Part of My Story. . . Part 2

This is continued from Part 1 of this story.

It was late November of 2008 by the time T and I had completed all the tests. The tests that said there was nothing wrong with either of us. As I mentioned in the previous post, we decided to go ahead with treatment. In hindsight, I wish I would have had patience. But, this whole process was a huge learning experience.

T and I then tried a couple of procedures. We started small. A couple IUI's. The same results. Negative. I couldn't figure it out. If there was nothing medically wrong with us, than why wasn't it happening? Why were we doing fertility treatments? Why? Why? Why?

It was about this time, I set up an anonymous blog to talk about infertility treatments and how it was affecting my life. I was for some reason ashamed of my inability to get pregnant. Because of that, I didn't use my name, or Taher's name.

Months passed, and still, nothing worked. We then upped the stakes and attempted IVF. IVF was emotionally taxing to say the least. It brought me to a dark, sad place. And not only was it emotionally difficult, it was financially difficult. It drained us financially. And it felt like such a big gamble. It could go either way.

During all of this, we had already begun the adoption process. T and I ALWAYS wanted to adopt, and regardless of the outcome of IVF, we were going to adopt.

To truly relive what I was going through, I thought I would share a couple posts from my last and final IVF treatment. The treatment that ended all treatments.

Retrieval Day
Posted by Author on July 11, 2009

I will attempt to write this post through the tears. I’ve spent the last hour sobbing. I guess you could say today wasn’t a good day.

T and I showed up at the clinic promplty at 7am. The Dr. came in shortly after and raved about how much better I stimulated this cycle. He said we should have a minimum of 12 eggs. Oh, how that sounded good.

I woke up from the procedure and T looked a little teary-eyed. In my drug-induced state I managed to ask how many eggs were retrieved. I thought I heard 6. Okay, definitely less than I was hoping for, but better than nothing. Then Dr. N walked in and said of those 6, maybe only 1 (maybe) was actually mature. I started crying instantly. I asked how that could be. Afterall, I stimulated so well. He said that he thinks the lower dose of HCG didn’t mature the eggs enough. (I was moved to a 5,000 units instead of 10,000 because of my high estrogen levels) Then Dr. N left the room.

I sat there in complete disbelief. I started trying to rip the IV out of my arm, and undue the blood pressure cuff. I blame it on the meds and the bad news, but I was definitely not a good patient. T had to slap my hand at one point so I would quit trying to rip the IV out of my hand.

The embryologist then came in to tell me about the eggs. She said 1 was definitely mature, but the other 5 were borderline, and before doing anything with them, she would wait and watch them to see what happens. Through all of these conversations, I’m sitting in the bed crying.
The nurse then came in and through the tears, I asked her what happened. I told her my estrogen levels were so high, I had about 15 good looking follicles. . . What went wrong? She told me that Dr. N thought that the HCG meds weren’t sufficient and because of that, many of the eggs were still attached to the follicles and therefore Dr. N couldn’t retrieve them.

Sometimes I cannot believe this is my life. Everything was in our favor this cycle. Everything. T walked me out of the clinic, and I was sobbing. The nurses just looked at me with pity in their eyes, and the poor women waiting for their appointments must have been hoping that their appointments go much better than mine.

The embryologist said she would call me tomorrow morning. Keep in mind, there is only 1 egg that is mature. And although I know hope is a good thing, I think the odds are definitely not in our favor for having a transfer. I think it’s really safe to say there will be no transfer.

I’m so unbelievably sad and angry right now. I feel like I’m owed something by the clinic. I feel like what happened today was not my fault. My body worked. It responded perfectly. A part of me thinks the clinic owes me a free cycle. I really do. I hate to feel entitled, but the nurse and Dr. both admitted today that what happened was most likely because of the dose of HCG I was given on Thursday evening.

So, I’m really really sad, and I hope I can manage to shut my eyes for a bit and block the world out. I just cannot believe this happened. All the weeks of shots, the days of pain and discomfort. . . all for nothing.

Smile, when your heart is aching
Posted by Author on July 13, 2009

So, onto my weekend. Let’s just say it started bad from the very start. Instead of having a relaxing Friday night, some drama happened with family members. It was all because of some insensitive comments made about adoption.

