IN VITRO FOR THE THIRD TIME - JANUARY 2011

One of the biggest events of this year has been going through in vitro fertilization for the third time. For those who don't know, our only option for pregnancy has been to do in vitro fertilization (I'll describe it in detail in future posts). When we got pregnant with Caleb and Alethia during our second round of in vitro, we were blessed to have 3 remaining embryos that were strong enough to be frozen. Our doctor implanted Caleb and Alethia and a third embryo when they were 3 days old and of course we ended up getting pregnant with our amazing twins. We received a call on the 6th day from our embryologist telling us that they were able to freeze the remaining three embryos and that in the future whenever we were ready we could go through in vitro fertilzation again to try to get pregnant again.

So, since August 11, 2006 we have had 3 frozen embryos who were 6 days old and were waiting for Mommy and Daddy to "try again" for them. Every year we have received a bill and paid for their "storage unit" and waited for the time to be right. For us, going through in vitro is not just a decision for when we are ready to have more children and be pregnant, it's such an involved process that we had to wait for both of us to have the right mindset just to make it through the process itself regardless of the outcome of pregnancy or not.

My plan on this blog is to explain to you in detail (maybe more detail than you'd like) exactly what has been involved in this third in vitro cycle and the emotions, thoughts, and prayers through it so that you can have a glimpse of what it may be like for someone else who is going through infertility treatments or circumstances. It's no easy walk in the park, that's for sure!

After praying about it for 4 1/2 years, Chris and I decided that 2011 was going to be the year. My job circumstance is perfect, only working 2 days per week and being off all weekdays makes it very easy to go to appointments whenever they need to be, which is a huge part of in vitro. Financially we had saved enough to take the plunge as well and emotionally we felt ready to go for it, whatever "it" involved.

So in January we had our first consult with the clinic here, which happens to be 3 blocks away - another huge factor in deciding that now is the time! We met with our doctor and scheduled the first ultrasound to look at my uterus and make sure nothing is inside it that would prevent pregnancy. As it turned out there was something in there! Who knew??!! Scar tissue was connecting one side of my uterus to the other which would prevent my uterus from being able to fully stretch to allow for pregnancy as the baby/babies grew bigger. So step number one was scheduled - surgery to remove the scar tissue.

Now, one thing to know about any step in this process is that it is all timed exactly with wherever you are in your cycle. So we couldn't just have an appt on Monday to talk about options and then schedule it the next week. Oh no, that would be too simple. We had to wait to be at a very exact time in my cycle, right in the middle actually. Even the ultrasound to find out that we needed surgery had to be between day 7 and 9 of my cycle. So every step in the process usually required at least one month of waiting just to get the timing right. After our first meeting in January, we were finally ready for surgery at the end of April.

To be continued.......