“We’re going to have to tell my parents if we’re going to do this.”  By January 2010, we were done with IUIs, they seemed like a waste of time at this point.  I was ready to do an IVF.  Well, let me clarify that, I was far from ready, but I was going to go through with it anyway  because nothing was going to stop me from becoming a mother.  No amount of medical invasiveness, needles, anesthesia, surgery, or emotional chaos was going to keep me from moving forward.  Fear was not going to stop me, it was going to come with me.  Trust me, I was terrified.  I invited my immediate family over for dinner to celebrate our dog’s first birthday.  And because of who I am, this did not seem weird to anyone.  My parents, my aunt and uncle, my sister-in-law and niece, and my little cousin were there.  After we sang “Happy Birthday” to the dog and I served cake and coffee, I came out with it.  “So, we have something we want to talk to everyone about.”  I was hesitant to say, “something to tell you,” because I didn’t want anyone making any assumptions.  We had been married for almost four years so it was feasible we could be announcing our first pregnancy, but I didn’t want anyone coming to that conclusion.  But of course someone did.  My aunt, very sweetly and innocently yelled out, “You’re Pregnant!”  Uuggg.  That’s what I was afraid of.  Fighting back tears I told them we were not pregnant, we had been trying for a little over a year, and had already done a number of tests and procedures.  We are ready to move on to IVF.  I also told them I started going to church every Sunday at the First Presbyterian church and I guess I could be considered a Protestant now.  I’m not sure which piece of news was more shocking, the IVF or being Protestant.  It made for some much needed levity.  The room was thick with tension.  That feeling you get when you know people don’t know what to say to you or how to react.  My mother, stoic and strong as she is, smiled with hope and determination.  My father turned his head to hide his tears.  This was my first lesson in how my parents would handle my infertility moving forward.  I assumed my mother would be the emotional one and my father would avoid talking about it.  That’s not exactly how it happened.

Our first IVF was done in February of 2010.  We did something called a Lupron-flair protocol.  Basically this means they make your reproductive system go dormant the month before the cycle and then flood the system with ovarian stimulating drugs.  This helps the Dr.s control your hormones, stimulate follicle production in the ovaries, and stop you from ovulating early.  Lupron is a medication that comes as a solution.  You have to inject it with a small half inch needle into the fat in your stomach.  No problem, I’ve been sticking myself in the stomach with Insulin for years, this was not much different.  In addition, I was taking birth control pills to relax my reproductive system as they don’t want your hormones going rogue for any reason.  I had never taken birth control pills before.  I had never been pregnant before either.  I was starting to wonder if I had always been infertile.

The monitoring for an IVF cycle is constant, every other day at least.  If we thought we were tired of waking up at 4:30am before, we were really tired now.  Plus winter of 2010 was a cold and snowy winter in our state.  It was miserable.  I started on an ovarian stimulating medication called Menopur.  Also an injectable medication but this comes in a powder form that has to be combined with a saline solution.  Now I was playing chemist at the dining room table.  None of these drugs had any immediate effect on me.  Later I would find out why.  Some women hyperstimulate on this medication and that can be very dangerous.  I was overdosing on this stuff and felt very little.  The worst feeling came about a week and a half into Menopur shots as a heaviness in my lower abdomen.  Your ovaries are working triple time and are chock full of follicles, (normally you make one dominant follicle per month).  I had a total of fifteen follicles.  I felt like I was carrying bowling balls in my gut, I walked around like a neanderthal, bowl-legged and hunched over.  Mean while, every other day we were going to the clinic, getting blood work done, and getting my E.T. finger probing with the trans vaginal ultra-sound wand.  Every day a new doctor.  Some were great, in and out with no problem, some were less experienced.  In fact, one doctor was digging around in there searching for my left ovary for literally 20 minutes.  He actually gave up.  Are you kidding me?  I am laying here like a follicle cargo ship and you can’t find my left ovary?  It didn’t fall out!  Another doctor came in, all full of apologies, and found lefty with no issue.  Turns out my left ovary is behind my uterus.  Shy little thing.  Anyway, everything was looking really good, lots of follicles, thick cushiony lining, and we were ready for the retrieval.

