6/23/2017 0 Comments Monitoring UpdateLast Friday, I went in for my baseline appointment. This is where they look at your endometrial lining and take a bunch of blood. Everything looked good except my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was borderline. That was kind of scary to hear. So…I had to wait all the way until today to see how my lining was doing. If my lining was 8mm or more I could have my transfer next week. Spoiler. My body is a constant source of disappointment. I guess it’s no surprise that now that my body is in charge of this ride we have some setbacks. I’ve honestly been feeling so (cautiously) positive and happy this last week it was a bit of a let-down when Dr. Bateman told me my lining was only 7mm today. I was really feeling so good about everything. But it was a good reminder that nothing is certain in this game.
So, I had to wait FOREVER to hear back from my clinic. Because the Charlottesville clinic is only doing monitoring they can’t comment on what things will happen next. There is nothing more paralyzing than waiting for the doctor to call with news you really don’t want to hear. I immediately reached out to my favorite ladies in the egg donor support group. Based on their experiences I was expecting to have to wait until next Friday for another ultrasound to measure my lining. So I waited (and waited) for what felt like forever and around 11:00 the nurse finally called back. She told me I will need to come in next Wednesday for another look. IF things look good next week then I can go in for my transfer during the week of July 4th. This was initially the week I was estimating my transfer to be anyway. So, while it was really disappointing I know it’s not really the end of the world. But, this waiting game is for the birds. I am so incredibly lucky to have not one, but two friends offer to come with me to Syracuse. Unfortunately neither one of their schedules match up with my new transfer date. But, I am a lucky woman to have many, many fantastic friends. I was able to quickly find another friend willing to go on a spontaneous, 6-hour long road trip. I keep trying to be conscious of feeling my feelings. I really don’t know what kind of feelings I’m having. I’m nervous. It hadn’t really occurred to me that maybe my lining won’t be ready this month. There was a lady in the support group that shared her lining actually shrank at her third visit and her cycle may be cancelled. That never crossed my mind as an option. I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed that my body keeps failing me. Screw that. I’m angry. According to my therapist, I don’t acknowledge my anger and I tend to neuter it. So, I’m acknowledging it. I’m angry that my body doesn’t cooperate. I’m angry that I have to wait another week. I’m angry that I have to even go through all of this to begin with when getting pregnant is so easy for most women. I’m angry that I have paid $900 for blood work and ultrasounds in the last week and I have to pay for another day of monitoring. I’m angry that my entire summer is revolving around fertility treatments (again). I’m also hopeful. I still have a flicker of hope somewhere deep down that this is going to be our month. I can’t quite fully embrace this hope just yet. I’m also angry that I can’t quite fully embrace this hope. I guess those are my top feelings. I’m sure there’s some more in there my therapist could squeeze out. As far as my new medications go, these are definitely my favorite round of medications. I’m taking Low Dose Naltrexone, Prednisone (2 times a day), estrace (initially 2 times a day but now 3 times a day), baby aspirin, vitamin D, and a prenatal. I also did a Z Pack, but that was only a few days. I was so worried about the prednisone keeping me awake for days. But, the LDN seems to balance it out. The first few days I had the best sleep I’ve ever had (minus same majorly weird dreams). However, the last three nights I have been wired at night. I’m not sure if this is the prednisone, my nerves, or general summer sleep dysfunction. Regardless, I feel so good! My mood is so much better, my hip and neck pain are totally nonexistent. I have energy to do things and I’ve lost 3 pounds since starting the meds! I can honestly say I’ve never had these side effects from fertility drugs before. I suppose one perk of having my transfer pushed back a week is having another week to mentally prepare myself to administer my own PIO shots. Still terrified of that! It’s such a weird feeling to know I have 6 little baby popsicles. Even though they only have a few cells, I feel like they are all my little babies. There is absolutely no way to describe what it is like to go to bed at night thinking about my babies in a freezer just waiting for me to bring them home. I keep wondering how many are boys and how many are girls. If we had the money for PGS testing we could know. I’m dying to see pictures of them. I know I’ll only see pictures of the one(s) transferred. What will we do with the ones left over if we get lucky the first time? It’s nice to be able to think we could hypothetically have two children that would be full siblings. At least we have enough embryos for that to be a dream for now anyway. So, to my little babies: “You are my sun, my moon, and all of my stars.” – e.e. cummings
0 Comments
6/15/2017 0 Comments FANTASTIC NEWS from SyracuseFor the first time in over two years of trying to build our family, I feel like I’m FINALLY getting fantastic news! Our clinic doesn’t do a 3 day embryo update unless you contact them. I called. The lady’s voice on the pre-recorded call greeting is so calming it’s as if they got Sigourney Weaver herself to record it. Naturally, there really wasn’t a line to dial to go where I felt like I needed to go. Instead of being on hold and transferred 32 times I thought I would send a portal message (the messaging system they use for quick communication). I sent embryology a portal message and my nurse (just in case she knew something faster). My nurse responded quickly and said the embryology team would respond, but if they didn’t to let her know. This was approximately 8:00am. Around noon I was getting SO nervous. I totally convinced myself that they weren’t contacting me because it was all over and none survived. At 2:00 still no call. So I sent my nurse a portal message to let her know. An hour-ish later they finally called!! The lady told me 4 looked really good and 2 looked fair. I thought 4 would be fantastic!!! Then I thought…will all four make it to Wednesday? Then I realized the lady was still talking. No clue what she had said while I tuned out. When I turned back in I heard her say, “I wouldn’t count the other two out yet.” My mind immediately went to, “SIX!!! ALL SIX COULD MAKE IT!” Then My mind went to, “Damn it lady. Why are you getting my hopes up?” She said some more things but I really don’t remember what.
