"IVF or Bust"

Yesterday was a big day for us…I had my pre-op appointment in the morning with Dr. Pearlstone and had decided ahead of time that I was not going to ask him about HDS levels, because really…we knew that regardless of what he would say, we are ready to move on to IVF. I mean it just makes the most sense. With everything we have working against us, it is highly unlikely that chlomid and IUI will work again…and even if it does another ectopic would be devastating…and I just don’t know if I could bear it! So onward and upward right? Right! ;o) Dr. Pearlstone seemed relatively relieved I think to hear this and said he thought we were making the right decision…although I honestly believe whichever decision we had made he would have stood behind us if that was what we were comfortable with. So I will just be having the hysteroscopy on Thursday which is definitely less invasive, so that’s good news.

Now on to the afternoon…we had an appointment with Rachel in Dr. Ahlering’s office to discuss the financials around doing a low stim IVF in September. I was really apprehensive for this meeting for some reason…maybe due to the issues we’ve had with their office recently, or to the fact that we were going to be putting down a large sum of money to secure our spot, or because I’m scared sh*tless that we’re already at this stage! It probably is a combination of all three, but needless to say, I was ready to get on with it. When we got in to the office with Rachel she immediately began describing the one cycle IVF costs to us and said she would get to the two cycle pricing soon. Jacob and I kinda looked at each other and smiled and I proudly stated, “we’re going to be doing the low stim cycle.” And she quickly retorted with “um, no you’re not…with your FSH level there is NO WAY you qualify for the low stim IVF.” I explained to her that Dr. Ahlering’s e-mail clearly stated that we would be doing the low stim with high resolution ICSI to account for the sperm issues. She kinda laughed and said, “you have male factor issues too? Ya, there is no way you can do it!” Ugh…here we go again!! I said, “that is why we’re here…that is why we decided to do this now, because he said we could do low stim.” She was like, “well I guess we’ll let you slip through this time, but you only get the one chance…you absolutely CAN NOT do this again!” Ok, like going through this whole process isn’t stressful enough, now you’re telling me we only get the one shot! I questioned if we were the only ones that got one shot at low stim or does this apply to everyone? She said something along the lines of “corporate determines the criteria for low stim and you do not qualify, so there is no way that they will let you do this again.” Whatever…she took $3000 off the bill and we moved on…and from what I can gather, we will likely be doing more of a regular cycle…just with a bit of a discount…which honestly with all the crap we’ve gone through with them, I think we’ve earned it *smile* I guess we’ll know for sure when we have our calendar review and find out what kinds of drugs/dosages they have lined up for us. So the good news is that we did it…we signed up for the September 8th IVF cycle…we are officially moving forward!! The bad news is that the sinking feeling I had in the pit of my stomach before the meeting never really went away…and it still hasn’t. I’ve really thought for the past month or so that IVF was the logical next step for us, and that we were in a sense falling behind if we didn’t jump on the bandwagon, and that when we did get to this point I would be elated with the possibility it holds, but for whatever reason that is not how I feel today…and I can’t really pinpoint why. I know some of it is definitely fear…fear of the shots, fear of the egg retrieval and the pain associated with it, fear of the waiting and anxiety and obsession that will surely overcome me as we’re praying my first beta is a good one! And most obviously…the fear that it may not work. I mean, I know we will do this more than once if our first one is not successful, but when you’re just at the chlomid/IUI phase…you know you are at the bottom of the ladder…you still have many rungs to climb up before you come to the end. There are still other options…other things you can try, but with IVF this is it…this is the final rung in trying to build our family. The only place we can go from here is adoption or the loony bin…ha! Just had to throw that in there! I know I need to try and remain positive…because this will hopefully be the best decision we’ve ever made…and by the end of September we’ll have the awesome news that we are pregnant…with twins…hehe!! So that is what I’m going to try and do from now on! Thanks for letting me get all that negative stuff out…I’m already starting to feel a little better *smile* And with that I’m going to end on a positive note…I found this lovely website (thank you Cathy) that calculates your due date based on your IVF cycle dates…so for September, here are the results…

First beta: September 27, 2009 (this would be when we would have the blood test to see if we were pregnant)
Singleton Due Date: June 05, 2010
Twins By Average Gestation: May 14, 2010 (haha…putting out the good vibe!)
Triplets By Average Gestation: April 17, 2010
Quads By Average Gestation: April 10, 2010