Wanna Be Startin' Something

Something was healthy. Five somethings, to be exact. On ice. Waiting.

So it took 18 eggs to make five healthy potential babies. If you buy into the whole concept here, we basically compacted a year and a half of reproductive effort into a single cycle and took the guaranteeed-fails out of the equation. Which means we may have saved ourselves a whole bunch of pain. Or maybe, with all the sudden possibility, maybe we're creating more pain in the end. Right now there's just no way to know. There's nothing to do but take the hormones and go in there and let them put them in, one at a time, until maybe one of them sticks and stays with us. Nothing to do but power through all the fear.

What am I afraid of?

I'm afraid it won't work. And I'm afraid it might.

I'm afraid I might not be good at letting all of it go, if I need to. And I'm afraid of being pregnant and of all the angst. Afraid I won't be able to stay above the fray, keep my head on straight through all the what ifs. You know.

But there's an available seat at our table and, as long as there's a legitimate shot in the offing, I need to try to fill it. So onward.

I'm on the Estrace. This is a new one for me -- did not take it for the fresh cycles for H. Not particularly enjoying the bloating or the crazy. Hold onto your hat if you're living under my roof right now.

All I have to say is, thank goodness for my girlfriends. Thank goodness for the lovely souls who ask where we're at and then listen to the long answers. Thank goodness for those with me in the trenches who know the shorthand. When I feel myself fast forwarding to worst-case scenarios and drifting to dark places I shouldn't go, I feel you huddling.

Something's Got to Be Good in There. Right?

Pinch me, for they biopsied nine of our embryos for chromosomal screening. Nine. Out of 12. This from doubts we could even make it to day five.

I know, I know. Deep breath. Reality check. We have miles -- miles -- before a real live baby. But tonight we shall celebrate this small victory on the way.

Day 5. Alive.

On Friday, the nurse called me and told me to be on stand-by on Sunday for a possible transfer. This was a little different from their prior assurances that we were almost sure to go forward with the chromosomal screening (PGS) with so many embryos growing. I asked to speak to the doctor, who called me at the end of the day. She said that nothing had changed -- we still had the 12 original embryos growing, and now we also had two additional, late fertilizers growing as well.

I was instantly intrigued. Who were these rogue embryos suddenly fighting to be part of the pack? Would they make it? Could they catch up? How cool would it be to know that your kid was a fighter from the moment of fertilization? Scrappy embryos.

Anyway, she said they wanted me to be ready for a call Sunday morning just in case, for all the reasons we'd discussed before. Which makes me wonder why I had to be the one to advocate for the progesterone, but no matter.

We woke yesterday not knowing if we'd be transferring or waiting. The time change made the wait seem even longer than it was. By the time the phone rang just after 9 a.m., I was pacing the house.

My husband and I had talked about it. We decided the thing we wanted the most was for their recommendation to be very clear. If they were on the fence at all or left it up to us we would probably opt to transfer the one or two best looking day-fivers and not risk the biopsy. But we hoped they'd make the choice easy for us.

And somehow, that's just how it went. The doctor was upbeat. Said we were in a great position with 5-6 embryos ready for immediate biopsy and more possible later yesterday or today. She said there was no question in her mind that we should go forward with the PGS. So that's what we did. We'll have results by later this week.

I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. Five or six embryos undergoing biopsy and now sitting in the freezer do not necessarily get you a baby in the end. But it's a start. It's the start we've been hoping for. I wasn't sure our embryos could ever get us to this position, and now we're here, and now no matter what happens we will know that we had a real shot. We have the numbers we need to be able to say that it was as good a try as we could have hoped for. And I hope that means we get a baby in the end. I hope it does.

Halloween Magic

Retrieval was Tuesday. Survived despite shaking like a small dog. My anesthesia phobia knows no end. Someday, if you give me enough wine, I may tell you about the bodily function horror that transpired.

But no matter. An impressive-for-age-37 18 eggs were retrieved, and of those 12 decided to try to become humans.

Now we wait. As they mature the team will make a clinical determination about whether they could handle the biopsy and freezer. All I can do is take Crinone (in case we need to pull the plug on screening and transfer instead) and hang out. For the record, with 12 embryos growing no one but me thinks it's even a possibility we won't have some good enough to test. I'm the one who pushed for the progesterone safety net.

