This past Wednesday and Thursday, my sister Lara and I, along with our husbands, Roland and Derek, attended a number of seminars and appointments as part of our upcoming IVF shared cycles. If I haven't already explained, Lara also has IF, though hers is due to cancer treatments as a teenager (she had Hodgkin's Disease a couple of times). Over the last year, we've decided to go ahead with a shared cycle, where I donate some of my eggs to her at the same time we're doing our IVF. Our original sharing plan was kaiboshed by the fertility doctor, but more on that later (I'll probably break this all down in multiple posts over the next couple of days).
First, the seminar. We are going through the Calgary Regional Fertility Clinic, and it is required that all parties attend a 2 to 2.5 hour seminar that reviews what IVF is, what being a donor consists of, and all the risks, etc. We arrive a few minutes before 7 pm after me stressing out about being late (I really hate being late for anything, especially stuff like this). There are about eight groups in the room, and everyone was a donor group (one woman is donating, the other is the recipient). The thing is, Lara and I are a really unique situation. Apparently, we are the third group to come through the clinic since 1984 with a situation like this - where the egg donor is also doing her own IVF.
Our doctor, Dr. Scott, lead the presentation, and our nurse, Kathy, as also on hand to answer questions and speak to us a bit about what to expect. Dr. Scott is my type of doctor - straight forward and to the point, with out a bunch of BS. The Calgary Regional Fertility Clinic has a relatively high success rate (it's all published) and she was able to give us some numbers: on average, IVF retrievals result in 12 to 14 eggs (mature and borderline). They are, on average, able to retrieve 70% of the eggs from the follicles, and of those, 70% fertilize. The live birth rate is about 50% per IVF cycle. These are pretty good odds considering our chance of conceiving naturally each month is between 1% and 3% (and Lara's chances are 0%). The rest of the presentation reviewed the actual process (they use the long lupron protocol, if you are familiar - I'll explain my protocol in a later post), the mock cycles Lara will be doing, and the egg retrieval process.
Ok, now my complaint. Since this was a donor clinic as well as an IVF, you'd expect that the donors probably already have kids of their own - proof their eggs are good. This I understand. What I don't understand is why you'd bring your three year old to the seminar. A seminar where at least half the people in the room are infertile and probably sensitive to these things. A seminar that lasts at least two hours and starts at 7 at night. Even this infertile understands that kids get cranky, and a three year old will have a very hard time sitting still and quiet for two hours. I could not believe it, and I think most of the rest of the people there couldn't either. After about a half an hour of the doctor trying to talk over the kids babbles, she finally asked them to take her out of the room. Go Dr. Scott! And then, one of the women in the group had to fumble in her purse because her cell phone kept ringing. I don't know...for me, this is one of the most important things I'll do in my life, and my attention was undivided. Apparently they felt differently.
Tomorrow I'll post about the guys having to do their semen analysis at the same time and the weird conversations on the drive there. Ever share masturbation tips and tricks? T'was an interesting conversation.
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