Our meeting with the fertility gods…

The house went on the market on Tuesday and we have already had two realtor open houses and a few showings. I have to say the house looks amazing! This weekend we had a stager come and work with the furniture and art we already have. Almost all of our girls photos came down, but their custom made silhouettes remain the highlight of our family room. Here is a link to our updated house photos and our listing if you want to check it out.
http://www.windermere.com/index.cfm?SHOWBRAND=0&CUSTOMTOURID=283662&FUSEACTION=Listing%2Ephotos


I had my ovarian suppression testing and my final blood work earlier in the week. Everything looks great and I get to start the stimulating hormones this weekend!!!
Also this is technically mine and Don’s spring break so we decided to get away for a night on the coast. I want to stress here in Oregon it is NOT a beach. Beach’s are for Florida! In Oregon the coast is cold, grey and jagged. While we drove down the coast yesterday it was sunny in 50s, by this morning it was sleeting and in the 30s! Typical Oregon!

The drive down the coast took us through all sorts of little seaside towns. One boosted a population of 350 people! It was beautiful but so remote. Sometimes I forget that Portland is the biggest city in the state and that the majority of the population lives here. Either way, I love this state!

We arrived in Newport after about 4 hours of driving. Our first stop was dinner at the Rouge Brewery. Don was so happy to be surrounded by tons of hops and Dead Guy Ale. We had a great meal and then headed over to a bed and breakfast I had found, the Newport Belle. The Newport Belle is an old steam ship that this sweet old couple bought. They have restored all of the 5 guest rooms with a Victorian theme. The best part about the ship was the couple that hosted us. They have their own apartment on the top of the ship and Don and I were the only guests! Don and I got to roam around, read and relax. Then this morning Nancy made us a custom breakfast of homemade granola, pastries, fruit and quiche. Needless to say, we will be back again this summer.

This morning we spent at the Oregon Aquarium which was amazing! It was half inside and half out. There were sea lions and an entire shark exhibit. We had so much fun!

Then there was the highlight of the trip… Actually this is the entire reason we went to Newport… For an encounter with the fertility gods! A few months back I was researching unorthodox ways to get pregnant and I found these ancient fertility gods that had been located at Ripley’s Believe It or Not in Orlando. In the two years they were there 2,000 women reported becoming pregnant after touching these idols. Needless to say, Ripley’s realized what a hot thing they had on their hands and decided to put the idols on tour. This month they were being hosted in Newport, hence our trip there! Christian friends, please don’t give me crap about this! I know that our babies will come from God, not from a fertility god. I also know that touching their bellies can’t hurt at this point! I rubbed the gods all over as various tourists stared at me. Funny enough, they were all making a point NOT to touch them! It was great trip!!!

Let the injections begin!

What a busy week!!!! Where do I even begin! Don and I attended our mandatory “IVF” seminar last Thursday night. WOW! I thought I knew a lot, but there was so much information that I was not aware of. The whole session was about 3 hours. There were about 15 other couples there with us, which puts them all on the same cycle as me. It was strange to walk in this room and feel a bond with all these women that I don’t even know! The definite highlight of the seminar was the embryologist. It is the embryologist that technically creates our baby. They have 3 of them in our office. She showed how she caches a single sperm and nicks it’s tail so it can’t swim away. The sperm is then drawn up into a needle and injected into an egg. How cool! Just watching the video made me cry! That is what will happen to make our babies next month!!!!

At the egg harvest my doctor is hoping to collect about 20 eggs. Even though I am young, 25% of them will probably be bad eggs. Of the good ones all will be injected and allowed to grow to day 5. Each day the eggs are moved into a new petri dish that better represents the natural environments they would be in the fallopian tube on that particular day. The whole process is fascinating!

I also have started lots of new drugs! We are both taking Doxcycline for any “low lying” infections we could have. Additionally I am taking aspirin, steroids, thyroid hormones, multivitamins, vitamin D and Lupron. The Lupron is the only injection that I am currently taking. The fertility treatment center has mandatory injection courses Don and I were supposed to take, but sense we are RNs we didn’t have to. Well, I wish I would have!