Meanwhile, am relishing the victory of my beloved Sox. It doesn't have much to do with infertility, recurrent miscarriage or IVF, and that is one of the best things about it. But it does show that determination, belief in the face of bad odds and even switching up the management can sometimes make a little magic.

Luck Be a Disomy Embryo

I was organizing my closet just now when I rediscovered a beaded vintage clutch that was my grandmother's. I opened it, sort of hoping to find some sign of her former ownership of it, like a matchbook or a Nina Ricci lipstick. A penny, dated 1971, slid down the satin interior. She never carried or gave away a bag without one.

We were close when I was young. I used to go sleep over at her house, and she'd teach me some Italian with scratchy old records. We'd watch TV and she'd let me go through her closet, a treasure chest of fur and silk and matching hats and shoes in Jordan-almond colors. I'd take all her costume jewelry out of the boxes and spray her trays of Shalimar and Dior, a new layer on the fragrant film already covering every fabric in the room.

And then I was an uncivil teenager -- thought I knew everything. Went to college. And then she died.

Our relationship wasn't perfect, but she loved me in that huge, unapologetic, forgiving way that grandparents do. And I like to think that she's looking out for me in some way. Like to think that that penny was a little sign of encouragement.

Forget my earlier post. I'm doing all I can do. A little luck is exactly what I need.

Trying Again

The meds have commenced.

The process of getting them in me the first night (Friday) would have been comical if it wasn't so stressful. Once again I ask, how is there not a better way than trusting regular people to mix medications and stab themselves with needles? It is ridiculous. Four years have passed and the whole thing was new again. And of course we got home late from an overnight trip and H refused to go to bed. Refused. I was sure he would come downstairs and see me injecting myself, and how would I explain my way out of that one? Even the cat went nuts, meowing her little cat head off just to add to the chaos and we'll-never-figure-this-out atmosphere of despair.

Anyway, we apparently figured it out, got the egg-making hormones in me, because I went this morning for labs and they told me to stay on the same doses. I also had a call with the PGD lab, during which they told me all the ways this could go horribly wrong and make it a hugely expensive and emotionally exhausting waste of time.

In spite of this, I think I'm doing okay -- managing. I think I'm mostly in denial, though it also feels like I have a low-level freakout simmering somewhere below the surface, threatening to jump out and terrify those around me at any moment. H's preschool teacher told me today that they went to Chapel for the first time and talked about the fact that God wants us to be kind to one another, and the thought of eight tiny people learning to be kind struck some sort of nerve and I welled up. I mean, should I just wear a t-shirt or sign like "Ask me about my IVF" so people know what they're dealing with right now?

Mostly this whole process is just reminding me of what it was like four years ago, when I was an entirely different person doing this. When I didn't have a beautiful, amazing, miracle of a boy already living under my roof. When I wasn't sure I'd ever win the battle and be a mama. I just think, What if it hadn't worked? Or what if the fact that it did was this incredible unlikelihood and we just lined everything up perfectly, every single thing, and that perfect combination of tiny things we didn't even know we were doing somehow made it possible? What if one of those things hadn't happened? Who would I be right now?

Right now I'm just a mama trying to see if I can do it all over again. I ask for nothing more than the same thing that parents all over the world get every single day, without trying very hard at all.

No Crystal Balls

Met with the new RE. Loved her. I've got my team. Now, assuming my post-surgery saline sonohystogram is clean tomorrow morning, it's time for the Hail Mary pass.

Started the Pill and already feel insane. Jittery, irrational, snappish as only artificial hormones can bring. My husband was trying to open a cellophane bag at one point when I was on the phone with the doctor's office today and I think my glare shot real laser beams through his core. I hope we both survive this.

A family member is pregnant, and there are all the complicated feelings -- you know. Another family member brought it up with me and I felt like she wanted me to be all unicorns and rainbows about it, and I tried to put on a good show. She acknowledged my struggle and told me I should be more positive about what's ahead. She said she had a good feeling. 

My ears are sort of dead to that at this point. There is no seeing, no knowing. Someone else's made-up optimism doesn't really do anything for me. I don't need optimism, pessimism, a fortune cookie, a rabbit's foot. What I need most of all is for you to tell me that no matter how the coin falls, you'll be there. To catch me, to whisper brave words. To distract me if it works, to bring a bottle of wine if it doesn't. To tell me it's going to be okay.