Part 5 - The Schedule

One of the most important things you get as part of the IVF process is "The Schedule". The Schedule will guide us through the process from beginning to pregnancy and covers roughly six weeks and is extremely detailed. To get our schedule, we met with Leann a nurse in Dr. Vaughn's office. It was Leann's job to give us an overview of the entire process. This was very challenging for Leann since Christi and I dont do well with "overviews". We need to understand the entire process and commit it to memory before we can move forward. Leann was very patient with us and the rapid fire of questions we threw at her.

She walked us through the complex process that included several drugs, including but not limited to:

• Aspirin
• Valium
• Estrogen
• Gonal F
• Lupron
• Subcutaneous injections
• Inter-muscular injections
• HSG
• MSG
• ESPN
  

I was assigned the duties of shot-giver. This was especially nerve racking since I have been know to pass out (a much more masculine term than faint) at the sight of blood and/or needles. I need all the masculinity I can get at this point. I made it through the instructions without passing out - a good start!

We signed a mountain of paper work and left extremely confused, well, I was confused. Christi committed the entire process to memory immediately. See... Christi has an amazing ability to store information on a file in memory. This little file was marked "Fertility Drugs" and stored on her brain's desktop for quick access should she need to correct me or a nurse. To unlock this file Christi uses the magic words "No, you said..." Its like open-sesame on estrogen.

Like most men, I store ridiculous files on my brains desktop:

• All the words to the theme song from the 80s TV show "The Fall Guy"
• Every line from the following movies: Caddyshack, Anchorman, Friday, and Vacation
• Stitches on a baseball: 108
• Ted Williams career batting average: 344
  

Three days later a box (nay crate) the size of a Volkswagen bus appeared via UPS. In the box came enough drugs to supply Kate Moss for the remainder of her modeling career. The first step was to administer a single shot of Lupron each morning. This shot was a tiny needle less than a half inch long inserted into her stomach. Christi was nervous for the first shot but after that, it was easy. Like Barry Bonds, each morning and night Christi injected herself with hormones. We knew the date was looming when I would have to take over the shot responsibilities.

On to Slow Pain