Modest Goddess

It's been awhile since I wrote about infertility, or anything at all on here. That's because what happened over the summer was just to painful to write about. It had to steep, like a big cup of black tea.

I don't know that there's any need to go into great detail. But I will tell you about the nail-biting extra week of stimulating the ovaries just to get some eggs to grow, the threat of cycle cancellation hanging over the whole time; the excrutiating wait to see if any of the four eggs retrieved would survive until five days after fertilization, D-Day for freezing; another nerve-wracking 30 days while I prayed and coaxed and visualized and massaged and acupunctured my uterus into becoming an appropriate home for the embryos, which had been put on ice; the stomach-churning wait to see if the sole two embies to make it to the fifth day survived the thawing process, notorious for destroying embryos (miraculously, both did); the two-week wait before I could take a pregnancy test, during which I couldn't even pick up my son, or anything else over 10 pounds; the initial fantastic positive result, with HCG levels so high that I thought maybe, possibly it could be twins; the bottoming out of those levels the following week and the discovery that the pregnancy would not continue; the three weeks of blood tests, ultrasounds and a trip to the emergency room; and finally a shot to dissolve whatever was left of those little guys, who had set up shop somewhere in my body and were furiously growing but their location just happened to be outside my uterus.

I feel the need to put all this out there because I'm gearing up for another IVF attempt. I know I have said it before, but this one will be my last one. I still have adequate insurance for it, but I don't have adequate mental reserves. If only the reproductive endocrinologists could figure out a way for women to divorce their minds from what's happening to their bodies, we could stand going through this a lot longer.

I want to say I have no hope for this cycle, but hope will probably sneak in at some point. But regardless, I don't expect much. I just want to be able to tell myself that I tried the very best I could, that I was brave, before I give this up and move on to whatever is next. Which will probably be stealing babies out of shopping carts.