Friday, February 4, 2011
As you can see from this series so far there are many, many steps to this process. If any of you readers are going through it, just try not to get overwhelmed. I had my follow-up with Dr. Nackley and everything looked great. The cyst she saw on my ovary was gone when she did the surgery so she didn’t have to remove that. The fibroid she removed was sent off for pathology and everything came back fine.
Now we enter the world of prescriptions. Once my next menstrual cycle begins, the next step is to start taking birth control. Sounds counterintuitive, right? They do this to suppress ovulation before they start with all of the high powered fertility drugs that will ramp up ovulation.
So I head to the pharmacy to get the oral medications filled so I can have that done. As I said earlier, MANY steps in all of this so it is good to just take one at a time. Especially if you like to check things off the list like I do. When I got done at the pharmacy I realized I walked out of there with six prescriptions. I’ve never had that many drugs in hand for myself! The really funny one was the prescription for Valium. The instructions are to take it two to three hours prior to embryo transfer. That is one way to make sure I am calm! I haven’t even gotten all of the injectable medication and needle supplies yet. Sigh. One step at a time. The next thing we have to do is get the large stack of consent forms signed/notarized. It includes things like “if the male partner dies, what do you want done with remaining embryos? If you divorce, who gets the frozen sperm?”
So, until next time!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Hello again! Well, we got all the consent forms signed and paid our balance due. Once this was complete we got to move to “Phase II.” This is it! This is the part we have been working toward all of this time.
I scheduled my appointment and went in with a half full bladder per the clinic’s instructions. When I arrived they got me set up and did a mock transfer. This is the reason for the half full bladder. This is literally a practice run for embryo transfer. They take measurements of the cervix and insert the small catheter just as they will do when they transfer embryos. Once that was done they sent us to the consultation area so we could receive our calendar with dates and instructions. Wow, this means it is real! We are really doing this!
They looked through our big box of drugs to make sure we had everything we needed and did some teaching on how to inject the meds. I am lucky -- since my husband Brett is a nurse, he takes care of this. The first rounds of shots are the Lupron meds. This drug blocks the LH surge. The purpose of this is to decrease the possibility of releasing the eggs prior to egg harvest. I take that along with the birth control pills. There are not only many drugs on there but a number of lab tests and sonograms. This will help the clinic monitor me to see how I am responding to the meds. So, I had my first shot last night and Brett read through the side effects which include hot flashes or nervousness. No flashes yet but I admit I do feel a bit keyed up today.
I guess we are officially on our way. I’ll share more progress as we move on through the process.
Until next time!
Makala Pollard is a Senior Marketing Specialist for Texas Health Resources and Stepmom to two boys.
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