Two sounded like a good number. I had never been baby obsessed, but in picturing life I saw children, grandchildren and everything that goes with having a family. I figured go to school, get good grades, go to college, graduate, work, get married, enjoy marriage awhile then start with the babies.
I was in no rush, but I have always been most focused on the idea of creating a family over a career. I was also the person who always got what she wanted. Not in a spoiled way. More like if I set my mind to something, I could make life to work out - both through hard work and force of will.
Well, my husband and I were married one year, five years, ten years... and for a variety of reasons life brought us dogs, but no babies. My hope for a family was buried. It hurt to keep it on the surface, so much so that it was easier to just pretend I didn’t care.
Somehow we finally decided to see a fertility specialist. Talk about the most awkward way to start a family. Walking into the clinic brought me hope, but also despair. So many desperate couples and the odds of success for all of us were small.
The experience was daunting for multiple reasons. First off, you have to talk to a doctor about the most private aspect of your relationship. Secondly, the expense. We are lucky to both be paid well, but the cost (which was not covered by insurance) was astronomical. Thirdly, the process is very physically invasive.
To even begin treatment there are sooooo many tests. I had multiple blood tests, a mammogram, pelvic ultrasound, a complete STD screening, genetic tests, I also had a hysterosalpingogram where saline is painfully flushed into the uterus and fallopian tubes via a catheter to ensure the path between sperm and egg was all clear. (I had one blocked tube, but the “flushing” cleared the way.)
My husband had tests as well, not as invasive, but they all cost time and money. As a woman staring her biological clock in the face, time was my worst enemy. Every delay in the process put me into a panic.
The first step for us was Intrauterine Insemination... aka doctor assisted turkey basting. After all of the tests, no medical culprits could be found for our infertility. IUI at only $1,000 😳 a try was the least invasive and most affordable first step.
For each IUI cycle I was given oral medications to trick my ovaries into producing multiple eggs. After 8-10 days of pills, the doctor would perform a pelvic ultrasound. This ultrasound monitored for ovarian cysts (cysts = no insemination), and tracked the size and number of follicles being produced by my ovaries. When the follicles were deemed to be mature, a hormone injection was administered (into my ass with the longest needle you have ever seen) to trigger ovulation.
Then it was my husband’s turn to shine. After the trigger shot his services were required. It was his time to come to the clinic and masturbate into a cup. You see, ripe eggs are ready on their own schedule and timing is everything with insemination.
After collecting my husband’s specimen, lab technicians washed and sorted the sperm to find the best swimmers. This process kills half of the contenders, but the survivors are meant to be the Top Guns of the batch. These sperm are inserted into the uterus via a catheter. It’s hoped the shorter swim will give the sperm better odds of finding and fertilizing the egg.
When your period comes, the process begins again.
And again...
And again...
And again...
They say after four unsuccessful attempts at IUI it is unlikely the procedure will work. It is time to decide if you have the emotional wherewithal and financial means to undergo IVF.
You hope for the best and do IUI again...
And your period comes again...
Our clinic would have charged $20,000 (approximately) for one round of IVF (in vitro fertilization). In some cities that is a down payment on a house. It was money we had, but it was so much money. If that money was guaranteed to make us parents we were willing to make the investment. Of course, there are no guarantees.
To be smart about things (which is hard during an emotionally draining and hormone filled state), we decided to interview other clinics. Every clinic had different pricing and a different plan for how our IVF would be managed. In the end we switched to a new doctor with a great success record and a lower cost.
The doctor at our new clinic was a man. A socially awkward man. I had only ever visited female gynecologists, so having a man down there (who wasn’t my husband or some lady boner making hottie) was embarrassing. Embarrassing isn’t really the best word... let’s just say it wasn’t ideal. While spread eagle feet in stirrups the man asked if anyone ever told me I had a small cervix. Ummmm no..... 😐 Bedside small talk was not his strong point.
For IVF the first thing you do is go on birth control! It sounds crazy, but suppressing egg production for a cycle helps boost egg production later. So, here I was on the pill when most women’s pill years had passed.
This is the place where I should mention I am (was) a MASSIVE needle-phobe. I do not have pierced ears. I panicked before every blood draw and vaccination. I work at a hospital where we are required to have flu shots every year. My co-workers enjoyed how panicked I would get right before receiving my shots. It was a joke in our office.
