University of Iowa

Last night we drove to Iowa City when I got home from work. We checked into a hotel and immediately realized that we had made a mistake... Well, I had made a mistake.  I had selected a "pet friendly" hotel and we are both allergic to pets. Oops!!! Dogs barking and escalated allergies led to a horrible nights sleep. Then when I went to get into the shower I realized that I forgot my pants at home... Seriously!!!! How does one forget their pants.  The only pants I had were comfy black yoga capris that I changed into after school... But, they did the job! We left the hotel for the hospital and had quite a difficult time in the parking garage. We got to the area to check in and the lady helping us apologized for seeming scatterbrained, but admitted that she was distracted due to mysteriously asking for the afternoon off and having no idea why she had done so.  Then, we walked back to the waiting area and did not have a chance to have a seat... We were met by a medical assistant as soon as we got within the vicinity and taken to a room where she attempted to check my vitals, but the machine was acting crazy... But then, the craziness of the morning ended!

The medical assistant was fabulous. She checked with me to make sure that I was okay to try the vitals again... Which of course I was!  And before long the machine was working again.  She took us to consultation room 1 which turned out to be our home base for the next 5 hours.  She went over tons of information with us, asked us a lot of questions, and explained what would be happening that day.  She took the file I brought for them with all of my records and dropped it off for the doctors to go over and then she sent in the financial lady... Who was FABULOUS! She made jokes with Mike.  She explained everything that we would/could face financially, and she was just another bright spot in the day.  She left and the Med Assistant came back to take care of a few more things and then she led us to have the internal sonogram completed.  Not fun, but the lady was wonderful AND they gave me a REAL sheet to cover up with, not a paper sheet!!! Bonus!!  We chatted while she did her job... She is a mother of two daughters.  We talked books, we talked about her kiddos, she was personable and another bright spot in the day.

At this point, the first doctor (Dr. M) came in.  She immediately greeted us with a firm handshake and introduced herself.  She then looked over the sonogram results and they "talked shop". What's!?!?! We actually got to witness them acknowledging the mess that is my abdomen!! The sonographer told me that in order to limit my "naked time" they would complete another procedure while I was in there.  Sounded great to me and made me laugh!


The doctor finished her procedure and before long I was dressed and ready for our next step. At this point the med assistant came in again and talked through some paperwork until Dr. M came in.  At that point we went through the history of Team McVey.  It was a long conversation, but I was happy to hear that she had been reading up on my case with Dr. D while we were with the other people.  She discussed all of our options and said that Dr. D would be in to discuss our case as well.

Cue the medical assistant... A few final things... Then Dr. D came in and gave us his recommendations.  Mike should quit smoking, we should consider genetic counseling, and I should not starve myself... But should limit myself to 1,200 calories per day... At this point it was almost 2:00 and I had had nothing to eat.  I could have clawed out his eyes for suggesting that I limit my calories to 1,200 per day.  But, I didn't and both of us survived.  I could tell that he was working very hard to speak tactfully about his belief that losing weight would benefit IVF.  We discussed possibilities with him... What IVF could look like for us, fresh vs. Frozen cycle, etc... We felt confident that a fresh cycle was the way to go. He said he would send in Nurse A to go over scheduling.

Then the IVF nurse came in... She asked if we are really ready to get going.  We said absolutely. She said that we would start today! Yep... TODAY! She said that because I happen to be on day 3 of my cycle today it worked out that we could start today.  If I had been farther in my cycle we would have had to wait to meet gain until the end of January with an early March transfer... BUT, it worked out perfectly!!! ( See I said that the craziness had ended!! Things were turning around!) She went over the timeline and set up dates for us. She sent in prescriptions for us, and answered our questions.  We each took 4 antibiotic pills today to start our cycle and I started a birth control pill.  We set up our next appointment for next month and they sent us for Mike to do his part of the appointment! ;)

We walked out of the facility 5 hours after we walked in, ready to officially start an IVF cycle with a new facility!

What does that mean!?!?!? Well, honestly, they will not do a lot different than what we did last time.  They gave us the antibiotic, which was different.  They are limiting my calorie consumption, which is different... And sad! ;) And they are waiting to implant embryos until Day 5 after retrieval once the embryo has become a blastocyst... Which is probably the biggest difference.  I will post more about this at another time because we had a lot of discussion about this with both Dr. M and Dr. D.

Overall, we were very happy with today's visit.  We actually were a little alarmed that we did not feel that there was a single incompetent person that we came into contact with today... How was that possible!?!?!?! Hahaha!!

Tonight we took the first of our meds... We are officially in cycle! Hard to believe, but true.  Hopefully I will be able to write another blog post this weekend that dives a little deeper into the conversations we had with the doctors and the emotions of this decision.  For now we will be hopeful that this is the beginning of something amazing!!

Thank you for your continued support and prayers!! Though this has been a long road, in so many ways, this is just the beginning!  We can't thank you enough for all of your encouragement!

P.S. We are hoping that after retrieval we will be able to move our frozen embryo baby,  that is currently in Rockford,  to Iowa City to live with its frozen siblings! The doctor thought that it would be possible and we really don't want to leave him up there any longer than we need to... We don't know the sex of that embryo, but we have both called it a him all along, so it has to be true!;)