Our appointment on Saturday went fine. The two big follicles were up to 15 and 16 mm and the runt was at 11mm. We went to the pharmacy (one of two in our area that dispenses these drugs) to pick up our extra two days of meds, for $1150.95, and for a moment I felt super depressed, yet super connected. There were a few other women in there, all looking agitated and hormonal, picking up boxes of Menopur and bags of syringes. I made eye contact with one woman across from me, and tried to wish her good luck with my eyes. She looked back at me, perhaps wondering why I am so young and doing this, perhaps wishing me luck as well. Only those who go through this can truly understand the absolute desperation and fear and sadness and frustration that infertility brings into one’s home.
Even though people and friends try to understand, they just can’t, and there is an isolation that comes with not being understood that is both unavoidable and understandable. I can’t blame people for not knowing what to say or saying things I think seem stupid and trite. I can’t imagine being terminally ill, or watching a loved one through a terminal illness. That complete fear and hope and struggle to get through each day is unfathomable to me. But we can only do our best to be sensitive and comforting. I know that I’m on edge and nothing anyone says or texts or emails feels right, but everyone is just trying their best. I made a short list of the worst things you can say to a person going through IVF:
1) Hang in there! Hang in where? This is something you say to someone who is annoyed by their desk job and has to put in an extra two hours before heading home. Hang in there feels dismissive and almost cheerful. Better to just say, “Don’t kill yourself, you won’t be in this hell forever.” That’s essentially what is meant by “hang in there,” right? That it will be over soon, and by soon you may mean 2-15 years? “One day at a time” sounds like rehab talk but even that’s better.
2) God has a plan. Just don’t. We can all find reason and lessons in the things that happen to us, but it’s not for anyone else to tell me. Unless you have a direct line to God and he told you, in his OWN words, not through a cherubic baby angel or a patron saint, his plan for me, then don’t tell me God has a plan. Tell me “this may make sense one day down the line,” because it may. But it also may not. It may just be a shitty few years Noah and I will have to write off as the dark infertility years.
3) I know this is going to work! No you don’t. You absolutely don’t know anything is going to work. Tell me “this has to work” or “this better f*&^ing work” or that everyone is “hoping this is going to work.” That’s fine. The only thing anyone can say to me that they actually know is that it’s going to be expensive, painful and terrible. That’s what I appreciate most about the few women I know who have gone through IVF. They just say, “It’s terrible. All of it. Period. The end.” They also tell me that I will have a family. Somehow, some way. And that is helpful. There are babies in this world that people don’t want, and I can one day get one. This is true. So don’t tell me this is going to work, just tell me I will be a mom one day.
4) How exciting! Let me correct any misconceptions here. There is not a single aspect of this process that is exciting. I get it, people were excited when we could finally move forward with starting IVF and they were excited to find out I had more than six eggs. Little victories are still victories, but nothing, NO THING is exciting. Everything is measured on a scale from terrible to God freakin’ awful. There is no room for excitement.
5) Have you considered NOT having kids? No. Fuck you.
We continued the shots and I imagined one of the nighttime shots, Ganirelix, that is designed to prevent ovulation, as a steel door. When I get it shot into my leg I envision a door slamming down with my eggs on the other side freaking out that they are trapped. Then the Omnitrope and the Follistim and the Menopur start to invade the ovary like tear gas through a rowdy crowd, forcing them to grow and bulk up, like the Incredible Hulk. What a horribly violent image. By the time we went to our appointment on Monday, the two big follicles were at 20mm and the runt caught up and was at 16mm. 16mm is the cut off, that’s what we were hoping for. Then there were three.
It’s crazy how quickly bad news really does become good news. Leaving the office with three follicles and a plan felt like a victory, even though that same number felt like total defeat a few days prior. It really is a matter of acceptance and perspective, and perhaps choice. We can’t always choose what we get (as the old children’s song goes, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset”) but we can choose how to perceive it. How we view a situation is the only thing we have control over. If it’s a crappy situation, then call it for what it is, crap. But if it’s crappy with potential, or crappy with a silver lining, or 90% crappy with 10% possibility, then we have to aim that flashlight on the 10% and be excited that it’s not just crap.
My mom came over that Monday with Tupperware full of food. Food is how my mother expresses love. She made me chicken soup with cabbage and udon and rubbed my back until I fell asleep. Because that’s what moms do. They love you and hold you and make the shittiest of moments a little softer, a little warmer, a little tastier. One day I will be a mom. I will have a child that experiences some kind of pain, and I will have to accept that the only way I can make it any better is to just be there. I will sit with that child and think about suffering as just part of the deal of being alive. And then I’ll make something delicious and leave him or her to make sense of the world.
We were running out of space on my legs and tummy, and by the last night, the night of the dreaded HCG shot, everything was sore. I took a deep breath and Noah stuck me one last time and lo and behold, the shots were over. My body got to retire as the human pin cushion. Ten days. $4,888.45. Three purple bruises. A dozen little red bee sting needle pricks. One blood blister. A biohazard box full of empty syringes. Three ripe follicles. Training camp was over.
I finally put our extensive IVF schedule away. For a moment I thought, “The worst is over,” but I quickly corrected that thought in fear that the universe may want to prove me otherwise. I’d become a bit superstitious. There are so many worst parts to all of this, and so many potentially worse parts. Infertility/IVF is the perfect destruction of the emotional, physical, financial, mental, relational, spiritual self. Only in complete destruction can we really let go and rebuild, perhaps.
