IVF Orientation

Today was our IVF orientation for the June/July cycle at Walter Reed/Bethesda. Overall it went well. At first I felt as if I left with more questions than I came in with but I hope I've figured it all out now...at least the parts I can figure out. Baselines run from June 20th to July 20th. Based on my cycles I will be at the very end of the cycle and one of the last ones to actually start the whole process. Right now we need to finish up our final testing (just a couple of things left) get our power of attorney done and send all of that info in. Once we do that we do what the  military is famous for making people do.....wait.

Once we get the call that we have a baseline appointment we can make more set plans on when things will happen. So far we know that we will go for the baseline and be able to go home for about a week. Then we come back and at that point Patrick may be staying here and my mom coming with me...we're just not sure yet. Addison will be in summer school and someone has to be here with him and someone has to be at the appointments with me. I will end up staying at Bethesda or in the area for about two weeks. The first week will be daily ultrasounds, injections, blood work, etc. The second week will be the egg retrieval and transfer. If things go the way they look like they might go then our egg retrieval and transfer will be during the week that Addison's mom has asked to take him on vacation. Which works out perfect for us.

It all sounds so simple and in the end the idea is we walk away pregnant. After listening to everything today it is also very scary. A lot about all of this is unknown. I've never had the injections before. I have no idea how my body will react. If there are too many eggs and meds aren't adjusted enough they could end up cancelling the cycle for me. Or if they don't work at all and there aren't enough eggs. Or we get all the way to the transfer and none of them made it to day 5. And my biggest fear of all....we make it through all of it and walk away not pregnant. I know that is a HUGE risk that we are taking by choosing to do IVF. When the doctor said that about 50% of the women in any given cycle would end up pregnant I looked around the room and thought...only about half of us in here will walk away with what we came here to achieve. I thought for sure we would be the youngest couple there...maybe we were and maybe not. Most everyone there looked pretty young and the younger you are the higher the success rate. So as I'm looking around I feel that just about everyone in there has about an equal chance of success. Who will be the ones to walk away in tears? Will it be us?

Near the end we had to make a decision if we wanted to freeze our left over embryos if there are any. Like Patrick said its like buying a $500 lottery ticket. It's roughly $500 to freeze and store for a year. The next cycle we could do is in October. To thaw and transfer it costs about $2500 and for a full ICSI IVF cycle it's about $6000. Not including costs to travel and hotels. So if this works the first time we have spent $500 to freeze and store eggs that we may not use. If it doesn't work we've saved a couple thousand dollars to not do the complete IVF all over again. We chose to freeze. We can only store them at Bethesda for as long as Patrick's in the military once he gets out then we will need to have them transferred to another facility and either continue to save them or donate them (or trash them which the idea of that really kinda bothers me). Storage outside of the military will cost significantly more I'm sure.

Lots of decisions made and money spent today...let's hope for the best and that this all works out for us.