IVF Australia

The ICSI Process

Even though IVF has become more main-stream, there are still many people out there that don’t know what it is.  So, what is IVF?  IVF stands for in vitro fertilization.  Essentially fertility drugs are used in order to get the woman to produce as many eggs as possible.  These eggs are then removed and fertilized with the man’s sperm in a petri dish.  The eggs are watched for a few days to make sure that they are dividing and growing normally, and then the best 1 or 2 are placed back into the woman’s uterus in the hopes that they will attach and initiate a pregnancy.  The rest of the good eggs are then frozen for another try later on if needed.

There are many reasons that a couple may need IVF.  The lack of or damaged fallopian tubes, cysts on the ovaries, low hormone levels or a low sperm count are just a few of these.  As I now lacked fallopian tubes Mr. Blue and I started to research this process. 

There were only a couple of clinics to choose from and we decided to go with the more popular one.  It was also highly recommended and had pretty good success rates.  We chose IVF Australia.

We started the process around June 2011; this gave my body time to recover from the surgery.  I was 35 at the time.  Once upon a time I had given myself a time limit, which I needed to have kids by the age of 35.  Ah, how silly I was. 


Like any major process being entered for the first time I was very nervous.  There were many tests to do and the process is expensive.  One of the nice things we found in Australia is that the insurance companies will cover at least 50% of the IVF costs.  Australia considers it a basic need and encourages people to have children.  This was great as there was less monetary pressure and I could concentrate on everything else.  The staff at the clinic was incredibly nice, which also helps when you’re already stressed out.

We had some paperwork we needed to sign and throughout the process they did a few of the basic tests, his sperm, my eggs, etc.  I have to admit I was feeling rather proud when they showed me my egg count, my level was off the chart!  I had more eggs than the average 28 year old.  ;-)   My love’s sperm was found to have anti-bodies in it that can attack sperm (for some reason Pac-Man comes to mind) but other than that his tests were normal.  Due to the anti-bodies the Doctor decided to go with the ICSI process where they pick out the healthiest sperm and inject it directly into the egg.

We finally got around to the medications.  This scared me most of all as I had never given myself injections before.  Luckily the needles were small and I had the determination to do this.  As it turned out, poking myself in the belly wasn’t that bad.  Only once or twice did I pick a painful spot and I’d just back out and try a new one.  I was given 4 different medications for the whole process and once I started the injections I was able to get over my fears.  My body responded very well to the medications with no complications.   With the exception of a few of the blood tests I had to go in for, my Love was with me and supported me the whole way.

It is hard for me to remember my mental state at this time.  I do remember feeling stressed from work and homesick so I’m sure my IVF stress just fell in with the rest of it.

By the end of the month my eggs were collected – 15 in all.  After all of the testing and fertilization, only 3 fertilized eggs were found to be good enough for transfer.   I stressed the fact that I did not want to become octo-mom and the Doctor assured me that there was no fear of that as the Australian process is to transfer 1 egg at a time.  Thus 5 days later I had my first embryo transferred to my uterus.  The other 2 embryos were frozen for later use.  Then we waited, we had to give it 2 weeks before we would know if the embryo had taken, and on the day of my pregnancy test it came back negative.  My heart fell, I was extremely disappointed.  For some reason I had the delusion that it would work on the first try.  My Love was not discouraged and reminded me that it could take up to 6 tries before it would work.  We decided to try again; I just needed to give my body a rest first.

We were planning to move back to the U.S. in October after our contract was up so we decided to throw caution to the wind and asked that the 2 frozen embryos be transferred.  This was done in September.  This allowed us a second round and took care of the issue of whether or not we needed to transport our embryos back to the states with us.  Since this was a frozen transfer I only had 1 medication that I needed to worry about which again was nice since I was stressing about everything else. 

I couldn’t help but worry about whether or not it would work this time.  There was a brief moment in time when my body felt differently, I was sure that at least one of the embryos had taken.  Within the next few days though, the feeling went away.  When the pregnancy test was done it came back negative.  Another failure!  I was sure that one had started to take but then for some reason it stopped.  At this point I started to think there was something wrong with my uterus.  Maybe it was deformed or there was something else wrong with it.  

We moved back to the States, and for a while we considered adoption.  We’re still considering it if things don’t work out.  My posts about IVF going forward will now be about our experiences in the U.S. and where we are in the process.