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.