Let me start out with a little nursing 101 on the topic of conversions…. So, lets say I have two apple pies. One is cut into 12 slices, the other 6 slices. I could trade 2 slices from the 12 sliced pie for 1 slice on the six slice pie. They are the same, they are interchangeable. Now instead of pie lets look at fruit. Pretend I have 8 mango's and 12 pineapples. A mango will never equal a pineapple, they are different fruits. I hope you see where I am going with this rant….
On my calendar it is written “Lupron 10 units every evening.” So, being an RN I grabbed my calculator to see who much of the drug I need to draw up. I looked at the vile and it states “1mg/0.2ml” Just like a mango is not a pineapple a milligram is not a unit! I double checked that directions, looked at Freedom pharmacy’s website, ect…. In the end I had to call the doctor’s office at 7pm and request someone to call me. Of course a MD called me back and gave me the low down. Some of the syringes in my big box of drugs do have unit markings on them. Really they are just traditional insulin syringes because insulin is the main that that comes in unit form. The bottom line was the doc wanted me to utilize an insulin syringe to draw up “10 units.” In effect, it turns out that they order the Lupron in “units” to make life easier! I know anyone else probably would have fingered this out, but as an RN I really thought it was a medication error and that they had sent me the wrong drug or mislabeled the specimen. What a headache!

On an exciting note we are signing with a realtor! If we sell the house around what we are asking we will walk out of here debt free and I will be able to drop down to part time work! People keep telling us to borrow from our 401Ks instead of selling the house, but that just puts us in further debt. One of the main issue is I don’t want to be working full time when I have kids. When I leave my current job to go to part time I will loose ½ my income! There is no way we would ever be able to crawl out of debt with that little income. Also working full time and going to school full time right now is killing me! I hate to talk about finances so much on this blog. I know it is tacky and a little weird, but anyone that tells you that going through IVF does not affect their finances are lying. I am just grateful Don and I work in a profession where we can pay for this. I don't know how it would be possible to do this without having a great career. Also we have equity in a great home! We are extremely fortunate and really see how God has provided for us financially with our jobs and our home!!! We are in no way bitter about the debt. We can see how God has providing a way where in the end we will be ever better off finacially, and have a baby!

Other people have told us to hold off on IVF for another 6 months or a year. NO WAY!!! We planned this IVF cycle a year ago specifically because it starts on my spring break from school and is followed by two weeks off work. Granted I will still have school those days, but if I miss a day time will go on. Also, if this cycle works the baby or babies will be due in December. If that happens I can take 4 month maternity leave and finish school. The time line works out perfectly!

Next week Don and I are going to the coast for a night to just get away and have a romantic evening. I will post lots of pictures from our trip. The Oregon coast is breathtaking!!!!

Waldo turned 38, I finished another semester of school and we got our drugs!!!

On Sunday Don turned 38! I missed the day with work, but stopped by Papa Hayden’s and got him some of his favorite ice cream and a chocolate cube. Yummy! Don claims to have had a great day. He ate Taco Bell for lunch and got to watch the Red Socks spring training. If I would have been home there is a possibility that neither of those luxuries’ would have occurred, so I told Don that my special gift to him was letting him have a day Kerry free!

Today was also my last day of class for the semester. I can’t believe another semester has flown by. If all goes according to plan we will have our baby (or babies!) in December. That will give me 4 months maternity leave to love my baby and focus on school. By the time I have to go back to work I will only have one semester left and Don will be able to take some time off too.

We are seriously looking into selling the house. Today one realtor came by and tomorrow we have another. I have to say I love this house. It is my dream house! It is an old, bright red house with original hard wood floors and claw foot tubs. It is my dream home, but what is a dream home if it isn’t filled with children? Don and I have gone back and forth on this. Part of us is scared to sell because we know we will never be able to afford this neighborhood again. But the reality is that we can’t afford it now and when we have children I want Don or myself to be home with them. With this mortgage and our mounting debt that will never happen in this home. Also I have to go down to working part time (meaning two 13 hour shifts a week rather than three.) I just can’t keep going doing work and school full time and I really don’t want to do that with a baby on board! We are hoping to move back to the apartments we moved from. We never should have left there to begin with…. Oh well, you live you learn!

Today we got our drugs in the mail. Getting the drugs was a bit of a process. They were Fed-Exed overnight from a pharmacy in Massachusetts. Discovery called me to confirm that I really had ordered $3000 worth of pharmaceuticals from Massachusetts. Yes, I did!

I knew what to expect but I think Don was shocked at the sheer number of drugs they sent us. I of course took a photo of my drugs!

