Today's Episode..."The Mock Transfer"

Today was doctor's appointment #1 in our last little endeavor to have a baby. It came during my birthday week so I'm hoping that is a good sign...like, a belated birthday gift kind of thing.


We went in for a mock transfer. It's like a fake IVF where the doctor routes out his cervical path. Heidi tends to have "difficulties", meaning whenever she has the chance to make something difficult, she does. With respect to IVF, or even IUI, her cervix sometimes gets a little pushy. What does that mean? Well, it means that when the doctor is trying to feed the small tube into her cervix to spit the embryos into her uterus, sometimes her cervix likes to push back. To prepare for that, the doc did a faker-baker transfer, shooting some water into the ole' uttie and checking for path problems (like rocks or sticks on a walkway) and other obstructions.

We found a couple little things...one, the obstruction isn't something we can move or reduce the size of, it just is. So, instead of risking any damage to the embryos when we put them back in by having them bang against this little push-back, we are going to dilate her cervix a little and hope that the transfer goes more smoothly. Lucky Heidi gets to go back to the doctor's on Friday to have a needle plunged into her cervix to numb the little barrier between va-jay-jay to uterus, wait a few minutes and then place a pipe-like instrument into her cervix until it gets larger and larger and larger. She'll then wander around for the next few weeks with a slightly dilated cervix.

Big fat aside here: When (not if, but when) we have a kid, if said kid is ever in a verbal disagreement with his other mother and during said heated discussion, if said child ever says to said other mother "you don't love me", I am going to beat said child with a print-out of this blog. The things that she is going through to create said child are nothing short of amazing. She is nothing short of amazing. Said child better never, ever say that. I think I can, without reservation, say I have never met another woman who had to work so hard to have a baby to love, to cherish. So, yea, child-to-be, make note.

Anywho...back to the uterus. During the ultrasound, we also found a rather large cyst. Nothing too alarming, there's actually a technical name for it but um, well, I don't remember it. In short, it's a leftover from ovulation where the follicle didn't "explode" but the egg left the container. So, the shot Heidi is currently taking twice a day (Lupron) should effectively reduce the size of said cyst. If it doesn't go away within ten days of starting the Lupron (we've been on it about six days now), we'll just keep shooting Heidi up until it does diminish. It won't make us have to wait a whole other cycle to do the IVF, it'll just delay her current cycle. We don't want to move forward with the cyst because it can adversely impact that ovary from making enough follicles. We want as many follicles as we can get.

We did have a question for Dr. Welden today...how many embryos would he be willing to put in this IVF since this is our last try? Last time, we did two embryos and got pregnant. But it didn't stick. We had been tossing around the idea of having three or four placed back into the oven but we weren't sure what Dr. Welden would think about this. After a little smile and a slight twinkle in his eye, he agreed to three. Four was pushing it a bit, I suppose.

So that's where we are, my peeps. Step one. Now we are waiting for Heidi's monthly visitor to visit (I have it on good authority that it may be knock, knock, knockin' on Heidi's door as I type). Then...the rest of the meds. We picked up the big expensive drug, Follistem, today. It's chillin' in the fridge. That means, if you happen to hang out at our house, watch what you grab from the fridge. You may end up amazingly hormonal and not have a clue why. LOL

Oh, and for good measure, we are going hang gliding tomorrow. The ranch where we are doing this is not too far from the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. Guess who they have as visitors at said museum? Fertility statues. I'm thinking after we take the hang gliding plunge from the sky, we'll stop by Ripley's and maybe let Heidi brush against the fertility statues a little. We'll go from close to Heaven to fertility statue...cover our bases. It can't hurt, can it?