So…Now I just had to make it to Wednesday. Tuesday morning I had a massage. It was so energizing! I went on a mission to find some good cat toys because our cats have been totally out of control since my husband left for Switzerland. My cat Maxwell has been religiously waking me up around 3:30am and 5:30am. He’s been a real cat from Hell destroying the carpet and not listening to me. So I'm hoping new toys will calm him down. I went to Wal-Mart, but they had no good cat toys! Total disappointment. But, I found this really nice patio furniture set. I decided (after much deliberation and searching all over town to make sure it was the best deal) that I had to have it. I got it home and (tried to) put it together. My dad always buys stuff when he’s stressed out. Apparently, I am my father’s daughter. But, at least it wasn’t a boat. AND it was a great time killer even if I did only manage to get one chair put together. I found it to be a great distraction and now I have a nice chair to read on the porch. I was so elated at one point I had to call one of my psychologist friends and make sure I wasn’t manic. He politely told me he thought I was just happy and in a good mood. It has been SO long since I’ve been in a genuinely good mood, I literally thought I was going crazy! Wednesday. The final day. Around 8 or 9 in the morning I got two portal messages.One from embryology and one from my nurse. We had 4 frozen embryos!!!! To end up with 4 embryos is a true scientific miracle. They expect about 70% of the eggs to fertilize and about 50% of the embryos to make it to blastocyst. So to get 4 embryos out of 6 eggs is amazing. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. The other two were still kicking so they were going to let them go one more day to see if they reached the blastocyst stage. Even if the other two don’t make it, I had 4 embryos!! I was getting ready to go to town for my weekly therapy appointment. I felt a weird sensation in my belly and thought, “I think I’m going to start my period soon, but it's not due until Friday or Saturday.” But I felt more movements and decided I should check out the situation. I STARTED MY PERIOD! I have never been so happy to start my period. So, I then had to alert all the authorities. I got my orders from CNY for my blood work and ultrasound and called my local clinic to let them know I needed an appointment. They told me to come in a 8:00am on Friday. Then I went to therapy and out searching for cat toys. It turns out Target is the place to go for cheap cat toys! Score! I bought enough cat toys to make Jackson Galaxy proud and when I got home the cats were more than pleased. Maxwell even let me sleep through the night! Thursday. Because of my period starting yesterday, I had THE WORST headache. I couldn’t even listen to the TV let alone look at a screen. This is a new thing that seems to have developed over the last few months. I woke up really early this morning because I went to bed so early last night. I logged into my portal like it’s my work e-mail and refreshed it every half hour. I got my final report. I had to read it approximately 56 times before it sank in. We have SIX little Han Solo’s!!!! All six of our embryos made it to freeze! I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! I seriously was hoping like Hell that we would get three. But all six of our little maybe-babies made it. I am finally feeling really positive that this could REALLY work for us. So next steps. I will not be the next Octomom. We are only going to transfer (Note: the proper terminology is transfer and not implant. Implantation cannot be controlled. It has to happen on its own) one embryo at a time because of my age. If it doesn’t stick the first time I might consider and talk to the doctor about doing two the second transfer. Assuming my body responds to the medications and does what it is supposed to do and I have no cysts (UGH that is a whole lot of assuming), I should have my transfer in 20ish days give or a take a few days. This is all such good timing. If my ectopic pregnancy had been viable I would’ve delivered my baby during June. Likely even during this week. So it is all very bittersweet to think about. This whole journey I have not really felt like anything was going to work. But, I really feel like this is our time. I think it could finally be my turn. I saw this sign at Homegoods yesterday while killing time and bought it to put on our mantle. It seemed all too fitting. “A calm sea never made a skilled sailor.” 6/10/2017 0 Comments Good News from Syracuse!I don’t even know how long it’s been since my last blog! It seems like FOREVER. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in a fugue state the last week or so just trying to get to today. My husband left for Switzerland last week and won’t be back until August 15th. This past week has gone by so, unbelievably slowly!
