In Theory

I'm not sure why I said I was going to tell our story in chronological order, I haven't been very good at that.  That being said, I'm going to skip ahead tonight.  We are getting very close to our IVF dates and we're getting really excited/scared/nervous/anxious, pretty much a full range of emotions.

I went to the doctor last Thursday to meet with one of the nurses to do my teach.  I had to go in for about an hour and she taught me how to mix my drugs and give myself the injections.  It sounds easy enough, right?  Nope.  I'm more of a numbers person, I deal with a lot of financials everyday, not so much with getting syringes ready.  I'm pretty sure I sucked at it and she was just too nice to say that.  She was very patient with me.  I'm in the habit at my job of repeating everything back so I make sure I understand, and I feel fairly confident that I left there somewhat knowing what I'm doing.  I start one of my drugs tomorrow and the rest in about 10 days so there are no guarantees that I'll remember anything I learned by the time I actually need to use it.  I hope you can't OD on fertility drugs :).

The nurse was going through the whole IVF process with me again.  Apparently there's an IVF consent form that we were supposed to sign but hadn't yet.  It goes through all of the risks, processes, expenses, etc. of what to expect when doing IVF.  One of the things we had to make a decision on was what we wanted to do with any leftover eggs that were frozen if anything happens to us (death, divorce, etc.).  But it's til death do us part no matter what so that didn't really factor in to our decision.  But if one of use should die they want to know if you want the embryos destroyed, donated to science, or donated to a family.  We of course don't want them destroyed because they're a life that God created, and we don't know what they would do with them if they were donated to science, so we decided to donate them to a family.  It's the same decision after I turn 50 because I'll be too old to have a baby.  After we made our decision, Andy told me he was going to write up his resume for when they're given to a family - he wants to make sure all of his attributes are accounted for I suppose :).

As the nurse was walking me through the process, she was telling me that they'll harvest my eggs and they'll immediately fertilize them in the lab.  We had to make the decision on whether or not we want ICSI (intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection).  This is where they inject one sperm directly into one egg to guarantee fertilization.  We chose to do it at the labs discretion.  That way if his numbers are good, they may decide we don't need it, if not they'll do it.  It's an additional $1,500 so we don't want to pay for something we don't need.  The doctor's goal is to harvest about 12 eggs.  Out of those 12 about 6 will be good embryos.  They let them grow in petri dishes and ideally like to do the transfer on day 5.  They can do the transfer on day 3, but if they do that it means that the embryos can't survive outside of the uterus so there will be none to cryo.  Which means if it doesn't work or if we ever want more babies we'll have to go through the whole process again.  While she was telling me all of this I was fighting tears.  It's a discussion we've had so many times and we know the odds, but the closer it gets the more real it becomes.  It's easy to understand it in theory, but harder to grasp in reality.  So we're praying for at least 12 eggs and hoping that at least 6 are good embryos and that they make it to 5 days.  The Bible says to be specific when you pray, and we're doing it.  We want to make sure we don't leave anything out.  So while we're at it - we'd like twins, preferably a boy and a girl.  One and done.  We're 30 for goodness sakes.

We had to make a lot of big decisions last weekend and now we're finally to the point where we're moving forward!  It's so exciting and we feel like we've been waiting forever.  While the nurse was talking to me, I was reminded of our Sunday School lesson from the week before.  We're reading a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  It's an amazing book.  I should warn you though, it will change your life if you let it, so be prepared.  In class, we were talking about God's love for us.  The book was talking about the difference between knowing God's love in theory, and knowing it intimately.  I've been taught since a young age that Jesus loves me and that God is love...in my head.  But do I always believe it and recognize it as truth in my heart?  Do I always believe that the God of the universe loves me, Amber, someone who messes up more than she gets it right?  Someone who knows what is right, but sometimes purposefully does what is wrong because she wanted to?  It's hard to wrap our heads around that truth.  And until we fully experience God, it may be a truth that is only realized in theory.  Until a few years ago, I think I was still just getting "it" in my head, not in my heart.  But God got ahold of me and made it all so real.  I pray that the same thing happens for all of you.  It's a parallel concept - the more involved we get in IVF, the more real it becomes and the more we understand it all.  The more intimate we get with God, the more we get to know Him and love Him, the more we understand Him and His will for our lives.  He loves us no matter what.  We push Him away, but He loves us anyway.  There's a Casting Crowns song "In Me" that says how refreshing to know you don't need me, how amazing to find that you want me.  Isn't that an awesome truth?  The God who created the world, knit you together in your mother's womb, wants to have a relationship with you.  He doesn't need to, but He wants to.  Let Him.

Until next time...