Education Day April 8, 2009

Education Day is basically a 4 hour class where the entire IVF process is explained in detail step by step with slide shows and binders and such. Each member of the IVF team explained their role in the process and what we could expect. First we heard from one of the physicians. She showed us lots of numbers and statistics, explained restrictions, and gave us a vocabulary lesson so we could better communicate. She also explained the entire egg retrieval and transfer procedures and told us what we could expect during these hospital visits. Next we heard from the laboratory technician. This was a little crazy, he showed us the step by step procedure of everything done to the eggs and sperm in the laboratory. He also explained that we would actually be doing a slightly different process than IVF. Ours was called ICSI (Indicators for Sperm Injection). ICSI is specifically designed for patients with very low sperm count or motility. The only difference is with IVF they place your egg in a dish and dump a bunch of sperm on top of it and let the sperm do its work but with ICSI they actually inject one single healthy sperm directly into the egg. All this information was a little mind blowing and frankly overwhelming, what goes on in that laboratory is absolutely a miracle. Third we heard from the financial coordinator. She explained what was covered through the Attain program and what was not. Any prelim tests and procedures, as well as, medications were not covered through the Attain program. She told us to expect to pay between $2,500 to $3,500 for medications per cycle. That was not too fun to hear but she was exactly right. Last we talked with the IVF nurse. She went over the schedule and all the different medications. She demonstrated the best way to give all the injections and was nice enough to show me all the needles. I knew there were needles involved but I did not know that there would be that many. She gave us an estimated calender that showed what injections to get each day and when my expected appointments would be. My eyes went straight for transfer day. I wanted to know how long we had to wait to get to the main procedure. They had an estimated date around the second week of June!!