First off, I want to tell all of the previous story writers, that they have been so much help to me as I approach my first IVF cycle. I am scared to death about the retrieval and reading about it has helped, somewhat! (GULP)

My DH and I have been together on and off since we were 18. We met in college and straight away I told him my intentions of getting an "MRS" degree, if not with him then with someone else. I wanted to be a mom and have a house full of kids. We dated, broke up, dated again. When I was 19 I became pregnant on a one-night stand. I had an abortion. It was the worst thing I have ever done in my life and I try not to dwell on the horrible thing that I did. I am 29 now and my DH and I have been married for 3 years. The pain I suffered having the abortion, ironically, brought us closer again and we have been together ever since! OK that's it for the background stuff.

Two years ago we began to have unprotected sex. I was sure I would get pregnant immediately. When this didn't happen I began to use ovulation kits. Then we moved and I attributed our "not getting pregnant" to the stress of moving and finding new friends etc. By this time 3 of my friends were pregnant. Nothing seems to hurt me more. I know that it is a selfish thing to feel but my pain at not having a baby is so REAL that such jealousy flows through me. I don't know if I am alone in my feelings. Anyway, we went to a fertility clinic and did all the tests. I was A-OK, but lo and behold DH has male factor infertility with low motility, bad morphology, low count and the works. We tried Clomid for 4 months, then IUI for 4. Neither of these procedures worked. Finally the RE told us that ICSI was our next step. He gave me such hope. I am being "suppressed" as I right this, waiting for AF. I started Lupron on XMAS and will start stims as soon as I have my period. I pray this works. Our clinic uses day 5 transfers and the retrieval method is via the vagina. I am so scared of this. It hurts me to have a regular ultrasound probe inside of me, I can't even imagine how painful retrieval might be. This entire experience has us so wound up. We try not to blame each other and we know that with ICSI our problem is essentially fixed. The weight of IVF now lies with me to accept the blastocysts. I am so hopeful one moment and then the next I see a baby and I get hostile, hurt and upset and vow to only have dogs if this doesn't work. I cannot tell anyone about this besides my mother. Because of the ethics involved, DH's parents have made it clear to me that they think infertility treatments are for "selfish " people. I can just imagine their face when they see triplets (see, I do get optimistic sometimes). I just want all of you out there to know I am rooting for all of you. I hope each attempt results in as many positives as possible.

Love and prayers, Jodi

Author's update:

When I last wrote I was just beginning to down-regulate for my first IVF cycle in Jan '00. That attempt was VERY unsuccessful. First of all I had 10 follicles develop (6 in my left ovary and 4 in my right). I was thrilled. My hubby and I were SO optimistic. I went in for retrieval and this turned into an experience from hell. It turns out my left ovary was so high that the doctor had to perforate my uterus with the needle to aspirate the follicles. I was on Demerol and versed, and I could still "feel" the pain. I was out of it, but SCREAMING. The doctor stopped and decided to leave 6 eggs inside of me. We found out the following day that he got 4 eggs from the right ovary. They did ICSI and amazingly 3 out of the 4 fertilized. We were at a clinic where they "only do 5 day transfers." We waited and waited, but no call came to us. We were thrilled. It was Tuesday evening the night before transfer and we were about to go out to dinner, when the phone rang. It was the embryologist telling us our eggs never made it beyond 2PN (that would have been day 1). There was nothing to transfer. If that wasn't bad enough, he told us that he had never seen this happen before except with one 44 year old woman. He told us to consider using donor eggs. Then he suggested we do it again using 1/2 donor eggs and 1/2 my eggs and 1/2 donor sperm and 1/2 dh's sperm, since he couldn't tell us if it was an egg or sperm problem. That was all he told us. We were left to ponder this news for two weeks until we finally got to meet with our doctor. The doctor told me that the retrieval was so hellish because he thought I had ovarian adhesions. He wanted to do a laparoscopy and remove them ASAP. Then he wanted us to try one more time. He looked over his file and saw that the night of the HCG trigger shot I took my gonal-f shot like I had been doing all along. I was not to have done that. He felt that I may have "overcooked" the eggs. He knew from my previous pregnancy (at 19) that I could get pregnant, so the issue started to become donor sperm. He wanted us to undergo ICSI one more time using 1/2 dh's sperm and 1/2 donor.

Meanwhile he wanted me in the hospital the next day for a lap. I said OK. So of course once he gets inside of me he sees NO adhesions, BUT my left fallopian tube is much, much shorter then my right (he compares it to an undescended testicle in a man). The short fallopian tube explains why my ovary is so high up. We decided to try IVF one more time with just my hubby's sperm. We waited for my period, and I started Lupron once again. My stims were increased by one more ampoule of gonal-f for days 1-3 and this time we are scheduled with a spinal for retrieval. I was very pessimistic during the whole cycle. I didn't want to get my hopes up again. I was so sure that the embryos would "stunt" again, and that my hubby and I would never look into a face of a baby that belonged to both of us genetically. We began to prepare for donor IUI as our next step.

Retrieval came and went and amazingly enough the spinal didn't hurt at all! My left ovary apparently cooperated and fell down as far as it could so the doctor didn't have to go through my uterus. They got 8 eggs and 7 of them fertilized. We were happy but nervous. We thought they wouldn't divide properly. We decided to do a 3 day transfer based on articles I found online that said for cases where the eggs "stunt" at an early age 3 day transfers usually have better odds. 3 days later we went in and transferred four 8-celled embies, and one 7-cell. I couldn't believe they had made it to day 3! What had happened was a medical FLUKE? I caved to the HPT monster 8 days after the transfer. It was a faint, faint, faint positive. So the next day I did another one and it too was +. I called the doctor and they were closed until the following Monday, so I drove to the emergency room and had a beta. It was positive!!!!!! I am now 5w2d pregnant. YES! I will find out next week if it is one or two. The point of my story is: PLEASE keep the faith. I was really convinced that after the first time IVF was going to fail for us again and again, but it worked. Please, if you have a similar experience to mine do not give up after one try. My story proves how vastly different one cycle can be from the next!

Jodi