A crash course on IVF

I’m lying on my back, staring at the sterile white ceiling. My feet are in stirrups and there are three healthcare workers between my legs. Tears are trailing down my cheeks as the doctor inflates and maps my uterus.

I don’t feel like a woman. I feel like a lab rat.

The path of infertility has many waypoints. It begins in your doctor’s office with basic testing. With every step came a catharsis of hope and frustration. “Everything looks good here,” they say. “You’re young; it’ll happen.”

But you can’t help but wonder. If everything is good and I’m young, shouldn’t getting pregnant be easy?

We have now advanced to the final option for having my own pregnancy — In vitro fertilization (IVF). I never thought I would agree to IVF. Really the only things I knew about it were that it’s expensive and it involves a lot of needles. I hate shots. I’ve passed out from a simple blood draw.

The truth is, when it comes down to it, there’s not much I wouldn’t do to have a family. Even if it means going through what is sure to be a painful and expensive procedure.

In my experience, not a lot is commonly known about IVF other than what I knew and that the embryos are made outside the body. It’s where the term “test tube baby” comes from. I think many couples are hesitant to share their journey with IVF because its exceedingly personal and painful. But I think knowledge is power, so let’s talk about it.

In the typical female reproductive system, a woman has a uterus with two fallopian tubes, one on each side, that each end in an ovary. The ovary hosts egg sacs, something women are born with a finite number of.

Each month, one of the two ovaries releases an egg which travels down the fallopian tube in search of a sperm. When the sperm fertilizes the egg, it creates an embryo. If that embryo implants into the uterine lining, the woman becomes pregnant.

OK, now that we know all about the birds and the bees, what does IVF do to help couples get pregnant? IVF is a process in which the sperm is manually injected into the egg outside of the body.

In order to get the perfect egg to turn into a viable embryo, they need options. Here’s where the needles come into play. The medication injected is designed to encourage your body to produce more eggs. So instead of one ovary sending out one egg, the body sends out an average of eight to 14 eggs.

During this process, the ovaries swell from the size of walnuts to the size of tennis balls. The procedure is mentally, physically, financially and emotionally taxing.

There are a whole host of things that can go wrong during IVF including scary conditions like ovarian torsion and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). To keep the woman safe and to monitor progress, lab work and ultrasound is completed approximately six times in 10 days. When you live in Creston, that means driving to Des Moines six times for six blood draws and six ultrasounds. It can be overwhelming and an additional burden on the couple.

Once the eggs have reached the perfect maturity, egg retrieval is scheduled. This procedure involves the woman being sedated while the doctor inserts a needle into a follicle, which contains an egg, and pull the egg and surrounding fluid into the needle. The egg will move from the needle to the test tube. This process is repeated with other follicles and in your other ovary.

Now is when the reductions begin. Let’s say the doctor removes 14 eggs. From there, they are analyzed to see which ones are at the peak maturity to be injected with sperm. Now you’re down to 10.

The sperm is then injected into the eggs. You have to see which ones will fertilize. Now you’re down to six. From those six, the doctor is watching to ensure they progress the way they are intended. If at any point they don’t meet what they should look like, they aren’t going to work.

Out of those six, let’s say three make it to day five, becoming a blastocyst. Now the woman prepares to have an egg placed into the uterus. For women under 35, they typically only put one egg in at a time to reduce the likelihood of a multiple pregnancy.

The other embryos are frozen for use by the couple for future attempts if the first is unsuccessful, future children down the road or can be donated or discarded.

IVF is making a splash in the news recently as Alabama is considering ruling frozen embryos as children, making IVF illegal to perform. I don’t think I need to expound upon how horrific it would be to take this procedure away from women who want nothing more than to have a family.

I’m only three days into my shots, but plan for me to keep you updated on how IVF really impacts the mind, body and soul.