I remember waking up the morning of the retrieval absolutely petrified.  It had been years since I was put under anesthesia and it was for a minor gum surgery when I was a kid.  I was so afraid I would be put under just enough to be paralyzed but still be aware in my mind and feel every excruciating pain.  I had done my homework and known exactly what they were going to do.  With a giant 2 foot long needle they go in through your cervix, puncture the side of your uterus, puncture your ovary, and individually puncture every follicle in that ovary to suck out all the juices.  Picture it like an egg, puncturing the shell to suck out the egg white and the yolk.  Then, as if that’s not enough, they pull this giant needle all the way out and stick it in again.  Puncturing the uterus, ovary, and each follicle on the other side.  This sounds terrible and gross and it is, but luckily I was out like a light and felt nothing.

I walked into the operating area, put on my hospital gown, and laid there on the gurney alone.  It looked very much like an ER.  Only curtains separating me from the other patients.  Hubby was somewhere else providing the sample as later that day, his gladiator sperm and my many pristine eggs would meet in a petri dish and do the dance of love.  I hated being there alone.  About 10 minutes before I went into surgery Hubby opened the curtain and sat down next to me.  “Finished early” I asked.  “Yeah, but it was a good one, I could tell.”  He’d say anything to make me laugh.  The nurse came in and asked if we were ready.  Here goes nothing.  Hubby and I kissed and they wheeled me away from him and into the operating room.  The anesthesiologist was a young, good looking guy.  He hooked up my IV and said he was only going to give me a little medicine to help me relax, we’d wait for the doctor to come in, and then he’d give me some more to put me under.  I could feel myself get immediately relaxed, like that good “buzzed but not quite completely drunk” feeling when you say and do stupid things.  I remember looking at this man, feeling all dopey and uninhibited and said, “do people ever snore while their under anesthesia?”  He probably thought I was crazy, as he didn’t answer me.  “I’m just asking because my husband says I snore when I sleep and if I start snoring I just want to apologize ahead of time.”  He looked at me like I was an idiot but he was so kind and said, “no problem, why don’t you just relax and when the doctor gets in we’ll get started.”  I wasn’t scared anymore.  This guy had such a soothing voice, there was soft music playing in the room, the lights were dim, I thought, ok I’ll just wait here until the doctor comes in.  I felt like I was waiting for a long time, just resting my eyes, waiting for the doctor.  Wow, where the hell is this guy, he sure is keeping us here long, I want to get this over with.  As you probably guessed, when I opened my eyes, I saw Hubby staring at me, I was already back in recovery, the procedure was over, and I didn’t even realize it had ever begun.  Then I tried to talk and realized I had something lodged in my throat.  I attempted to take it out but my arm wouldn’t move, I was so relaxed I could hardly move a muscle.  All I could do was move my index finger in a pointing motion toward my face.  I heard Hubby say, “I think she wants you to take that thing out,” then I heard the nurse, “no no, she’ll spit it out when she’s ready.”  I tried to spit, but I had no strength and no idea what this thing in my mouth was anyway or how far down my throat it went.  Did I have trouble breathing?  Was this a breathing tube, for Christ’s sake?  I tried with all my energy to shake my head no.  And with that I could feel someone freeing my throat of this apparatus.  “What the hell was that?”  It was a tongue De-presser keeping me from swallowing my tongue.  That son of a bitch, was it because I told him I snore?  Perhaps.

In an hour I was feeling good and got dressed.  The nurse came in just as we were getting ready to leave to tell me how many eggs they retrieved.  I had so many follicles I was so excited to hear, I bet I had about 12 to 15 eggs.  She looked at me with this disappointed look, “They only got 4 eggs.”  We went home and I cried.