So it is official…. We are doing IVF!!!!

This week starts my “calendar” and it is turning out to be quite a busy week! Yesterday Don had his physical exam. When we saw Don’s doctor yesterday and asked for preliminary blood work he was great! He works out in the community and actually likes people. He said he was so sorry we were going through IVF and asked if there was anything her could do to help. He ordered all of Don’s labs and asked us to keep him updated.

Then there is the random doc/attending I got to see at OHSU today. What a different story! I needed to be tested for many communicable diseases, such as hepatitis b and c, syphilis, varicella, rubella and HIV. At first the doctor altogether refused to order the labs, stating that to try to bill infertility under generalized medicine was unethical and unprofessional. I explained to him that the tests are not for infertility. That fact has already been established! Instead the tests were for reproductive screening for communicable diseases. He still refused, stating there was no way that I have any of the mentioned disorders. I responded by telling him that for years I was a “very, very big slut,” and added that I am sure my brain is rotting from syphilis and that I am sure I had the chicken-pox after a crazy sexual encounter! I don't think he believed me, but he finally agreed to order the tests. He then made a point to code them so my insurance probably won’t pay for them. What a nightmare! I walked out with a sore arm and many tears. I keep telling myself this is a good experience for me to have and that I am learning what it is like to be a patient. So far what I have learned is being a patient really sucks sometimes. In the long run I know this will make me a more compassionate practitioner.

I also got some more hormone levels drawn, specifically FSH and estradiol. I am still learning about all the hormones testing so here is a little info I copied from a fertility web site…

“Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) is one of the most important hormones involved in the natural menstrual cycle as well as in pharmacological (drug-induced) stimulation of the ovaries. It is the main hormone involved in producing mature eggs in the ovaries..

FSH is the same hormone that is contained in the injectable gonadotropins which are used to produce multiple eggs for infertility treatment.

Both FSH and LH hormone are produced by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. When a women goes into menopause she is running out of eggs in her ovaries. The brain senses that there is a low estrogen environment - and signals the pituitary to make more FSH hormone. More FSH is released from the pituitary in an attempt to stimulate the ovaries to produce a good follicle and estrogen hormone.

Think of it like stepping on the gas pedal in the car to get going. The FSH is the gas, and the pituitary gland releases FSH to get a follicle "going" at the beginning of every menstrual cycle. If there are less follicles left (and perhaps lower quality follicles) the amount of "gas" has to be increased to get a follicle developing.

Why do we measure the FSH level on day 3?
By measuring a woman's baseline FSH on day 3 of the cycle (we do it on day 2, 3, or 4), we get an indication as to whether she has normal "ovarian reserve". We are looking at how hard her body needs to "step on the gas" early in the menstrual cycle to get a follicle growing.

Therefore, if the baseline FSH is elevated the ovarian reserve (how many eggs are left) is reduced (sometimes the egg quality is also reduced).

A blood estradiol level on day 3 (we do it on any day between days 2 and 4) of the menstrual cycle is a way to potentially discover some of those women with a normal day 3 FSH that may in fact have decreased egg quantity and quality.

What we want on day three is a low FSH level in conjunction with a low estradiol level. If the FSH is normal but the estradiol level is elevated, the elevated estradiol will often be artificially "suppressing" the FSH level down to the normal range.

The idea of using day 3 estradiol levels as an adjunct in evaluating egg quantity and quality is relatively recent. Clearly defined cutoff values for normal are not well established. We like to see the day 3 estradiol less than about 80. We repeat borderline or abnormal results in another menstrual cycle to try to get a "true" FSH.
There is some evidence that an elevated day 3 estradiol indicates a problem with ovarian reserve. This is sometimes the case, but often the issue is just that the elevated estrogen level is "masking" the potential for detecting low reserve by suppressing FSH into the normal range.”

I seriously could not imagine going through this and not being an RN! So the current plan is that I will start on birth control tomorrow and continue it for about 17 days. Also yesterday we got to speak with the pharmacy supplying all my meds. They came to $2800!!!! I know that we should be focusing on the baby, but so far in the past two years we have put $4000 into this imaginary kido! And we still haven’t even put down our first payment for the actual IVF! We are freaking out about our finances and are thinking about selling the house. Keep us in your prayers. We are living in stress city!!!