Gearing up to see Dr. N the following month felt easier. I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t drive my hard-working husband absolutely insane talking about feelings and doubts, so we just lived our lives, as if, and it worked. There was nothing left to hold on to. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen regardless of what either of us projected, thought, hoped, worried about, so we walked on the beach in Laguna and ate fried chicken at a fancy restaurant. We knew that any day now we’d have to go back in and hopefully start the shots.
And when the day came, we were ready. But Dr. N wasn’t. He was at a fertility conference in San Diego and would have to phone in after we got the ultrasound.
The ultrasound went as it usually did, except for two things:
Instead of six or seven measly follicles, I had NINE! Nine glorious follicles! One or two of which could be our baby! Gilli’s magic had worked, perhaps my body just needed a little more time to adjust to the months of needles and teas. It’s typical with acupuncture that it takes a few months because it treats the whole system. My follicle count increased by 1/3, which would give Dr. N more to work with.
But…and there is always a but with this business, I had a cyst. A cyst in or on my ovary that was over 3 cm big. Which meant we couldn’t start injections. Noah and I nearly laughed. Obviously I had a cyst. Obviously we can’t start injections because…I don’t even know exactly, the cyst would steal all the hormones from the other follicles and then get so massive? I won’t even speculate. Bottom line was that we couldn’t move forward with this thing in the way, so our choices were:
- Wait. Cysts like this are apparently common and often dissolve on their own.
- Aspirate it. Ass per wha? Have a procedure, not unlike what the egg retrieval would be, to drain it. I would be put under and it would cost close to $3,000.
Noah and I left with instructions to think about it and call the office by 3pm to let them know if they should schedule the procedure. We got in the car and couldn’t even think. Who could we call for advice? Will this thing just be gone next month? If it is, will my nine follicles also be gone? What if it’s still there, we will have lost another month? We tried to sit with the information for a few minutes and listen to our gut. We were both ready to start this. At some point you have to pull the trigger and just do something. Dr. N could actually do something here, he could get rid of this thing and then I could start injections. And then we could have a family and be done with this mess. Let’s do it.
I looked at Noah, and asked, “What are you thinking?”
We caught eyes. He was tired. I could see how frustrated and helpless he felt. Over the past six months, he was starting to get small wrinkles on the sides of his eyes and gray hairs had begun to poke out from his beard around his side burns. We wanted out. An aspiration would move us one step closer towards our goal, towards getting out.
“Let’s go for it.”
He grabbed my hand and I could feel how sorry he was that my body had to go through all this stuff. He knew I was sorry that we were having this conversation rather than planning our annual winter holiday out of the country, a promise we made to each other when we got married.
“Okay. I just want to check in with Gilli to see what she thinks, but then we’ll schedule it,” I said, smiling. I was about to schedule to have some kind of tiny vacuum suck a cyst out through my vagina and I was smiling. Oh how far we’d come!
I called Gilli and left a message. She called me back immediately.
“Mayale,” she said. We had gotten close enough for her to have an affectionate pet name for me. “What’s one more month, can you wait? Cysts come and go. Why can’t you wait to see if it goes away by itself next month?” Gilli asked.
Because we don’t want to wait? Because we want what we want and we want it now? Because we are eager and ready and want to move on with our lives? Because I am finally relaxed and eating well and exercising regularly and taking care of myself!
It dawned on me in that moment that I was looking at this all wrong. I was looking at my life as being in this holding pattern, which it was, but that somehow, once we had a family, everything would be perfect and I wouldn’t have to be so concerned about my stress level and my health. I was looking at doing IVF like it was a marathon. Like I was training for this singular event and yet what I was really in training for was how to be a sane, loving, patient, flexible, accepting, healthy, calm person-wife-parent. It’s not a goal, it’s a way of being. Of existing. Of living! It not something I need to DO for just one, two, three more weeks. It’s something I need to be! And for Noah, there was a lesson in this as well. That he can’t control everything. That life issues are not going to fit neatly into his ever hectic work schedule and he would have to find a way to prioritize me, us, our family. Not just for another month, but forever.
“Can you be patient, Mayale? It’s just one more month. You’ll be holding your baby one day and it won’t matter. Come get a different formula of tea and give your body a little time to get rid of the cyst,” she said. My voice of motherly reason.
Noah and I hung up the phone and looked at each other. And then we laughed. We had made a decision and then negated it within four minutes. That’s how this process goes. You have to trust your gut and your village. We needed to get outside ourselves for one minute to realize that waiting actually did make the most sense for us. Why not see if my body could deal with the cyst naturally, especially if that was very common and one of Dr. N’s options? Why do anything more invasive or expensive than I need to? If the cyst persists after a month I’ll have to deal with it and we’ll have to make a decision, again.
Yes. I can be patient.
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