Welcome to my very first blog entry to document my road to having a baby.
A little history lesson:
My name is Shannon, I'm 25 years old and married to the most wonderful man, Kyle, who is 28. I have a beautiful son, Cameron -5-, with whom I love with all of my heart, he is certainly the apple in my eye. Cameron and I have been blessed to have Kyle in our lives, he is the best step father that anyone could ask for, and Kyle's family have taken us in with open arms, we are truly lucky.
Kyle and I were married on August 11, 2007 after two years of dating. Very soon after, we decided that we wanted to start trying for a baby. Before our marriage, Kyle had gotten a semen analysis done which showed that we might need a little bit of assistance in getting pregnant BUT that there was always a chance we could do it on our own. We began trying in September of 2007 and we weren't having any luck.
In April of 2008 I started to look into fertility clinics, and working with my insurance to see what was going to be covered. At that time, my employer didn't cover that much, and Kyle and I had just bought our first house at the end of March, so we didn't really have that much money to play around with. I was heartbroken, thinking that it would take forever to save up the money for all of the testings and procedures that came with infertility.
I switched jobs in May of 2008, something a little closer to our new home, and that paid a bit better as well. One day in early June our department held a baby shower for one of the girls that worked here. While in that baby shower a friend and I started talking about getting pregnant, and she mentioned that she was a patient of Shady Grove Fertility, and that her and her boyfriend were getting ready for IUI's (intrauterine insemination) I decided to be nosey, and ask a few questions- mainly- how much does it cost? Thats when I found out the best news ever, that my job covers 90% of all fertility procedures up to 15,000! I quickly ran up to my office and called Kyle, almost in tears. Kyle called Shady Grove and got us a consultation appt right away. We were so excited.
Our first consultation was on June 13, 2008. We went over all the odds and ends of infertility, basic history of health and family health. The RE told us that based on our discussion, he believed that we could be successful using the IUI method, however we had to run a series of tests to confirm that. I had just started my cycle two days prior to that which apparently in consultation world was good news. They had me get bloodwork and an ultrasound while we were there. Everything checked out great. In addition to these tests, I had to go get more bloodwork at labcorp, a HSG procedure (stick a catheter in, insert iodine and take xrays of my tubes to make sure there are no blockages) and Kyle had to get some genetic testing done as was as another sperm analysis. All of my tests came back fine, however, as expected Kyles SA came back low. We met with the doctor again 2 weeks later to go over the results. The doctor said that Kyle had a mild to moderate male infertility, and that we would go ahead and try the IUI for 3 times, meeting again around the 3rd attempt to discuss options if unsuccessful. Kyle and I were very hopeful that the follow up consultation would NOT be necessary.
My first cycle started on July 19th, I will never forget because it was the day of my best friend's wedding and I was a bridesmaid, talk about uncomfortable. I was vomiting from cramps all morning, I was miserable. I called the nurse and set up my CD3 (cycle day 3) ultrasound and bloodwork for the following Monday. I took Clomid days 3-7 and took an injection of Follistim 75iu on CD 9. On CD 11 I had one mature follicle (sac that holds the eggs) and I was told to trigger that night. I took the trigger shot, the shot that stimulates ovulation) and my IUI was on July 31st. Kyle had to give a specimen the morning of the IUI, then they do a "wash" procedure. Sperm washing separates sperm cells from a man’s semen, helping to get rid of dead or slow-moving sperm as well as additional chemicals that may impair fertilization. Kyles post wash count was 2.1 million, the doctor was none to thrilled, as he likes to at least see 5 million, but we kept our fingers crossed. Two weeks later on the nose, I started my period, back to day 3 bloodwork and ultrasound.
The next cycle the Dr. decided to up my dosage of Follistim, so I had injections on CD 5, 7 and 9 as well as Clomid on CD 3-7. On CD 11 I had only one mature follicle again, and my IUI was set to be on September 1st..Labor Day! Kyles post wash came back at 1.8 million, not a terrible drop from before, but still a drop. Once again, two weeks later, I started my period, we then knew we only had one more chance to do IUI. I set up our consultation for IVF for October 2nd, which would be right in the middle of my last cycle. We were hoping it would be an unnecessary visit.
I started my last cycle, increased the Follistim dosages to 150iu from 75iu and still took it on CD 5, 7 and 9 as well as Clomid CD 3-7. I did decide to change one thing in my cycle this time, which was to quit smoking. Now, I was never an addicted smoker, more so I socially had cigarettes while with friends or drinking, but it was time to cut that out of the mix. This time on CD11, I had a much larger response in follicles, although only 2 matured by the time of trigger...but still two was better than one. My last IUI took place on September 29th, more notably, my 25th birthday. This had to be it right? Kyle's post wash was a lousy 1 million.
Our IVF consult was 3 days after our 3rd IUI, we went over the basics, the procedure, the medicines, the success rate, and what the Dr felt was necessary for me to get the job done, but not overdo it (in this case, overdoing it would be getting PG with more than 1 baby) He showed us success rates of placing one embryo back in vs placing 2, and there was no difference..however the chances of multiples increased by 50%. We are fine with just placing one back in!
On October 14th, my period arrived and I knew it was time to start IVF. Its an exciting time for us, we know that we deserve a baby and that we will be amazing parents, that Cameron will be an adorable older brother- we have a lot of confidence in the IVF procedure, and we feel blessed to have the opportunity to be able to have this done. We have approx. 12K left in insurance money, which isn't that much when you are talking IVF, so we are resting all of our eggs in this one chance...if this doesn't work, it might be a long time before we are able to try again.
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