I first want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who texted, messaged, emailed, called, dropped off “sorry life sucks” packages, or gave/mailed me wine, cheese, fruit, candy, flowers, and other goodies. I cannot begin to tell you how much that meant to me and my husband. And while it’s probably not the healthiest coping mechanism, wine, cheese, and other yummy food items did/do help a little bit.
Now, back to the blogging stuff.
Last Monday (three days before Thanksgiving), I learned that the transfer didn’t work and I wasn’t pregnant. I got off the call with the nurse, had a crying fit in front of my husband, wrote a blog post, and then went right back to work because I’ve been SLAMMED with work from my clients these past few weeks, I had lots of meetings that I couldn’t really get out of without causing more work for myself later on, and sometimes it feels easier to dive into work than address feelings. We had family stay with us Tuesday evening through Friday evening for Thanksgiving (news like this definitely dampens the holiday spirit, at least for me), and so I didn’t even start to have time to process the news until Saturday, but by that time I had already received wine and cheese from various, amazing people, and so that seemed like a better coping mechanism. Fast forward about a week later, and there has been much imbibing of wine, ingesting of cheese (cut-up pears, cheese, and homemade (not by me) bread make a delicious lunch), diving into work, and soreness from finally being able to exercise again. Thus was my method of coping with the unknown, because we couldn’t make any plans until I talked with the doctor to learn what he had to say about everything.
This morning was the long-awaited phone consult with my doctor. I had a lot of questions for him, as I usually do, including wanting to know if attempting more rounds of IVF and the continual injections of hormones would increase my risk of cancer. He said the research shows it’s a miniscule increase in risk, but it’s something that’s always been at the back of my mind.
He believes that the transfer didn’t take due to a genetic problem. The PGS testing we do before freezing the embryos checks to make sure all the chromosomes are there properly, but it can’t check DNA, nor is it an all-inclusive or perfect test. It’s just supposed to increase the odds. Unfortunately, I was on the losing side of that bet with this embryo.
He said we could try again, but since I’m 40 and my eggs apparently are crap, if we try again with my eggs, we’d have a 15% chance of success, versus a 70% chance of success with a donor egg. Those aren’t very good odds — I think they’re lower than when we started this whole thing. Then he told me to call the office when we decided how we want to proceed, and he wished me a happy holiday before he hung up. A happy holiday? I just learned that the past year’s worth of stress, anxiety, emotional roller coasters, weight gain, missed experiences, and misery was all for naught. Yup, it’ll be a great holiday.
Anyway. Then it was back to work until my husband was in a break between teaching classes. I called to talk everything over with him. Do we want to do more rounds of IVF? We think so. Okay then, do we want to keep trying with my eggs or a donor egg? My eggs for now. Am I strong enough mentally, physically, and emotionally to do another 1-3 rounds of IVF and deal with all the anxiety and stress that comes along with it, both natural and hormone medicine-induced? I’m not really sure about that one, but let’s just go with “yes” for now. Is my husband ready and able to support me through all of that again? The answer to that was “always” because he’s amazing. Do we really want to put our life on hold for another year? If this works, it’ll be worth it, so yes?
And there we have it. Come early February (we have plans for the end of January that I don’t want to miss), it looks like we’ll be starting this all over again. I don’t know if the process will be exactly the same — the amazing nurse at the fertility clinic said she wanted to check with my doctor about the protocol — but I have about two months to live like a normal person before I go back to injections, hormones, and traveling to/from Tallahassee on a weekly basis.