First IVF Appointment

I had my referral appointment with the fertility specialist for Monash IVF today... or as it turned out, my first IVF appointment!

Little did I know that the specialist I’m seeing is actually one of the doctors there, so I won’t need to change specialists at all or go through additional blood work/ultrasounds (with the exception of the HIV/HepB/HepC; it’s law in our state prior to starting treatment). The good news is that as soon as both of our police checks are clear (if I order them after the Easter weekend, they might come back to us in 10-14 days), the blood work gets done and Matt and I see the counsellor – another compulsory part of the treatment progress.\

And from there, it should start fairly quickly... depending where I am in my cycle, of course.

Early treatment (ie, the cycle before the ‘stim’ cycle, where my eggs are collected) involves a nasal spray that works to suppress my hormones – similar to the Zoladex I was on in 2008 – and birth control pills, ironic seeing as though the point of this is to get pregnant. ;)

Once I get my period at the end of the artificial cycle, then the IVF cycle begins – the daily needles, sprays and monitoring of my follicles (where the eggs are growing in). Sure, there’s a substantial cost due at the time I get the medication, but we will get some back in Medicare rebates (as well as private health insurance covering most of the costs of day-surgery procedures and anaesthesiologist/pathology). We probably couldn’t shoulder more than two ‘stim’ cycles this year without some form of assistance, but let’s hope that it won’t come to that – I’ll just have to pick up some extra work this Term and put my camera musings on hold for a while.

It’s all so exciting, and potentially may be happening in as little as eight weeks! Seriously... two months!