We’re excited to introduce Kyndell Harkness, who’s going to be blogging regularly for us as she undergoes In Vitro Fertilization.

Hi. My name is Kyndell Harkness and I’m a 36-year-old photographer at the Star Tribune. My husband Jeff and I are in the midst of IVF. Tons of doctor visits, crazy hormones, and so many shots you feel like a pincushion. Fortunately, Jeff and I have a sense of humor about it.

How did we get here? Well, that started nine years ago with a simple Well Woman check up. After an ultrasound that shocked and bewildered the nurses, they told me I had a bumper crop of fibroids and some endometriosis. This was three weeks before our wedding. Great timing.

Over the next eight years, I had three surgeries with three different doctors. The first doctor was the old school one. He was the one that said: “Boy, years ago we’d have told you you’d never have a baby, but with all the new technology you’ve at least got a chance.” Nice. His bedside manner was not his strong suit. The last one was the best one. We shared the same sense of humor and have laughed our way through all of my crazy plumbing problems.

The surgeries cleaned things up but did enough damage that I won’t be having a kid the good old-fashioned way. Oh well. I think of it this way: I’m not dead or dying. I have a husband who makes me happy and a pretty satisfying job. Can I really complain? Nah! That’s just a waste of energy.

We started the IVF process in December and holy cow, it’s been crazy. You have NO idea. Here’s the short version. We were prescreened and psychoanalyzed. Jeff shot me up five times a day. I became an egg farm and was harvested. Chris (the Love Doctor) made little Harkni embryos. I started feeling sick. They couldn’t find my cervix. My ovaries swelled to the size of oranges. I got real sick. Then I was hospitalized for three days. I gained like 10 pounds of fluid. Whew! Sound insane? Yep, it was. But I’m well now and feeling more like myself everyday.

Now it’s a waiting game. While I heal and get stronger, our six little embryos are in Petri dishes paired up and keeping each other company. They’re a bit cool being frozen and all. The spring thaw for us will be the end of April when I’ll have my first go at getting pregnant.

I’ll be catching you up with all the craziness.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 8:11 am and is filed under Guest Bloggers, Health, IVF, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.