Today we went into our local fertility clinic, the Ottawa Fertility Centre (OFC), to meet with one of the nurses for a "consent signing appointment". The purpose of this appointment was to find out what protocol (the process) we would be doing, what the success rates and risk factors are, and to basically sign our life away on a bajillion medical forms.
We found out that we would be doing an "Antagonist" protocol with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). ICSI is the procedure where they inject 1 single sperm into an egg, rather than letting all the sperm swim around the egg and fertilize it themselves.
We're also lucky patients of the Ontario government funded IVF program, which means that much of the costs of IVF will be covered by our health care (hallelujah!). What's not covered is the cost of injectable medications (roughly $6,000) and cost for annual embryo freezing should we be lucky enough to have high-quality embryos to freeze for later ($500/year). I also have prescription drug coverage through my work so part of the medication will be covered, which will help us out a lot. We've been on a waiting list at OFC since November 30th of 2016, so we're very happy to be moving forward with the government funded program.
So what are some of the things we found out at our appointment today?
- We were told that the expected pregnancy success rate was 42% - this was a stat individualized based on us, our age, health, medical history, etc. However, we're staying realistic because that means there's also a 58% chance that it won't result in a pregnancy. This stat shouldn't be confused with a live birth rate, because just because there's a 42% chance we could get pregnant, that doesn't mean the pregnancy would be viable.
- We also found out that there's about a 10% chance of our cycle being cancelled by the clinic... that could be for reasons such as poor stimulation or over stimulation to the meds, problems accessing my ovaries, no eggs being retrieved, zero eggs that were fertilized, or no surviving embryos... we really hope that we won't fall into that 10% and have our cycle cancelled.
- Because I have PCOS, there's also a 20% chance I could get ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome (OHSS), which if you read about it, would really suck... so lets hope that also doesn't happen!
- Apparently there's also a 25% risk of multiple pregnancies, even if they only put back 1 embryo (yes, only ONE) on day 5 (day 5 after egg retrieval)... this rate is much higher than the general population who might have that occur naturally at a rate of 3% in Canada.
- Rates of miscarriage are still the same - so even if this works and we get pregnant, we still have about a 15-20% chance of having another miscarriage...
Hope we didn't bore you too much with all of those stats... but we found them helpful to keep us realistic about the process. Many people believe IVF is a magical solution to infertility. And while it is an incredible advancement in the field of medicine, there are still many people who it doesn't work for. I might sound jaded, but I'm just being realistic.
Also at this appointment, we had to make a lot of decisions that weren't necessarily prepared for. It would have been great if we had a heads up from OFC about the types of decisions we should be prepared to make at this appointment. For example, if one of us were to die, would we allow the other living person to use the remaining embryos to have a child on their own (or via a surrogate in Jake's case). Would we donate our embryos to science if we didn't or weren't able to use them. Would we allow for the clinic to destroy our embryos once we were done with them... these seemed to be tough questions for us to answer, so we made quick judgement calls to the best of our ability today, but we may revisit and revise these decisions over the next little while if we change our mind.
I'm also happy to report that I met the weight limit for IVF (based on OFC's restrictions), after losing 30 lbs with Weight Watchers (WW) since April. Yeah!!! OFC said I can stick with WW as I go through IVF, until we know a result at the end of all this. I plan on continuing to do so, especially since I won't be able to work out, other than just walking, while going through IVF. This is because any fast movements/turns/jumps/crunches can highten the risk of an ovary twisting and having the blood supply cut off... so yeah, walking it will be!
Overall, we're excited to be moving on. The last 2.5 + years have seemed to drag on and have seemed to move very slowly to get to the next step. So here's hoping this one goes by fast, and even maybe better, works, and sticks for good!
What are the next steps?
- We have a "scheduling" appointment on September 6th where we will get all the details about the process, meds, restrictions, etc.
- Once I get my next period, I call OFC to report my "day 1"
- I'll be scheduled to have blood work drawn on day 2. The purpose of this will be to check my progesterone levels. If they are too high, our IVF cycle could be delayed by a month. They don't think that mine will be, and this is a standard test, but they are checking it nonetheless.
- I'll start injectable medications between days 2 and 4 (depends on if my day 1 falls on a weekend, OFC's schedule, etc.). I'll probably be on medications for around +/- 10 days.
- And of course... more to come... but it gets fuzzy/complicated/up-in-the-air from here.
Anyway, until next time!
