Hi.
I’m still alive.
Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for your emails, and you comments.
I meant to make it back here quicker, honestly. But Tuesday night, after Monday’s disheartening news, we had another curveball. Manboy kept me up most of the evening, feverish, sweating and shivering. The next morning he went to the doctor and was sent home with medicine and orders to rest. After four consecutive days of fever and chills that followed we returned to the doctor, only to have swine flu and the beginnign of a lung infection confirmed. He’s on antibiotics now, and starting to get better, but as you can imagine it’s been a helluva week.
I’m tired.
I guess it’s good I wasn’t pregnant, as a virus such as this one would have only put the beginnings of a baby at risk. I guess it’s good, to have lost so early in the game, again. I guess.
I haven’t gotten sick. I just feel numb and empty.
However, I think taking care of my man has pierced a maternal abcess, allowing me to grieve actively. Sometimes it’s better to forget.
We have an appointment with my RE on December 10th. We’ve already signed up for our next IVF, which will begin in February. I don’t know if any of this is worth it, or if it is going to work, but I don’t want to have any regrets.
In France, the state insurance covers four IVF cycles for infertile couples. I’ve done two, and two are left. We might as well do them all. Part of me wants to in order to give us every possible chance, the other part of me just wants to get this all over with. Maybe then our lives can move forward. With or without the children we so desire.
I have the lab results. My beta HCG is 7.
We’ve been down this road before. Last time, we hoped, clinging to a positive… retesting… hoping the levels would rise again, desperately wanting to will our dead embryo back into existence.
This time I won’t do that. I’ve already called my doctor, already been given permission to stop the progesterone, to let my period come. I asked her if I could get drunk with my man tonight and she said yes.
It’s over. We lost. Again.
I will wrap myself in this icy blanket of reality. I will pull it tight around my, letting it’s frost burn through my thin, naked skin.
I don’t feel anything at all.
Tomorrow is beta day. Egg retrieval will have been 15 days before… transfer 13 days before. I don’t have my period… yet, but it’s awfully quiet in there. I don’t ‘feel’ like anything has happened, like anything is different. It doesn’t really seem possible to believe that any of this has worked.
Needless to say, I’m terrified.
I believe there is a great chasm separating me from different family members and friends that haven’t gone through this thing, infertility.
I also believe that there are bridges, that, should they choose to cross over, or only come closer, they can. And if I choose to cross, and come closer to them, give them grace for well meaning but ill informed comments or try to help them see how things really are, I have the choice.
I have been blessed, in real life, these past weeks. I have a family that is very supportive, most of them. I let them know what is going on, and with the exception of my mother, who isn’t speaking to me and couldn’t give a fried egg how retrieval, or transfer went, they’re really, truly there.
But that doesn’t mean that they get it.
It’s a delicate balance, opening this subject to people who haven’t had the experience. Part of it is purely technical, almost pedagogic, like explaining several times that 4 mature eggs is different that 4 embryos, and exactly what that difference is. Or that there isn’t a hospitalization for transfer, it is done rather quickly, the worst part being the cold pinch of the speculum and that the husband and I had lunch with friends afterward.
That part is almost cathartic, impersonal, albeit slightly frustrating at times. (Like when my father called my brother telling him we had four eggs, and my brother thought that meant I was pregnant.) They are well meaning, but I am beginning to feel like a health teacher.
But like I said, I can handle that part, because it is peppered with innocent error, and care. I don’t mind gently correcting them and helping them form a correct idea about the procedure.
What is difficult is the abstract, and the preconceived.
Last night I was on the phone with my father. He asked what the next stage would be.
I explained that I am doing progesterone suppositories, and a HCG injection last Thursday, this Sunday, and next Wednesday, to keep my ovaries a chugging. I told him that supposedly because of the shot, should I do pregnancy pee tests, they will undoubtedly be positive, whether I am pregnant or not, and that I must wait until November 23rd, at which moment I will do a blood test.
He seemed to think that was the goal, the positive test, but I reminded him of last time and explained the concept of doubling betas, and how with infertility and IVF we are never really out of the game until that baby is healthy and breathing, in our arms. And even then…
I explained to him as well the high rate of pregnancy loss, crossing one of those little bridges, trying to help him understand, when my words were sharply cut off -
“You will be alright.”
Silence.
“Dad, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll be alright. If this doesn’t work -”
“YOU will BE ALRIGHT.”
The words choked me. Will I? Will I really be alright?
I softly left my bridge, and returned to my designated side of the chasm.
He looked at me from his side of the divide with love, however, not comprehending. “You will be alright. G-d will not give you more than you can handle.”
I choked on my words. I know he meant well. I know he wanted to comfort me, to help. I know he needs to believe what he is stating with such unweilding conviction.
