Apparently I am what you call a "Drive By Blogger". I post randomly, and then post for a bit and then disappear. I think this might be the time that I keep it up.
Ryan and I have started our fertility journey at Olive, I went for testing that I wouldn't wish upon anyone. HSG I am looking at you! I have had more blood tests than an olympic athlete. I have been poked and prodded all while being told that there is nothing wrong with me. Take that Dr. Tregoning.
The thing about there being nothing wrong with either of us is very frustrating. Where is our baby????
Moving on, so after being poked and prodded like some cow at market we started a series of three IUI cycles. For those of you who are not fertility lingo experts, that is when you take a bunch of meds, then your partner/donor spanks it into a cup. They "wash" the sample with magical baby dust and then shoot it into you using the cervical catheter that I have come to be on a first name basis with. As you can imagine to our delight and that of our bank account none of those cycles took. Unless you count the first one where I had a chemical pregnancy (a pregnancy that happens and then doesn't take). The highlight of doing those cycles was when I had to drive 5 hours round trip to get Ryan as he was working out of town in the middle of the cycle. I really thought that was the one that would have taken......
So after meeting back with the doctors we decided that IVF is the route to take. We had a trip back to Ontario this summer and then drove out to Nova Scotia/Cape Breton for 2 weeks which is really another blog post in itself. Anyway we agreed that when we got back we would start the IVF treatment.
One of the fun facts about being infertile in BC is that nothing is covered. In some provinces they cover a few rounds of IVF, not in good ol' BC though. I am so lucky to have benefits that cover the medication at least.
September 8th was our orientation. Which I expected almost camp like counsellors with clipboards and fun stations to visit. That was not the case at all. We were in a room with a nurse for about 2 1/2 hours, less the time we got to spend with the lovely finance lady. We had to sign a waiver that was about 25 pages, typical things like you can get this or that. Ovarian fluid can leak into your lungs, if you break up we destroy your embryos, typical contracts that you sign. During this magical orientation I also learned how to inject myself with all of the wonder drugs that would soon be in my possession. I was given a prescription, told I cannot work out once I start the injections, and then the finance lady came in. I am pretty sure that this woman should sell cars. The manner in how she went through what was due and when, plus all of the options, we could have driven away in a 2 door coupe. We chose to do CCS/IVF. This is where they screen the embryos for extra/missing chromosomes. We are 36/38 and at this point we might only ever have one child so why not get the best shot at having an embryo that will take. This by the way costs $14,000 which is due before you start injections. Regular IVF is $7,800 but go big or go home right?!
I should stop here and say that the staff of Olive are amazing! Jennifer whom schedules appointments, all of the nurses (Tammy, Ana, Jennifer), and the guy who takes my blood that I have no idea what his name is. Oh I should also mention here that my Dr. got pregnant during our IUI cycles and is now on maternity leave......that's right. However all of the Drs. there are amazing.
How we started our IVF cycle was that I had to go for blood tests, once I had my LH surge then I started taking Estradiol twice a day. During one of my blood tests they decided that my thyroid is low and that I need to start a low dosage of Synthyroid. I get to wake up at 5:00am to take that as I cannot have had dairy within 4 hours of taking it. So I take that pill at 5:00am, then I was taking my first Estradiol at 9:00am along with 6 vitamins. Then at 9:00pm I took my other Estradiol. This went on until I choked on pills and died, now I am a ghost writing this blog. Or this went on until I got my period and then started injections.
For those of you who don't know me, which is no one since no one reads this blog. I am worst case scenario. I got to start my injections on the day that we had hockey tickets in the evening. Now it would have been great to have at least one day of injections under my belt, but who needs practice. Oh and hooray for our orientation being over a month ago and so clearly I remembered all of the steps.
I started my injections at 10:00am on Saturday after I got back from my Barre Fitness class in Port Moody. Which by the way if you want to get into shape in the best environment ever and have a great group of instructors then go there!!! My 1st injection is me mixing saline with Menopur powder and sucking it into a syringe and then putting the needle on and pinching my fat tummy and injecting. I have found that lying down on my back works the best for me at this point. My 2nd injection (Puregon) needs to be kept refrigerated and you put into a pen and then screw the needle on top and then dial to the amount that you want and press down. This is not as much fun, but it was a hoot to do in the parking lot of Rogers Arena after the Canucks game on Saturday. Having a Jeep was a bonus as you are lifted up, but not that lifted. I feel like people just felt like going on a nice rainy stroll of that parking lot that evening as there were way too many people around in that parking lot. I felt like I was in the Walking Dead and the Wolves had set a trap.
Today I went for my first blood test. Apparently my levels are good, so good that I was rewarded with taking a new medication. So now in the morning I take Menopur in one needle, then Orgalutran in another needle. Then at night I take Puregon. I continue this fun until Friday when I have another blood test, and an ultrasound because who doesn't love those.
My tummy is starting to get some nice bruising at this point, so that is nice. Oh and I forgot to mention that my drugs for about 1/3 of them were $3,600 which luckily was covered by my benefits.
I am not the first person to go through this, especially with the stats as 1 in 6, and I won't be the last. The reason that I am sharing this journey is because this is way too taboo of a subject. So what if you need a little help getting pregnant. There is nothing to be ashamed of.
This is a picture of my Menopur injections. I will take a picture of the other two and post.
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