A PUNCH TO THE GUT

I assumed my usual position in Dr. N’s dark ultrasound room. The big Egg Reveal! Gilli was aiming for ten. I would be satisfied with eight or nine. Anything more than the measly six that I started with.

I don’t even feel the dildo camera anymore. It moves to one side, one ovary and we see a few Junior Mints. Three. Tiny ones. Maybe four if you count the little speck in the corner. The lab technician measures them and we move to the other side. Three. Big ones. Dr. N refers to them as cysts and his eyebrows go soft.

“Get dressed and come back to my office,” he says.

Why are there only seven? Why are some so big? What does this mean?

It means we’re a no go. Dr. N explains that the big follicles are already too big and after stimulation meds, they will, basically be rotten eggs (though he didn’t use that term) and he will only have the three-four puny ones to work with. If you go by statistics, by the time the eggs are out and fertilized, chances are high that there won’t be anything to put back in.

“If you’d won the lottery and it wasn’t as emotionally and physically difficult on you, I would say let’s give it a try. Miracles do happen. But if you were my wife, I wouldn’t do this right now,” he said.

I appreciate his honesty. I appreciate his success rate, and the fact he doesn’t want me bringing it down. I appreciate his willingness to do it, if I believe in miracles. But I don’t. I believe in getting what I pay for, and it seemed that I would pay for this round of IVF in more ways than one, and most likely have nothing but more heartache on the other end. We decided to wait one more month to see if maybe next month there might be more follicles of similar size.

I called my parents crying. My dad offered to call to talk to Dr. N, as if he were a school bully, messing with his little girl.

“Dad, call him and say what?! You’re not understanding. It’s like I have a bag of six avocados and three of them are already super ripe. If I need to make guacamole on Saturday, those three are going to have gone bad and taste slightly like smoked bacon. The three unripe ones will be ready to go but then I’m hardly going to have enough guacamole!”

My parents were completely helpless. It’s not a feeling any parent wants to have. Parents want to do things to protect their children from hurt. My dad immediately began searching for adoption options. He sent me a variety of emails, one entitled “Jews” with a link to a Jewish adoption agency, and the other with a question in the subject header, “Do you want an Inuit baby?” My mother-in-law jumped on the same bandwagon and sent a link to an adoptions agency in Northern California that works to get babies from Japan. With my ½ cup of Japanese blood, I may have a chance at a Japanese baby.

Our families were trying to help but the message they were sending was the same as the one my brain was sending me. We’re fucked. Game over. This isn’t going to work. Try something else. Babies exist, my follicles don’t. When all else fails, our capitalistic society teaches us to just buy it. But we wanted to continue to just DO IT! I didn’t want an Inuit baby, or a Japanese baby. Not yet. I wanted my husbands baby. I wanted my own baby. Our baby. And I wanted it yesterday.

I cried for the entire week. I had a busy work week and cried between clients. I cried in the car, I cried in the shower, I even cried at the gym after a yoga class. At night I cried onto Noah’s chest until he had to get a towel to wipe off.

I cried because I didn’t know what else to do. Our one chance to make a baby that’s ours seemed to be IVF and now we were faced with the reality that that may not be in our cards.

I felt like we needed some kind of plan, a real solid plan, just so we knew what the steps were going to be. So much is up in the air, I felt like I needed a step-by-step game plan, even though I know full well things rarely work out as planned.

Plan A) Some kind of miracle occurs and my one questionable tube opens and we make a baby the way most other people make babies.

Plan B) I have enough follicles for Dr. N to feel it is worth it to try IVF. Now here’s the rub. In the end, it’s up to us. He is going to tell us the percentages and statistics, and we are going to have to make a decision. If there is a 99% chance it won’t work, there is also a 1% chance that it will. You never know what side of the percentage you are going to be until you try. And Noah feels try we must, or we’ll regret it. I feel…similarly sometimes, but other times I see the diminishing pool of money we have and try to see what the best choice we can make to get a baby. But alas, perhaps here is where my husband I differ slightly. My urge is strongest for being a mother. His urge is strongest to pass down his biology to some unfortunate child who will get flat feet and a concave divot in his chest. I’m not going to lie, not that I think I’m the cat’s meow or anything, but I also want a biological child. So there is two votes for IVF. Plan B was whatever it takes to combine my biology with my husbands.

Plan C) My poor sister. My generous, loving, brilliant sister offered her eggs. Well, not really. The conversation happened about six months ago when things were not going so well but asking for eggs still seemed a little bit like a joke. In a fit of tears and despair I called her and said, “If I’m sterile and broken you’ll give me your eggs right?” To which she responded with a yes, just to get me to stop crying. Now that this may in fact be a serious reality, I can feel there are moments when she is back peddling a bit. Like when I asked her again, to think about it, to talk to her boyfriend (hopefully future husband) about it and she said, “Well, I still think you should try, a few times, with your own egg, don’t you?” I’m asking a lot. The hormones, the doctor’s appointments, the procedure, the genetic piece of information that will make a baby that is biologically hers and my husbands. For a third year medical resident what I was asking was impossible until the summer of 2013 when she would be out of residency and possibly able to move home for a month to be harvested. What I was asking from another person who potentially wants her own children, was a piece of herself she may not want to give. This is all assuming that my sister, three years my junior, doesn’t have the same low follicle count condition I have. How do I carry my sister and my husband’s baby and not feel like some kind of freak show? How do I not resent the fact that may parents, Noah’s parents, and Noah all get a biological grandchild and child and I don’t? What if, god forbid, my sister can’t have kids when she is ready? Will she feel like I, literally, robbed her of her own opportunities? Having my sister’s eggs would be an amazing gift. It would be a hell of a lot better than having a stranger’s eggs or no eggs. Both of which are also possibilities in Plan C.

Plan D) We adopt. We may want to sign up for an adoption agency if Plan B fails, so at least that is in the works. Plenty of people do Plan D. It’s just, well, a Plan D.

Plan E) I kill myself. (Just kidding.)

Now that we had a plan, I needed to get through the next three weeks without obsessing. I needed to cultivate the hope and optimism that I just needed one good follicle with one good egg to make one good baby. That’s it. One. I have a friend who did several rounds of IVF and produced 15-20 eggs each round, but all her eggs were bad. She pointed out that one good egg is better than 20 bad ones. True.