The recovery from an egg retrieval is not so bad.  By that night I was spotting but felt much closer to normal.  I didn’t have that bowling ball feeling anymore as all the follicles were gone.  Most of them were empty like yolkless eggs.  I was so disappointed.  I wondered how many months or years I was making eggless follicles.  When women don’t ovulate its not just that they don’t make eggs, they don’t make follicles either.  Its the breaking down of the follicle that triggers the brain to produce hormones that either support pregnancy or if no fertilization takes place, induces a period.  So all this time, I was having normal periods, but only because I was making follicles that broke down as they should but were empty and were releasing egg whites and no yolks.  I had no idea this was even possible.  I don’t remember any sex education class in school talking about this.  But of course not, those classes are taught to kids they want to keep from getting pregnant.  They aren’t going to explain how follicles could be empty and there’s a chance you could have all the unprotected sex you want and never get pregnant.  I felt duped, lied to, bamboozled.  How could this happen?  The following day I got a call from my nurse saying only two of the eggs fertilized normally.  That was it.  That was all we had, two tiny embryos.  All our hopes and dreams hanging on the fate of these two microscopic little beings.  Because they didn’t want to risk the embryos losing strength, they opted for a day three transfer.  By day three the embryos haven’t had time to grow and become blastocysts.  We had to hurry up and put them back in the hopes they would thrive in their natural environment.

On the day of the transfer we suited up in our hospital gowns and hazmat suits as to avoid contaminating our babies.  This clinic offered an additional treatment, on the day of transfer, that supposedly was proven in scientific studies to increase the rate of pregnancy when performed moments before and after the transfer procedure.  It was called laser acupuncture.  It cost $200 for this weirdo to press a laser pointer in 10 different “pressure” points on my body for a total of 5 minutes before and after the transfer.  What would you do?  It immediately felt like a waste of money, but if I didn’t do it, and the IVF failed, I would always blame myself for not just doing it and paying the damned money.  We opted to do it, it was weird and awkward but it was meant to help me relax.  What a joke.  We walked into the operating room together this time, and I lay on the table, legs in the usual position, when the doctor came in verifying our names and social security numbers.  It felt good they were taking such steps to ensure we were getting the right set of embryos.  Otherwise, that would be awkward in nine months during the delivery, wouldn’t it?  The embryologist gave us photos of our embryos and told us their grade, B+ at best.  It wasn’t terrible, many women get pregnant from embryos of this grade, but I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment.  Hubby and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, here goes nothing.  We held hands as they passed the catheter through my cervix.  I was cringing since the nurse was pressing on my gut so hard with the sonogram in order to see my uterus on the screen.  By the way, I forgot to mention, in order to get a clear picture of your uterus on the screen, your bladder has to be full to push your uterus forward making it easier to see.  So, I had to pee like a race horse, the nurse was grinding the sonogram in my gut, a catheter through your cervix is no picnic, and I’m trying to concentrate on the white light on the screen that is my embryos.  With a press of the plunger, the white light sails into my uterus and the catheter is removed.  That’s it.  They are in there.  A small white dot of light in the middle of a circle of blackness that is my uterus.  Now we wait.

The two week wait should be a page all unto itself.  The range of emotions I felt on a day to day basis, even on a moment to moment basis, was remarkable.  Although the Dr.s told me to resume normal activity after the transfer as soon as I felt up to it, I put myself on bed-rest for three days.  I was so afraid to stand up, or move in any way, for fear my embryos would fall out.  I remained horizontal in my bedroom for three full days.  Hubby waited on me hand and foot, God bless his heart.  I think we both kind of felt this was the best way to handle it, so he was happy to act as my servant for a few days.  The ache was immediate, low in the abdomen, dull, throbbing, and never went away.  I took the ache as a good thing, I loved it, when I was distracted enough not to notice it, I stopped and mentally surveyed my body.  When I realized it was still there, I breathed a sigh of relief and went on with my day.  As long as I could feel the ache, I imagined my uterus growing, and my embryos attaching.  I dreamed about them, I talked to them, I even sang to them when I was alone.  I hung their picture the embryologist gave us on the refrigerator and would stop and gently run my finger over them every time I walked passed.  I was bonding with a photograph.  I bonded with microscopic human cells.  This was an experience I had on my own.  Hubby did not react to them this way.  I think in order to protect his emotions he didn’t pay much attention to them.  Perhaps its just a woman thing.  Perhaps its just me.  I knew, intrinsically knew, on a cellular level, that these were my babies and I was their mother.  These little bundles of human cells, if given the chance, have no other choice but to become a human being.  I knew, when I looked at them, that they were alive.  If I became pregnant it would take no more than 3 weeks after fertilization for the major organs to begin to form and the heart to begin beating.  So I thought to myself, if a lack of a beating heart means your dead, then the beginning of a beating heart should mean your alive.  This was a huge realization for me.  My babies were alive, microscopic, but alive.  I began life in this same way, just as everyone has.  If they were alive, then I was their mother, and I loved them.  In that instant, my political views changed.

