IVF what is it like??? any experiences or know anyone that has gone through it?

IVF is an emotional, physical and mental commitment. In a 6 week period (based on our protocol / treatment plan), you put your body through a roller coaster experience. We started with 2 weeks on the pill to supress everything, started Lupron injections and then added follitism. The injections take over your life - every night for weeks at about the same time. I was meeting friends for dinner one night and found myself doing my injection in the bathroom of a restaurant and hoping that no one would see me and think I was a drug addict! I put on some weight from the meds and was exhausted but that was about it for side effects. I did not have any wild mood swings.

There is constant bloodwork and ultrasounds - my arms were bruised and I was really tired of going to the RE's office every other day or so. Because it is all about nature and how your body reacts to the meds, there is no telling when you will have the egg retrieval. Ours ended up being Christmas Day 2007!

The egg retrieval was a bit overwhelming psychologically - it is like surgery, you are under sedation in a sterile room. After the retrieval . . . the waiting game starts. You wait to find out how many eggs were retrieved and how many fertilization. We were hoping for a high retrieval and high fertilization - the goal was to have enough eggs to risk growing them to a 5 day blastocyst. It was also supposed to give us a safety net - the ability to freeze a few for a future cycle if necessary.

Our actual results - 11 retrieved and ONLY 2 fertilized. This was a low point for us . . .we really felt like we had failed, that this would not work and the RE switched us from the 5 day to a conservative 3 day transfer because he was not confident that both or any would mature to 5 days in the lab! It just felt like bad news.

I was down and battling a cold when we walked into the transfer. After the transfer, I slipped on the ice and fell down 5 cement stairs - it just seemed like everything was going wrong - I was feeling pretty negative. They showed me a picture of my embryos at the transfer . . . and I had the option of taking the photo home. From that point on, I was attached. I talked to my picture, I talked to my belly . . . We used to yell STICK at my abdomen. It always made my husband and I smile when were stressed out.

On the day of our blood test to get the results of the cycle . . . I got up in the morning and had a small smear of pink on the toilet paper. I threw the hpt in the trash without using it and announced to my DH that we failed yet again - failed to conceive during 3 clomid IUIs, 3 injectible IUIs and now I thought for sure that we had a failed IVF cycle. I went in for the blood test and cried the whole time. The poor lab tech kept trying to comfort me. When they called with the results I sent them to voicemail because I didn't want to hear it. Imagine my surprise when I listened to the message and got our positive!

Our IVF twins will be 2 years old tomorrow (yes, tomorrow - happy birthday babies!) and it was the best thing we had ever done . . . but it was a long road and we were the lucky ones.

Hope this helps - feel free to email me through my profile if you have any questions or just want to talk (vent).