So. We fell. Again.
That’s it: this treatment didn’t lead us to the so desired pregnancy.
I haven’t been very busy here at Oh Infertility! But do believe that almost everyday I think “Oh, I should write about that for OI!” but my state of mind has been so down I haven’t had the drive for anything other than automatic behaviour.
So, seeing that I am now willing to be myself again and do the things I left behind, I plan on coming here more often.
As a comeback I thought I should tell you about what happened regarding what these treatments are all about.
There are a few fertility treatments available depending on the case. I’m going under In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatments in a so-called Long Protocol.
Here is an example of a treatment schedule, it may not be exact as a timeline because it is, after all, an automatic calculator and there are particular issues to be decided case by case. If I select my last menstrual date before treatment, it gives me a very approximate schedule of what my last treatment was.
Once a case is assessed and there is a therapeutic indication for IVF, at the 21st day after the last menstrual period you start a daily injection of Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH-A) and a daily intake of folic acid. You may read each step and a simple explanation of each moment here.
My last period before treatment was on April 11, which means I started GnRH-A injections on May 1. Also, I started a new inner battle of… all kinds of feelings you can imagine. Oh, boy! This was quite a roller-coaster ride.
Reading step-by-step on the IVF calculator doesn’t tell you that by each one you may feel like you are going under strict supervision, commission after commission, under custody of superpower you-know-who: mother nature.
At each commission you may pass or you may fail and fall off the ride. That’s it, there is no way of going fast forward, you have to go back to “start” without collecting… a baby.
I was very frightened of the result of this treatment because I had decided it was my last attempt to have a baby (let’s talk about this another day). Still, the first 10-13 days were as expected, even if you are nervous for the first couple of times, you get in the routine of the injections and that’s it for those days. I had embraced healthy habits like eating well, relaxing, taking a 40 minute walk home from work, etc.
But I wasn’t okay. No, I was not. Nor was the-best-guy-ever. We were in so much pain this time. All because I had decided this was it, the last treatment before accepting I would never be a mother.
What. A. Mistake.
I should know better than that: one never comes out with the sentence before the verdict.
At each step of the treatment there was always something (a blood result or uterus state, etc) that the doctor didn’t like, and then the biologist. It was never “all fine”. We would always leave the hospital with an uncertainty so much bigger than the one we already expected. Each time we would go back, we carried the belief that that would be the day of treatment interruption.
Oh, and the hormones, oh my. Poor the-best-guy-ever! I have to acknowledge he was really the-best-guy-ever and reserve the right not to say more so I don’t expose the silliness of my behaviour [blushes].
Both our state of mind and my physical response to treatment became a very bad emotional cocktail. Let’s say, I presume I didn’t become dehydrated from crying so much because I was really careful with water intake.
Suddenly we found ourselves with an Egg Retrieval date and there was a click. We talked so much during this treatment and by this time we decided we had to become happy for coming so far. And we were. I was afraid, but I truly believed this could be it.
I had five eggs which isn’t that bad because it’s only from one ovary and I’m 39, three of them weren’t good (this is bad) and two of them fertilized. OMG! Two of them fertilized! This is almost as good as knowing you are pregnant indeed. It’s actually beautiful, even though it was other people managing our gametes, they were *our gametes* and they became two embryos. Ours! From me and the-best-guy-ever! It was a nice moment. But it lasted so little. The second day I got a call from the biologist informing me that they weren’t developing as quickly as they should and if they didn’t catch up the next day it would mean that they weren’t good quality embryos. My poor babies. There they were, and there we were. Apart. And we got the call the next day.
So.
We fell.
Again.
And we dealt with it.
And I knew I wanted to undergo another treatment and I told the-best-guy-ever who agreed.
And here we are: willing to go on another ride because we didn’t feel “this was it”.
I promised myself that this time I won’t suffer from anticipation the way I did. With that intensity. And I’m believing it can be possible for me to become a mother.
We will be back on treatment by September so my body can get a little rest before then. That means we get to go on our planned August vacation.
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