IVF this month!

Wow... what a crazy week!

So, basically, Colin and I procrastinate.

A lot.

... it's bad.

We pretty much did it to ourselves, but on Monday we came to the realization that our next big appointment was in 7 days!!

Within those 7 days, we had to ...

-finalize our loan since our money was due BY that appointment

-send in an application for financial aid for my meds

-wait for a quote on my meds after the application was processed

-then we had to pay for my meds (which are not cheap)

-AND wait for them to deliver the meds to me because I have to bring them with me on Monday

...aaand it was our 4 year wedding anniversary on the 25th, right in the thick of things...

best four years of my life!

(we went to red lobster and had strawberry lemonade and tons of delicious seafood)

but yeah... like I said, it was a crazy week.

Well, today is Friday...

...and I literally just finished getting everything with my meds taken care of.

I had to pay extra to have them shipped overnight (boo!),

but payment is taken care of and they will be here tomorrow!!

Colin and I are meeting with our loan officer tonight to finalize our loan,

and then we're REALLY set.

Holy cow, we're SO close!!

I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of freaking out.

This is something that we've been planning out for the past year

(well, technically longer than that)

and now it's finally happening.

They're going to teach me how to inject myself with a needle on Monday!

Ugh!

A lot of people have their spouses do it, they say it's easier.

I may have Colin do it.

If all else fails,

I've been blessed with a sister and a mother who are both RN's.

I'll just visit them every night at the same time for my daily injection. :)

Haha

Anyway, tomorrow is what they are calling Stim Day 1

Along with the injection instructions,

I will be having another ultrasound to see where all my little eggs are hanging out.

Then I believe I'll have another blood draw.

(I'm pretty much pro at those by now)

I think Colin is having one done as well, actually.

 I'm about to start a very long series of appointments.

The staff at ICRM actually works 7 days a week during this part of the cycle 

(which is why they keep everyone on a schedule, I understand that now)

I don't have my calender in front of me at the moment,

but I believe I have appointments on

-Monday

-Thursday

-Friday

-Saturday

-Sunday 

(yes, Easter. That'll be weird. I feel like I should dress up or something.)

-The next Monday

-Tuesday

-Wednesday

-Thursday

all of those consisting of blood draws and ultrasounds.

They have to monitor my eggs really closely.

I'll be injecting myself and taking the baby aspirin throughout this time.

And I'm gonna be CRAZY hormonal.

They also asked that I stop exercising or doing anything strenuous after this Friday.

(easiest thing they've asked me to do yet! Haha it's terrible!)

Apparently my uterus lining gets SO incredibly thin, they are trying to prevent it from tearing.

Kind of freaks me out, I'm probably going to walk funny all next week.

"don't mind me, I'm just trying not to tear open my uterus."

After those appointments are all finished, they'll decide when I give myself that lovely "trigger shot".

I hear it's pretty painful, but I'm trying not to think about it too much.

So basically what the shots are doing...

the reason I've been taking birth control for the past month is to kind of "freeze" my menstrual cycle, so my eggs don't move or mature too quickly. Last night was my last birth control pill (yay, I survived!), so I have this weekend to regulate a little bit before I start the next step.

Once I start the Bravelle and the other shots (can't remember the names of the others), we're focusing on developing as many eggs as possible all at once. Normally women ovulate, only a few of their eggs from what I understand, so we are kind of forcing all of them to go for it so we can extract as many of those little suckers as we can.

Dr. Mass kind of described the injections as bringing all of my eggs up to the top of my uterus, and the trigger shot forces them all downward in a horizontal formation so they're close enough for him to snatch during surgery.

At least that's my understanding of it, I could be wrong about the last part.

That's just what I picture in my head, and it helps so I'm sticking to it. :)

The extraction surgery will be in about 2 1/2 weeks from now, once my eggs are in the perfect place and the Dr. decides it's time.

I will be completely anesthetized, so I won't remember anything about the procedure.

I will be incredibly sore afterwards, but the baby aspirin should help.

About 3 days after the surgery, they will bring us in for a consultation about 

how many embryos took and the estimated success rates.

