it's official! our ivf actively begins around the last weekend in march

If you haven't read my last post, "his timing and answered prayer" you will want to go back and read it first! Today officially starts the count down until my next Day 1 at the end of March (around the 25th). I booked my pre IVF ultrasounds today for Day 5 in this cycle, so I will be completing those next Wednesday and Thursday. My doctor will actually be conducting the second one on Thursday so I am excited to see her again! They will provide a baseline for our fertility team. We are excited as this is the first step in motion! - hard to believe we are finally here! I'm sure I'll say that a lot.

catch up

In my previous entry, I was talking about the large shift for us moving forward with non funded IVF and what brought us to that point. Our prayer for God's timing was finally revealed to us and it feels so right. We feel so much peace with our decision every day.

On February 13, 2016 I emailed my doctor and primary nurse at the Hannam Fertility Centre. I informed them that Mitch and I would be interesting in starting in March. Start date is determined by the first day of a woman's period. Being who I am and knowing this moment would come for years, I have been tracking my cycle since 2013. Looking back I am so blessed that my cycle length is between 28-31 days on average which is textbook. I tried to be as prepared as possible for this day!

day 1 to 3

My expected Day 1, which is the first day of a woman's cycle, starts on March 25th. On that day I will call the nurses line at the clinic stating that it is my "Day 1". On Day 3 I will go to the clinic with Mitch for blood tests and a repeat of the above ultrasounds. These ultrasounds show if the uterus has any scarring, cysts, polyps, fibroids or endomitriosis. It will also show all the reproductive structures and blood flow. This is done as preventative measures. For example, if they find a fibroid, it would need to be removed before starting treatment. I have had many ultrasounds before that are all clear so I have faith the next two will be clear. On my Day 3 visit I will also be booking a cycle review for mid April. The cycle review is to meet up with your doctor and nurse and go over your exact IVF care plan and medications.

stimulating the ovaries and egg retrieval 

I will be starting on birth control and a few other medications at this time. This helps to regulate your organs even more, to prepare for treatment. Between April 29 and May 19 will be my active treatment with injections to stimulate my ovaries to grow it's follicles and mature my eggs. I will need to be available for frequent blood tests and ultrasounds during this time to monitor my ovaries. Nearing the end of this time (closer to May 19), I will have my egg retrieval. This includes light sedation and ultrasound guided needles that go into each ovary. The hope is for 15 or more eggs to be retrieved.

growing our embryos

After the eggs are retrieved they will be examined for their quality. Eggs that have high quality will be injected with sperm. The amount of time from fertilization (sperm meeting egg) to a full embryo blastocyte takes 5-6 days. Not all embryos will make it to day three so we will get an update then with how many have made it. We will get a final update to how our embabies are doing on day 5. The embryos that make it to day 5 will be the viable embryos that we can transfer.

transferring our embabies

Around May 24, would be the fresh transfer day for one or two embryos. There has been a lot of research to having greater success of getting pregnant if you do a frozen transfer rather than a fresh one. A frozen transfer means freezing all embryos that are created for about a month after retreival. During that month, my ovaries will have time to settle down after the aggressive stimulation. It can be risky transferring a fresh embryo and it not "sticking" due to the hormone in the system.

After a month of healing and our embabies being in the freezer, we will be ready to transfer one or two embryos. This procedure is quick and then the waiting begins...again, the "two week wait" to find out if you are pregnant. After two weeks I will take a home pregnancy test. If positive, I will recieve frequent blood work to test my hcg beta levels. Hgc is short for human chorionic gonadotropin and is the pregnancy hormone. It is produced by the placenta after conception. If your pregnant, it is in the blood. A normal hgc level will double every 48-72 hours. A high and doubling level is a good sign. When I am 7 weeks pregnant I will have an ultrasound which will show the baby as well as the heart beat.

Well there you have it. A break down of our IVF care plan and what to expect. We will take this one step at a time. God is in control. I have no reason to worry, so I will have to work on that as time goes on!

Now that you know our process, our posts will be a bit shorter and mainly focusing on the experience and feelings of all our next steps! There will also be more photographs to share as well. Thanks for following along! Your prayers are HEARD!

Our hashtag on Instagram for this journey is #letterstobabyhanley

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