Along with the amazing knowing and dull ache of life inside you, there was also the painful uncertainty and the great mourning.  Once I had established my undieing love for my tiny babies, I also began to worry, and my worry turned into excruciating pain.  Every time I would take inventory of my body and what I was feeling, I would miss the ache.  If I didn’t feel the ache, I would be terrified my babies had died.  If the ache came back, I would be relieved to feel them there again, in my imagination, alive and thriving.  This back and forth, between celebrating life and mourning death, happened 1000 times a day.  My mind would play tricks on me.  I questioned whether or not I could feel anything at all, or was I just making it up.  I prayed.  I prayed constantly through out the day.  I prayed to God.  I prayed to dead relatives.  I went to the cemetery and begged of my dead relatives to help me.  I meditated using guided CDs to help myself relax.  I day dreamed about baby showers, baptisms, and first birthdays.  I cried, I laughed, I would get so excited and full of hope I would literally applaud myself.  I was truly on an emotional roller coaster.  In the mean time, I was injecting 1cc of progesterone in oil, a very thick injectable hormonal medication, in my backside once a night.  In fact, Hubby injected me as I couldn’t reach.  After I’d sit on an ice pack for five minutes, Hubby would be on his knees behind me, my naked ass in his face, and dart me in the cheek with this giant needle.  Honestly, it didn’t hurt at all.  It was comical if nothing else.  In some ways, I think Hubby enjoyed having this opportunity to get back at me every night for behaving like a hormonal maniac through out the day.

The pregnancy test day was nerve wracking.  We went to the clinic again at a ridiculous hour of the morning, gave blood for the pregnancy test, and then went home to wait for the results.  On this particular test day I thought it would be best to go to work to take my mind off it.  Yeah right.  I could not stop thinking about it, and certainly could not concentrate enough to work.  On subsequent test days, I would take the day off, which is almost worse, being alone all day.  The last test day I made hubby stay home with me.  Anyway, my girlfriend CL took me to lunch that day, it was March 9th, a beautiful spring day.  It was unseasonably warm, sunny, clear skies, and my late aunts 50th birthday.  I prayed to her all day to make this happen for me.  I could not imagine getting bad news on such a beautiful day.  The weather has nothing to do with it.  When we got back to the office I still hadn’t heard anything from the clinic.  I waited as long as I could and called at about 4:00pm.  The nurse looked up my name and apologized up and down.  She had left the results on my home answering machine.  Had she known to call my cell phone she would have.  She was so sorry for not trying to call my cell phone anyway since she saw it written there on my file.  I felt like she would not stop talking.  “What are my results?”  There was silence on the phone, as though she realized in that moment she’d really have to tell me and she’d been avoiding it.  “Your test was negative.”  I tried to be strong, fight back tears, I was in an empty office at work and knew I couldn’t stay in there all day.  I said thank you, she told me to stop taking all medications and injections, I hung up without saying goodbye.  I stayed in that office for a few more minutes.  I would have to call hubby and tell him.  It was honestly the worst day of my life at that moment.  But it was not the last of its kind and is not the worst I’ve had since.

Along the way, our IVF experiences have brought us to many new physical and emotional places.  We’ve had many ups and downs during the process.  Each IVF came with renewed hope and a strong willingness to never give up.  By the end of 2010 we had done three IVFs.  We produced 2 embryos with the first, 1 with the second, and after changing clinics and having a hysteroscopy, we produced 3 embryos with the third IVF.  Six embryos made with love and all the hope in the world.  Six embryos who made us different people, more appreciative of life, more loving of each other, and closer as a couple.  The closest little things to children I will ever genetically make.  I was their mother, I am their mother, and I will love them forever.