Moving Along

Well, I have just been given permission to move to stage 3 of the IVF process. Yea, no more Beyaz! I had to go see my doctor today for another sonogram and bloodwork to check my estrogen level. Apparently, one of the medications I have been on is supposed to block the signals from my brain that would normally be stimulating my ovaries. Therefore, the sonogram today was to see if the drug was doing the job and keeping my ovaries nice and quiet. By blocking the signals from the brain and subsequently having 'quiet' ovaries, this should yield a very low estrogen level in my blood. One on my protocol cannot move forward in the IVF process if you have a cyst on your ovaries from the medication not doing its job or if your estrogen level is above 60. I had no cysts on my ovaries this morning and my estrogen came back at 6. So I got the green light to start my medications this Saturday to stimulate those ovaries and grow those little eggs.

 I will do this for anywhere from 7-14 days, it depends on my individual response to the drugs. After the doctor thinks I have matured my eggs, they will go in and retrieve all the eggs from my ovaries. The idea of how they do this does not thrill me, but I will be asleep, so I guess I shouldn't worry too much. They will get to the ovaries and eggs by placing a long needle into the vaginal cavity along with an ultrasound probe for guidance and then puncture through the vaginal wall and then move on to each ovary and suck each egg from the surface of the ovary through the needle tip. The eggs will then be handed off the the embryologist for assessment, and, later, fertilization in the lab. While I'm having this lovely procedure done and enjoying some ZZ's, Kevin will have to be giving his 'sample' to give to the embryologist.

 The embryologist will then introduce the sperm to the healthy-looking eggs--and lets hope the sperm get the job done. The embryologist will then allow all of the eggs that fertilize, now embryos, to continue to grow and go through natural cell divisions for 5 days. I am told I will be getting a phone call from the embryologist every day to let us know how our embryos are coming along. Embryos are graded on a scale in order to assess strength, health, and viability. So, obvioulsly, they are looking for the best, APlus embryos to transfer into my uterus, which will give us better odds that we will end up with a healthy baby at the end of all of this.  There is always a risk there will not be any 'quality' embryos to transfer, resulting in no baby, but there is also a chance there are many 'quality' embryos. My doc will only transfer 2 top quality embryos, as to the minimize the risk of becoming octo-Mom.  The rest we will choose to freeze and use at a later time--my doc recommends using them within the next 2 years.

So we're finally moving in to the 'fun' part of this process. I am ready to get the next four weeks over with. But I' so glad we are moving along!