So..this morning I took my last birth control pill.  “Wait! What? Birth control pills-that seems backwards?”  I thought so too!  Before beginning your official IVF cycle, your doctor may prescribe you 10-14 days of birth control pills (BCPs).  The purpose of this is to “quiet down your ovaries” before beginning the battery of medication that is ahead.  There is a lot of different research on the advantages and disadvantages of BCPs before a cycle, and each patient’s protocol is different due to their particular circumstances.  One advantage involves the number of eggs retrieved (remember we are going for A LOT).  Research suggests that BCPs keep the body from focusing its energy selecting a “dominate” egg for the next cycle.  The BCP keeps the everything quiet. Therefore, when you start the ovarian stimulation drugs (All that lovely stuff in the picture I posted), LOTS of eggs become dominate at the same time.  Think of it like a horse race.  During a normal cycle, one egg breaks out of the gate a lot sooner than the rest, therefore becoming the dominate egg (You should bet on that one!!!).  The rest just hang around the gate, wondering what happened.  The BCPs help make it so the gate opens at the same time for everyone, once that gunshot called ovarian stimulation medication goes off….and then, as they say, its off to the races.

Anyway…I took my last BCP this morning. Now we wait for my period to start-usually within 2-3 days after the last pill.  When I start my period, that is officially Day 1 of my IVF cycle. The horses are leaving the stable and saddling up….the race is about to begin!