TESE Procedure and IVF schedule!

Went up to Kettering last night to stay for Zacks procedure this morning. We hated to miss church but atlease if we had to miss we got to see UK advance to the elite 8! But Zack had his TESE procedure and it went great! They got 4 vials of good quality sperm so we are set with that now and it will be frozen and stored until after my egg retrieval! We did learn today that Zack does not handle IV sedation well due to his CF. The anesthesiologist were really nervous doing it after they found out that he had CF. So they decided they were going to do the IV sedation very light but when they started putting him to sleep they said he started coughing really hard so they immediately stopped the medicine. So they decided to do local anesthesia instead so he was actually awake during the whole procedure. But he is doing pretty good now he is pretty sore but has decided that a bag of frozen peas is his best friend.

I also got my IVF packet today and we have a timeline now for everything! The next appointment I have will be around the 21st of April and on that day they will be doing a mock transfer and an ultrasound to check if there are any cysts from my birth control pills. This mock transfer allows him to measure the depth of my uterus and to determine the best way to insert the catheter during the real transfer. Then the following day on the 22nd I will start my first shot which will be Lupron and will continue taking until the egg retrieval. Lupron is an injection I will take daily to help shut off my body’s normal process of hormone and egg development. The next shots I will begin is Gonal F and low dose HCG which will begin on May 3rd! They are used to stimulate the development of follicles and eggs. These will be taken until May 12th and also on that day I will take another shot called Ovidrel, also known as the trigger shot. This is the last shot before our egg retrieval. During April 21st and May 12th I will have 5 appointments for labs and ultrasounds to check my response to the medications.  

As of now the egg retrieval is scheduled for May 14th! The goal will be to get as many eggs as they can. Once they have them they will have Zacks sperm unthawed and insert the sperm into the eggs through a process called ICSI.  After this they will begin monitoring them to see which ones mature. There are multiple medications I will be taking after this but I will not bore you with those details. The only one that is really important is the day of the egg retrieval I will begin progesterone shots that will be continued up until the pregnancy test and when its positive I will continue it till I believe atleast the end of the first trimester. 

Then the big day which is the embryo transfer is scheduled for May 17th! They have not told me yet how many embryos they will transfer but I assume it will probably depend on the quality of the ones they have to choose from. I will then have a blood pregnancy test 2 weeks following. Something I have not mentioned so far is whether or not we will tell the results of this right away. Our plan is this...when it works take my not saying anything as a good thing but if you don't hear anything after a few weeks then something went wrong. If it would not work then I will go ahead and tell right away that it didn't work. We just don't want to rush and tell everyone like we had before and then have to go through what we did last time with people not knowing I had miscarried and them asking me about the pregnancy. 

Also on a side note we got some great news about two of my medications! I will receive 75% off my Gonal F and Ovidrel prescriptions since we qualified for a program called Compassionate Care! This will save us easily over $1000!!

The next time I will post will probably be the day I start my first shot and I will have the details of my previous days mock transfer and ultrasound! Also the dates we have mentioned could change by atleast a day or so but if they would I will make note of it on our blogs. Again like always we appreciate your prayers! 

Surgery and Testing Part 2

I had my laparoscopy and hysterscopy surgery yesterday at Kettering! He said he did cut out quite a bit of endometrosis and removed 4 or 5 cysts/nodules that were pretty deep on my right side that would have been causing a lot of my pain. He said my tubes, ovaries, and uterus look great and he found no blockages in the tubes when taking the camera through them. He also said this will definently maximize our chances of success with our IVF procedure! He took pictures of the endometriosis and cysts but I will spare you guys the pictures unless anyone wants to see them just let me know!  Now I have my post op on the 27th and he said we will start figuring out dates to begin IVF medicines which will most likely be 3-5 weeks after that visit! I did put pictures at the bottom from the day of the surgery and my incisions afterwards. 

In the mean time while waiting to start the IVF medicines they have scheduled Zacks TESE procedure for March 31st! We are excited but he is very nervous! This will require general sedation but it will be more like wisdom teeth removal sedation than actual surgery. They said the procedure should only take about 10 minutes! They will freeze the tissue they get and then it will be stored until it is ready to be unthawed when I have my egg extraction so they can make the embryos!

Last week I had my hormone testing and they tested my TSH, LH, FSH, Insulin, Prolactin, Estradiol, HCG, DHEA sulfate, and Testosterone levels! So thank you everyone for the prayers they all came back in the normal range which is awesome! Those results help them determine how good of a chance of success we will have with IVF and makes sure that according the the numbers I should have good quality eggs which is very important with IVF!

But again thank you all for your prayers and the donations that we have been given! It's what is making all this possible! We have such a peace about it and everything is just going so smoothly so we know that it can only be God working this all out for us! We will post again after Zacks TESE procedure and will let you know how that went as well as the dates we will begin IVF shots!