IVF…

Thank you to everyone for your love and prayers as we share our story! I want to take us back to Summer 2014. After prayer, discussion and lots of tears, we embarked on our IVF journey. This was a world we never thought we would be a part of and a whole new “ballgame” for how we would grow our family.

Early the summer of 2014 we went in and met with Dr. T to discuss our “protocol” for how we would go about handling IVF. Fun fact: All IVF procedures are not the same. Just like many things, IVF protocols are very specific to the patient and to the exact situation. (This was something new to us.) We learned that unlike many IVF procedures, it was recommended that we do “frozen cycles” instead of fresh cycles. You see the doctor believed that my body could not handle a fresh cycle of IVF.

Let me take a moment to explain IVF and the protocol that we went through. With IVF, a woman is given medication to grow follicles (eggs) in her ovaries. Once there are enough eggs of a certain size, a medication is given to force the body to release the egg (ovulate) and at that time, the doctor will go in and retrieve as many of the eggs as possible. Then with the most precious of care, an embryologist (fancy very smart doctor) will check each egg to see the “grade” of the egg for the correct shape and how “good” the egg is. Once all the “good eggs” are separated out, they are fertilized with “good sperm”. The fertilized eggs are then monitored each day to see if they combine to create embryos. Once the embryos reach a certain stage they are then either place back inside the woman or they are frozen to be placed in later.

While that may sound like something that is easy, IVF is not easy in any way! During those medication cycles there are blood draws and ultrasounds of ovaries. There are raging hormones and times you feel like you are going to cry forever. IVF is hard! Someone recently said that anyone who has ever been through IVF is a survivor and I wholeheartedly believe this! Myself and thousands of women have gone through IVF and survived to tell our stories.

My medication cycle to retrieve the eggs was tough. Not only was I overwhelmed with keeping up with what day I was supposed to do what, I was told that I had to mix medication and inject it in at certain times during the day. Have I told y’all that I HATED needles. Like could pass out or feel like it when someone would take my blood. Yet here I was with learning how to give myself a shot of medication. I had a powder medication that I was to mix in a vial with a serum and then extract it and inject it into my belly. (AHH! I still think of how I would do this with shaking hands.) This medicine was sometimes as much as $100+ per vile of medication. Thinking of messing up was so scary for me. Everyday before I mixed my meds, I would pray and thank God for medical advances and pray that He would let this not be in vain. (In our worst times, FAITH is everything!)

After doing all the injections, going for all the ultrasounds of my ovaries, it was determined that I would go for my retrieval.  All in total, they retrieved 25+ eggs. 16 of those eggs were “good eggs” and we then began the 5 days of phone calls. You see everyday I would get a phone call in which the lab nurse from the embryology lab would call and let me know the status of our embryos. She would call and ask how I was doing post procedure and then give me my number of survival for the day. My heart stopped every time I saw that number on my phone. You see she held the information to our future. She would tell me everyday how close we were to having a baby. What our odds were that I would be a mom. At least this is what I viewed those calls as. Day 5 came and we received our call. This was the day of “freezing” so it was very important to us. This was the day we would get the number of chances we would have to have a baby using IVF. We got the call and it was NOT what I wanted to hear at all. “Ma’am, I have your freeze profile for you. This is the details for the number of embryos that we were able to successfully thaw. I am pleased to let you know that we were able to successfully freeze 10 embryos! Congratulations and I wish you the best of luck with your future!”

“WHAT?! 10 embryos and this is a good thing!?! I can’t have 10 children! This is not okay.” My head was about to explode with this news. What was supposed to be the happy moment where we found out we would have about 4 or 5 (as a good number) was squashed as now we were looking at 10 embryos. I immediately called our nurse. I cried angry tears with her on the phone and told her that this was NOT what we wanted. You see, we knew those were our babies. Let the medical terms say what they will but now we had 10 babies waiting on us. I explained to the nurse that we couldn’t have 10 kids! She then said something that made my heart sink. “We honestly didn’t think you would do this well. Most patients like you only have about 4-6 at the most. Honestly, we didn’t know you would be this successful!”

As I type this, I feel how lost I was in that moment. I lost my faith and stepped out of trusting and into panic. My husband and I talked about how there had to be a purpose and that we need to trust God. I cried a lot! I questioned if IVF was the right choice. I wondered where God was in this process. I trusted that He was there with us and our babies but I didn’t understand. I was hurting and lost. I researched something called embryo adoption (another couple adopting our embryo) because I just knew that IVF would work and we wouldn’t be able to have 10 kids. Then after about 2 weeks, I did what any good praying woman would do, I told God that it was His job to fix it! I prayed such a specific prayer. I said ” God, I don’t understand this at all. I want these babies to know my love and to know how much they are cared for. I am trusting you and I pray that somehow and some way, you will let each baby of ours know me! Our family is in your hands!”

Relief! There is a glorious thing that happens when you give things over to God. I never imagined how our journey would go and what turns it would take, but at that moment I knew that no matter what, it was in God’s hands. Things were not roses and butterflies by any means but at that moment my husband and I knew we were no longer in control of our future.

Pearl of Wisdom – “Do not worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you do this you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you love in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT) – My life verses for over 15 years!

Requests: Pray for God to continue to cover all those walking in faith with His peace everyday and every step!

Peace and Pearls ~ Me