News from the Infertile Front

I started my Lupron injections on Sunday evening.  It's been fairly anti-climactic.  The needles are bigger than my insulin needles, and I think I might be allergic to the metal in the needle.  I get scratchies at my injection sites that look like mosquito bites.  I wonder if I can just use my insulin needles to give injections.  I'll have to ask at my screening.

My screening appointment is this coming Tuesday morning in Salt Lake.  We will be signing consent forms before we go, and they will be amended.  We will be retrieving all the eggs we can at the end of the month, and we will choose the best eggs and the best sperm to put together, creating between 4-6 embryos.  We will be transferring two embryos and freezing the others for the future.  That is NOT how the consent form is written, so we were told to write it up, have Ryan initial it and sign it, and I sign it in the presence of a witness.

My screening appointment isn't anything huge.  We review my meds schedule, and have an ultrasound to be sure that my ovaries are, in essence, dormant.  Because, at the end of NEXT week, I start "stimming."  I take the injections to entice my ovaries into making multiple follicles.  Two weeks after I start stimming, I will probably have to spend a few days in Salt Lake for daily ultrasounds until it is time for my retrieval.  Three to five days after that, we place the embryos back into my uterus, and then in 12-14 days I do a pregnancy test (blood).

We also got some REALLY good news from Ryan's hamster egg penetration assay we had done three weeks ago.  He scored "100%."  I didn't know if that was a good thing or not, so I had one of the nurses call me back.  I think what they do is take a certain number of hamster eggs and see how many Ryan's sperm are able to penetrate.  So, in that respect, 100% is AWESOME.  It means that we do NOT have to do the ICSI procedure, and they just put my eggs and his sperm together and let Ryan's sperm do the work its supposed to.

I'm getting excited.  It's so weird to think that in a month I could be getting a positive pregnancy test.  Or I couldn't.  I'm going to cross that bridge when I get there.  I know that God is in control, and if He wants us to be parents, even though we're having these medical procedures, He is STILL the one who has to knit our babies together and tuck them in my womb for their growth.  He is the great physician.  Praise Him!