Ready, Set, Go...

I had my first appointment with Dr. Le to do a sonogram to get a baseline for a egg count. Apparently I have quite abundance of eggs! Normally, women my age will have an AMH (anti-mullerian hormone, which predicts egg supply) level of 1-3, my level was 6.5! When he did the sonogram he estimated about 15 maturing follicles in each ovary! So if anyone needs some eggs you know where to come. Since I have a great supply he will only have to give me minimum amounts of stimulation medication. I will go back next week for a "trial transfer" where he will map out my uterus to find the spot that he will implant the embryo's.

Good News!

We received Jake's results this morning and they are all normal!!!! So we can continue on. I've called Dr. Le's office this morning and waiting for the nurse to return the call so we can figure out when we will start all the medications. Thanks for everyones prayers and support!

Yikes

Yesterday we went to Jake's Urology consult. Dr. Chuang specializes in sperm retrieval for the ICSI (pronounced- ICK-Z) procedure. ICSI stands for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracytoplasmic_sperm_injection) Because the sperm mature in the "plumbing" that Jake does not have we will need this procedure to aid in conception. Normally, when sperm swim through all the plumbing ducts they grow their tail and the ability to permeate the egg, since Jake does not have this piece of anatomy they will have to remove a part of a tubule that has the immature sperm for the ICSI procedure. Anyway, getting back the the appointment, Dr. Chuang did an exam and is concerned that Jake also may not have another piece of anatomy that would be beneficial, but not crucial, for the sperm retrieval. He drew some lab work that would give us a better idea of Jake's ability to produce sperm. We should get one result on Monday and the other next Wednesday. Please pray that these results are normal, so that we can continue our plans with in vitro.

ICSI procedure (injection of the sperm into the egg)

Protocol

 This is our protocol that Dr. Le has put us on. It looks a little confusing at first, but we will be able to get more specific dates when I see him for our first sono.  The BCP are birth control pills, which are supposed to regulate my hormones in a specific way so that when we start the stimulation meds: lupron (which are twice a day SQ injections) my body will be able to produce a large amount of mature eggs for the retrieval.

Here we go

Jake and I have been married for 8 months now and have been together for 6 years. We have known early on in our relationship that we would need fertility treatments to be able to conceive a baby due to the faulty CF genes that Jake has. The CFTR gene produces abnormalities in his genes, one of those abnormalities is that he does not have the right "plumbing" to be able to have an baby the "old-fashion way." So we will need the help of fertility treatments to conceive a baby. We have completed our various consults, found the perfect fertility doctor for us and we  now have a plan. The plan involves a 8 week regimen of pills, injections, sonos, retrievals and implantation's, oh my.  The in vitro procedure is very technical and mimics the natural conception process as much as possible to obtain the best results! We will be able to start this journey with my next cycle, so here we go....