rock climber, writer, photographer, working on life daily

Moving Wood; Waiting For Answers—An Attempt at In Vitro Fertilization—A Window to My Soul.

 

Sisyphus was condemned to move a stone up a hill over and over again.  Today I chose a similar fate for myself as I picked up as many logs as my fragile self would allow from the pile of wood in the front yard.  I walked the logs 10 to 25 feet stacking them into a wall.   This wall of wood took eight hours to construct as I slowly methodically moved each log.   Not sitting idle was my goal and this task was the solution.  My knee still swollen and not recovered from my ACL replacement surgery kept me from moving fast but what was the hurry.  All I had to do was wait.  Wait for a phone call that would tell me if my surgery that morning could possible result in us having a baby.

 

For about a year we have explored the possibilities of having a child through in vitro fertilization.  I had no idea the road to one trial of in vitro would take about a year but for us it did.  It started with tests and medication and hope.  Then we kept getting delayed – apparently you cannot have your cycle over the holidays because for about 10 days prior to egg retrieval surgery you have to go to the doctor’s office every day for labs and ultrasound and being that they are closed a few days another month was pushed off.  Then my body did not react well to the birth control cycle—before the 10 days of injections prior to the egg retrieval they gave me birth control pills that resulted in temporary cysts that would only hurt our chances.  Then obviously while I was facing ACL surgery and recovery a few more months went by.

 

Finally our time had come.  I was excited about the possible outcome but not the journey.  One of my nurse’s explained to me that this process was natural because I was going to inject hormones my body naturally produces.  This was a nice attempt to ease my mind but in no way was this process natural.  When the FedEx man arrived with a large box of medication that cost about $7500 was one of my first freak-outs.  This exorbitant price was only a tiny bit of the cost, which of course added stress.  But the fact that I had to take the entire content of that box and inject into myself over a 10 -13 day period was extremely traumatic for me.

 

Somehow when the time came I accepted what I was calling hell week with grace.

I did blunder the first injection badly and used the gigantic mixing needle to inject myself instead of the smaller injection needle.  Mixing the medication and then pinching the skin to inject while watching the video I just wanted it over.  As one video rolled into the other I missed the part to switch the needle.  When I picked up the video again it said to put the entire needle into your abdomen— and inject subcutaneously.  I felt the muscle wall and the needle was still not in so I aimed it sideways trying to get it all in, then I started to panic and plunged the contents in leaving a burning lump of fluid between my skin and muscle.  I screamed and tears welled into my eyes—how on earth could I do this 3-4 times a day for the next week or more, I thought.  I was relieved when I realized my mistake and the injections got easier.

 

Each morning I woke early injected and got in the car and drove from 3 hours to 4 and a half hours round trip depending on the day and what office was open.  I did this for 10 days.  Each day getting an update on my follicle growth—not enough at first then I got what they needed to do the egg extraction but we waited and they saw more growth.  I had 7-8 mature follicles and the time had come for the trigger shot and then surgery.  I did very well emotionally despite the severe hormone manipulation.  With this many follicles I went in with a lot of hope but I am not sure what happened.  I feel like they waited a day too long and when I woke up they told me they only got two eggs.  Two is better than none, I consoled myself.

 

Four hours had passed as the log wall grew larger and the woodpile receded and then phone call came—one egg fertilized.   One is better than none, I thought but I knew the chance of a successful transfer with just one was a long shot.

 

I asked the universe to make it stop now if this was the case.  If it wasn’t going to transfer, if I was going to loose it after a transfer—just please lets stop now.  We had 5-6 days to wait to see if the fertilized egg made it to the blastocyst stage.  Each day I tried to not focus on our lonely little egg struggling and continued to move wood.  The great wall of wood was now growing into a second row and I tried to live life normally.   I got updates that the egg was still growing which grew so much hope in my heart.  Then on day six the phone rang.  Adam was home for lunch and I was just finishing up some physical therapy for my knee and rolling out a mat to do an ab workout.  I could hear it in her voice before she said anything of importance--the empathy was audible.  The egg did not mature; the blastocysts stage was never achieved.  Adam could tell by my reaction.  I tried to choke the tears back when I ended the call.  He hugged me and told me he would see me though another round if I wanted.  He assured me he loved me and we would be just fine.  I accepted his love and told him I guess I better do my ab workout and to please get on line and buy us tickets to Australia.  If we weren’t going to have a kid I wanted to continue living like a parentless couple and jetting off to an adventure far away was the best consolation I could think of.

 

And it helped I am sitting in our rented cabin in the Grampians, Australia wiping the tears away as I type this but I am happy.  I know how to live this life.  It is a life I have lived for a while now it is a life without children but a life filled with love and happiness.  Obviously if I have come this far without children I have never been chomping at the bit to have them.  I have never been the person to just love babies or kids in general so we waited.  Maybe a bit too long if we wanted the opposite to happen.  Despite not having a natural in general love for kids my regrets will be with me, not having anyone to pass my love and memories along to, not seeing Adam’s eyes light up seeing the baby we made and there are many more.  But I have to put my faith in the fact that I believe this is the universes’ way of taking care of me and protecting us from something that could have been horrible and traumatic.  I have my “kids” there are plenty of people I take care of and will continue to do so.  Now it is time to live life happily and move on with my regrets but knowing I tried.   And yes there could be a second round of in vitro but (it is funny how this worked out) when we first started trying I said I would not turn to science.  Then when I did I said I would give it only one chance and for now I am sticking with that.

 

 

 

The view as I type this in our vacation cabin in the Grampians