It's a busy week for us! Last night we had our orientation at Dr. D's office with the other couples who are doing IVF this month. Today I had my baseline ultrasound, mock transfer and medicine teaching class. Friday we start stimulation via injections!
Our orientation last night was very interesting. Dr. D took us through an IVF cycle from start to finish, explaining each of the steps and procedures. He talked for about 45 minutes and shared a few videos with us. We got to watch an egg retrieval, see how the eggs are fertilized though ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection--a fancy way of saying they insert the sperm into the egg) and view an embryo transfer. All of the videos showed our doctors and were shot in our office, which I thought was neat. He showed us lots of statistics and pregnancy rates based on AMH levels. You may remember that I had my AMH level checked when I did blood work at my first appointment. AMH is an indicator of egg quality and egg reserve. Mine was 2.96, which according to our doctor is very good. This put us in the category with the highest pregnancy rates, which made us feel really good! After Dr. D's presentation we "signed on the dotted line" so to speak, and hit the road to go watch the Tar Heels play basketball!
Today I had my baseline ultrasound, which went well. Dr. D said my uterus and ovaries looked good! While I was in the exam room, he did a mock embryo transfer. Basically he just wanted to use the speculum and catheter that he'll use the day of the transfer to make sure that there were no problems inserting it into my cervix. The mock transfer gives them information about the shape and size of my cervix to ensure the real transfer goes smoothly. It took about 5 minutes. When I finished up in the exam room, I went down the hall to meet with our IVF coordinator to go over all of my medications and how to use them. Since we've done injections before, it was mostly review. However, I'm taking more medications than last time, so it was good to learn about the ones that are new to me.
As far as my injections go, I have 4 vials of medicine that I'll have to inject each night. The good news is that all 4 vials can go into one syringe, so I'll only have to get one shot a day! My next appointment will be for an ultrasound next Tuesday, January 17 to check in on my follicle growth.
Thank you for continuing to check in our progress and for all of the love and support you send our way! We're so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family.
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