This is also where they ask us how many eggs we would like to transfer.

Kind of a scary decision, because the idea of multiples terrifies me,

but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I don't want to post a for sure answer yet, just because we're not 100% sure how things will go.

(the other embryos we are paying to have frozen so we hopefully won't have to do the extraction surgery again, which will make the next baby SO much simpler!)

About 5 days after my extraction surgery, 

We will go back in for the transplant of the embryo(s)!

I've heard it's a very special experience, because you can watch the ultrasound as those little guys float up there.

I'm probably going to cry, but that's okay. :)

Anyway, that's what's in store for us. 

All of that will be taking place within the next few weeks, which is SO crazy!

It feels pretty surreal.

I will keep everyone updated as this chapter unfolds,

please message me if you have any questions or if I leave anything out.

:)

Surgeries Schedule, Water Ultrasound...

Well, our appointment on Tuesday went really well!

The first thing we did when we got there was the 

Sonohysterogram

 aka Saline-Infused Sonogram (SIS)

but the RN referred to it as the

 "Water Ultrasound"

I was warned by a friend who'd had it done before about it being pretty uncomfortable,

so I was pretty nervous for this part.

Feel free to google the term for the exact procedure,

but basically they perform and ultrasound on your ovaries and your uterus

and then they inject sterile water through a catheter into your uterus

so they can make sure both Fallopian tubes are open and functional.

(again, this is not my ultrasound, but this is what we were looking at - that's a uterus!)

Dr. Mass was SO great about the whole thing,

probably because I was starting to look pretty nervous. :)

He let me know what he was doing while he was doing it

and what to expect.

Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought.

The worst part was when he inserted the catheter.

(I know, TMI)

As he was doing it, he let me know that I would feel some pressure like menstrual cramps,

which I did, but that's about as bad as it got.

He counted my little egg follicles again,

and he got that excited look on his face just like before. :)

He said I was consistent in count, which is a GREAT sign!

That was pretty encouraging, and made the experience a lot more bearable for me -

- because it reminded me what all of this was for:

I'm doing this for you, Baby Washburn! :)

He/She is SO grounded for life for putting me through this. ;)

Anyway

After the SIS was done we had a consult with our RN, Jenn.

FUN FACT: we found out that she actually worked with my older sister at Mercy Medical!

That definitely made me feel MUCH more at ease. She is super nice and had been through IVF before, so she was very knowledgeable about the whole process.:)

During this consult, she gave us a folder with all of the information we needed

in detail, which has been super helpful.

I got a list of all the medications that I'll need to take, 

as well as a detailed calendar showing when and how much to take.

(the med list was three pages long, I'll have you know)

This is where I experienced a SLIGHT disappointment.

I had gotten my hopes up so much,

thinking for sure that I would stop taking the birth control that day and start the injections,

but it turns out the injections don't even start until March 30th.

Ugh, I guess I just get ahead of myself sometimes.

One thing to remember about the IVF process...

don't do that. be patient.

be willing to wait the extra couple weeks to find out exactly when things are going to happen

before telling your friends and family anything.

I tend to do that sometimes, so I apologize.

But it's okay, because it's still happening!

Anyway, for now I'm just taking Pre-Natal Vitamins and my birth control.

Then on the 30th I will start some of the hormone injections

(there are 3 different kinds, I believe)

as well as baby aspirin, which I thought was kind of funny.

Apparently it's supposed to help with the inflammation/sensitivity

from the injections...

yikes!

Again, grounded for LIFE.

The last thing we did at our appointment was meet with their financial coordinator

to figure out how the heck we're going to pay for all of this.

(Colin and I are SO blessed to be a relatively easy IVF - as much as I like to complain,

it could've easily been twice or even three times as much as we have to pay)

After the appointment, my head hurt.

That's what happened after our first consultation as well.

There's just so much information given to us, and I exhaust myself by trying SO hard to process every last bit of it. Last time I took a three hour nap after my appointment.