Our donor had her egg retrieval yesterday. The way the egg donor program works at CNY is that you get six eggs. It’s really not a whole lot to work with, but it’s so much cheaper than most other programs. Plus, I like that you are guaranteed six eggs. If you get a donor that has an off month or doesn’t respond for some reason and you don’t get many eggs, that would be unbearable at the normal price tag of $30,000+. So, I got word that we did get our six eggs out yesterday. Last night, I was a bit of a wreck. I kept thinking it wouldn’t be totally unheard of for none of the eggs to fertilize. Typically, you can expect that 70% of the eggs fertilize. Then about 30-50% of those will actually make it to freeze. I’m pretty sure I mentally walked through all scenarios last night. I woke up so early this morning to make sure that I didn’t miss the call from the doctor’s office. I was SO nervous! I reached out to my support group and it seemed most people had got their calls around noon-ish. So, I turned on the new season of Orange is the New Black and settled into the couch to try and pass time to wait for my call. Surprisingly, at 8:30 I got a call from them. I was so nervous. My heart was racing. What if she had terrible news to deliver? What if she had great news to deliver? I tried figuring out how her voice sounded. Did she sound like she was about to give bad news? Or good news? I really couldn’t tell. I felt like it was taking forever for her to tell me how many eggs fertilized. She introduced herself. Asked if it was a good time to talk. COME ON ALREADY AND TELL ME. Then she confirmed that we were doing a freeze all. FINALLY. She said ALL SIX of our eggs were fertilized!!!!! This is literally the best outcome we could’ve asked for. I was getting so nervous that we used frozen sperm. I kept thinking maybe we shouldn’t have mailed the sperm in. Maybe we should’ve used fresh sperm. But it didn’t seem to matter because all six of our eggs have been fertilized. This is literally the best news we’ve had on our entire journey. I’m really, really hoping for 3 embryos to freeze. Four would be incredible. I’m feeling really optimistic that we will have at least two. They told me they won’t call me for a 3 day update, but I am welcome to call and ask for one. Then, on Wednesday or Thursday they will freeze the embryos – depending on how they look. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how I’m going to keep track of all the transfer medications. I have no clue how I’m going to physically or mentally get over the hurdle of giving myself PIO shots. That is going to be awful. I hope that I can figure out how to do it with minimal pain. So now, we are waiting again. This process involves so much waiting. It’s unbearable. I really, really hope that we get good news on Monday and, most importantly, on freeze day! Until then, I’ll be watching a disgusting amount of TV. Orange is the New Black had a very fitting quote for today: “We are so fucking resilient even when we don’t want to be.” – Judy King. 5/25/2017 0 Comments One Year Blog-aversaryIt has been a while since my last update. I still don’t have much to report. Tomorrow is my one year blog-aversary. That is crazy to believe. I remember writing the first blog post thinking that it was probably going to be the last or only one I wrote. This will be my 66th post and I’ve had almost 26,000 visitors. That’s kind of mind blowing to me. I remember thinking that I was (hopefully) blowing this whole infertility thing out of proportion (as some of my friends had told me I was doing). Don’t get me wrong, I do have a tendency to get worked up over little to nothing. Up to this point in my life when something went awry it would quickly work itself out. But this…this has not quickly worked itself out. It has not resolved in the slightest. Things really have only gotten harder with each failure. I am definitely not the same person I was one year ago—for better or for worse. It is what it is.
Last week my therapist recommended a Dialectal Behavior Therapy group that was just starting up. The term “dialectical” “comes from the idea that bringing together two opposites in therapy – acceptance and change – brings better results than one alone.” This therapy was initially used in the treatment of people with personality disorders but is now a widely used therapy for mood disorders as well. At first, I was kind of taken aback because I knew it was used for people with Borderline Personality Disorder. I’m not sure why this was so stigmatizing to me. I don’t have BPD, but I’m certainly not managing my stress as well as I’d like. The module I’m participating in is distress tolerance. It’s supposed to teach you to deal better with ambiguity, uncertainty, and “thwarted life goals.” My life goals have certainly been thwarted. Can I really argue that I don’t need better distress tolerance? Definitely not. So I went. It was the most surreal thing I’ve ever experienced. If ever I’ve had an out of body experience my first DBT group was definitely it. I felt like I was in some kind of TV show. At least the group facilitator was not like Nurse Ratched. We started off by introducing ourselves to each other and telling about a high and low from our week. Some of the women shared quite openly which was somewhat shocking to me. The whole time I really kept thinking, “How did I end up here?” Everything the psychologist was telling us I already knew. I don’t do DBT specifically with my students but everything I heard was very familiar. So how did I get there? I’m clearly not using skills I already know about and teach to others. It’s kind of a weird situation to be in. Quite honestly it felt somewhat embarrassing. But I clearly need it. I went to my second class last night. It was much less surreal. The other ladies are not that unlike me. It actually felt somewhat helpful. 6 more sessions to go… Perhaps I will make it to radical acceptance. Yesterday I did get news that our donor showed up to her appointment and she will be starting her medications on Monday. Step one of so many more steps is complete. Her retrieval is tentatively set for June 9th which is my last day of school. My husband leaves for Switzerland June 1st. This will definitely be a long summer. Hopefully my transfer will be sometime in July. Today on my Facebook memories a quote from the book Wonder showed up and it seemed quite fitting. “So doesn’t that make the universe a giant lottery then? You purchase a ticket when you are born and it’s all just random whether you get a good ticket or a bad ticket. It’s all just luck.” 5/11/2017 0 Comments May 11th, 2017It’s been a while since my last update. The last week and a half has been long…as usual. I think my emotions have been pushed to the brink this past week or so. My husband is leaving to go to Switzerland for three months soon. We had talked about me going to meet him for a couple of weeks, but I realized it just wasn’t going to happen. For the two days I thought I was going to be able to go I felt really happy. But of course… I realized the time I was going to go would be right in the middle of when we would be prepping for our transfer. I honestly still don’t completely understand the transfer process. But in June when I start my period, I’ll go in for an ultrasound on day 3 of my period. My period is normally predictable but sometimes it throws me for a loop. There’s no way I want to risk missing my ultrasound date. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to find someone spur of the moment in a foreign country to do that for me if something were to go awry. When I realized I couldn’t go I was pretty devastated. And that is a gross understatement.
