IVF: #3 Random details and huge follicles...too much info? Too late.

We thought that this would be the case during IVF:

But luckily it wasn't. :)

The worst I got was emotional. It was pretty hilarious after each little episode.

One day I wasn't feeling super great so Bryce had helped me get set up on the couch to watch a show I like while he made lunch for us. After a bit, Bryce walked past me to take out the trash and then when he walked back in the house and past me, he didn't look at me.

All the sudden, the fact that he didn't look at me said everything.

He was upset with me.

My tears welled up and I walked up to Bryce where he was standing stirring something on the stove. He looked at me just as my chin started quivering and huge tears fell down my cheeks. He kind of laughed and asked what was wrong. 

"You're upset with me. What did I do? I didn't mean to upset you....." sob.

I love him for laughing at me in that moment. He laughed, put his arm around my shoulders, pulled me to him and said, "Now that, That is the meds talking. This is Not you." 

I'm telling you those tears were ginormous and they came out of no where; it was hilarious.

ANYway, this is my sharps container filling up....

This is the poster that is in almost every clinic room in our doctor's office. It's the poster I've tried to convince Bryce to stand under with me so I could take a pic of us with the poster....

He won't do it. He absolutely refuses. Says it's too cheesy. 

No fun.

You know that pic with the bandaid from the blood draws?

Well, I HATE taking off bandaids! 

NOW we're getting to the exciting part!

Like I said in the last post, they want your ovaries to produce lots of follicles. Each follicle is full of fluid and inside that fluid is a single egg. The follicle gets bigger as your estrogen rises and as it matures. During the stimulation phase that makes them grow and mature, they kept me on Lupron, which prevented them from fully maturing too early. So it prevented ovulation until they were ready.

SO, again, like I said, I'd go in about every other day for labs and for an ultrasound. They would look at each ovary and count how many follicles there were and measure their sizes. 

TO BACK UP: One of my two diagnoses is PCOS. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Most of the time, my body doesn't fully mature the follicles and so I don't ovulate on my own (without meds). This causes multiple follicles to "clog" up my ovaries because they never mature enough to release the eggs. 

Because of this they had some concerns and had to be extra careful during my stimulation phase. They had to watch me closely to be sure they didn't rupture be getting over stimulated.

This ended up happening and it caused big problems but for now it was just something that I'd been warned about as a possibility but I didn't give it a whole lot of thought.

So near the end of the stimulation phase this is what my ovaries were looking like. (These pics are all from Nov. 27th. ..... the retrieval was on the 30th)

This is my RIGHT ovary. 

My right ovary is the runt of the two and only produced 3 or 4 mature follicles by the time we did the retrieval. But holy moly I had a couple really big ones on that side! :)

Each black blob is a fluid-filled-follicle protecting an egg.

Here's another view of the RIGHT side with two really good sized follicles.

AAAND here's my LEFT ovary.

It's just one view--- Remember, the ovary is round so there are follicles on all sides.

(They ended up getting 17 follicles just from this ovary alone....and that's only the ones mature enough to take. They don't retrieve small ones.)

FYI: Normally an ovary is the size of a walnut.

By the time I got to the end of stims, they were each the size of tomatoes. 

FYI-2: The nurse took these pics for me during the ultrasound so I could just watch. She was awesome.

Next random thing we had to do during sims.

PAPERWORK

I think this is something most people haven't ever thought about when it comes to IVF.

Prior to the retrieval, you have to do all the legal paperwork saying what will happen to your embryos (assuming you get any) if any of the following ever happen:

1. In the event of one of our deaths....

2. In the event of both of our deaths...

3. In the even of separation or divorce...

For 1 and 3 you can choose to discard them or donate them to an infertile couple. I won't go into the choices we made. It's a crazy weird decision to have to make. It isn't something we had ever had to think about before. Luckily they gave us the paperwork 2 weeks before we signed so we could talk it over and decide but still...really strange.

If we both die, it's automatic----they have to be discarded for other legal reasons. You don't actually have a choice but you do still have to sign for it.

 I have to admit, it started to feel more real when we had to sit and talk about these situations. Luckily we agreed with each other and it wasn't an issue but I'm sure it could easily cause problems if a couple disagreed. You're talking about a living cell that has the potential to create a new life if it's transferred successfully. 

It's overwhelming to think what modern medicine can do now. We feel luck to have the chance to be helped so much in starting our family. As unfair as it could seem that we have to do all of this, we feel privileged to have the opportunity and the blessing of receiving such a huge chance at growing our family.