If Only it Were April Fool's

April first... a day I had been both anticipating in joy and fearing so greatly. It was time to bring in the big guns. My heart had been pounding all day... I hardly slept the night before. Suddenly it felt like the first day at a new school and I didn't know if anyone would ask me to sit with them at lunch. Then I remembered my hubby would be there... every step of the way.

Enter Fertility Associates of Memphis, at least if we were going to do this, we were going to do it with the right people. I was ready. They had my records... and I had my handy book of questions and answers. 21 questions to be exact. Mike actually laughed when I told him how many I had written down, but I did NOT want to forget anything in front of the firing squad! We walked into this office, greeted by the nicest people. That didn't stop my heart from pounding... and pounding. I was taken back for the regular doctor things, blood pressure, weight, height, etc. Then we were taking into a room... heart pounding and pounding and pounding. We tried small talk with each other, but it would not calm my nerves. Then entered Dr. Ke.

I was forewarned that he had a very dry personality... that wouldn't bother me. I wanted someone who would be straightforward with me under these circumstances. He asked many questions... personal of course. I honestly loved the way he talked to us. He was straightforward but not in an uncaring way. He was personable. He genuinely cared about our situation. He laughed with us at the good things (like my husband's excellent test results)... and gave us honest options about the bad things. When we were close to the end of the appointment I looked at my notebook and he had already answered about 19 of the questions I had written down. Suddenly, I felt completely at ease with him. I trusted him. That was a huge weight lifted... knowing I was in good hands, some of the best if you look at all his awards. After that I had 6 vials of blood drawn, was set up for one more and would have to call back to schedule the final one before our next appointment, because the last one had to be done after the start of my next cycle. I was terrified of getting that much blood drawn but the girl was so efficient and barely left a mark.

Here is the information he could give us based on everything I had done so far... minus the pending blood work. We could try IUI (intrauterine insemination) and he would try to get us up to a 15% chance of that working, but he wasn't very optimistic about it (I could really tell) 1. because of my funky shaped uterus 2. because of everything we had tried so far 3. because he suspected something more was going on chemically with my body that was causing me not to become pregnant (but wouldn't be able to confirm that without the blood results) and 4. because I have a history of OHSS (over stimulation) he said it was likely to happen again, and in that instance the procedure would simply be cancelled... and all those injections would have been for nothing. He was willing to try because it was so much easier than our one other option. IVF. In vitro fertilization. He was clear that this was our best shot. Conservatively he gave us a 50-60% success rate... and that was without my test results. The biggest thing would be to check my egg reserves but was confident based on how my body reacted to letrozole, the injections would be successful in getting us our desired amount of eggs ripe for harvesting.

I asked him straight up, "If this was you and your wife in our situation, what would you do?" Without hesitation, he said "IVF, absolutely." I knew he was right. The medical side of my brain told me he was right. The $15,000 price tag however had me shaken. We had about half that. The good news was that he didn't see any reason that I would not be able to successfully carry a child to term. He was clear however, that if I ended up pregnant with twins I would be seeing a high risk doctor just to be on the safe side. He absolutely did not want me pregnant with a higher number of multiples that that. He also said to be glad we were at the point of seeing him while we were still relatively young... even though we've been fighting this for 2 years... we felt fortunate that we weren't just getting to this point 6 or 7 years down the road.

We needed time to process.

I left feeling okay. I knew we were in the right hands... I knew that God wouldn't let us make a mistake in deciding what to do... but I had to process... and grieve. You see he also told us our chances of conceiving on our own... let's just say it was slim to none. Yet again, I knew how much of an absolute miracle our first baby was. He didn't say it was impossible... but it was awfully close. It was a lot to take in. And I had to take time to grieve the fact that it was not likely that I could. That was a hard blow as a woman, a wife and a mother.

I knew one thing for sure... it was all in God's hands and whatever God had in store for us... we were ready.

Our next appointment was scheduled for April 29th. Then we would have a definite plan.