This time I stayed awake long enough for Colin to bring me to IHOP for free pancakes

(it was that free "short-stack" day)

before going home and crashing on the couch for about three hours.

Hey, at least I'm consistent.

Everyone handles these appointments differently, I'm sure.

But my advice would be to allow yourself to process everything before returning to the real world-

-and sleeping that headache away.

:)

So, that's pretty much it for now.

It may be a few weeks before I have anything important enough to blog again,

but I may do a short one here or there if I feel like I've missed anything.

I edited the post a few times before publishing it,

mainly because I put WAY too much information in it at times.

If you are about to go through the SIS and would like more gruesome, gory details

just message me on facebook and I'd be happy to oblige.

I just didn't want to gross anyone out too badly. ;)

I hope you all have a great day! 

Enjoy this beautiful sunshine today! 

Chloe and I had a GREAT walk on the greenbelt today. 

I'm so excited for warm weather! :)

 

It's Finally Here? It's Finally Here! :) Big Appointment Tomorrow!

Well folks, the title of this post says it all:

It's finally here! 

I've had so many changes over the past couple of months, 

I don't even know where to begin.

For those of you who didn't already know

My husband and I found out that we needed

(In Vitro Fertilization)

in order to ever have children.

(aka IVF)

Here is a really good link that explains exactly what that entails:

(http://americanpregnancy.org/infertility/in-vitro-fertilization/)

Very bittersweet feelings at that discovery.

For one, we knew that we had a chance of having children

which is so huge!

Seriously, it was such a huge weight off my chest. :)

On the other hand, IVF can cost anywhere between $8-$20,000 dollars.

Yeah... a little intimidating, and the odds of success aren't even 100% with procedures like these.

Pretty big risk, if you ask me :/

BUT

We can have children! 

The euphoria that I felt when we heard those words was

absolutely life changing

I waited for three years to hear those words.

We reached a point shortly before finding this out 

where we were exploring other options

Adoption, namely.

I've always loved the idea of adopting...

...but, for some reason, it just never felt right.

We talked about it on several different occasions,

and whenever it was brought up 

we both kind of shrugged our shoulders,

not really agreeing or disagreeing on anything.

All I knew is that I wanted children,

and adoption seemed like the only other option

if we couldn't have our own.

We had just ordered our informational packet on adoption.

I was planning on going to an informational meeting about it,

hoping that would help ease my mind.

and then the news came, and I was at peace

We're not meant to adopt now.

Sure, we may in the future

(I've always liked the idea of adoption)

but I know in my heart that Heavenly Father 

wants us to have children on our own first.

truly, timing is everything!!

Surprisingly, it took us a few months to really get the ball rolling

I think I was more scared than anything.

The anticipation of parenthood had been building for three years...

...I was totally freaked out.

I finally got the courage to schedule a consultation

with Dr. Mass (pronounced "Moss")

at the Idaho Center for Reproductive Medicine (ICRM)

and it was SO great!

***DISCLAIMER: this is where I start sharing too much information, so feel free to stop here if you'd like. Just know the appointment was great!***

We spent a little over three hours there,

and most of it was the Doc just explaining to us how everything worked.

I had done a fair share of research online once we heard the news,

but it's still nice to hear it from a professional

who also kind of "dumbs it down" for you.

After the initial consultation, they were able to bring us to another room

where I had my very first ultrasound!!

(I know, all you mothers and pregnant ladies are probably rolling your eyes at my excitement,

but this was a really big step for me! So don't judge!)

Obviously there was no embryo in there to be monitoring,

he was looking in my ovaries to get a basic idea of my egg count.

It was pretty neat to see...

the little egg follicles

looked like little chocolate chips. :)

(that's how the Dr. described it)

(this is not my ovary, but this is basically what I saw during the ultrasound)

Except WAY more.

I could tell the Dr. was getting pretty excited as he began to count all the follicles he saw.

I could be mistaken, but I think he said it was normal to see between 10-15 follicles in each ovary.

I had 20+ in each.

The Dr. then informed us that our odds of success are relatively high.

We're pretty much an ideal case.

I have no problem getting pregnant, from what we both understand.

