I had no idea…

Oh boy. Oh wow. Oh man. There is so much that goes into IVF that I had no clue about. At all… It all makes sense & I understand why they do it, I guess I just wasn’t expecting all of this. These past two weeks have been filled with so many emotions & feeling overwhelmed.

First things first, I had no idea we would receive a packet of 20+ consent forms to read & sign & have notarized. Seeing them, it makes sense. But woah. The forms cover a variety of topics from freezing your eggs, sperm, & embryos {for the low, low price of $1,000/year — not covered by insurance — I hope you can sense my sarcasm}, to if you want to use ICSI to help fertilize the eggs (yep, had no idea what this was – but I’ll tell you about it later), to what we would decide to do if we had frozen eggs/sperm/embryos & one of us passed away. That blew my mind. But I do understand why they need to ask. Would it be okay for my husband (if I passed away) to use our embryos with someone else?! You’re joking right?! But again, for legal reasons, it makes sense that they have to ask. And would Matt be okay if I used our embryos (if he passed away) to conceive a baby?

And then, we have ICSI. ICSI stands for intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection. So, normally with IVF, the retrieved eggs & sperm are put into a dish together and you hope & pray that most of them fertilize. If you decide to use ICSI, for an additional $1,000 — the doctor will actually inject the eggs with the sperm in order to fertilize the eggs. It greatly increases your chances of the eggs fertilizing, especially if there is male infertility involved. While we don’t have that issue, it still had me questioning if we should do it or now — but, it looks like to better our chances we are going to use ICSI with IVF. ICSI (which you can learn more about here) gives you hope/more assurance that you will have fertilized eggs in case they don’t fertilize in the dish. I’ve read all kinds of articles & blogs the past couple weeks about ICSI to help guide us in our decision. The positives. The negatives. Trying to learn as much as possible. My clinic sent us a small fact sheet about ICSI, but I wanted to learn more & I’m glad I did. 🙂

I had my hysteroscopy on Tuesday AM. There was minor discomfort and it was done fairly quickly. However, my RE did see that I had polyps in my uterus and I was scheduled for D&C surgery almost immediately to have the polyps removed. Thankfully, I was already scheduled off from work for vacation to celebrate our two year wedding anniversary. Only now, we would be canceling our couples massages and getting up bright & early the next day to have surgery. I would be put under and wouldn’t feel a thing and it would be quick. From the time I left the recovery room to when I got back to the recovery room, it was only 26 minutes. Yes, I made my husband time it. Haha. Upon waking up, I was crampy & dizzy. A little weak. Which continued throughout the day. Today, I’m feeling good! Only minor cramping here & there, but nothing major. It would be unlikely for an embryo to attach if I had polyps so I’m thankful we got them out. 🙂

All my meds should arrive tomorrow and I “can’t wait” to see all of them. Overwhelming to say the least. Next step is we go for my baseline (ultrasound + blood) on 10/31. We will also turn in our consent forms and learn about injecting all of my medicine that will start on 11/1.

On a side note, I want to give props to my wonderful husband. These past two days weren’t what we were expecting them to be, but he did an amazing job taking care of me. He always does. I absolutely adore him and am so thankful to have him as my husband. He takes such good care of me and is always making sure that I am okay. He is going to be an AMAZING father one day, and I can’t wait to see that.

Love to you all. XO. & as always, thank you for following us on our journey to three<3