You might recall last Monday’s post where I detailed how messed up both and Neil and I are (were?) in the reproductive side of our anatomy and physiology. We were so incredibly blessed to have one of the top IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics only a couple hours away from us in Nashville. BLESSED. There’s another great one in St. Louis but Nashville is closer and turns out, we chose the perfect place to make our baby!

The road to pregnancy had already been longer than we had anticipated it would be, and the road to IVF would also a tad longer than expected. Five months to be exact.

March 4th – We had our first appointment – the consultation appointment – At Dr. Vasquez’s office aka the Center for Reproductive Health (CRH). Dr. V reviewed my and Neil’s medical records from our OB in Paducah from the past 12 months and verified that we were indeed prime IVF candidates. Of course, I had done so much research and knew we were before I even made the appointment. But. It was so good to hear. They drew my blood and made an appointment for April 8th for me to undergo anesthesia to test the openness of my fallopian tubes and do a endometrial biopsy.

April 8th – It was weird for me, an ex-surgical nurse, to be on that side. I showed up at Centennial hospital that morning, went though same-day-surgery, was prepped in the surgery holding area, and drugged up and taken back to the OR. I awoke in recovery long enough to answer whether or not I was experiencing discomfort (I was) but declined any pain meds. Then finally really woke up back in same-day-surgery where Neil was waiting on me. He himself had had his own “test” performed while I was in surgery. Wink wink 😉

April 15th – We returned to CRH to hear the results from my tests. The blood work revealed that I’m lacking most hormones necessary and Neil’s sperm counts were still really sad (first counts were from a year ago), BUT my tubes were nice and clear and my uterus was nice and inhabitable! Good news! They ordered a second blood test to see which drug my body would react to in order to trigger ovulation.

April 16th – I returned for them to draw my blood a second time to see which drug they will trigger me to ovulate with. The best trigger drug on the market – Lupronate acetate – worked on me! Woohoo!

June 10th – They perform IVF treatments every other month and we weren’t able to get in in time for the May cycle so we returned to CRH to do a ton of legal stuff – money was paid, papers were signed, dates were scheduled, and we left with July incredibly full of appointments! It’s was starting to get exciting!!! I had been instructed to start the birth control pills several days before the appointment and then on June 15th, I discontinued the pills in order to jump start my period.

July 2nd – The first of countless blood draws for July. They called later that afternoon to tell me to start the injections in my stomach on July 6th, along with many different oral medications to take every night for the rest of the cycle. This was only the start!