In Black and White

(image: FSSE-INFO) Today's event was that Sweetie and I met up at the IVF lab to sign le paperwork for the retrieval tomorrow. I had copies of all of the forms ahead of time, but didn't bother to read them until last night. I was pretty familiar with the doom and gloom in them (if your children turn out to be freaks, you can't sue us) since it was similar to the papers that we had to sign at Dr. Uterus' office, but it was still sobering to read it all.

Last night, Sweetie and I went through the multiple choice maze of options for any embryos that we manage to get to freeze in the event of an unpleasant contingency. What do we do with the embryos if I die? If he dies? If we both die? If we get divorced? If I have a hysterectomy? We had choices like disposal in an ethical manner (I don't even want to contemplate what that actually entails), continue to store, or donate to an infertile couple. It was a no-brainer if either one of us died (the other would get them). If we both died, we directed that they be donated to an infertile couple. But, if we got divorced, we elected to have them disposed of - I would have a very hard time knowing that my child could be out there without me (or their siblings) knowing it. The hysterectomy scenario would result in continue to freeze the embryos, on the assumption that we would want to use a gestational surrogate, assuming we didn't have the brood that we wanted.

I was just struck by how weird it is to be discussing the fate of your potential future embryos while you're making dinner. Most people will never even have to think of that scenario much less fill out of page of multiple choices as to what to do in various depressing situations. Another uniquely infertility experience.

Sweetie, apparently, was very freaked out by the consent forms for the egg retrieval and IVF because of all of the terrible things that could happen which were enumerated in exacting detail. He is apparently quite worried about genetic abnormalities and was still slightly convinced that Dr. Freak Out had it right that our prior miscarriage was his fault. I disabused him of that notion by explaining that Turner's is caused during the meiosis stage, or when the cells start to divide, not at the moment of conception and not in the wonky sperm.

We also talked about the statistics that show that IVF births have no substantial increase in genetic defects than the normal population. I reminded him that we could have a genetic problem even if we got pregnant without ART. And, we had already discussed with Dr. Uterus the issue of whether ICSI caused greater numbers of birth defects. Personally, I suspect that the higher numbers of genetic problems resulting from ICSI can be correlated to the fact that the procedure is used for men who have severe morphology problems and incredibly wonky sperm to begin with. Sweetie is not one of those men.

I did ask him if he didn't want to continue and he immediately responded "Nooooo! I want to continue!" I was glad that we talked about his concerns since it seems that a lot of time we discuss my concerns rather than his.

I also took my four antibiotics this evening and promptly felt like I was going to barf, hurl. ralph, and whatever other adjective you want to use for vomit (which I always thought was an ugly word). I think Zithromax should now have this label because it is exactly how I felt:

Mr. Yuck indeed. I am feeling much better now. Especially after I stopped watching Celebrity Rehab with B-, C- and D-listers barfing everywhere and generally moaning as they detox.

I don't know how coherent I will be tomorrow so all of you lovely ladies who still continue to read this saga may have to wait until Wednesday for an update. Till then, so long, farewell.