September 29, 2009...Finally, some good news!

Our appointment this afternoon went extremely well. Actually, better than we could have ever expected it to go. It was primarily a consultation prior to beginning IVF...discussing everything from the process to the risk factors. We gained an ENORMOUS amount of information today...it's hard to wrap my brain around everything. But the best news we could have received was from the financial worker. Once we saw the doctor and decided we were going to go through with this, he then schedules everyone involved to come in and "talk their talk." When the financial worker came in, she sat down and asked if we were aware of the fact, that as of this past July, my insurance now covers IVF (up to a certain dollar amount, of course)....but we didn't care, we were ecstatic!!!! I looked over at Cody and I think we both had tears in our eyes. She was absolutely thrilled to be able to be the one to give us that news. Just as much as she made our day, I think we made hers too :) A few weeks ago in church, our pastor gave a sermon that really spoke right to my heart: What is God's Purpose for Your Life? Knowing that we all have something left to offer the Lord, even in times of hardship. When you come to the end of your resources, a place where we are afraid, the Bible says you can expect a miracle. When you come to a disaster, God says this is the beginning of something great. The last week or so, I have been panicking, trying to get our finances in order and everything in place before taking this huge plunge. We have honestly felt like our resources were coming to an end, but this was something we had to figure out a way to do. I have realized that I can't look at what's been taken away or what we don't have, but what we do have. The message that Sunday focused on looking at what we do have and offering it to the Lord...and this is when we will see the blessings flow. God gave us a miracle today and we are on cloud-9.

I will give you a brief overview of "In-Vitro Fertilization":
*The whole process will take 2 months
1. I will begin by taking birth control (for a month) to suppress my natural hormones. The purpose of this is to keep my ovaries asleep so that I do not ovulate on my own.
2. This will be followed by MANY injections in order to stimulate the production of healthy eggs.
3. Once the eggs reach a healthy size (monitored by MANY ultrasounds), the Egg Retrieval will take place. This is a surgical procedure where a needle is passed through the vagina to aspirate the eggs out of each ovary. Yes, I will be put to sleep for this :)
4. Now for the egg and the sperm to meet...in a petri dish! Because Cody's counts are so low, they will be doing a procedure called ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection). This is done by injecting one sperm directly into one egg. If fertilization occurs, the embryologist will incubate and monitor the embryos for 3-5 days to make sure they develop properly.
5. After the 3-5 days of growing embryos, they will be transferred back into my uterus.
6. Finally, approximately 2 weeks after the transfer, I will go in for a pregnancy test. The embryo MUST implant itself into the uterine lining. That's all it has to do. Everything has been done for it, all it has to do is find itself a nice, cozy place to rest and STAY THERE!!!

*I, of course, had to ask the doctor what the success rate looked like for this, and I was actually pleasantly surprised. He said a normal success rate is around 50-55%. But he thought because we were young and with our only problem being Cody's low sperm count (it's great that his morphology, or shape of the sperm, looks really good) that he sees us to be in the upper end, probably around 60-65% success rate!!

I know that was a lot of information. To keep you updated, I will continue to post more information as we go through each step, as to what we are specifically doing in the process. Our first step now, is for me to call on the first day of my next cycle (which I'm guessing will be within the week). At that time I will go on birth control for a month. Also during this time, Cody and I will both have to go back for more tests. This is a scary, yet exciting time for us and we ask for you to continue to keep us in your prayers. We COULD NOT do this without all of you!