There will be no end of orange and black in October. The amount of orange walking around SF today is impressive. Smart retailers should always send their surplus orange clothing to stores in our town. And Detroit. Because who buys orange? San Franciscans do. I’ve got my orange poof coat, orange (well coral) pants, orange dress, orange scarves. How much orange do you have in your closet? Probably not as much as I.

Anyway, today is kind of exciting. Grab a seat, my dear readers, because I’m about to tell you about IVF.

Today was the first ultrasound to start the process, which, if you recall, is round two for me and my husband. I’m trying not to be someone who fixates on it, because that only leads to disappointment. For that reason I plan to not blog about it all the time, either. Just be all casual like, you know?

But it’s so interesting, I thought people might like to know what it involves. If I only knew about this stuff when I was in school, I think I’d consider it as a career. And then, oh! The bangles I could buy!!

I’m going through IVF because I have a low egg reserve and I produce few eggs. My follicle count (yep! Like hair follicles, your eggs grow in follicles in your ovaries) is naturally about 1 or 2 per month. Most women are closer to 6 or 8. When one of the eggs reaches a mature size, you ovulate, which means the follicle ruptures releasing the egg. So even though usually just one egg releases, many others grow but don’t release and become reabsorbed. IVF tweaks your hormones to encourage follicular development and to hold off the ovulation process so as to collect multiple mature eggs.

My IVF process is called the Antagonist Protocol, which I’m certain my mother would agree is an apt name for any process of mine. Right now I’m taking some 25 or so vitamins, then in two days I start some baby aspirin and a giant antibiotic.

November 4th we get down to the shot business. For about two weeks, my honey shoots me in the gut morning and evening with a bunch of hormones to stimulate the follicles into production. Fortunately these shots do NOT make me a crazy lady. Unlike when I was taking these oral hormones similar to Clomid that made me so angry. I got in a fight with my honey about dinner and I was all “if he doesn’t want dinner, fine! Then we will never have dinner again! Fuck dinner!” And I threw out ALL of our food. There was even a moment in that mania where I stopped to question my actions, to analyze if I was acting crazy and then I was like “Nope! This is not crazy. He needs to be taught a lesson!”

So the injections are much preffered. But our neighbors must think we’re junkies because there we are, sitting in the living room, my honey injecting me in the gut for all the people across the street to see.

During this period of time, I pop over to Kaiser every other day or so to get blood tests and ultrasounds that monitor the growth progress. Which is super easy because we are just three blocks away from Kaiser.

Then, when the follicles reach the correct size, they harvest the eggs by knocking me unconscious. That same day they collect my husband’s “specimen”. That’s doctor code for he has to retreat to a closet in the office to jerk off into a cup. Making babies is sooooo romantic!

They combine the best quality eggs with the sperm, and presto! Test tube embryos! And then we wait three or five days (fingers crossed for five) as the cells divide. Judging on the quality of the embryos, they then return a small number to me.

And then we wait two weeks. Which is the worst worst worst part. There’s a little “what to expect about the process” video they make you watch that is all scientific until this part where the doctor says “Those two weeks will feel like they last forever.” The doctor! The other funny part of the video was after reinsertion the doctor says “Don’t worry, the embryos won’t fall out.” Clearly that is everyone’s concern so they had to address it.

My goals this time (which I have absolutely no control over) are to produce enough eggs, have enough of them fertilize properly so as to have left overs to put into deep freeze. It’ll save me from going through the injections again which also cuts down on the cost. Shit be expensive! Oh, to think of all the bangles I could have 😦

Final share about the process, this is where the magic of life kicked in. Some of my dad’s life insurance payments arrived just when the bills started. So it’s still going on the credit card for the points, but we have the cash to pay for it in our bank account. It makes me cry, I’m so grateful to my dad.

Anyways, there’s that. Lessons here: always sign up for life insurance, and ladiezzz, no matter your age you might want to ask your OB about your follicle count. I don’t know if my life would be different if I had known at age 28, but maybe. Any questions?

Today’s bangles are silver Goodwill find, a stone Goodwill find, orange and black Clic Clacs.