Invetrofertilization-IVF

We have been through it all trying to help our family grow!!. Miscarriages, ectopics, adoption, insemination, surgeries (too many to count), drugs, and just plain old fashion unexplained, doc scratching his head, infertility.
We took the final step starting in Sept '08. We decided what the heck, lets give invetro (IVF) a try. So what if we can't afford it. So what if you have to inject yourself w/ a needle up to 3X a day. So what if emotionally you are what some consider crazy, if we don't try now, we will always regret it. Lola is the one bright light in this whole process. If we hadn't been through all these trials and tests. We would have never found Lola Belle. She is the reason we try again to have a baby. I can't explain the heart ache that is involved w/ not being able to provide your daughter w/ a sibling. It's almost too much to handle at times. Making you feel like a failure at times. But I know there has got to be a reason for this trial.
As I said, we started the process in Sept, by taking the birth control pill. Lola was so cute about making sure I would take my pill so the doctors could get me pregnant. The irony is that it was the birth control pill. Something I have not had to take or worry about my entire marriage. However it is a necessary step in the IVF process. Which is broken down into 3main steps:
Step 1: hyper ovulation Step2: Egg harvest/fertilization and Step3: Embryo transfer.

Step 1: You are on birth control pill for 4-6 weeks prior to the whole process due to making sure that the doctors are completely in charge of your body, they are telling your body what to do and when to do it. One week before you finish taking the BC pills, you begin taking an injection called Lupron. This drug tells your body, "Do Not ovulate!". I took these injections for a couple of weeks. Slowly decreasing it as you add other medications that tell your ovaries,"Make lots and lots of follicles, I know you are used to only making one every other month, but right now you are the mother hen, and you are to produce follicles."
Usually, your ovaries are about the size of an almond or a little smaller. During this process, your ovaries can become as big as basketballs, though this is not recommended they keep close tabs on you w/ ultrasounds. It is uncomfortable for the most part but not enough to make you cry like a baby or anything.
Step 2: Egg Harvest- I drove up to the Univ. of Utah 3days in a row getting ultrasounds seeing if there was enough follicles to be able to harvest. If there is less than 6 follicles they will not harvest and take you through another drug cycle as in step 1. Which the drugs are $1,500. So you don't want to throw that away. When it came time for me to harvest, I had 11 follicles. Not all follicles have an egg in them. So I ended up w/ 8 eggs. the process of harvesting the eggs, is actually not painful b/c they put you under conscious sedation. Otherwise, it wouldn't be all that fun. You see, they take a needle, they insert it through your vagina into the uterus, from there they push the needle out the side wall of the uterus, into the wall of the ovary. They then, aspirate the follicles into the needle.They immediately let the sperm swim w/ the eggs, However, in our situation, the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg. So it had to be injected (lazy little buggers) into the egg. Out of the 8 eggs that were fertilized, 7 were dividing to becoming a embryo!! Great news!!

Step3: Four days later on Oct 29 return to the U to "transfer the embryo". They have what they call two good looking embryos that are dividing at a healthy rate. there is one more embryo that is behind in division but it is still hanging in there. The rest have died. We decided to insert the 2 good looking ones. and hope that we could freeze the other sole survivor. We got a call that night however that the egg had stopped dividing and it would not be able to make it through the freezing process. Since it is $1000 dollars just for freezer rental space, we decided to take the doc's advice and not freeze it.
That was actually really hard news to take. Knowing we didn't have any more tries left in us. This was it. It has to work.
I kind of took the news as if morning for the loss of somebody, which was an interesting reaction that i didn't really expect to have.
On Nov 10 we went in for a blood test to check for the HCG hormone that is only present during pregnancy. They look for a number over 100. After a long couple of hours of waiting the nurse finally called us w/ numbing news. YOU ARE PREGNANT!!.
It is still really early and we go in for an ultrasound in a couple weeks, but we are pregnant. Lola gets to be a big sister!! She will be an expert at it!! already in all the stores we go in, Lola says "hey mom can we get this for my little sister, and my little brother."
We still need a lot of prayers, and lots of answers to prayer, but we are so grateful to be here right now.