"Number 17: The Spread Eagle"

If got the reference from my title, then we need to be friends immediately! I also don't know about anyone else, but this is seriously how I feel any time I go to the gyno/ob/specialist/etc. I am relatively conservative when it comes to clothes, and do not really like to show my body at all (...."lights off" kind of gal...) Even after the countless doctors, nurses and technicians, I have not gotten used to it.

I actually want to spend this week's post talking about the beginning process of IVF. After our third failed IUI, we made the decision to move forward with IVF. There are a lot of factors that play into choosing to do IVF of not, and everyone's reasons to or not to do it will vary. Our reasons came down to two deciding factors: our insurance pays for virutally everything, and the math. If you and your partner are perfectly healthy and do everything right, each month naturally you have about a 20% chance of getting pregnant. The chances of getting pregnant from an IUI is also only about 20%. For a woman under 35 years old, the chances of IVF working is 60%.

Once we made the decision, we also decided to take the summer off from all of this. I wanted to give my body a few months to cleanse itself of the previous medicines/toxins, and just wanted to enjoy my summer off from teaching. We went on a few vacations, I was in a musical, and overall took a mental vacation.

The first step, for my doctors office at least, was that I had to take an IVF class. It was about two hours, where we learned about the entire process and all the different medicines (holy crap, I had no idea how many medicines were involved). Then we practiced using all the different types of shots on a fake person/body/thing, since they are all administered differently. Although shots don't bother me, I was extremely overwhelmed by all the information. I'm pretty sure I cried on the way home. There was one woman next to me who legit looked like she was going to pass out just from looking at all the needles. Poor thing.

A few weeks later I received all the medicine, needles, etc. I laid everything out on my dining room table to really take stock of what I was about to face. Here is that picture:

Now, after going through the process, it doesn't seem like a lot to me....but certainly knocked the wind out of me at first sight. Next post I will continue to walk though the IVF process. Something I have learned so far is that so many people have heard of IVF but know very little, and have a lot of misconceptions about it. Let's tackle that next time!

Peace. Love. And all that Jazz!