I remember when all of this started happening I had to keep reminding myself to feel my feelings. Every day on the way to or from work I would just let them wash over me. I cried ALL THE TIME. Apparently at some point I was like “F*&! Feelings” and totally shut down. Perhaps it was because so many people kept telling me I should be grateful for what I have in my life or I should just be happy. Maybe my feelings were just too much for me to handle at such high intensities all the time. But somewhere along the way I really lost myself. When I first started therapy and my therapist would ask what kinds of feelings were present while we were talking, it was terrifying to realize I truly had no feelings about anything. The last few weeks I think I’ve started having feelings again and it’s so inexplicably bizarre how scary that is. How can you go so long without feelings and not notice? But today I am feeling pretty good. I’m giving myself permission to feel as okay as I can feel and I’m not going to judge myself for not feeling better. This week I hit a big milestone with my weight loss. I’m officially down 20 pounds since Christmas. When I did the progesterone shots my weight loss took a bit of a hit. I also realized in my haste to get ready for work yesterday I accidentally pulled a pair of pants out of my closet that have never fit me before. I bought them a few months ago online but they were too small and I was too ashamed to take them back. Now they fit very comfortably! This is pretty huge for me. Food definitely used to be my biggest self-medicating vice. Now I don’t feel like food controls me at all. That feels like a win. As far as updates go on this whole egg donor process goes… I have ordered all of my medications this week. I’m taking 9 medications to prepare for this transfer. That’s way more medications than I’ve taken before I think. I ended up having to go through 4 different pharmacies for these medications. Some of the medications they are prescribing are to reduce inflammation. Our doctor believes that the majority infertility cases may be caused by some kind of undiagnosable inflammatory/autoimmune response. It really seems like a very progress view point. Two of the medications were not allowed to be shipped from New York to Virginia because of some medication standards. So I ended up having to go through two different pharmacies in order to get these medications. One medication I will take just before the transfer so they are shipping that medication directly to the clinic. The other I will start before I leave home so I had to find a place that was able to ship to Virginia. Costco had several of the medications and were cheaper than the other pharmacies. Although some of Costco’s drugs were much more expensive so I had to rely on our old pharmacy called Mandells. Yesterday I got a call that one of the medications that’s about $60 was actually covered by my insurance and is only a $7 copay! He said he’s never seen insurance pay for that before. Tonight when I went to pick up my prescriptions from Costco, I realized my insurance picked up some of those as well! I'm still waiting on the two most expensive medications and I realized one prescription didn't get sent over. Glad I'm doing this way in advance. So our our meds have cost only $177! I think the others will cost about $475ish. That's a far cry from the $1500 I initially thought they would cost without insurance. So now we wait some more. Our donor is supposed to go in for her baseline scan on May 24th. Her egg retrieval will be around June 9th. Then I just have to wait to start my period and start my medications. I have a new favorite Doctor Who quote that almost sounded like it was made for infertility, "Hope is its own form of cruelty." 4/29/2017 0 Comments Infertility is Like Yard Work...Our yard has been neglected for the majority of our fertility journey. Two weekends ago my husband and I began trying to make our yard look a little less like 1313 Mockingbird Lane and a little more like normal people live here. Last weekend it rained, so we got very behind. We are really determined to clean up the yard this weekend.