After disposing of that last syringe Noah pulled out a prescription bottle with four red pills jingling around in it and sighed loudly. He circled his neck and rolled his shoulders like he was about to do something physically strenuous, like chop down a tree or run a marathon. He puckered his lips and exhaled loudly.
“Alright, I’m really doing this,” he said with a sly smile. He dramatically popped open the bottle, biceps flexed, both elbows pointing at opposite walls, then he stretched out his jaw.
“Oh stop it!” I yelled laughing.
There were two things on our IVF schedule that Noah had to do (other than shoot me). One was “EJAC” three days prior to retrieval, and the other was to take an antibiotic the day before. “EJAC” (short for ejaculate) was already crossed off the list. And even that I had to participate in, so I can hardly say it was something just Noah had to do. Somehow even on Noah’s to-do list I am the one being poked and prodded. But this last job of his, swallowing two small pink pills that night and again tomorrow morning, that was all him. I could just stand back and watch him “contribute” and “participate” physically, as he claimed.
He made a big scene, stretching his body and shaking the bottle around, pretending to look nervous, telling himself, “I can DO THIS!” I just laughed, which hurt my stomach to do. The HCG shot was burning the inside of my leg like there was a party of red fire ants burrowing into my thigh. He tilted his head back and popped two pills in his mouth, then looked at me with panicked eyes.
“Can you get me a glass of water?” He mumbled.
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Are you serious?! Do I have to be involved with EVERYTHING!?”
He shrugged. Indeed I do.
OMG, this is great. Can I add something to the list? Do NOT send baby shower invitations to someone right in the middle of their IVF cycle. I came home today to take shots #2 & 3 of what will be a five injection (plus blood test and ultrasound) day. I was excited about taking the trigger shots tonight until I opened what I thought was a "cheer up" type of card. No, it was a baby shower invitation from my mother-in-law. She knows what we're going through. Ugh..... I'm in the worst mood now! How about instead of me having to buy your free baby a bunch of gifts, you send me a check to help cover the $20K ++ that we've spent out of pocket for a 10-15% chance of getting pregnant. (Obv feeling really down and bitter right now.)
Posted by: Lindsay M | March 11, 2016 at 06:04 PM
Hi Rani! Thanks for reading! And congrats on your BFP! I've learned it's really hard for other people to understand what we go through. And that's ok. It always helps me to find a little humor in it all!
Posted by: Don't Count Your Eggs | January 21, 2014 at 02:22 PM
I wish I had this to read while going through IVF. SO HILARIOUS AND SO TRUE. Wow....people don't understand that going through this process, you just want the brutal truth. And the part of the husband...so true. My husband's running joke was that he had the "hardest" part. Our friends laughed, I didn't!!! More people who know people going through IVF need to read this. I would print this out next time and hand it out to my whole family! Hopefully I won't need a next time! BFP. Thanks for the laugh.
Posted by: Rani | January 19, 2014 at 04:11 PM
You're so right Mari! Every day it feels like people say the dumbest things. When I was having crazy hot flashes on the estrogen during our last IUI attempt someone said, "You think you're uncomfortable now, just wait until you're pregnant!" No. NO! Nothing can be worst that three years of drugs and shots and heartbreak and hormone insanity. If I'm pregnant at least I'll know it's for the greater good and I will be thankful that at least I'm not still in treatment. I hope I'll feel that. OMG. What if being pregnant is worse than this mess? I can't go there. I'm hoping for a good outcome with donor eggs next month and sending you much love through your process.
Posted by: Don't Count Your Eggs | July 19, 2013 at 12:53 PM
Thank you so much for writing this! People really just don't know. And it's the worst when they say the process is preparing me for pregnancy! Really!? You KNOW that eh? Since when does nature overstimulate my hormones to produce 45 freakin' eggs! Really!? I'm SO HAPPY to hear of your outcome after all of that! I would love to have a boy and a girl fraternal twins! Thank you again!
Posted by: Mari | July 19, 2013 at 12:35 PM
Thanks for your kind words and hopes for me. It's amazing how much we go through to build a family and it's hard to be so misunderstood by others. So hopeful to see you have twins! I pray for that every day!
Posted by: Don't Count Your Eggs | May 02, 2013 at 12:29 PM
This post made me laugh. I hated really anyone saying anything to me who had kids... because they didnt know....Just found your blog. I really admire your courage putting your journey out there. I just couldn't when I was going through the same thing. I just didn't want the calls or pity looks each month when it 'didn't happen' so we just kept it to ourselves. it was more for selfish reasons... I didn't want to have to re-hash with every person I spoke with that it didn't work. I told my mom and a few select friends, but not everything, I kept a lot between me and my husband.
I guess i was lucky. When i got off the pill I just stopped having my periods so I went to a fertility dr right away. I missed the whole frustrating year of trying before the dr.
Happy ending we now have boy girl 6 mo old twins. Still took us a year of trying with dr.s and drugs..., 3 clomid rounds, one chemical pregnancy, one early miscarriage, lots of shots and needles two failed IUI rounds and one successful IVF round.
poly-cystic ovarian syndrome.... that was my diagnosis.
Anyways just wanted to let you know how much I admire your strength and I will be thinking of you and wishing for the best. I know how consuming it can be no mater how hard you try not to think of it and its miserable.
I really hope this part of your journey ends soon so you can go on to being a mom and having your family.
Posted by: lizj | May 02, 2013 at 09:37 AM