Then again, they're doing a water ultrasound to check my fallopian tubes tomorrow,

but up to this point I'm known as a "Fertile Myrtle"

(that's my family's nickname for it)

Without going into too much more detail, 

IVF is a lot simpler when the male contributor has the issue.

Like I said, we're a pretty ideal case.

Now, the only downside to 20+ follicles in each ovary

is that I'm at risk for something known as

Ovarian Hyper-stimulation Syndrome

Here's a link if you're interested in reading more about it:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ovarian-hyperstimulation-syndrome-ohss/basics/definition/con-20033777

Basically, it's super painful and would force us to stop the IVF cycle and try again another month.

So I'm hoping we can avoid that if at all possible.

We just have to be careful with my hormone injections that I'm going to be starting here soon.

I have to take them for three weeks to kind of "manipulate" my eggs into the same position at the top of my ovaries, and then there's one final "trigger" shot that I have to give myself exactly twelve hours before the egg extraction surgery that makes them all drop at once, 

which is usually when OHSS can occur.

Modern technology is freaking amazing, people!

Oh, and just a side-note: yes, I have to inject MYSELF with a needle for three weeks in order to make this happen...

... I must really want this baby!

After my ultrasound, we met with our designated RN that was going to help us through the process.

She provided me with a list of about 20 blood tests that I needed to have done

before we were able to proceed with any treatment.

ugh, I hate needles!

BUT, I tried to look on the bright side

and just got it over with, since I'm going to have to get used to be poked and prodded anyway.

and I only passed out twice during the bloodwork portion! ;)

I also have a pretty cool looking bruise on my arm, although it kind of makes me look like a tweaker.

:)

Our initial consultation was the first week of December of last year,

and by then the Dr. said the January/February cycle was already scheduled full.

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed that I had to wait.

BUT, I had already waited three years, another couple months wasn't going to hurt.

They signed us up for the March/April cycle.

In reality, those extra couple months were exactly what we needed to get caught up with finances and figure some other things out at home, so it was a blessing in disguise.

Last Monday they had me start regular birth control, 

I'm assuming because they want everyone participating in the cycle to be in the same cycle stage.

If you guys know anything about me, my hormone's go completely haywire when I'm on birth control

Colin was not excited,

but honestly it hasn't been too bad.

There were a couple of times that I lost my temper, or cried at something completely random.

I don't know if that was all birth control, though.

My last day at All About You Dental was just last Thursday,

and I was definitely feeling a lot of stress those last couple weeks with all the change.

So really, this round of birth control has been a breeze compared to LAST time

(which was maybe the first three or four months of marriage before Colin made me stop)

Anyway

My next appointment is tomorrow, which is why I chose to write this post today.

I have had an amazing amount of people reach out to me on Facebook regarding IVF

ever since I made a post about Colin and I doing it.

Some of them were writing to show support, 

which is SO appreciated at this time in our lives,

and others are or will be going through the same thing and had questions.

I made the decision to "blog" my way through IVF

and I invite anyone who is curious to join me in our adventure.

I'll be posting each new update on Facebook,

or you can subscribe to my email list on here.

It should send you an email letting you know whenever I post on here.

(I think it works, but I've never tested it. This website confuses me sometimes).

I'm so grateful to be finally beginning this amazing adventure with my husband. I know that Heavenly Father had us wait for a reason; I feel like we've grown together as a couple, and I've grown more responsible and mature during this trial as well. It

s weird to think that I was only twenty when we started trying - thinking back, I was definitely NOT ready to be a mother yet - and although I still have my doubts now, I feel a bit closer to being ready. :) We were able to get some schooling under our belts, become homeowners, and build our credit scores so that we can receive the proper financing for this medical journey (along with many other things) - which was also a HUGE blessing. 

Please don't misunderstand my optimism, though - we are fully aware of the success rates, and the reality that IVF may not work for us, but we have faith in our Father in Heaven, and we know that He has a plan for our little family. I know that we will grow from this experience, even if it's in a way we weren't quite expecting. :)

~I believe in Christ, so come what may~