Sorry for the delay in posting! Finishing our basement renovation, traveling for work, hosting Easter, a trip to Chicago and moving Murph's brother's family to their new home south of Kansas City all seemed to hit us at once!
Anywho, like I said my friend Sandy really wanted me to join the book study she was leading at her church, so I decided to jump on in. When I first walked into the room I was super anxious, I can't lie. There sat about eight women most of whom were 40 years older than me, what on Earth were we going to have in common? How can I participate in a Bible study with these complete strangers and have them relate to any part of my life? Well, God works in funny ways because it was such a great fit for me.
As I am starting to go to this weekly study Murph and I make the decision to move forward with IVF. In my conversations I have found that lots of people have no idea how this science works or really what it is, so I will take a minute here to explain it briefly. Everything Murph and I had done up to this point was what I would call gentile assistance. We used the standard mechanics of getting pregnant but with the doctor's help timed things more scientifically and assisted the swimmers on their journey so they wouldn't tire on their way.But we were still letting nature take its course in the fertilization department. In Vitro Fertilization or IVF is a different ballgame.
IVF is a process where I pump myself full of hormones that will stimulate my egg production. Women naturally ovulate one egg per month and the goal here is to get a lot more than one. With close monitoring I then would have my eggs harvested and fertilized in a lab with Murph's sperm. From there the fertilized eggs grow for 5 days in a dish in a lab. After that they are then put back in my uterus and we say a prayer that they stick and I become pregnant. But there are no guarantees. They may or may not stick and we owe the clinic some serious cash no matter what.
So we start in on this journey and it happens to time itself out pretty well. The first step is called a mock embryo transfer. Here the doc actually comes into the room and pretends he is doing the embryo transfer part of IVF. Here he can take some measurements and know exactly my road map so on the day of an actual transfer there are no mistakes. Because this was a really simple faux procedure I went to the appointment alone, assuring Murph nothing was really even happening that day so he could go to work. Man, that was dumb. I head into this appointment and the doc does his thing and just a minute in he hits that "roadblock" I told you all about. Remember the nurses having troubles with all of our AI's? Remember me telling the doc we were having issues with them? Well here he is literally running into the problem himself and he says, "oh, well look at that you have a fibroid on your cervix. We will need to get that removed." Um what?! "How does Friday look for you?"
So with that I scheduled another surgery for two days later to have the fibroid removed and called my husband in tears. Man was I mad. I know I have had this darn thing for the entire time we've been going through this process and tried to tell my doctor there was an issue, but it never seemed pressing enough for him to investigate himself! Then when he does look, there is a fibroid?! What the heck is it and is THAT the reason we aren't getting pregnant? I find through my internet searching that fibroids are pretty common and are non cancerous masses found usually in the uterus, mine just happened to be on my cervix. I would go in for another outpatient surgery and have this shaved down smooth, so that the doc can easily guide our embryos into my uterus without problems.
So in I go again. This surgery was mush less invasive than the removal of my endometriosis, and I was able to get some nausea medication to help me feel less terrible afterwards. Again, Murph took outstanding care of me and I spent the weekend on the couch recovering.
Up next, IVF class and prayers from strangers.
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