In Vitro Fertalization

MOGuy424

MOGuy424

Well-Known Member
Hi,

I do not usually post threads in this specific forum, well because I have never needed to. However, after many years of trying to have a little babino we found out that the only way to do so would be adoption, donor's, or In Vitro Fertalization. Since we decided that we want a baby that is either all or none of our own dna we opted out of donors, which was the cheapest route. The cost between adoption and the IVF comes out to about the same when it is all said and done. My wife has said she really wants to have the "pregnancy" experience, I don't understand this one, but hey if that is what is important to her, fine by me.

With that being said we have chosen to do IVF and she will begin taking the hormone injections in a about a week or so. The majority of individuals who go through this process I have talked to do not have the same type of career as myself and were able to help their partners with injections, doc visits and such. So my purpose of this thread to get as much friendly encouraging advice from pilots or spouses of pilots whom have gone through this process and how you managed your sanity while at home and on the road while knowing your wife is at home having to self-inject themselves with these medications.

This whole process seems overwhelming and stressful, but we know what we will be getting out of this is going to be well worth the tough road ahead.
If there are any of you out there I would appreciate advice and input. If there is anyone out there who has gone through this I will be doing post here on the progress of the procedures.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can chime in and coach me through this! :)
 
I have no advice, but much friendly encouragement.

I also think we need this image here:

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dvtpilot said:
Did insurance cover the testing up till now?

Also, will they help with costs of IVF?
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Insurance covered much of the testing and preliminary procedures but ours will not covere the hormone drugs and the procedures itself. I know that in some states they require insurance companies to cover a portion of the procedure, unfortunately Virginia is not one of those states.
 
My wife did her own injections, I had to bank the bullets. I will tell you one big thing we did, we went to counseling, every week. Everytime it does not work or you lose one it is a crusher. Also, you as a man won't understand her feelings. That is why we went to counseling . And we educated ourselves on the side effects and possibilities of issues.
 
Great information thanks. I had thought about the counseling as well as a neutral place to talk about things. I know that her feelings will be different and that her emotions will be all over the map with the hormones.
 
Actually to be honest, with all the hormones, she actually was normal . Why, because they had her balanced. Shows you how much women are unbalanced about 99.9% of the time.
 
Any of you guys shooting out PM's care to drop me one? I am about to embark on this journey too, just a little shy and lost at the moment.

Thx
 
I don't really see a need to keep our story to PM. My wife and I tried to conceive for a bit over a year before going in for testing. Everything was normal, which was actually kind of a negative because there's nothing to address medically for unexplained infertility. We tried a few months of IUI and ended up being unsuccessful. Rather than keep wasting money, we went right into IVF. They did pre-implantation genetic screening and transferred only one embryo who was growing like champ by day 5, and the IVF was successful. I'd recommend keeping a spreadsheet or detailed calendar of medication schedules; our kitchen looked like I was mixing meth every night for a week. The hormones suck, giving shots kind of sucks, and the months that we had gotten negatives were *horrible*. It was also my first year in grad school, which was pretty bad timing. Counseling is critical in my mind. It's a royal mind-screw for people to have their bodies betray them, and it can be hell on a relationship.

Bottom line is that it was an awesome experience in the end. Anyone feel free to PM me--I have no problem talking about the gory details. But the little guy is waking up right now....
 
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zmiller4 said:
I don't really see a need to keep our story to PM. My wife and I tried to conceive for a bit over a year before going in for testing. Everything was normal, which was actually kind of a negative because there's nothing to address medically for unexplained infertility. We tried a few months of IUI and ended up being unsuccessful. Rather than keep wasting money, we went right into IVF. They did pre-implantation genetic screening and transferred only one embryo who was growing like champ by day 5, and the IVF was successful. I'd recommend keeping a spreadsheet or detailed calendar of medication schedules; our kitchen looked like I was mixing meth every night for a week. The hormones suck, giving shots kind of sucks, and the months that we had gotten negatives were *horrible*. It was also my first year in grad school, which was pretty bad timing. Counseling is critical in my mind. It's a royal mind-screw for people to have their bodies betray them, and it can be hell on a relationship.

Bottom line is that it was an awesome experience in the end. Anyone feel free to PM me--I have no problem talking about the gory details. But the little guy is waking up right now....
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I'll add to this - I too have no issues about sharing our IVF story publicly. In fact, I wrote an article in Twins Magazine a few months ago about the IVF stigma and how we more or less put it on ourselves. I'll send anyone the link if they want it (I'm not allowed to post it publicly).

Wife and I knew we'd each have problems even before we met. Did IUI once but even that had a low probability of working. Was lucky enough to have two embryos make it to 5-days and both took. Our boys will be 2 next week. My best friend and his wife actually just did their implantation and are waiting on the results.

Above all else - have a sense of humor about everything. It can be a very sad, trying and emotional time. It's best to just find the humor in it - there's a lot there.
 
Murdoughnut said:
In fact, I wrote an article in Twins Magazine a few months ago about the IVF stigma and how we more or less put it on ourselves.
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I think people would be surprised to find out how common fertility issues are--my wife's two best friends have had a successful IUI and IVF in the last year.

Is be interested in seeing your article. I remember a write up you did after a few months where you made parenthood look less than glamorous...wish I had re-read that before our son was born. The amount of smoke that gets blown up people's butts from other parents about having kids is astounding. Facebook is all staged photos and sickeningly sweet comments that leave out the reality of extreme exhaustion and being crapped on at 2 in the morning.

Parenthood is great, but it would be a lot easier to prepare for if people were more honest about it. I think that the first few months are even tougher if you've been through infertility treatment, because then you're thinking "we paid how much for this?"
 
zmiller4 said:
I think people would be surprised to find out how common fertility issues are--my wife's two best friends have had a successful IUI and IVF in the last year.

Is be interested in seeing your article. I remember a write up you did after a few months where you made parenthood look less than glamorous...wish I had re-read that before our son was born. The amount of smoke that gets blown up people's butts from other parents about having kids is astounding. Facebook is all staged photos and sickeningly sweet comments that leave out the reality of extreme exhaustion and being crapped on at 2 in the morning.

Parenthood is great, but it would be a lot easier to prepare for if people were more honest about it. I think that the first few months are even tougher if you've been through infertility treatment, because then you're thinking "we paid how much for this?"
Click to expand...

I think the most challenging thing nobody tells you beforehand is that many men will have a hard time feeling a connection to the child the first four months or so. It's different for women because they have a chemical connection, but nobody tells you that for the first few months the baby isn't going to be responsive to you - you'll talk to him/her, make faces, etc. and get nothing in return. It turns out that they are in fact engaged in you, but it can be hard to convince yourself of that. You start to feel guilty - and almost worried, worried that you won't love the child. It definitely gets better as they interact more with you.

There are certain people who have dreamed of having children for as long as they could remember. My wife and I weren't those people - we each knew from a young age that fertility would be a challenge, and we worked on developing a happy life without kids. When we did finally get the desire to try and have kids, we knew that even that had a 50/50 shot of not working. Was it worth having kids looking back? Yes ... but as I like to tell people, it's a close "yes". There's a lot of stress, struggle and worst of all, worry, that comes with being a parent. But there's also a lot of joy and satisfaction. For me, having kids kicked my professional career in the backside. All of a sudden I took on a provider role (though my wife works too) and I had a new found desire to go to work and succeed. For some it's the opposite - some people want to spend more time at home with their kids, and I get that too.

But yes - the IVF experience is unique in that sense. I laughed because I too thought "we paid how much for this?!" Perspectives are just different when you go through this. You don't have as much of the sense of entitlement to a child because at that point, you've probably been told repeatedly how nature stacked the cards against you.

Great discussion here - I hope it keeps going. I'll PM you the link for the story.
 
Wow, how true that parenthood is NOT all the "happy and sappy" that is all over FB and such. It's nice to hear others say that too...
 
Being a single guy, I've got no advice, but know that the MO mafia is behind ya. Sending thoughts and prayers your way, and if you need anything, never hesitate to drop a line!
 
Any updates to this thread? The wife and I are continuing down our infertility path. The frustrating thing like another poster mentioned is it's unexplained fertility, so all the more hard to understand and deal with.

Wife started her injections last week for what was supposed to be our first IUI cycle. She ended up responded too well to the injections, making an IUI too risky for multiples, so they gave us the choice midway through to switch to IVF. The was completely unexpected emotionally and financially, so it has been a trying 24 hours. We have chosen to continue the cycle with IVF instead, rather than cancel the cycle though.
 
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So I guess I am going to turn this into IVF/quasi IVF general.

So Mrs Poser and I were mostly in the same boat. We tried for a couple of years with no luck. Tried a couple of different things before we finally got the referral to try IVF. Well as we all know that crap is expensive. Fortunately my wife has an aunt and uncle who went through the same thing as us, and ended up doing one round of IVF. They also happened to be rich. Knowing the crap we were going through trying to get this to come off they ended up giving us the money!

So we called the doctor to get set up and they said to just call them back when the wife started her period...

That period never came! Now we have a baby girl coming in February!

When we called the fertility clinic to tell them what was going on they were not shocked in the least. Apparently that happens all the time. I guess what happens is the couple ends up putting a lot of stress on the whole "breeding" procedure, and that tends to hinder operations. When we found out we were getting money and would be able to afford it it was like we didn't even have to try anymore. We relaxed.

What we didn't realize is that we got to the point very quickly were being intimate with each other was always more of a clinical thing that we had to do to have a kid. Once news came in that we could do IVF we no longer had that responsibility and were able to just enjoy ourselves again. That apparently did the trick.

Now, I am not saying it ALWAYS happens that way, but it does happen rather frequently. It happened to us after being told we would never conceive on our own.

Sorry if it seems like I am trying to rub our success in the face of others who are not so lucky. I'm not. All I want to do is show that there is always hope...even when you are told you shouldn't have any.

Best of luck to you all having this same issue...I hope it works out as well for you guys.
 
To add to Poser's post above, we went through all of the IVF process (I never wanted to know this much information on how a female's body works). We went through a bad spell that I won't discuss in this thread, but some here may remember. We (well, I) decided enough was enough and I couldn't go through it again. I didn't want to see my wife go through all of the shots and things they go through body wise to do a cycle.

We ended up fostering kids for a bit, and ended up adopting our son about 3 years ago. Before we finalized the adoption, we found out my wife was pregnant. It was one of those "just relax and it'll happen" that is nearly impossible to do unless you have a reason to relax. We now have a 7 year old boy and a 2 year old daughter.

Best of luck to all of those trying this process...it is definitely a very hard road to go down, even if all goes well.
 
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