Off to the Races: Wait, so I would have to do what???

Living in NYC we are lucky enough to have an abundance of clinics/hospitals to help us with our reproductive needs. A close friend of mine had made her way through a few of the bigger names in town, and ended up having success at a boutique clinic. One doc and an in-house embryologist. Being that I was new to the game and laser focused on not ending up in an IVF factory assembly line, her doc seemed to be the perfect first step.

Mid 2015 we were sitting in an office full of accolades and oak. After discussing our past, all efforts to this point (yes, I lied about how long we had been trying), and an earful of education we were off to the races. Next up was some routine bloodwork, a baseline ultrasound, and a HSG test to make sure my fallopian tubes were open for business.

All of the testing checked out so we started with our first big step in this process, an IUI. For those of you not familiar, this is Intrauterine Insemination; what we affectionately refer to as the ‘old turkey baster method’. Some docs make you take oral meds to stimulate follicles/eggs in preparation for the insemination; my doc had me on injection hormones, which turned me into an egg sweat shop. I ended up with over 15 follicles (follicles = sac containing an egg) and didn’t think much of it until the doc sat me down to explain the risks. Maybe he explained it all before but let’s be honest, my brain was maxed out after he said "you’re going to inject blah blah blah every day".

How the convo went (in my mind/memory):

Doctor: With this many awesome follicles your risk of having multiples is high

Me: Cool, twins sound great

Doc: I mean pregnant with 3/4/5 babies

Me: Ok, that’s a different story

Doc: If that happens we will have to do selective reduction

Me: Ok, that’s not crazy; how do you even choose when they are so tiny?

Doc: You will have to choose which one(s) to terminate around week 12

Me: What… the…… F…… did you say?

WTF... a big WTF. I quickly wondered what fruit/legume/vegetable the baby is at week twelve. If you don't know it is a plum. A plum! Not only do you have to pick which child is going to live, but then you would have to terminate your own baby that has a heartbeat, brain, and reflexes. Selective reduction is no joke, and every women needs to understand that this may be a risk; especially those of you who are big follicle producers (I'm looking at you youngins).

So, with that I went into our first IUI with nightmares and anxiety.