Friday, October 25, 2013

IVF Journey

Things are really going to start picking up for us and our very first (hopefully only) IVF round.  For those of you not familiar IVF stands for Invitro Fertilization. For those of you who do not know, me and John decided to try for a baby using IVF due to the fact that I am a carrier of the Fragile X gene. Read and learn about Fragile X here.With that comes a 50 percent chance that I could pass that gene on to another baby.  That percentage is just way to high for us. 

Lets see...we started this whole process back in May.  We met the doctor and nurses who I really love.  They are all so sweet and are always there to answer any questions I may have. Since we have chosen to do genetic testing we had to submit DNA samples to the lab doing my workup.  The labs job was to find where in my DNA the Fragile X gene is located.  That whole process took 16 weeks.  Now that that part is complete they will use that information to locate the Fragile X gene in the collected embryos. It's all very scientific but it's really up to God. There has been a ton of waiting involved in this process.  After having lots of blood drawn, tests, and two ultrasounds later, we are finally ready to move forward.  

Today I received my Fed Ex delivery of my fertility medications. For all the money that this medicine cost I expected a ginormous box. Not so much.  Here is the box I received this morning. 


There is medicine inside to cooler


So anyway, starting tomorrow (Saturday) morning I start my shots.  One shot in the morning and the second 12 hours later.  Then three days after that I start a second shot which is also twice a day. Here's the kicker...with the second med sometimes the syringe doesn't have all the medicine in it so I have to refill so that means some days I'll be giving myself 5 shots a day.  :-)  But really, even though I'm a bit nervous and am not looking forward to giving myself shots everyday it will all be worth it to end up with another precious little baby.  That is the goal here...to have a baby. 

I will be keeping y'all updated but really I'm asking for prayer.  Prayers that we get pregnant the first time around.  That all goes as smoothly as possible. Did we ever think that we would have to go through all of this to have a baby..? No, but we do and we're confident that God has a plan and will bless us with another bundle of joy.