The Start of our IVF Journey

Yesterday we officially signed up for the May retrieval cycle for In-Vitro Fertilization! 

I’m going through the whole range of emotions right now. I am incredibly excited to start this step in our journey but I am absolutely terrified because it all feels so real. We have been talking about this for a few months now, but it was always the last resort. Even though I knew it was really the only option, I kept hoping, praying, and crossing my fingers that I would spontaneously get pregnant naturally. Starting this process is us really putting all of our energy into doing IVF and knowing that, at least until IVF is over and if it fails, there is zero chance of getting pregnant naturally. Hopefully it will not fail and we will be successful in achieving a baby, which in and of itself would be incredibly scary as well. We want nothing more than to create our family, but it’s a life changing thing! Change is scary!

On the other hand, I am beyond thrilled because I know this will hopefully put us closer to achieving Baby Kneeland. It is the finances, the medication, the extreme emotional and physical toll I know it is going to take on us that is incredibly frightening. The medication is going to throw all of my emotions completely out of whack and can cause many side effects. Imagine PMSing and pregnancy brain all at the same time, plus more. I’m afraid of the strain and stress that this is going to put on our relationship and our marriage. IVF is incredibly stressful, and then add a hormonal, medically induced crazy person (me) to the mix and I’m sure you are going to get many unreasonable arguments. 

Over the course of the next few weeks I will talk to my IVF coordinator at the fertility clinic and find out all of the medications I will need to purchase and take. Most will come in the form of

injectables…yikes! Lots of needles...that either Steven or I will have to administer at home. We will discuss a timeline of events and create a calendar. May 15-May 22 is the IVF week for retrievals at our clinic. What this means is that sometime during that week they will hopefully be able to retrieve embryos. Since we are doing PGS (genetic testing) we won’t be able to transfer the embryos back that month. We will hopefully do that two months later in July. 

We have an appointment with our doctor on Tuesday this week to find out what all she recommends doing with our treatment. IVF is not one size fits all. There are a lot of customizations that are out there, today, that can help increase the success rate of achieving a pregnancy.

We have also created a crowdfunding site to help with a portion of the costs associated with IVF. We have been working our butts off saving money and cutting corners. I came home one night to find about 80% of Steven's board games boxed up. He was trying to 'help' save some money by selling his games. Some are games we haven't had the chance to play yet, some are games that we love, and some are ones that he spent months talking about and pre-ordered. This is after we spent the weekend prior going through all of his collectibles and selling a box or two to Vintage Stock. I started crying and begging him to keep his games. I couldn't stand him selling everything he loved. Honestly, his games would have brought in no more than a few hundred dollars at most, but the fact that he was willing to sell everything he loves to help us have a baby was so emotional. We have saved $8,000 currently but are needing help to reach our goal. We plan on taking out a loan to cover the rest of the procedure, but we are hoping to be able to pay that off quickly in hopes to start a family of three without additional debt. You can find our crowdfunding site here if you wish to help:  https://www.youcaring.com/journeytobabykneeland

If you are not able to help financially, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers! We could use some happiness!