A long update
There’s a lot I haven’t written about since my last round of IVF because I needed time to absorb what felt like a lot of information at the time, but if written out was just a couple of measly sentences. Every time I tried, the gravity of what I was feeling was not reflected on the screen so I’d just stop. I’m in a much better head-space now. Time for a good old fashioned word-vomit! Just in time, because I’m about to start my third round of IVF.
Since our last failed embryo transfer I have:
- Gotten a giant tattoo of my dog
- Gotten a smaller, more ridiculous tattoo of my smaller, more ridiculous dog
- Finally got my hair cut and colored
- Ate a lot of pizza
- Stopped eating a lot of pizza
- Started a new diet program
- Joined the gym
- Didn’t actually go to the gym
- Somehow lost 10lbs anyway
- Purchased a stranger’s sperm on the internet
I’d like to talk about the mindfuck that is known as the “2ww” in the infertility world. The two week wait. This is the approximate 2 weeks (or in my case 10 days) between the embryo transfer and your first beta test. A beta test is where they measure your hCG level (the “pregnancy hormone”) for signs of pregnancy. If it’s at an acceptable level that confirms pregnancy, you go back 48 hours later to see if it’s doubled. If it has, then your pregnancy is progressing.
They could have pumped my ovaries to the size of Donald Trump’s ego and it would still not compare to the agony of waiting for that first test. You see, at that point you’re supplementing your body with progesterone that your body would be producing naturally had you not just fucked with it so severely. This makes you feel pregnant. Sore breasts? Cramping? Spotting? Fatigue? Yeah, all of that happens. And holy shit, it’s impossible to ignore. My brain was playing a perpetual game of Twister with itself all day every day. I was exhausted when I got home from work but I also couldn’t sleep. When I did sleep, I had disturbing dreams about pregnancy worthy of a midnight showing at a horror movie festival. Good times!
Some women do a lot of wacky stuff during this time to monitor their progress. For example, your trigger shot at the end of your stim cycle is actually hCG. So what people do is start peeing on sticks at that point. This will yield a false positive, but they’ll test every day and watch the line fade as the hCG leaves your system. Then, after transfer, if you’re pregnant that line will re-appear. This seems silly and a little like unnecessary torture to me, but for some it helps them feel in control of what’s happening. I prefer to pull the wool over my own eyes and pretend nothing is happening, thankyouverymuch. I used to stockpile pregnancy tests back when we were trying the old fashioned way and I had one left. I couldn’t help myself and tested 6 days after my transfer (which is too early) and got a negative result. I don’t think this did anything except make me feel stupid, so I won’t be doing that again. I’m neurotic enough as it is, I don’t need $200 in drugstore pregnancy tests to feed that beast.
As I posted before, we got a negative beta. No pregnancy. I was much more devastated than I had imagined I would be. The whole 10 days, I felt like I knew it wasn’t working. Don’t ask me how. And on the day of my beta, it took 13 hours (my appointment was at 7am) for someone to call me and when they did, it was my actual doctor instead of my nurse. I knew when I didn’t get a call from the nurse within the normal window that it was not going to be good news. When I got the call, I probably sounded really callous. I was just sort of like, “Hello? Yes. Okay. Bye.” I laid in bed and cried for about an hour. Kurt stayed with me. I kept asking, “Now what?” as if there is an answer to that question. And I asked him that question probably every day for about a week. The only way I can describe this period is mourning, which I know sounds melodramatic to anyone who hasn’t gone through this. But that’s what it is. You do so much weird shit to your body knowing there’s no guarantee that it’s going to work, and yet when it doesn’t, it still turns you completely inside out.
We had our post-IVF consultation with our doctor about a week after our negative test result. Here we compared our two cycles which looked very similar in a spreadsheet but felt so entirely different in my brain. In both cases, it apparently took a lot of drugs to get my body moving. I guess the doses I was on at the end of both cycles were very high. The biggest thing, though, is that although our fertilization rate is very good, our embryos just “fall apart” in the lab. I kind of knew that already considering at the end of both cycles we only had 1 kind-of-okay embryo, but to hear it described like that is just… I don’t know. It just heightened my awareness of how very sci-fi this process is.
