Fertility Part 1

I've undergone a transformation such that I almost don't recognize myself. The priority for this year is above all, create human life. We're in the midst of fertility treatment.

I've written on this blog about fertility and advanced maternal age in the year 2012. It's hard to believe it's only 7 years later and we weren't trying to have a baby but we weren't trying not to have a baby and the time just flies by. I was a lot more self-involved 7 years ago. Now I think I spend more time genuinely thinking about other people. Being happy for them. Thinking of how I can be of service to others.

I wanted to write a post in February but that month is so short, it has already flown by. Mid-January we went to an informational session on the fertility treatments. Early-February we went to our first consultation appointment. The transvaginal ultrasound was uncomfortable but not painful. It reminded me to stay humble and not to be shy about letting a medical professional do their job. I went at the end of that week on a Friday to give blood for the Ovarian Assessment Report (OAR)™ and the results came back on Tuesday saying that I am borderline fertile/infertile and that there's a chance of recovering 5 eggs.

Dear husband went in the following week and gave his sample, which was tested according to Reprosource advance semen report (ASR). The clinic is giving us some special attention since we work in a chemistry building and are surrounded by chemicals all the time and have been for the past several decades. They called us this week and let us know that they would be using a microfluidic device for sperm sorting.

I've been watching this show on hoopla (free from the Los Angeles Public Library) called "The Baby Makers" and the cool part about it is that they show embryologists and how they manipulate individual sperm, a technique called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). One sperm is manually inserted into an egg using a small needle.

During Early-February we were given a laboratory requisition for infectious disease screening and genetics. I thought we had to take that to our primary care doctor and have that person order the tests in order for it to be billed through our insurance, but the primary care doctor said that we could have taken the requisition directly to LabCorp diagnostics.

I just created a login to browse my own test results, so cool! Everything is normal except my Vitamin D is "insufficient" but not a "deficiency." I guess I should be more regular with taking the Ca/Mg/VitD supplement. Or maybe just get a VitD supplement by itself.

So I guess the next step is to sign the papers for the loan.