From the Beginning

I wasn't sure where to begin in the timeline of this blog and I wasn't sure which topic to tackle first. I have so many ideas flying in my head that I honestly don't think there will be enough space out here to compile everything. So where do I begin? I suppose like everything else, it's best to start from the beginning. Which means in order for you to understand our quest, you must first understand how Jim and I landed on IVF's doorstep.

I'll spare you most of the details from my prior attempts to get pregnant during my first marriage. While I'm sure that my first marriage will creep in here from time to time I'm really not in the mood to discuss it tonight. With that said, I'll start when my life really mattered...when I met Jim. Jim and I decided to start a family pretty much right off the bat. In fact I think we went through some testing and a few IUI's prior to the wedding. I remember thinking that since our relationship started in reverse than it would be perfectly normal to start a family prior to the actual wedding. And so that's what we did...

New Mexico doesn't pride itself on having the greatest medical care and the field of infertility isn't any different. In fact the entire state only has one Endocrinologist....Dr. Thompson resides his practice in Albuquerque. I had been a patient at Dr. Thompson's office prior to meeting Jim, but I was uncomfortable using him again as I was afraid Dr. Thompson would look at us as a cautionary tale. Through the grapevine I had learned that there was a Endocrinologist that practiced at UNM Hospital. Dr. Magarelli splits his practice between Albuquerque and Colorado Springs. Dr. Magarelli is equipped to perform IUI's at his UNM office, but he needs to send his patients to Colorado Springs for those undergoing IVF.

Before I continue, I feel like I need to define a few terms so that all of us are on the same page. IUI translates to intrauterine injection and is commonly refereed to as artificial insemination...as a joke you'll also hear it called turkey basting. During this procedure on the day of ovulation, sperm is collected, washed, and injected back into the woman's uterus. Nature is than allowed to do it's own thing and hopefully eggs will fertilize in their natural environment. IVF translates to in-vitro fertilization and is sometimes still refereed to as test tube babies. In this procedure, a woman's follicles are removed from the ovaries (by way of surgery), sperm is collected, washed, and then both sperm and follicles are allowed to interact in a small petri dish until the sperm penetrates a follicle. Once the follicles are fertilized than the fertilized product is injected/transferred back into the uterus.

Anyway, under Dr. Magarelli's care Jim and I decided to try a few IUI's. Obliviously the IUI's were unsuccessful, but I did get one positive pregnancy test. The pregnancy didn't last long and Jim and I were heartbroken. We met with Dr. Magrelli numerous times while we were at his office and each time we sat down with him, we felt he was more of a used car salesmen than a doctor. He was constantly trying to sell us on IVF and we always felt like new patients as Dr. Magarelli went to great lengths to educate us on how a pregnancy occurs...as if we didn't already know. Needless to say, at some point we decided that Dr. Magarelli wasn't the right fit for us and we should probably make our way to Dr. Thompson's office.

When Jim and I first met with Dr. Thompson I expressed my concerns to him about my prior experiences with his office and he seemed genuinely sympathetic and willing to work with us. We decided to skip the IUI's and go straight to IVF. Our first IVF cycle started out well. I responded well to the prescribed medication and all of the ultrasounds came back normal. On the day of retrieval, 5 follicles were removed and allowed to mingle in the petri dish with the prepared sperm. When I called the next day to inquire about fertilization, the nurse gave no indication that anything was wrong. A few days later when Jim and I arrived for our scheduled transfer, we were told that there was a problem with the fertilization. Typically one sperm enters the follicle and no other sperm are allowed to enter. Unfortunately in my case, I had several sperm that entered each follicle and when this happens the follicle doesn't divide properly and eventually dies off on its own. This event is known as polyspermy, but its unclear if this is "normal" for my follicles. The only way we'll know if this is a normal occurrence is to undergo another round of IVF.

Jim and I had originally planned to wait a few months before undergoing round two of IVF but our lives quickly got hectic. So we decided to put it off a year while we got ourselves more financially stable. During that year I fell ill and had several setbacks in terms of my health. I'll explain my other health problems in a later post. After I had been healthy for a consecutive year we decided to revisit building our family. A co-worker of Jim's told him about a fertility clinic in Denver that they used and I was quickly placed in touch with his wife. After speaking to his wife, I was confident that Denver was where we needed to be.

I contacted the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine in October and was informed that we needed to set-up a phone consult with one of the doctors. After filling out a tower of paperwork, we were scheduled for our phone consult the week of Thanksgiving. As usual I was super nervous prior to this phone call because I was afraid that as a result of my prior medical problems we would be rejected. Thankfully we weren't rejected...in fact we were welcomed with open arms. We were also informed that we needed to schedule an appointment in Denver to undergo a "one day workup". I decided to wait until after the holidays before I called CCRM again to schedule the one day workup. At the beginning of January I called the office and was soon scheduled to have our workup on January 14th.

Jim and I traveled to Denver the night before our appointment and we stayed with my aunt and uncle in Lakewood. Both Jim and I were once again super nervous about these appointments...well at least I was nervous. Jim said he was nervous, but I can't imagine why...his test was a walk in the park compared to what I had to go through. Our day started promptly at 7:30am and we were whisked from one appointment to another while we met with nurses, doctors, undergoing tests, blood work, and signing more paperwork. The entire day was information overload...I mean when we first arrived, we were handed a three-ring binder of information. It was good information though and Jim quickly fell in love with them. I've never met office staff so friendly, so compassionate, and so professional. It was clear that the office held high standards for their staff and we appreciated that.

As we stand today, I'm still undergoing some more tests and we're still waiting for results on some prior testing. We have decided to pursue IVF using CCRM and I'm hoping to have all of our test results by our next scheduled appointment on February 4th.