An unconventional journey through assisted reproductive technology (and hopefully pregnancy and parenthood.)

About Me

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They say 30's are the new 20's. My wife and I have been together for over a decade now. We both work in the fast paced world of academia. Our state (and recently all others across the country) have finally allowed all marriage so we made that happen October 2014.

I'm a pretty big nerd, I'll be the first to admit. I love video games (yes, as a girl and yes, at my age). I have lots of other nerd hobbies and since I was unceremoniously banned from RuneScape, I've been playing Civilization and Skyrim. My real first nerd love is Magic the Gathering. 10,000 cards and growing, but that's an expensive hobby when you have two babies.

I have other grown-up interests too, especially reading. I like reading so much I have 3 Kindles and I also used to be a martial artist (one belt away from black belt. I'll finish someday.)

But now I've got twins and I have a feeling a lot of those hobbies are going to change.

Monday, April 23, 2012

5 Days Until Transfer

The doctor is going ahead with the transfer. The doctor said this morning that this is like the longest cycle ever. I'm starting to worry now because of the low estradiol levels. I've got 2 of the patches on and the bloodwork says the levels are increasing, but I still worry because that's what I do.

They called to confirm today. They'll be thawing a boy for us. We decided to go with just one for this transfer. We really went back and forth debating whether to do one or two. In the end we decided on one because the success rates are not that much higher with two as opposed to one, at least from what I read. And now that I have doubt in my mind because of the hormone levels, if this cycle doesn't work we'll have used up only one of our boys instead of two.

My appointment is Friday at 10:00. I have to be there at 9:45 with a full bladder, which is no problem. I usually have a full bladder at any given point in the day. This procedure shouldn't be that much different from the IUI procedures. Speculum, catheter, etc. I've read that some doctors make you lie down for 30 minutes to an hour after an IVF transfer. The nurse didn't mention that today and I forgot to ask, but I'm taking the whole day so it doesn't matter anyway.

So that's it for now, until Friday anyway. This is a short post mostly because I've got to do a system restore on my computer tonight. It's a long story and I don't want to get into it here. This isn't a computer blog, after all. To make up for the shortness of this post, here is another of the myths that I was posting before. This one fits right in with today's post anyway. Enjoy and talk to you Friday!

IVF? So you're going to have like 5 babies at once?

Actually, this was a misconception we ourselves had before starting this process. And with all the publicity Octo-Mom got, it's no wonder that's what people think of now when they hear IVF. But the doctor that transferred the 12 embryos to Octo-Mom that led to the famous octuptlets lost his license because of that.

With IVF the standard procedure is to transfer no more than two embryos at once.Our doctor is so confident with her methods that she typically does only one embryo unless there have been problems in the past or if the couple wants twins.

The reality is that pregnancies that are triplets or higher are usually because of IUI, not IVF. With IUI, they ripen the eggs as much as they can and send them all down at once to meet the sperm. So depending on how many follicles you have, there can be a very high chance of multiples. I had 40 follicles at the IVF retrieval, could you imagine? Kate Gosselin had her twins and then the sextuplets with IUI, not IVF. And I couldn't even get one with IUI. Damn.

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