So yesterday was the big day....the phone consultation with Dr.H from Victoria. I have never had a doctor make me feel so comfortable and cared for in all my many experiences with doctors in my life thus far. It was a nice change! He outlined our medical history and asked me questions to get a clear picture of our situation and he then outlined our options. He pretty much had the same options as the doctor we spoke with in Calgary. Injectables to make me ovulate and try,try again, Ovarian drilling (and try, try again), a combination of 3 different oral drugs and try, try again OR... IVF with ICSI. If I had chosen any of the other options other than IVF Luc would also be subject to various tests and procedures as well. Now, you may be wondering, with the options aforementioned why would we choose to go with IVF. Well...after years of try, try, try, try, try, try again....and my lovely experience with Clomid...I feel like subjecting myself to scientific experimentation yet again to see if MAYBE it could work just doesn't sound like the kind of new year I was hoping for. I am so done with maybes and finger crossing and getting my hopes up just to have them dashed. I know IVF will work. Even if it doesn't work the first time...I know it will work. Just like regular people know that eventually it will work for them if they do things the old fashioned way. The doctor instilled me with a lot of hope that it would work for me. I don't get that same hopefulness when I look at the other options. When I look at the other options I see stress, emotional chaos, maybes, blood tests, ovulation tests, pregnancy tests...months of convincing myself I'm finally pregnant to find out I didn't even ovulate.......it sounds like torture! Now, you're thinking...well aren't you going to experience some of this with IVF? The answer is yes, I am. Am I going to get pregnant with IVF? Yes! Am I going to get pregnant whilst travelling down one of the other routes? MAYBE! Gah! That maybe is killer. I just can't even think about hearing a maybe or waiting and waiting and waiting to see if I MAYBE just might get to be a mother anymore. I have spent to much of my life living that maybe and it is worse than anything else I have ever experienced. It's inexplicable. IVF means hope. IVF means a baby. IVF means parenthood for Luc and I. IVF means a dream come true.
Now, the real kicker. As we all know I have polycystic ovaries. Women with polycystic ovaries like myself can have IVF but we are in the danger zone when it comes to Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome. My doctor explained to me that this is because of HcG. HcG is usually given to release the mature follicles before retrieval. In most women this would not be a problem. You get the HcG trigger, release your follicles and your body is in a state to accept the embryos when it comes to implantation. Now, because I have a risk of serious complications from OHSS, the doctor would not use HcG to release the follicles but something called a GnRH agonist. The GnRH agonist does the same job as the HcG in releasing the follicles but it decreases the success rate of that cycle of IVF because unlike HcG it does not as well prepare the body to receive and properly implant an embryo. Because of this our doctor has proposed vitrification. It is the latest freezing technology used in fertility clinics. Old freezing technologies compromised the embryos because many did not survive the thaw due to the water in them crystallizing during the freezing process. With vitrification there is no crystallization because it undergoes the freezing process in a fraction of a second and the thaw is very successful. Success rates with embryos that have been vitrified are just a good as those done with fresh embryos. This means that our first go at IVF would be mostly focused on the retrieval off eggs and creation of the embryos. The doctor said if he felt we had "any to spare" he would possibly try a fresh transfer at that time, but that the majority would be vitrified. Once our retrieval was complete and our embryos were created and vitrified, the doctor would allow my body to sort of calm down and then he would give me some medication to prepare my body better to receive the embryos and we would do a frozen embryo transfer at a later date. I am waiting to hear the time lines on all of this stuff. I do not know how long between retrieval/vitrification and frozen embryo transfer. I will create another post when I know more. For now though, we are planning on going over Easter break to start the process. Surprisingly that is less than 5 months away! I am so excited to begin this new phase of our journey! Now that I know the fate that lies ahead I feel a huge sense of calm and a lot less anxiety over what I am about to experience. Please continue to lift us up in prayer.
Thanks for reading,
Love you all!
Jen
No comments:
Post a Comment