Our first visit at the fertility clinic on December 5, 2007 was an information gathering session. We provided the doctor with our history and he provided us with a general plan. As part of this session the fertility clinic promotes being screened to see if you are a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis. They said, "your insurance will pay for it." Little did we know that those 6 words would change our lives. We had no clue what CF was and didn't have a known history of CF in either of our families. Ashley was having blood drawn that day for other test to be run, so why not go ahead and have the CF carrier screening done also. Hey, "insurance will pay for it." I don't mind being stuck with needles, so since "insurance will pay for it" why not have the test run. Well it turned out that insurance paid for Ashley's test since she had met her deductible for the year, but we had to pay for my testing since I rarely go to the doctor and had not met my deductible. We had the blood drawn and the test run and did not thing anything else about it since don't have a family history of this genetic disease.
By the end of the session at the fertility clinic we had decided on a starting point for our treatment. Ashley began a new medication that would require her to return to the clinic for an ultrasound to check her ovaries. The follow-up visit was scheduled and we went home focused on this new treatment plan.
Ashley returned to the fertility clinic on December 12, 2007 for the ultrasound to check her ovaries. I did not join her on this visit since it was a routine visit and our doctor would not even be in the office that day. Ashley received the exciting news that everything was like it should be and it was time to try and conceive. A few moments later another doctor in the practice came to talk with Ashely, they had received the results of our CF Carrier Screening.
Both Ashley and I had tested positive for being a CF Carrier. Ashley has the G85E mutation and I have the delta F508 mutation. The doctor went on and advised Ashley not to attempt to get pregnant at this time. She also told Ashley that if we wanted to have a baby we needed to proceed with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). Ashley was scared and and I was furious at the doctor. This doctor not being our primary doctor should have never started talking with Ashley about the IVF with PGD. After this it was decided that I would be at every doctor's visit no matter how minor the visit was suppose to be.
Ashley and I were now presented with another obstacle on our road to having a family with children. We had a lot of research, talking, and most importantly Praying to do over the next few months.