For IVF, not only are there shots (soooooo many shots), but you HAVE TO GIVE THEM TO YOURSELF!!!! I didn’t know if I could do it. Plus, my husband’s hands shake, so I wasn’t letting him near me with those needles.
Here is ALL of the medication I received to start my cycle. It came in the mail and was the most intimidating thing I had ever seen. Everything you see here was injectable. There was almost 100 needles of varying lengths in these boxes and I was so scared.
After taking the birth control pills, the injections began. Their job was to make me over produce eggs. In a normal cycle one egg in one ovary matures each month. In IVF they hope you will grown 20 or 30 and they harvest them from both sides.
My first injection was the worst. I locked myself in our bathroom, taking deep breaths to psych myself up. I filmed it. I don’t know why. Maybe to prove to myself that I was strong and could overcome this HUGE fear.
I had to do two or three different injections twice a day. Each medication had to be carefully measure and drawn up into the needle. They gave me online videos to watch which showed me how.
At the nurse’s advice I iced the area on my tummy where the needle would go. When things seemed numb, the injection site needed to be sterilized with alcohol. After a moment to let the alcohol dry, it was time.
1 - 2 - 3... Go! Awe FCK! FCK! F*CK! The needle didn’t break my skin. I panicked and started crying uncontrollably. How was I ever going to do this? I ran out of the bathroom, my husband was trying to comfort me but I was too hysterical to notice.
Now I was angry. I went back in the bathroom, took a deep breath and tried again. This time instead of launching the needle towards my stomach, I placed it on my skin and pressed. At first there was resistance. I pushed harder. FINALLY, I broke the skin! Now it was just a matter of adjusting my grip on the syringe so I could press in the medication and withdraw the needle.
Over time I discovered not all needles are created equal. Some were sharper than others. Then I discovered I could buy shorter needles that achieved the same goal. I was constantly trying to find ways to make the process less intimidating.
While my skill improved, things weren’t perfect. Every once in awhile I would hit a capillary and get either bleeding or severe bruising. I also left an ice pack on my stomach to long once and freezer burnt my skin.
The faint reddish square around the bruises is freezer burn from an icepack.
So many bruises from the injections.
My body did not cooperate with treatment. Instead of seeing 20 or 30 active follicles at each ultrasound, only about 12 were growing large enough to harvest. It was discouraging, but 12 was better than zero.
When it came time to retrieve my eggs only nine appeared large enough to harvest. We went to the clinic in the morning. My husband and I both took the day off work. I had showered the night before because scented soaps, lotions or perfumes can kill the eggs during retrieval. I had also been prescribed antibiotics and an anxiety reducing tablet.
You get prepped much like you would for surgery; gown hairnet, IV. While I was prepped my husband was given a cup and produced another sample. I am not sure if masturbating while your wife is being prepped for a medical procedure would be stressful or a relaxing distraction.
Eventually, I was wheeled into the OR and put completely under. I remember counting backwards from 10, but only got to seven before losing consciousness. While I was sedated the doctor used a long needle (inserted vaginally) to harvest eggs from each ovary. Of my nine eggs, eight were large enough to harvest. These were put into a petri dish with my husband’s sperm for fertilization.
We quickly found out that seven of the eight eggs fertilized. This was exciting news. I’ve known other women who have harvested nearly 30 eggs, only to have five fertilize. I was happy and my husband seemed chuffed to hear his boys had come through. Now we had seven zygotes. A part of me and a part of my husband had finally combined to create life.
It was time for the zygotes to grow. Lab technicians called me each day to report on their progress. Often a fertilized egg won’t grow. The cells will stop dividing and dissolve into nothing. All of mine grew! We were so excited.
Depending on how healthy they appear, a fertilized egg can be implanted back into the mother on day three or five. By day five the zygote becomes a blastocyst. Uterine implantation is much more likely if the eggs can get to this stage. All of our eggs reached day five! When the nurse told me I happy cried. Somehow the universe was finally on our side.
Because of my age, it was possible that our embryos would have mutations. We could have spent a lot of money to test each one. The test would have pointed out genetic abnormalities and confirmed the sex of each embryo. My doctor advised us not to test. Most genetically mutated embryos don’t implant. They dissolve in the womb before even being detected as pregnancies. He felt that if IVF wasn’t successful for us that egg age/mutations would be the reason. So why test if my lacking of becoming pregnant would speak for itself?
