovulating prior to egg retrieval. It's basically a medicine that tricks your brain into thinking it still needs time to mature those eggs. Follistim is a hormone medicine. Your body actually produces the hormone that makes up Follistim. It is a hormone that tells your ovaries to grow and mature the eggs. For me, my body doesn't produce enough of that to ovulate regularly, so I need a boost. Plus I will take more than your body would naturally produce so that I can produce more eggs. My doctor calls it "rocket fuel"!


Outside of adding Lupron to the mix, this round is no different (medicine regimen wise) than our previous cycles when we did IUI. This is the fun stage! You go in every 2-3 days and they do an ultrasound and you actually get to see all the follicles growing and developing! And this ride goes quick! It will only take about 7-9 days for the follicles to grow and have mature eggs in them to retrieve.


Today we went in and signed all of our many consents for the procedure. It is amazing how many things you have to sign to do one procedure. Each little step has it's own signature! There's one for stimulating your ovaries and the egg retrieval. There's one for fertilization of the egg with your hubby's sperm. There's one for cryopreservation of any embryos that you don't transfer. Within all those, there are all these places you have to initial for the details of the procedure and the what if's. It's amazing the many creative ways and reasons the law has come up with for you to sign things!


I can't believe we're about 2 weeks away from the big day(s)! In some ways it feels like this whole process has taken f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I guess though if you look at the whole scheme of life, what's 2 years in the rest of one's life! Here's to a bouncing baby boy or girl!