I just don’t agree with that.
And I’m terrified.
Egg retrieval was two days ago.
Today, we transferred.
One five cell embie (my doc called it an ‘overachiever’) and a two cell (late bloomer?).
No frosties; all of our hope is riding on these tiny cell blobs.
Dig in little ones. (Please.)
We got a call from the lab today.
Two of our four eggies have been fertilized. One day after retrieval, we have a zygote and a two cell embryo.
Tomorrow morning, we will have them both transferred.
Set alarm at 5:45pm.
Shower in Betadine. Ew.
Put on the sexy drawers.
Accompany hubby to lab.
Give paperwork and ID’s to secretary.
Rub eyes in wonder (no coffee… grrrr…) as secretary informs you that the biologist and your doctor would like to do ICSI, since last time results were not that great, with only one embryo.
Rub eyes again, say “sure, whatever, oui oui” and sign paperwork.
Accompany hubby to tiny room with paper on a bed.
Go to bathroom. Wash hands. Wash man-parts.
Return to room.
Wipe hands and man parts with moist towelettes.
Show hubby the hawt drawers & recent brazilian wax. Meow.
Close eyes and pretend doing it this way is normal.
Take sterile cup out of paper bag.
Aim. Fire.
Return spermy cup into paper bag.
Return spermy cup papefr bag to secretary.
Go to car, drive to clinic.
Check in. Change into paper gown that shows your butt off.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Ingest nasty liquid that makes you see pink elephants.
Have your bed wheeled down to the operating room.
Tell your RE she looks cute in her scrubs. (It’s the drugs talking, really.)
Up, on the table.
Wooh, the room begins to spin.
OUT.
Wake up, asking “How many?? How many??” to a recovery room filled with nurses who have no idea what you are talking about.
Wait.
Wait.
Get wheeled back up to room.
Wait.
Wait.
Eat something, (hospital food… gross) just to prove to them you don’t need to throw up.
Wait.
Wait.
Pee.
Wait.
Wait.
“Okay, (4:30pm) you can go now.”
Stop by RE’s secretary.
“How many?? How many??”
The telephone rings.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Mme Fancypants, the doctor was able to retrieve a total of 8 eggs.
Scream “We have WON the LOTTERY PEOPLE!!!!!”
Secretary gives blank stare, gently asks you to calm down, explaining that of the 8 eggs, 4 were mature and ’survived’ through the ICSI manipulation and sperm ingection.
4, you tell yourself, that’s wonderful.
That’s double what we had last IVF.
And they’re all mature. All injected.
4 eggs.
Freck, that’s the most you could have hoped for.
Ride home with hubby.
Tell hubby you’re such a good wife that he’s going to cook dinner.
Hubby orders pizza.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
We will know Wednesday if and how many embryos are kicking.
Last night, at exactly 9pm, I pushed one final needle into my belly and emptied the syringe, triggering my body into ovulation.
Five follicles had grown to maturity Saturday morning when I saw my RE. I closed my eyes and silently hoped that in the hours that followed, the sixth one would have caught up.
Tomorrow is egg retrieval day. I’m going to visit the ER for the fourth time this year, climb into a table, and let myself be sedated into unconsciousness, once again.
I will not know, upon awakening, if the five, or the six, have yielded each one an ovocyte, but before leaving the clinic, in the afternoon, should receive that news. And then come home, and wait, with my man, leaving our precious cargo in the lab.
Sometimes the banal can seem so filled with emotion and meaning. I know that there is a fork in the gray road ahead, that one path will be open, and the other closed, and that the end of this long year will be filled with either joy or heartbreak.
Please let it be joy.
I thought the right one was dead. Two inseminations and one IVF, it’s never given the least bit of hope that it was anything but defunct… finished.
Imagine my surprise, and the surprise of my doctor, during the course of this morning’s ‘wanding’, when five nicely maturing follicles were spotted growing on my right ovary.
Five, count em, and one on the left, which makes a total of six.
I know, that isn’t a lot, compared to some women who make ten, fifteen, or even more follicles, but I’m a slow responder, have little ovarian reserve, and quite frankly, was expecting the worst. Last cycle we had four follies, yielding two eggs and one embryo. If in the six follies we have enough eggies to have two pretty embabies, and I’ll be happy.
I’m not hoping yet, but I do feel a little relief with each hurdle passed.
Egg retrieval is set for Monday.
Tomorrow is my first ultrasound, and first bloodwork, after 8 days of stimming.
I don’t ‘feel’ anything happening, it’s a bit eerie. No churning, no swelling ovaries, just a sore belly, and two black spots, evidence of my nightly injections and the times I hit a vein.
Is anything happening down there?
Oh dildocam, how I long to see thee!