Our yard is fairly large considering the neighborhood we live in. The front yard is (or was before the infertility) nicely landscaped and mostly mulched. So we really should keep better tabs on all the trees and such that try to grow into the mulch. We also have crepe myrtles that make quite a mess in addition to all the leaves that fall from the oak and maple trees. My job was to pick up all the sticks and pull up all the little baby trees and weeds trying to infiltrate our yard. Seriously, if only I could be as fertile as our yard. I think I’ve failed to mention it was about 90 degrees for most of the day. For some reason today, I was not feeling the yard work. Many times, I sat down in the yard to contemplate an easier way to do what I was doing. I decided there really wasn’t an easier way. I was just going to have to sweat and exert myself. I have been fairly weepy this week for whatever reason. Scratch that. I’m pretty sure I know why. Our donor is taking FOREVER to start her period. I won’t lie. I’m a little upset our clinic didn’t divulge this information although it seems that they knew this upfront as she has cycled as a donor before. When I say forever I mean she is really almost 3 weeks late. Earlier in the week when I was told she still hadn’t started I began to wonder if we should change donors. The thought of this was seriously paralyzing and I cried almost all night. I couldn’t eat dinner. I couldn’t get off the couch. Ultimately, my husband and I decided that we would keep our donor because at least she is willing to cycle. If we changed donors, the donor might not want to cycle at all or for months down the road. Or if we went with an unknown donor she may back out or be disqualified like our first donor. There’s just too many unknowns. So, I had try to be okay with knowing that this process is going to take longer than I anticipated. My dreams of a summer transfer are likely gone. This is yet another devastation I’ve had to encounter. So, back to the yard. I was weepy and uncomfortable and just generally didn’t feel like doing yard work. But, I knew it had to be done. So, I got up and started mentally sectioning off pieces of the yard to work on. Suddenly, I had my very large trash bag a filled a quarter of the way with yard debris. Slowly, I started to feel better about myself. I started comparing yard work to fertility and realized it’s very relatable. The work seems never ending and at any point you can be delayed. Just like with the rain this week. It’s overwhelming physically and mentally. But, I started realizing. I can do it. I can do more than what I had initially thought. Then I started getting hot and hungry and miserable. I thought to myself, “Just this little patch and then I’ll go in for water.” My husband came by and was shocked by how much I had done. This was the compliment I needed. We decided to do a little more before we went in. I thought I’d do one more little patch of the yard. The next thing I knew I had done at least three more sections of yard. I realized I couldn’t stop. Even though I was thirsty, hungry, and starting to feel physically sick, I couldn’t stop. Finally I realized, “I really have to go in.” I let myself walk past lots of sticks that needed to be picked up. It was hard to walk past these. But I told myself I’d get them later in the day after I had a chance to eat and cool down. I went in and my ears were ringing and I was so thirsty. My head hurt. I had to take a break. We had lunch and took a nice long break. Then I realized I was very sleepy. I decided I could take a nap and go back out later. The day was still young. I still had plenty of time. Later on in the evening, after taking a longer nap than I intended, I did go back out and finish what I sought out to do this morning. I say all this to explain how I’ve come to realize I need a break from all the fertility treatments. I’ve enjoyed spending the last few weeks drinking coffee and alcohol and not worrying if I’m doing too much that might impact an embryo transfer. I haven’t had to ask people to carry things for me at work. I’ve been a person. I have not felt like a person in a long, long time. In the spirit of National Infertility Awareness Week, Listen Up. Sometimes you have to recognize when you need a break. Don’t stay out in the heat and get a heat stroke just to pick up some sticks. I know it feels like time is running out. But, there is always time. I’ve waited two years. I can wait a couple more months to get started again. Perhaps it was good timing that our donor is taking forever. Today, I’m going to enjoy eating shellfish and cheese and drinking wine. I know I won’t feel like this every day. Some days will be hard and I’ll feel like time is being wasted. But I’m going to do my best to try and enjoy this time that I’m not doing fertility treatments. So just like yard work, fertility treatments require a lot more exertion than what you may initially have expected. But you can do it. If it gets too hot – go inside (metaphorically speaking). You will make it. If you don’t get your wish on the first, second, or fifth treatment, there’s still time. Take a break. Do something not fertility related that is hard and surprise yourself. Eat the cheese. Drink the wine. “Perhaps the most selfless thing you can do today is to be kind to yourself.” –Jenny Lawson This week will be a special blog post for National Infertility Awareness Week. The theme of this year’s Bloggers Unite Challenge is Listen Up!
@Infertilityisfu tweeted, “The fertile public still thinks IVF= Octomom, adoption is free, and only pantsuit-wearing unlikable old women are infertile.” Nothing could sum up my infertility experience better than that tweet. I have experienced all kinds of misconceptions and unsolicited advice from a variety of well-intentioned and well educated friends and family. Listen Up! I will share some of my journey to dispel these beliefs. At the beginning of my fertility journey, I believed all those things. I thought that infertile people were older, career focused women who simply waited too long to try to have children. However, one in eight couples struggle to conceive. One in eight. That is a pretty staggering statistic. Infertility is a disease that no one deserves. According to the interwebs, one-third of fertility issues are female related, one-third male related, and the other third is either a mixture of both or unknown causes. My husband and I began trying to have children just after I turned, the ripe old age of, 27. I felt like I was young and pretty healthy. Why would I have trouble getting pregnant? After six months, I still wasn’t pregnant. I’m a fairly impatient person and when I make up mind to do something, I do it. I was growing frustrated that I still wasn’t pregnant. I did have some close friends that I knew had trouble getting pregnant. I thought they were just really unlucky and that could never happen to me…. Right? Infertility is for old women or women/men who have had cancer or men who had physical injuries. I would know if I was infertile, right? I mean, my periods were regular and I had no real symptoms of anything I’d read about online. I went to the doctor and was informed that in Virginia if you are under 35 your insurance will not pay for infertility testing unless you’ve been trying to have a baby for at least a year. So