April Buske

The provider we use for our infertility treatments offers a warranty program for IVF which, if I do say so myself, is pretty darn cool.

After looking into and meeting with our doctor, we discovered that I met every qualification except weight. Now that’s a touchy subject for me. I feel like I’ve tried everything. Fad diets, expensive meal plans, counting calories, working out so much I have time for nothing else.

It is one of the areas I feel like I’m a total failure in.

But, this time it was different. I had to lose about 15 pounds to qualify for the program, which basically works like this: based on your health and age, you pay a flat fee for the retrieval and transfer(s) PLUS the costs of medications & labs. The flat fee covers the retrieval, transfer(s), injection teachings, cryopreservation, etc. If you don’t have a viable pregnancy after exhausting all of the viable embryos from the retrieval, a sum of money is returned to you. Based on my age at the time of retrieval, in theory, I would get back all but $2,500 of the flat fee paid.

My hope in qualifying for the warranty program is that it has medical data to back up that we are much more likely to have a successful pregnancy, because – let’s be real, they put the qualifications for the program at a standard at which they pay back the least amount of money possible. So, by qualifying, they’re telling me that we have really freaking good odds at a successful pregnancy through IVF.

So all of that to say we wanted to qualify for the program badly, and I needed to lose about 15 pounds over the course of about three months. Apparently, this was the motivation I needed to take it off.

I wallowed for a bit about how I’m not that fat and they should make an exception for me–it was me trying to rationalize everything and make excuses. I started walking a lot more, watching what I ate, and doing intermittent fasting. It worked for me. My days basically looked like this:

1. No calories between 6 PM and 10 AM each day; eating whatever I wanted between 10 AM and 6 PM (I drank lots of water, tea, and black coffee during my fasting periods)
2. Walked at least 10,000 steps each day
3. Feed my body with protein (I am a self-avowed carbivore: pasta, cereal, crackers, bread, so I committed to eating some protein with every meal).

The first few days making it from 6 PM to 10 AM the next morning was a challenge. I was pretty hungry and ready to binge. I found that eating a heavy snack at 6 PM and drinking lots of water was all it took to make the adjustment. I committed to sticking to that schedule 6 of 7 days a week. I allowed flexibility for one day of the week because working at a church requires some of that.

Next, I tried to get in 10,000 steps each day. I wore a Fitbit and found that if I made efforts to get in some steps every hour, it was easier to reach the 10,000 goal. I started by trying to walk 1,000 before I left the house. So that meant I did some laundry or cleaning before I left for work to get in a few extra steps. At work, I would try to walk a little each hour – going to the restroom further away from my office, putting my sack lunch in the kitchen, and filling up my water bottle at the other end of the building.

So that’s my how-It seemed like I was making some pretty boring changes, but they all added up. By the time I was scheduled for my weigh-in, I’d lost 30 pounds with not much effort. Let’s be honest though, if I were at a healthy weight to start, I wouldn’t have had to stress about this at all.

Now, we’re qualified for warranty and hopefully, that means we’re in the best possible position for a successful IVF cycle. I’m praying for God to work through the first transfer and that we can keep the remainder of our embryos frozen for additional future littles.

As a caveat, this process has made me want more kids. So, with where I am hormonally right now, I’d like to have enough kids for my own basketball team. The hubbs is down for a smaller number, like 2. We’ll see how this first round treats me and go from there.

No pics specifically for this post. So I’ll add a selfie from today.

I’m celebrating that today I feel human. Not like a pincushion or a science experiment. Just human.