Monday, August 18, 2008

Goodbye romance. Hello IVF!

Dave and I are struggling through 5 very dry, technical and legally redundant documents provided by our fertility clinic on IVF.  Dave is napping right now . . . document #2 made him sleepy (this is Dave 'posing' for the camera).

So 4 of the 5 documents are legal agreements with such sizzling titles as:

Consent Form for In Vitro Fertilization/Assisted Reproduction
Consent Form for Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection
Consent Form for Assisted Hatching and Fragment Removal
Agreement for determining Disposition of Embryos not transferred, etc.

Basically, these forms make sure we understand the scientific and political/ethical issues surrounding IVF.  For example, we've got to decide what to do with any embryos we don't implant. . . do we freeze them for later use, donate them to science or dispose of them (frankly, I'm not sure I really want to think about that right now).

One thing is becoming clearer, IVF puts a damper on the romantic pregnancy daydreams for a young couple.  I'm sure the '101 Ways to Romance Your Wife' does not include a chapter on how to give hormonal injections.

Then there are the inevitable questions from Junior (or Juniorette) about how they were conceived.  'Well dear, you started out in a petri dish in a climate controlled environment.  Then you were placed in Mommy's stomach using a needle.  Unfortunately, your brothers and sisters didn't make it; we couldn't afford the cyropreservation storage fees . . .'

Anyway, we meet with the IVF coordinator tomorrow at noon.  I'm sure there will be loads to talk about after that meeting.  Keep you posted.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow hunny, that was sooo... intracytoplasmic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Hynes