Talked to the nurse

I Peter 1:6-9 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

My pastor talked on the verse above in church on Sunday. It is my new IVF theme verse, and I am sure many of you can make it your theme verse for whatever situation you are personally in.

So we have some more IVF news:

I spoke to the IVF nurse yesterday. She gave me the option to do our FET (frozen embryo transfer) on September 7 or put it off until the 21st. (The 14th is out because of work conflicts for me and school conflicts for JB).

September 7 works fine for us. However, my doctor is out of town. Good ol' Dr. C. (He's awesome!) We would have Dr. G (the new doctor) do the procedure instead. He is new to Mayo but not new to infertility.

September 21 works out okay for us, however, John has a test in Chicago on the 22nd. We would have to leave immediately after the procedure to make the six hour drive. This is a lot for him to handle the day prior to a huge test.

We have decided ... to just go ahead and do the procedure on the 7th. I spoke with the nurse in detail. In the past, patients didn't even get a choice as to which doctor did the procedure. Whatever doctor was in that day was the doctor you got. She said that residents and students are never allowed to do the transfers -- that only the fellows or consultants to do these.

As much as I love Dr. C, there's no proof that he is better. Heck the first time didn't work. My biggest thing is being comfortable with what is happening. It's nervous being wheeled into an OR awake and knowing you are going to stay awake. You talk about being uncomfortable going in for a physical. Imagine being wheeled into an operating room, on valium, with half a dozen strangers walking around you talking about how things are going. It's not my favorite activity.

However, I am not sure I can ever be perfectly comfortable in this situation, and either way, I will leave with one (hopefully two) embryos in me. After talking to my good bud Kristi and JB, we have just decided to go ahead and do our procedure on the 7th.

I did get good news though. If this procedure were not to work, we are scheduled to do a fresh harvest as early as Thanksgiving! I am extremely happy about this! This means that we will be able to get home for Christmas and my brother's wedding which is Saturday, December 30th! We want to do the harvesting before January 5th so we don't have to re-run all of our tests.

I do want to make myself very clear though. I definitely believe that being positive and upbeat is helpful to our situation. I am not planning on our FET not working. The odds are nearly as high for a frozen to work as a fresh. However, I have learned in this process that you have to be one step ahead of the game. If I don't get on the nurse's calendar for an IVF in November, then the schedule will fill up. So we continue to schedule things and look at the next event while praying that the current one will work.

I also have some other news to share:

I wanted to give a shout out to my cousin Justin! His thumb is healed and he is back to AAA Washington to pitch after rehabbing in Arizona! He is very happy, and we are happy for him. Yay!

Our friend Bara is coming into town tomorrow for a few days. We are really excited to see him. I will have to include some pictures. His blog today was very funny. If you are a coffee drinker, you will enjoy it.