IVF ORIENTATION

In October of 2009, we had our first IVF meeting with our Mayo doctor. We had our Orientation IVF visit on December 4th, where we had individual meetings with one of the team doctors, an embryologist, a reproductive endocrinology nurse, and the business office representative.

With the doctor, we discussed the consent forms and went over the risks, complications, and side effects that can occur, etc. Next was the embryologist who told us what they do and talked to us about being in a research study which would study early human development before implantation. This means we’ll “donate” any cellular material that is going to be discarded. We chose to be involved in this if the opportunity presents itself. Another research study is to determine more information about hCG from 0-12 weeks of your pregnancy. If we are pregnant, we’ll probably chose to not be involved in this study, as it means I would drive to Mayo daily for blood tests and ultrasounds for 18 days. All of that is for free but of course not the time and gas money!

Next, we met with a nurse, who gave us one-on-one instruction for self-administration of the medications, step-by-step instructions for the treatment cycle, and went over our binder and outline of medications and prescriptions. This happened to be one of Jesse’s work friends and she was awesome! Plus she’s been through IVF herself and could relate…that makes all the difference! And finally, we went to the Business Office Representative to discuss the costs and arranging admission to the hospital for the egg retrieval and embryo transfer. One step closer…yippee!!