First Steps to IVF

I have tried pretty much everything to get pregnant except IVF. Admittedly, I haven’t used injectables with IUI, but Dr. B wasn’t convinced that it would make a difference. We decided that if we’re going to spend the money for the drugs, we might as well go all in.

I also have a fear of injectables with IUI working too well, and becoming pregnant with HOM’s. While, like many, I would be happy to have twins, anything more would be pretty insane.

That said, M and I had a consultation with Dr. B about two weeks ago. Because of my age and overall good reproductive health, we were given the option of doing mini stim IVF.

As Dr. B explained it to me, it would be the same as regular IVF, just without the Lupron suppression leading in. I would still do the BCP’s and the stimulating drugs, and of course retrieval. Because I wouldn’t need as much medication, the cost would be much less. Yayyyy.

Sounds great, right? The catch is, I won’t produce an abundance of follicles. It’s likely that the number would be less than five. I know, many women have done regular IVF with similar results and gotten pregnant, so it isn’t all that bad.

All the same, my concern is there might not be enough to work with. Or there might be one or two eggs that fertilize, but I won’t have anything to freeze if it doesn’t work, and I'll have to start from scratch. Obviously, like anything else, it’s a calculated risk.

It’s a hard decision. Dr. B says that it might take up to three tries, just like regular IVF but he’s confident that it will work. The odds are supposedly in my favor...I wonder if that’s what they all say?!

Mini-stim costs a little more than half a regular IVF, so it would still be expensive, but more manageable. Even if it takes three tries, we would still be spending roughly the cost of two regular IVF’s. With this in mind, M and I have decided to take the gamble and give it a try.

Of course, if I should have abysmal results from the mini-stim, I probably will kick myself for not going ahead and doing the IVF that has the best outcome. Gah! Have I mentioned how suck ass all of this is?

After the consultation, M and I did all of the blood work necessary to get the ball rolling except for my day three FSH, well because it wasn’t day 3.

During the wait to finish my testing, I had some crazy dreams about the results… first I dreamt that I actually produced a lot of follicles. That sounds good at first, but in my dream, it meant that they would all be of bad quality, booooo. The second dream I had was about my FSH results, I dreamt that I had a number over 10! Clearly I had some anxiety about the whole thing.

For all of my anxiety, I’ve been super excited, I feel like we’re one step closer to either getting pregnant or finding out it’s never going to work. Of course I’m hoping for the best, but I think I need to keep my feet on the ground and be prepared for the worst.