“You want my sperm if I die?”

“Yeah I’ll take your sperm” I said nonchalantly to Brandon.  We were on page what felt like 1000 of signing documents to undergo our second round of IVF.

Yep, here we go again.

We had to sign all the paper work again that decides what we will do with our leftover embryos and Brandon’s little guys.  Brandon jokingly said we should leave them to someone we know if we die and not tell them.  You get a car, and you get a car, and you get… our embryos.

Seems surreal to be starting this journey again in hopes of having baby #2.  I told my OBGYN we were going to try “naturally” on our own and she said that was a good idea but to not give it more then 6 months.  Pretty naive of me to think we could do it on our own but I really thought we could.  I’ve heard plenty of success stories of second children being conceived the old fashioned way.  Even right after we had Viv I remember my gynecologist telling me “We should talk about birth control.  Don’t think it can’t happen naturally, I see plenty of patients who don’t have any trouble the second time around.”  Listen lady my own body is my birth control, I’ll be fine.

6 months came and went with not a positive pregnancy test in sight so back to FCI we went.  We went through all the same stuff we went through before – blood work, ultrasounds, semen analysis, and a saline sonogram.

We met back up with our physician on March 5th to discuss the results and the plan moving forward.

He explained how my ovaries have aged more than they should have over the last 3 years.  He said my AMH (a blood test to assess a woman’s overian reserve) has dropped below normal for a 32 year old.  My original diagnosis for infertility was due to ovulation dysfunction but he said that this has also probably been a contributing factor.  I whispered under my breath “damnit, old ass ovaries.”  I asked if this means I will go though menopause earlier than average.  He said it could mean that.  Yippy.

Branon’s sperm count went up.  74 million sperm.  Sweet.

Bastard.

My doctor is hoping we get at least 10 eggs at my egg retrieval and 2-3 embyros.

A refresher of what we had the first time around:

• doc hoped to get 10-14 egss.
• we got 9
• 8 were mature
• 7 fertilized
• 1 perfect embyro (Vivi Pearl) and the rest didn’t make it

I so wish we were working with higher numbers this time around.  But we’re not.  I don’t know why the other embryos didn’t make it. The quality? Wasn’t meant to be? Who knows.  I remember being absolutely devastated and heart broken when they called to tell me that all the others had stopped growing but they reminded me that it only takes one.  And they were right.  So I’m just trying to keep that mindset.  Vivian Pearl was our “one”. Our perfect little embryo.

We explained to our doctor that we would have to wait until April to start the process due to Brandon’s intense work schedule.  The egg retrieval and embryo transfer would fall during a time that he wouldn’t be able to be there.  My doctor responded by saying he doesn’t technically need to be there for the egg retrieval if we have a frozen sperm sample.  However he did say he encourages couple to be together for the embyro transfer since he thinks couples should be in the same room when they conceive.

Good one doc.  Wonder how many times you’ve used that one.

I know Brandon doesn’t technically need to be there but I want him there.  He wants to be there.  That’s how we work.  We’re better together.

With that said my doctor said he can manipulate the drugs to work with our schedule.  So crazy.  Science is cool,  and weird, but also really cool.  So we’ll start this month.  Just like last time, I need to go on the pill first then spiral into the injections.

We leave for California in 2 weeks as a last hurrah before we start IVF round 2.  I can’t wait to see Vivian’s face light up when we go to Disneyland.