Calendar, Consents & BCPs

Calendar and Consents in hand and counter tops filled with medication and sharp containers.  Yes, were back at it.  My week will be filled with medical appts and legal appts to get everything signed and notarized in time.   I’d like to say I am surprised we are back here so soon, but when you do this on average every 3 ½ months (and yes I calculated it out) its oddly strange not cycling.  At this point I am surprised the legal department doesn’t lock their doors when they see me coming.  We have done this, on average, every 3 months since 2009, I say ‘we’ as in I.  I will give my good ‘ol husband some credit since he has to deal with me, well deal with me the times he’s not out on vacation somewhere, but he gets very little credit, when you stick with yourself with injections up to 6x a day, deal with infusions of experimental immune medication, surgeries to extract your eggs like you’re a chicken, get stuffed with magic-fairy looking wands for follicle checks and everything else and then look at his job – which is basically to orgasm in a cup – he doesn’t get much credit, especially since half of the time I’m in the mist of all that, he is off playing ‘Cops & Robbers’ in the sand and enjoying sun tanning, even if its 120* where he choose to vacation.

Things have been rather idol the last 3 months, just costing through waiting to start up again, but now the ball is really starting to roll.  Game day begins on the 30^th.   Let me give you a quick run down of what is involved.

There are 5 main stages to an IVF cycle:

1.    BCPs (minus the placebo pill)

2.     Ovarian Stimulation

3.     Egg Retrieval

4.     Fertilization

5.     Embryo Culture

6.     Embryo Transfer

I have been on BCPs (birth control pills) for 3 weeks, and have 8 more days left to go.  YAY.  I am sure it sounds very strange as why one would be taking a step to get pregnant by taking a medication typically used as contraception.  Let me explain the purpose of BCPs.  Most all IVF cycles start with them, as they serve a few different purposes– first off it help the clinics better plan their cycles in batches which helps the doctor plan for more precise timing and helps to allows treatment to be set around the doctors schedule and avoid holidays.  But it isn’t all about a benefit to the clinic - more importantly the BCPs help put the ovaries in a resting state.  When the ovaries are in this resting state it lowers LH (luteinizing hormone) and suppresses FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) prior to starting COS (controlled ovarian stimulation).  The BCPs also reduce production of androgens (testosterone) which, if produced in excess, can compromise follicular growth and egg quality.  A follicle, short-and-sweet, is what houses the egg so if you produce to much of it you can end up with some poor quality embryos.
 So BCPs play a pretty big role, more so than just “freezing” you mid-cycle as a lot of people tend to think.  

Last 5 days before we dive right back on into this - and hopefully its the last time we have to do this.