My IVF Journey Part 2 of ? – shots, shots, FIRE

I mentioned in my previous post My IVF Journey part 1 of ? that the fun had just begun with IVF! If you didn’t read part one click the link above and take a look. I’m sharing my journey to help support other women who may be going through a similar process. When I was embarking on IVF I liked reading most of the post by other women. It helped me realize what I would be going through. I enjoyed the hopeful nature of it all! I hope that my story will also help someone out there. If missed the beginning read My JOURNEY To Becoming a Mom

As I mentioned before, prior to the shots beginning you start taking a birth control pill. Then it’s approximately a two week period of shots with varying doses and frequency depending on your situation. When you first receive the list of medications it’s overwhelming. Just take a look at this list I received:

You should receive:
5 boxes -Cetrotide
1 -Gonal-F 300iu Pen
1 -Gonal-F 450iu Pen
2 -Gonal-F 900iu Pen
20 -Menopur vials
3 -Progesterone vials
1 -hCG vial
1 -Lupron trigger (on hold)
70 -Estrace pills

And then when the medication arrives it’s even more overwhelming. This is when the reality really begins to hit, but after you’ve spend thousands of dollars on the process there is no turning back! I explained before my experience with the shots themselves but I didn’t talk about the physical part of the process. As you progress with taking the shots your ovaries become bigger as the eggs begin to develop. Typically during a period you would have one egg that dominates but in this process there are many eggs developing. I continued to work through this portion of the process but as the ovaries grew it was increasingly uncomfortable to walk, sit or be present at work. I remember a lot of discomfort but not pain at this point. It felt like a period on steroids, which is not far from the truth!

The doctor and nurses were great during this process. They were always available for questions and very responsive. I am really happy with Kaiser Fertility. We went to the doctor in the middle of the shot process and she checked to see how the eggs were developing. All was looking good and many eggs were in the works. I can’t recall that number.

When you are at the end of the shot process they have you do what’s called The Trigger Shot. This is the shot to prepare the eggs for retrieval. The nurse was very specific in telling us that the shot had to be taken at a certain time. Not one minute before or one minute after. The time for my shot was 8 p.m. That day I was so nervous about missing the 8 p.m. exactly time. I was a little confused about the shot process and called the nurse. I wasn’t able to get a hold of her that day, which was unusual. Then at 8 p.m. my husband gave me the shot and that was that! We decided we didn’t really need confirmation from the nurse and figured it out on our own.

As I went to sleep that night I was only thinking about the egg retrieval which would be in two days. The nurse had told me that the most important part of this process was to relax and not stress during these two days and that is what I had planned on doing. At about 12:30 p.m. my husband woke up to use the rest room. That may seem like an overshare but wait for it, it all makes sense! As he was in the restroom I picked up my phone to see what time it was. I then saw a text message from a friend at work who stated “I think your hill is on fire, are you ok?” When my husband came back to bed he said “there’s a fire.” I said oh how do you know, did you get a text too? He said “no I can see it coming over the hill.” At this moment I was highly concerned but not in a panic. My husband laid back down and I was like what are you doing?! He said later that he needed a minute to gather his thoughts about what we would do next. Long story short for this post, we got up and looked outside to see where the fire was. The fire was very close! This was indeed a wild fire and we were in danger. We couldn’t get a hold of anybody to know just how bad it was so we left immediately. My husband grabbed a few items and I grabbed my IVF medications and we were out the door.

The phrase “leaving with the clothes on your back” was very true for us. I did not take one other item of clothing. During this part of the IVF process it’s not so easy to walk, at least it wasn’t for me. My ovaries had expanded from the size of a walnut to the size of a grapefruit. So this was not great timing, and really a fire is never great timing. We went to my parents house which was in a safe zone. The experience of what it really was like leaving that night is something I’ll dive deeper into at a later time. I want to focus this post on the IVF experience of it all.

We stayed at my parents and tried to sleep that night but really couldn’t. We had no idea if our home was safe or if it had caught fire. I remember the next morning so clearly. My husband and I were sitting on the couch and he received a call from his Dad. His Dad gave us the devastating news that our house had indeed burnt down. He said there was nothing left but the concrete walls but our garage and carport were ok. I put my head in my hands and cried. I couldn’t believe that this was a reality. Here we are in the middle of IVF and our house burns down! Then my father in law called back a little while later and said that the garage and carport had also caught fire and were gone as well. The feeling of knowing everything inside your house is gone is one that can not be explained unless you have lived it. It’s devastating and sad.

The nurse returned my call just after we received this news asking how the Trigger Shot went. I said it was ok and thanks. She noticed something off in my voice and asked what happened with the shot. I explained to her that we just found out our house burnt down and that was the reason for my sadness. She was so sweet and by this time we had spoken so much that it felt like a friend. I had no choice but to move on through the IVF process and now prepare for egg retrieval.

We showed up for egg retrieval and the entire team of nurses and our doctor were empathizing with our devastating news. The nurse I spoke with had brought me a whole bag of clothes as she knew I now owned nothing. They were very sweet and comforting during the process.

I got into a hospital gown and prepared myself for the procedure. The doctor came in and prepared me as to what would happen. I would be under anesthesia for a short period of time during the process. I got into the hospital gown and sat down on the bed. The nurse put an IV in me and took me into the procedure room. I only recall them asking my name and birth date to confirm who I was. Then I remember waking up from the procedure. The doctor informed me that they were able to retrieve 15 eggs. Which is a great number! The next step would be for me to recover and then wait and see how many first fertilize and then how many of those make it to the point of becoming a 5 day embryo. I have found that anesthesia makes me so sick. We had to drive about 45 minutes to get back to my parents house. I was nauseous! We had stop at least once that I recall. When we made it back the pastors from my church were there. They saw me getting out the car and thought I was devastated because of the house burning down. At this point I had not told anybody but family that we were doing IVF. Given the circumstances now I decided to tell people. I was devastated that the house burnt down but not to the degree that some people were assuming. It was because of the IVF process that I didn’t feel good physically. It was nice being able to share that we were doing IVF.

The recovery from this procedure was much more intense than I expected. I was in a lot of pain and discomfort. Heating pads were a lifesaver. My family was great about always having a heating pad ready. I recovered and then waited to hear if we would have embryos. At this point I realized that it could very well be a possibility that I went through all of this and we would have zero embryos. But I knew that probably wouldn’t happen. The nurse called and let me know that of the 15 eggs 11 had fertilized. Great news! And then a few days later she called and said that 5 made it to the point of being viable embryos. This is a very good outcome. We then began planning for the transfer.

In the IVF world they have what they call a fresh transfer and a frozen transfer. The fresh transfer is of an embryo that has not yet been frozen. We decided to move forward with the fresh transfer as planned. These days doctors are only inserting one embryo at a time for most women at this stage in the process. Some people thought I was having all 5 transferred and NO! I’d like to go into more detail on what this day was like and what life was like after the transfer. To sum up this post though, the first fresh transfer worked. That little embryo is now my beautiful daughter who is ONE! I can’t wait to share with you all the magic of that day and the rest of my journey. I appreciate you following along and please leave comments to let me know you liked this read and what other content you’d like to see on my blog!

-Tracy @mommytracerq

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