He also advised that we implant three embryos. You panic for a moment at the possibility of triplets, but the reason to implant three is to increase the odds one will survive. Again I was taken to the OR, unsoaped and unperfumed for implantation.
Each embryo, about the side of a pin needle, was photographed, taken from the petri dish and placed into my uterus via a catheter. The procedure was excruciating. Not because it hurt, but because it had to be done on a full bladder. Having a full bladder pushes the cervix in a better position for the catheter. I was in tears my bladder was so full and I lost control just as the procedure ended. All over the table and the doctor.... (modesty get left at the door with medically assisted baby making).
Embyros 1, 2 and 3.
After a rest in the recovery suite, it was time to go home. I was given oral medications and vaginal suppositories to mimic pregnancy hormones. If the embryo implants you take these for three months to help the pregnancy progress.
I would return in two weeks for THE test. The test that would tell us if our IVF worked. As for my four remaining blastocysts, one was frozen and three others were deemed to small so were not saved.
Because you have these embryos inside of you (hopefully implanting) you live life like a pregnant person. No booze, no caffeine, no soft cheese, no shellfish, daily vitamins, avoiding chemical fumes. Plus the medications make you feel the early symptoms of pregnancy. It was a long two weeks.
I didn’t make it to the blood test. My body let me know the procedure failed before the doctor. My period started two days before the test.
...
...
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I love Disneyland. This was a great escape/distraction.
With one remaining fertilized egg on ice we had one last chance at pregnancy. The next procedure would be a Frozen Egg Transfer (FET). The drugs for this were worse than for IVF. More needles, pills and suppositories arrived in the mail. More money went to the clinic. The worst part of this process were the injections. The last five days I would need to give myself a shot in the bum with a 2 inch needle. I couldn’t do it. The fear, the angle, the size... plus my husband got sent to Japan for work. It was just me and these spears.
Thank goodness the nurses at my clinic took pity on me. I drove to the doctor 35 minutes away every morning so they could administer the shot.
So many needles.
This is also a good time to say thank goodness for my boss. I told him what we were doing. He was so understanding and gave me all the flexibility I needed for appointments and days off. Plus, he gave me a lot of slack on my day to day deliverables. I was so lucky to have this job security.
The FET transfer works the same as IVF. Except in this case they thaw the embryo before putting it into the uterus. Some embryos don’t survive the thaw. Mine did. After another photo, our last embryo was placed inside my body. I made it through the procedure and managed not to urinate on my doctor. Things went smoothly.
Imagine being an IVF baby and getting to see a picture of yourself as just this tiny cluster of cells. Life is a miracle, to see yourself at the very start would be mind blowing.
This try I did make it to the blood test before hearing the FET failed. I found out the results at work. Note to women out there going through IVF, do not find out your results at work. I have never felt so broken. I went home, my husband came home and we mourned the loss of what might have been. We would never meet our own baby or grand babies. I would be the last person in my family’s line and the little lives we had briefly created were gone.
After IUI, IVF and FET there were options. We could have gambled more money to try IVF again, or adopted another couple’s frozen embryos to try to become pregnant. We could have paid an egg donor which would have involved mixing my husband’s sperm with some other woman’s egg and then implanting the embryo in me. We looked into adoption.
We were grieving. You grieve the failure of your body. You grieve the life that you dreamed to have. You grieve over the embryos who were here and gone in the blink of an eye. It takes time to move on and to feel ready to make any decisions.
We could have pursued any of the options, but in the end we decided to be done. I regret that sometimes. Maybe I regret it a lot?
Next week marks three years since the FET and only now do I feel distanced from the experience. We started the process when I was 39. It took over a year. To do any of the options now would take another year. I am not some Hollywood starlet who will become a first time mother at 44, 45 or 46. My window is closed, and I am OK. My husband is OK.
Family is what you create. Single parents with children, a tight group of amazing friends, a family blended after divorce, even a husband, wife and two dachshunds are a family.
Fur-babies ☺️🐶❤️🐶
If you have been through the pain of infertility or are in the thick of the struggle:
