Reality is starting to sink in. The burden of moving away from family, being in a military town and making friends and those moving away. I understand during this process it will not be feasible for B to attend all the ultrasound and bloodwork appointments occurring nearly every other day. I guess the blessing is an egg retrieval will only happen once each month.

There is comfort knowing I am not alone in this journey and that people care. The part that stinks though aside from the injections, I am not a fan of ultrasounds or bloodwork. Just plenty of steps I’m not a fan of that have to occur to hopefully have our baby. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right?

I think my thoughts just ramble waiting for additional steps. I am a planner and I do not feel expectations are being managed appropriately currently. We were left with that we will start with this next cycle. When will we get our medication protocol? When should we schedule monitoring appointments? Can’t even follow up with has medication authorization been sent to insurance because the information has not been received yet. Just waiting.

I wish these topics were discussed more in our education or even early 20s, like actual comprehension reproductive education. I believe if someone has concerns about fertility their labs should be drawn without having to go to a fertility clinic just for a baseline understanding. I could only imagine what this journey would look like now if I had appropriate labs drawn three years ago (not just TSH, CBC, insulin, prolactin, DHEA-S and testosterone) when I voiced my concerns. I know we all love unsolicited advice but I would definitely recommend my friends and others to get baseline labs in their early 20s or now if that’s where you are at in life. I can’t imagine “waiting for the right time” to only find out more time has passed and more eggs are gone. I guess quieting my rambling thoughts is something I’ll have plenty of time to practice on as a lot of waiting occurs with IVF. Now to continue working on being patient…

-A