six more months rolled around, and even though I had peed on all kinds of sticks, monitored my temperature every morning at 6am, and kept track of my cervical mucus, I still wasn’t pregnant. At first, I was terrified to schedule an appointment with a fertility specialist. What if something was wrong with me? What if something was wrong with my husband? What if something was wrong with both of us? After consulting a friend, I realized I had to know one way or the other. The longer I waited to see a doctor, the longer it could take me to get pregnant. So, just a few months after my 28th birthday I had my first appointment. Besides…nothing serious could be wrong with me. Just a few months of Clomid and I’d be fine, Right? I learned that I had one maybe two blocked fallopian tubes, low AMH, and possible endometriosis. When I realized low AMH is one of the most difficult-to-treat fertility problems, I started looking into other options to build our family—just in case. Of course, I had many friends casually recommend adoption, taking a vacation, or my personal favorite “just relax”. We ultimately decided, with the guidance of our doctor, to start with a “cheaper” fertility treatment: Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). What I learned at this stage of my journey was that although my insurance covered testing, it did not cover ANY treatment. Our IUI cost us about $500 and did not work. Our doctor had recommended surgery to rule out possible endometriosis. At first, our insurance was unwilling to pay for this exploratory surgery. It was going to cost us anywhere from $5,000-$7,000 out of pocket. Luckily, our doctor coded it as surgery for pain management and our insurance did pay, but we still had to pay $1,000. I did have stage 3 endometriosis which was excised and had to have a Fallopian tube removed. Then we tried two more IUIs. My body did not respond to the medicine either time so they were both canceled. Learning my body wasn’t even responding to the medications, even though I was young, was devastating. Everyone who knew about my “trouble to get pregnant” reassured me that I was young and had plenty of time. Everything would be fine. But nothing was fine. Nothing was working. So, we decided to move towards IVF. Even though we were several months into this and I had read everything there was to read about infertility, I still thought IVF would have to work. Just look at Octomom! In my mind, IVF would not only work but, we would probably have multiples, right? Wrong. In fact, we were told IVF would most likely not work the first time and the first round is seen as a test run. One round of IVF at our clinic is about $9,000 plus another $4,000 for our meds. Our clinic had a two cycle package for $15,000 not including medications. So, we went through our first cycle of IVF. Again, my body did not respond to the medications. I had one follicle which we did retrieve and it did have an egg. Unfortunately, it did not make it to transfer day. Our second try, we had three follicles. But, one disappeared before we got to retrieval and only one follicle actually had an egg. It fertilized, but did not stick. The devastation after two failed IVF treatments is indescribable. That was the end of the road for our IVF funds. All along the way, I’ve been looking into alternative solutions. I’ve seriously given adoption strong consideration. However, to go through a private agency is no picnic. You have to really sell yourself publicly to be chosen by someone. Convince someone that although you cannot reproduce on your own, you are worthy of children. You have to go through an extensive home inspection and interview by social workers. Not to mention the price tag is around $30,000-$50,000. On top of that, in most states the birth mother has the right to change her mind within the first week. Giving back a baby is something I couldn’t bear to do. There’s also adoption through foster care. However, the goal of foster care is generally to get the child back to their family. I’ve heard of some really great cases of people getting to adopt an infant quickly through foster care for no or little cost, but those stories are few and far between. Adoption is not nearly as simple as what I had been lead to believe. Adoption should also not be viewed as the burden of the infertile. You do not have to be infertile to adopt. Despite what some may say to you on this journey, it is not selfish to want to have your own baby even if it requires significant medical intervention. I’ve also had friends casually recommend using a surrogate (which is now referred to as gestational carrier). Generally gestational carriers are used if the mother cannot carry a baby to term safely. The cost of gestational carriers is astounding. This can range from $100,000-$150,000+. That is simply not an option for me. And, some states and countries prohibit the use of gestational carriers. For instance, in our nation’s capital you may be fined $10,000, or sentenced to prison for one year, or both if you break this law. Besides, I want the full package of being a mother—swollen cankles and all. Our next option was donor eggs. I honestly had no idea this was even a thing. We can use someone else’s eggs and fertilize it with my husband’s sperm and have that embryo transferred to my uterus. Again, this comes with a steep price tag. Our clinic costs about $30,000 plus the cost of medications. Way out of our price range. Luckily, we found a clinic in New York that offers packages starting at $9,000 and allows you to finance through them with no credit check. For this, we will have to travel just under 8 hours away. We are currently in the process of waiting for our donor to start her medications. This is hopefully the way we will build our family. Although our baby will not be biologically similar to me (if we get lucky), I know I will love any baby that comes into my life in any way. Science is an incredible thing to give us this opportunity. This is my (very condensed) infertility story. I am not an unlikable, pantsuit-wearing, old lady. I am an otherwise healthy, mostly likable, young woman. The only pantsuit I own is strictly for job interviews or scary work meetings. I have done IVF twice and I did not have 8 babies; I had zero live babies. While adoption is a very great way to create a family, this is not the road we are wanting to go down as it is certainly not easy or free. I am grateful that science and very generous women exist to help me start my family. I am one in eight. So please, Listen Up, and learn more about the issues of infertility. The fact is, someone you know (or perhaps even you) are infertile. If you are already on this crazy roller coaster, please find positive supports in your life and try to distance from the not-so-positive. Even on days when it seems impossible, be kind to yourself. For more information about infertility please see: http://www.resolve.org/about-infertility/what-is-infertility/ 4/20/2017 0 Comments Ramblings from an infertileIt’s been ten days since my last blog post. I swear I thought it had been 2 months. Time has essentially stopped moving for me. The other day I started freaking out because I could’ve sworn I should’ve had my period by now. I was only cycle day 22. It hasn’t even been a month since our last IVF failed and it feels like it’s been years.
