Sombody Stepped on a Crack

I have to apologize for my absence this week. Unfortunately, not much has happened in the way of IVF. We did have another unfortunate trip to urgent care last week.  I hurt my back taking a class at the gym and by the time I woke up the next morning I couldn’t walk. The muscles in my back had tensed up so much that I could barely stand up straight. Brian had to come home from work, help me get dressed and help me get into the car. Two shots in the backside and a set of x-rays later and I had another fractured vertebrae.

I originally injured my spine 4 years ago. I fractured L4 & L5 in an epic battle with a laundry basket! In reality, I just lifted some laundry the wrong way and had a muscle spasm. They took x-rays and found the break. Apparently I have a weakness in my spine and years of riding horses put a lot of stress on my vertebrae. Totally lame story. I have a couple muscle spasms each year, but never this bad. They took some x-rays and I either fractured L5 again or it never healed properly. I have an appointment tomorrow and I’ll know more after that.

We had our phone consultation with Divya, our genetic counselor at RGI today. We already knew a lot of the stuff she told us, but we did get some useful information.  Originally we were told that they would need cheek swabs from Brian’s Mom, Grandmother and Uncle, as they also have EB. Turns out they will only need cheek swabs from Brian’s parents. They will look at the “genetic fingerprint” and find Brian’s Dad's KRT14 gene and his Mom's KRT14 gene. When they test the embryos, they will be able to tell which ones contain the mutated gene and which ones inherited the healthy gene.

The next step is for them to send us DNA collection kits for the blood samples and cheek swabs. Once they have of our DNA it will be a very long 4-8 week wait for the results.

I have a mock embryo transfer scheduled for next Wednesday which I have mixed feelings about. I’m sure it won’t be a pleasant experience but at least it’s one step closer to actually getting this process started. Hopefully after that I will have something more interesting than my spine and a phone call to write about. 

-Emily