Ready Or Not Here We Go

We had our final consult at Cleveland Clinic on August 9th and we really liked the doctor and nurses that we met with. Luckily since I had all of my tests done already he said we would be able to start asap with my upcoming cycle, my period is due to start somewhere around August 20th. So we made a teaching appointment asap and were able to get in on August 14th to meet with our nurse, sign all of the consents, order the meds and learn how to do the injections…all 6 of them per day. YIKES! We have decided to do a freeze all cycle, which means we will have the sperm retrieval (MicroTESE) and egg retrieval surgeries done at the same time and assuming sperm is found they will use ICSI to inject one sperm into each egg. After 24 hours we will get a fertilization report and we will then wait 5 more days to see how many embryos we have able to be frozen. After over a year of all of this we will be taking some time off to let our bodies recover, relax and focus on work for a bit before we move forward with a frozen embryo transfer. We have also started doing acupuncture to help relax and maybe boost our chances for success, research is still mixed on this one but at this point we are willing to give it a go. This week is sure to be a crazy one, I have to call the nurse on the first full day of my period and from there she will schedule my baseline appointment. They will do blood work and an internal ultrasound to check my uterine lining, do a follicle count and check my hormones. They then use all of those numbers to track my progress during the injections. My nurse expects me to start STIMS (hormone injections) sometime this weekend. I will be doing Follistim, HCG and Lupron. The Lupron basically shuts my hormones off and puts me into menopause, the Follistim forces them back on at a much higher rate and the HCG matures and releases my eggs. Since my AMH is on the lower side the doctor is using a MicroFlare Protocol and because of that I will need to go in daily for blood work and ultrasounds, unfortunately their office is 2 hours round trip. Once I have at least 3 follicles that measure 18mm I will be ready for the trigger shot to help them reach their final maturity. During this time my ovaries will grow from the size of almonds to oranges. Finally 36 hours after the trigger shot Eric and I will both be on the operating table, him for his MicroTESE surgery and me for my egg retrieval. Thank goodness my mom has volunteered to drive us around and stay with us for a day or two after. It’s so nerve wracking, terrifying and exciting all at the same time. I’m really holding on to that 60-70% chance of success our nurse and Eric’s doctor have given us. I guess by this time next month we will finally have our answer and we will know how we will be building our family. This journey is far from over for us, in fact this might only be the beginning.