In the last few days/weeks I have really experienced a lot of emotions and numbness all at once. Some days I would feel like I was doing okay and then I would suddenly become overwhelmed with sadness and despair. It seemed like it would come from nowhere. I think so far the most important thing has been staying busy. Matt and I had some gift cards to the movies so we took advantage of those and spent this past Sunday cleaning our yard. It’s definitely very helpful for me to get out of the house as much as possible. While we were working on the yard, I had a moment where I felt genuinely happy. It caught me so off guard I had to stop what I was doing to think about it. I actually had a fleeting thought, “Is it okay for me to feel happy?” I started feeling guarded with myself. It’s a really scary thought to feel happy. I know what the crash of disappointment feels like and it’s a lot to bear. It’s likely going to be two more months before we even have our next transfer. I started questioning myself. Do I really want to move forward with the donor eggs? Well, we’ve already signed the contract and put down our deposit. So I’m guessing it’s too late to back out now. I’ve really had to sever the connection in my brain with the money. For the next two years, no matter what happens, we will be paying about $417 a month for a total of $10,000. I didn’t even pay $10,000 for the car I currently drive. It’s so much money; I just cannot think about it. I can’t let myself think about all the money we’ve already spent either. I’m still having bad days. More good than bad, so I feel like that’s a good place to be going. Right now I don’t know if I consider myself “happy” or not. Some days I feel like I could be happy. But the happiness feels pretty empty. I think maybe I’m just more “neutral” rather than truly happy. Not feeling sad seems to be the new happy. Part of me wants to just give up and start trying to figure out how to have a life without children. When I hear people complain about how tired they are because their kids are doing whatever I have found myself thinking, “I can sleep whenever I want. I can go to the store whenever I want. I can do whatever I want.” When people complain about how much their children are costing them, I’ve been thinking: “I can spend all of my money on me for the rest of my life. I can travel, buy nice things, and have nice clothing. After we pay off all this tremendous debt of course…” But then I’ll hear a child laugh or say something cute. I’ll see a family filming their baby dancing or bouncing a toddler on their lap. And I’ll think, “I’ll never know what that is like. I’ll never be a mom and have that relationship. I’ll never be proud of my child for making the right decision. I’ll never get to worry about where they are late at night.” And then I’ll start the cycling of, “All of my babies died before I even got to know their gender.” Every time that cycle starts, I feel like I have to start over. This is an endless, all-consuming process. There are not many minutes in the day when I am not thinking or knowing that I am infertile. Many moons ago we used to refer to people with disabilities as “suffering from” some ailment. A person might be “suffering from diabetes.” Then it became politically incorrect to use this language. It made these people feel victimized. So we changed our language to a person “is diabetic.” Then that too fell out of fashion because the person wasn’t a person. They were their condition. Now we say a “person has diabetes.” I am totally in favor of person first language. However, there are some days (let’s be honest…most days) I AM SUFFERING from infertility. There are most days where I AM INFERTILE. To say that I am a person with infertility really seems to diminish what feels like is happening. It makes it sound like I’m a perfectly fine person walking around who happens to be infertile. But the experience of infertility does not feel that way when you’re living it. In the throes of infertility, I am eating, sleeping, breathing, blinking, peeing, infertility. It literally feels like there is no escaping it. I really have no idea where I’m going with this post. After re-reading it, it seems rambling and has no real direction or point. But, that kind of feels exactly like my life right now. So, it is what it is. We will supposedly get updates once our donor starts her medications. I keep checking my patient portal multiple times per day hoping for some news. But, I know that her egg retrieval won’t be until sometime in May. Until then the days will be endless. “If you could hear the insane stuff going on in my head, it would scare the hell out of you. Probably. Or fascinate you. Depends on how easily you’re started, I guess.” – Jenny Lawson 4/10/2017 0 Comments Stuck in the waiting game...Things have been kind of slow over the past few days. I feel like I’m living two lives or someone else’s life or something. Sometimes I have to actually say to myself, “This is your life” to remind myself this is all real. It’s a very surreal feeling to know that I will never have my own biological child. Sometimes I feel like we’ve stopped trying altogether and I have to actually remind myself we are still moving forward with donor eggs. I can’t seem to let myself think that I’ll ever have a child. My thoughts are very flighty today so this could be a very incoherent blog post.