So, what does it mean? We don’t know. This round we will be doing several things differently. First, and probably the hardest for us both to wrap our heads around, is that we will be using donor sperm on 1/3 of the eggs retrieved after my next cycle. Second, we will be doing what’s called a Lupron microflare stimulation protocol which essentially jump-starts your ovaries. (Fun fact: Lupron was originally developed using nun urine. GOOGLE IT!) Third, the eggs fertilized with Kurt’s sperm will be kept in a super high-tech incubator where they will not be disturbed but can be monitored via camera 24/7. And last, in the event that we have a viable embryo via Kurt’s sperm at the end of all of this, we will be doing a day 3 instead of a day 5 transfer. We’re pulling out all the stops because this is my last insurance-covered round for 2017.
On donor sperm. We’re using donor sperm to find out if my eggs are shitty, or if Kurt’s sperm is shittier than we originally thought. If the eggs fertilized with donor sperm develop into normal embryos and the eggs fertilized with Kurt’s sperm don’t, we’ll know that Kurt’s sperm is likely the issue. If neither batch develops normally, it’s likely I have an egg quality problem.
There’s a lot to unpack when you start bringing donor sperm (or eggs, I imagine) into the mix. Although this is an experiment, we’ll still be freezing any normal embryos we get from the donor sperm as a back up. So you still need to go into this as if you are choosing a donor for your future child — because you very well might be. And let me tell you, sperm banks are fucking weird. Here is a little snippet of a donor’s, um, product listing?
The first couple of times I visited the sperm bank sites, I thought they were hilarious. (Okay, I still do.) First of all, every donor has a cutesy nickname. “Captain Amazing,” “Mr. Self-Starter,” “Music Master,” and on and on. Also, “ADD TO CART” is just a really weird phrase in this context. I don’t know why. It’s just so absurd? My favorite piece of information was “favorite animal” and “fantasy lunch” where some donors interpreted the latter as a type of food, whereas others interpreted it as a person you’d like to eat with. I preferred people who interpreted this question as food, however I don’t feel I was the main decision-maker in this process so I let go of that one.
I realized after many visits to the sites that I didn’t actually care who we chose. I just wanted a friggin baby and I didn’t care how we did it. So, since it was Kurt’s half of DNA that would be replacing, I basically let him choose. I definitely had veto power, but we agreed on a donor pretty painlessly. It took a little cajoling to get him to sit down with me and choose someone. I can’t begin to understand how this feels for him. I mean, it took me some time to get used to the idea, but for him it’s much different. But he’s game and I’m so grateful for that. We paid to see childhood photos of the donors and he picked someone who he thought looked like him as a kid. (Favorite animal? Dog. Fantasy lunch? JESUS.)
As for me personally, I’m doing things differently this time around. I’ve found new motivation to get my shit together. I went back to my RE on my own last month because I needed help with a couple of things.
Firstly, I needed to go back on antidepressants. Shit in my head was getting dark. Real dark. I know myself and I knew it wasn’t going to be getting any better on it’s own. She gave me the okay and gave me a list of medications that were okay to take. I went to my GP and got a prescription. If I get pregnant, I’ll likely need to wean myself off again before the 3rd trimester, but I’ll cross that bridge later.
Second, I asked for help managing my weight. She has hinted at being “lean and fit” before, which is her super polite way of telling me I need to lose weight. But food has become an addiction for me and I know I need help and someone to hold me accountable. She hooked me up with someone who I have been working with since. I’m now mostly gluten-free (except oatmeal) and dairy free. I am hyper-conscious of how much salt is in my food. I limited my sugar intake to fruit. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen which is sometimes a pain, but also a welcome distraction from agonizing over what’s going to happen as I approach my next cycle. I’ve also already lost 10lbs which is bonkers. Kurt has also lost something like 15lbs.
Last, and most importantly, I’m going to practice more self-care. I will be taking a week off of work towards the end of my stimulation cycle and through transfer. I’m going to get acupuncture. I’m going to get massages. I’m going to breathe and I’m going to relax. I’m going to walk my dogs. I’m going to enjoy the weather. Next cycle starts in a couple of weeks. Hippy shit is what the doctor ordered. So I’ll like, stop and smell the roses, man.