Then of course, there was Saturday, which was awful. I wish I could better articulate how exactly I feel about it. I feel like I was robbed. I feel like my last real chance of getting pregnant was taken away from me. Anyone who has been following my story, knows that everything was going well this cycle. The stim drugs I was given were working perfectly, and my ovaries were producing a lot of follicles. I was the textbook case of how IVF is supposed to go. Through all of this though, I didn’t have false hopes. I knew that everything could go along smoothly and I could still end up not pregnant. And that was fine. I just wanted one more chance. T and I are completely out of money for IVF, so I knew that this would be the last real chance we had.
My expectations were realistic. I simply wanted an embryo. . . or maybe even two, to put back in me on Tuesday, which would be my 3 day transfer. I knew that having two good embryos also didn’t guarantee I would get pregnant, but I just wanted to get to transfer day, because IVF #1 I didn’t.

Everything was looking good. The Dr. on Saturday estimated that they would retrieve 12 to 15 eggs. Perfect! I was thinking out of those eggs, at least half would fertilize, especially with ICSI, so I was thinking we may actually have 6 embryos. I even let myself think that we may be able to have a couple frozen embies. Gosh, was I getting greedy.

I feel so robbed by all of this. The Dr’s at my clinic are good people. I KNOW in my heart that they want all of their patients to succeed. But I can’t help feeling bitter right now. Bitterness is such an ugly way to feel. My cycle was going on brilliantly, and because of my high estrogen levels (4,000) the decision was made last minute to lower my HCG trigger dose from 10,000 to 5,000. These are professionals. I trust their judgment. If they tell me to lower the HCG trigger shot to 5,000, then I do it. . . No questions asked.

But this decision that they made has broken my heart. Because of that decision, I went into retrieval, where I should have had at least a dozen mature eggs to retrieve, and I had 1 mature egg. It’s unbelievable to me. I know IVF isn’t an exact science. I know it’s still relatively new in the medical world, and I know that sometimes it takes a lot of tweaking before a Dr. gets a protocol down. I accept that. But this is MY money we are dealing with here. I can’t afford for the Dr. to make a wrong decision like what happened in this situation.

I hate the blame game, and I hate feeling like I’m owed something. To me, it’s so much easier to be sad than to be angry. Right now, I’m both. I am so angry that my Dr. decided to tweak my protocol at the last minute, even though everything was working great. I’m angry that I’m just another patient to them. They took my LAST chance. They took that from me.

I’m angry at the scene I most likely made when I woke up from anesthesia. I wasn’t myself. I was doped up, and then to hear the bad news, it was awful. Heartbreaking. Heartwrenching.
As I was sobbing on my way home from the clinic, I called my Mom and she cried with me. Her heart breaks for me too. Then she informed me that my aunt has a brain tumor and had to have immediate surgery. My parents drove the 1.5 hours to my house to be with me that day, and then we spent the rest of the day at the hospital waiting with family as my aunt was having the tumor removed. My body physically ached, and I knew I should be in bed taking it easy, but I needed a distraction. Throughout the day, I would start crying again, and I’m sure my extended family thought my tears were for my aunt. And they were for my aunt. But they were also for me.

I feel so damn robbed.

Saturday night was a restless night. I knew the embryologist would be calling first thing in the morning, and I laid in bed most of the night crying, thinking of the letter I want to write to my RE, thinking about adoption, thinking about what all this means.

At 6:59am, my phone rings. UNKNOWN. Obviously is was the embryologist. I picked up, and he gave me the details.

6 eggs were retrieved. Of those 6, 1 egg was mature. ICSI was done on that 1 mature egg, and 1 mature egg fertilized. Of the 5 immature eggs, sperm was put in the glass with all of the immature eggs. One of the immature eggs also fertilized. Therefore, I have two embryos. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t think immature eggs COULD fertilize?) The embryologist asked me if I had any questions for him. I told him that last time we had an embryo, I showed up for my transfer, looped up on valium, only to get there to find out I had a super-duper crappy embryo. I said I would appreciate finding out before I show up at the clinic if my 2 embryos suck big time. He said he would talk to the Dr. and I would be getting a call today.

I know I should be happy about my 2 embryos. But I’m so unbelievably angry, that I can’t be happy. Considering what we were dealing with, we had a great fertilization report. I just can’t help thinking how wonderful the fertilization report would have been had we actually had a dozen mature eggs. I am also realistic on the chance of these two embryos growing into nice 6-10 celled embryos. The whole point of IVF is to get a bunch of eggs, so there are options. We don’t have options. So, all the stars would need to align for us to actually have something to transfer tomorrow. This post is so long already, and I don’t even know if it makes much sense. I’m trying to convey how jipped I feel. Maybe it’s the wrong emotion. Maybe I shouldn’t feel robbed. But I feel like the decision the Dr. made ruined this for me. And I want something from him. I want something badly.

The conclusion to my story to be continued. . .