We mailed Matt’s sperm off and they made it safe and sound. The lab person said it would be great to get 2 or 3 vials and, of course, we got 5 vials because Matt has Jim Bob Duggar sperm. So now that’s all taken care of and we don’t have to worry about that piece anymore. We have tentatively been matched with another donor. I still can’t let my hopes get up until we have embryos. Even then, I’m not sure I’ll be able to have any hope. So we are just waiting around until our donor starts her period to figure out the specific details. This donor has already cycled before and the recipient had a positive outcome so that is great to know. She also doesn’t have to go through the vetting since she’s already cycled before. We should get our new contract tomorrow and we can make our deposit and sign everything so that it’s all official. Last week, we had a couple’s counseling appointment to talk about the ins and outs of being a donor egg recipient. It was extremely informative. I highly recommend anyone doing adoption or donation take advantage of that even if your clinic doesn’t require it. I had no clue there were so many children’s books about IVF, egg/sperm/embryo adoption and adoption. Part of the appointment was exciting thinking about reading these books to a little one. I had to remind myself that I’m not pregnant yet. We also took advantage of some time off work to have early anniversary pictures made. At our wedding we did a wine box ceremony where we put love letters we had written and a bottle of wine together. We planned to open it on our fifth wedding anniversary. Well...it’s not quite our 4th anniversary yet, but it seemed like a good time to re-kindle our love. It was so much fun getting dressed up and having someone take our pictures. We got to enjoy a really tasty bottle of wine and read our love letters. It was surreal to read them. It seemed like another life time ago that they had been written. It was really cool to have that experience. We are writing new letters and put a new bottle of wine in our box to open sometime in the future. I’m really glad we have this tradition. I needed to remember our life before infertility, because it seems like it was so long ago. We’ve spent over half our marriage trying to have a baby. That’s pretty crazy to wrap my mind around. I’m really glad we dated for so long prior to being married. I have to have some more blood work done because it’s been just about a year since some of it was completed, so it’s no longer considered usable. It’s crazy to think we’ve been at this for a year with medical help. I think a year ago I thought I’d get a couple rounds of Clomid –tops—and finally be pregnant. Nope…not how it works…Not for me anyway. So I called our old clinic to schedule my blood work. I felt like I was calling a boyfriend and he broke up with me. They want me to just go straight to the lab to have it done instead of coming to them. I don’t really understand why. I probably should’ve just asked. But it was super awkward. I wonder if they’ll refer me to a regular OB/GYN when it comes time for my ultrasounds…So tomorrow some strangers will be taking my blood and I’ll just have to hope that they get my results to my new clinic in a timely fashion. I feel like I’m in such a stagnant place because there’s really nothing I can do. I always feel so much more in control when I’m taking medications or prepping or doing something. There’s literally nothing I can do except wait. I feel so frozen in the waiting. I feel like I’m just barely able to go through the motions. “Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” Mandy Hale 4/4/2017 0 Comments Back to the drawing boardYou know how when you’re hungry, but you don’t really like any of the food in your kitchen so you keep checking the cabinets and fridge over and over like there might be something different the next time you look? Or is that just me? Well that’s how I’ve been over the last few days looking at the donor pool. I keep looking at our donor over and over, reading her profile over and over, and scrolling through the other options wondering if we made the right choice... Impatiently waiting on an update… Well today I got an -- earlier than expected – update. Unfortunately, our donor has been disqualified due to bad results on her lab work. They don’t/can’t say what the bad news was other than she was disqualified and can no longer be a donor. So, somewhere out there I assume there’s a young woman getting devastating news that she is going to struggle and/or find it impossible to have her own children and a couple who is almost equally devastated that our perfect donor isn’t perfect after all. My first thought was, “FUCK. REALLY?” My second thought was, “Did I really expect this to go smoothly?” No. Of course things aren’t going to go smoothly. If ever someone could say the universe was sending signs that things aren’t meant to be this whole process seems to be a really loud signal.
Honestly, when I saw the message I was mostly just irritated I hadn’t seen it earlier in the day. This far in the game, I’m not getting too attached to any idea that something will work out positively. I’m glad I didn’t get too excited or attached to her. But, I really don’t like many of the other donors. But it is what it is. So back to the drawing board. Even though we had a list of other donors, I already didn’t like the order we had them listed. One person I really liked is two years older than me. Everything I’ve read online says it is best to go with a donor in their early 20s. So I crossed off my second favorite because I don’t have too many more $10,000+ to gamble on. The next person on our list Matt really liked, but I really can’t bring myself to like her. That sounds terrible, but she just isn’t doing it for me. One of my least favorite of our selection has already cycled. She’s young, has her own kid, and the previous donor recipient got pregnant from her eggs. I feel very drawn towards that. And she’s short, cute, and brunette. I’m just not terribly drawn to her responses to her questionnaire. After looking at the profile of our next choice I just couldn’t bring myself to like her anymore. It’s really weird how picky you can get. Beggars can be choosers, apparently. Then there was our last choice. She’s cute, young, short, and a red-head and she’s cycled before but only for a banked egg cycle so I don’t know what the outcome of her eggs were. So, somehow the bottom two on our list became our top two choices. Our third choice was the one Matt liked, but I wasn’t crazy about. Unfortunately, CNY closes at 4 so by the time Matt and I agreed on our choices they were pretty much closed. We will likely have to wait several more days to find out which one agrees to cycle ASAP. So here we are…back at square one on this whole donor thing. What feels like an endless process is only taking longer than anticipated. “Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother’s wombs and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.” – Lemony Snicket |
Heather Joyce
Trying to conceive. Archives
April 2018
Categories |