Brevet

I kind of don’t know where to begin.  Our whole year had built to a fevered pitch of tension and stress.  Disappointment after disappointment was the order of the day and it was hard to even know how to think about what lay ahead back in August or so. 

Amy and I had conversation after conversation about, essentially, what we want out of this life.  Would we be able to enter that next phase of being human – to raise another to live and prosper and, ultimately, replace us on this earth…..or would that chapter of our lives  be denied to us?  As IVF number one failed, and then IVF two never even got off of the ground, we faced IVF number three having decided that this was going to be the last attempt.  We wanted to leave the stress of trying and hoping and failing (and driving us into financial ruin) behind us. 

So we decided to embark on this final attempt privately.  On one level, I had enjoyed documenting my thoughts and feelings on this crazy process, and I knew I would appreciate (much) later being able to read about what we went through.  At the same time, though, we were both weary.  I didn’t know what more I could really say about the actual process, certainly.  I couldn’t even tell you what I was really, really feeling.  Schizophrenic is probably the most accurate descriptor as I didn’t know if I had a right to feel my usual optimism.  I know Amy didn’t feel that way so even when I felt brief optimism, I didn’t feel like I should share it.  I was increasingly pessimistic or realistic or trying to be optimistic about the possibility of not having children….but none of them felt right for more than a day at a time.  Sometimes I would try to make jokes about how we’re going to be able to travel so much more since we wouldn’t be having kids, but I think God or Fate or whatever saw through my thinly veiled attempt at a reverse-jinx.  Anyway, you get the idea.  It was ugly and we were both barely holding on, trying to just hope for the best every step of the way while trying to prepare for the seemingly inevitable worst.

The first hint that things might be breaking our way was when we got the fertility report post-egg retrieval.  There had been more mature eggs this time, so something like 10 out of the 12 mature eggs were fertilized and they all were still alive on day 3 – our transfer day last time.   We were going to move into the select group that got to go to day 5 (blastocyst stage), and implanted blastocysts are way, way more likely to actually result in a baby.   This was so unlikely of an event, I had never even bothered to research it  (hence, my use of “way, way” in lieu of a percentage). 

On transfer day there were two “for sure” good shape blastocysts still in the running and a third that was a maybe (that turned into a “for sure” and is now a popsicle) eliminating any conversations or arguments over whether we would try to implant 3 in the hope of ending up with 1 or possibly 2.  It was a gigantic can of worms that we got to just skip.  This was also good break.

Things were still pretty tense in our day-to-day lives as we both still hoped, but had no real reason to believe, that we would luck out.   Amy documents the process of finding out pretty well on her blog.  For me, it seems like we have had to be told over and over again that it’s true for us to really believe it.   First it was the four consecutive days of  positive home pregnancy tests, in which we were shocked each day that a little line was not only appearing, but gettng darker each day.  Of course we were still worried about the blood test though.

Then we got three consecutive positive blood tests where the number grew the appropriate amount each day.  We were on pins an needles as we waited for each of the test results as finding out that the number had dropped would have been terrible, but apparently it happens all the time.   We were pretty happy after the third test for a few days, but worry or the habit of worrying started to set in and we waited for the first ultrasound.  We didn’t even know if we could find out anything at the ultrasound as it was right on the borderline of seeing a heartbeat and without a heartbeat who knows what’s going to happen….

There really were heartbeats for not just one but both of them, though, and this was a really important step.  We were told that there was only about a 5% chance of miscarriage once you get the heartbeat, though still 20% chance of losing one of them due to “disappearing twin syndrome.”  We had another ultrasound at around 8 weeks and by then both twins were big enough that disappearing twin syndrome was no longer a concern.  UCSF sent us packing, pregnant and satisified…..and I think it was only then that we started to really believe it would all work out for us.  

It really is still early.  The second trimester doesn’t start until January 1st, 2009, and we both still worry a lot, but I think it’s a more normal worry than what we were experiencing before.    People have been asking me for what seems like weeks now, though, whether I was excited…and I have never really known what to say.   I was scared, and worried, and skeptical, and hopeful….but excited imbued the feeling with confidence that I did not feel.

But I have to say, that I am starting to get excited.

Tags: Family, Fertility Efforts, IVF, Pregnancy // 1 Comment »