One thing that occurred to me recently is that, other than this baby pursuit, I talk of little else with my family and friends. This journey has become all consuming. What’s worse is that I cannot recall what I used to talk about with them before I started down this path.

Being that I won’t repeat the IVF procedure until sometime in August, my trips into the city for office visits, ultrasounds and blood work will be on a hiatus. This time-out will be good for me, I think. I’ve got a month to catch my breath and gear up to go through it all again.

But, equally important, is the opportunity that lies before me to go live the life of a normal person again – a normal person who doesn’t think about her fertility every waking moment of the day.

So, if you don’t hear from me between now and then, consider that a good thing.

Timing is everything. Fertility meds help to stimulate follicle production and growth, and dictate timing – but unfortunately, it’s not a perfect science.

Hindsight is 20/20. The conclusion drawn by the surgeon who performed my recent IVF procedure is that I may be better suited for a different stimulation protocol (which refers to pre-operative meds and the duration in which they’re used). My chart will be reviewed by a medical board next Monday to obtain the stamp of approval on the regimen of fertility meds to be used leading up to my next IVF cycle, which is planned for August.

A day late and a penny short. Five of the 17 eggs that were retrieved as part of the surgical process were too mature for fertilization. Had I gone into surgery a day sooner, there may have been more eggs. Now that we know what we know and believe we’ve concocted a plan for the do-over, the question is: do I have enough insurance coverage remaining to pay for another procedure? The verdict is still out on that one.

Exercise your options. I’m not too keen on the fact that this came up in today’s post-op consultation, but my fertility specialist wanted to inform me of other options, such as using donor eggs or embryos. While I can’t bring myself to even go there in my mind, what I can’t get out of my head is that he must’ve brought this topic up for a reason.

Egg me on. I’m told that my eggs are about average for a woman of my age. He attributed the unsuccessful IVF cycle to the fact that the timing was off. Yet, the doctor marked me down as having a 40% chance of achieving pregnancy on a bar graph that depicted a 60% IVF success rate for women in my age bracket (38-40). If we fix the timing by using a different protocol of meds, why can’t I have a 60% chance of success?

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. My fertility specialist said that considering all the reproductive procedures available, that IVF is my best chance. IVF doesn’t require sperm with Olympic swimming ability; they expose the sperm directly to the egg. While the odds of fertilization are quite good, that doesn’t always lead to viable embryos, implantation and successful pregnancies.

Some things are just out of our hands.

 

Recently, it dawned on me that I’ve been trying to get pregnant for a year now. The pursuit originally began the fun way during the summer of ‘06 and, believe it or not, there were often times where I begged and pleaded for him to participate in order to bang out (pardon the pun) all my fertile days. Medical intervention came into play in November of 2006.

For me, counting the months and number of procedures I’ve been through is a downer. I rarely think of this journey in either context. Through it all, I’ve maintained my persistence and continue to chase this goal with full vigor. There’s only been two times (when the injectable fertility meds did not create any more mature follicles than Clomid did and when the majority of my embryos did not meet the expected growth hurdle during my recent IVF cycle) that I approached the procedure with doubt. Every other time, the doctor enters the procedure room to find me clapping with excitement, offering them words of encouragement (“Let’s get this thing done!”) and even shouting out words to “egg-on” the little spermies to “SWIM!”

A year later, these trips to the fertility specialist’s office for ultrasounds, blood work and procedures have simply become part of my routine. I am working a process. My mother once characterized my ability to detach as being “cold hearted.” While I disagree with her choice of words, I cannot argue with fact that my ability to detach is at work here. Detachment can be a very healthy defense mechanism, and this one empowers me to roll with the punches, press onward and pursue other options.

I’m told that you’ll know when enough is enough; you’ll know when to abandon the pursuit. Many of the people who know what I’m up to are beginning to ask if I’ve looked into adoption, so it appears as though my recent unsuccessful IVF procedure may be what many consider to be “enough.” Earlier this year, I had decided that when I use up all the specimens that I put in the Cryobank’s purchase and store account that I’d throw in the towel. But, now that I’m down to my last 2 vials, I’ve reset my thinking and know full well that I’ll use every blessed penny of my fertility benefit before calling it quits.

I want this more than anything. One thing’s for certain: you can never say that I didn’t try. God willing, it’ll happen.

Fertility issues are a private matter that is discussed with only closest family and friends, if at all. The secrecy maintained about the issue, if the issue is even known, can be very isolating. But, the full waiting room at my fertility specialist’s office and the faces of other patients that I’ve come to recognize from my repeat office visits surely attests to the fact that I am not alone.

There are patients from all walks of life in that waiting room – young and old(er). I’m sure that there are many of us who share similar problems and are pursuing the same options and yet we remain disconnected from each other in our despair.

As I anxiously waited to be taken back into the operating room for the egg retrieval element of my recent IVF procedure, a woman and two men in their late 20s joined me in the waiting room. The woman took a seat in between the two men and one of them handed me a digital camera and asked me to take their picture. The two men leaned in toward the woman for the photo but I had to provoke one of them, who looked VERY nervous, to smile. I couldn’t help but wonder about this arrangement. What were they up to? The woman didn’t interact with the nervous man as much as she did the other. Both men were wearing wedding bands, yet the context of the conversation that she held with them made it obvious that they were all friends, at best.

I couldn’t help but listen in, hoping to pick up a clue, but all I came up with is a guess. The two men didn’t appear to be a couple either, so I surmised that both of them might be donating and that unless they’d do a paternity test, it would forever remain a mystery as to which of them fathered the child. Well, that’s the story I came up with in my head, anyway.

There have been a couple of occasions since I started upon this journey where I’ve approached an old boyfriend of mine and boldly asked if he’d consider being my sperm donor. We were a couple ten years ago, reside in different states (though neighboring ones), and haven’t seen each other in many, many years. He has since married and has children of his own, and yet we remain connected in an inexplicable way. There’s an undeniable bond there – a closeness that we somehow maintained over the years primarily by email.

One time, I approached him when I was panicked over my inability to choose a new donor when my previous one retired from the program and no longer had specimens available. Most recently, I’ve approached him because I’m wondering if I’d have better luck using a specimen that was never frozen for one of these procedures. And, on both occasions, I’ve been bold enough to make this HUGE request of him because he represents something other than anonymity and randomness. Looking at it from the child’s point of view, I wonder if s/he will be able to find peace in the circumstance of his or her conception (even though every bit of it would be accomplished through medical science) than if s/he was biologically made possible through a sperm bank.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t expect him to agree to this enormous ask. From his perspective, I know there are far more risks than there are reasons to do it. It’s not ethical for me to ask this of him and it wouldn’t be ethical for him to comply.

I know that he wants to help me. And, knowing that to be true is a gift in itself.

When I embarked upon this journey to get pregnant in October of last year, I approached it with naïve optimism; I expected to be pregnant long by now. By the time that Christmas rolled around, I had completed three IUI (artificial insemination) cycles without any success. While I regret that was the case, my experience gave me the forethought to closely evaluate the fertility coverage offered through various health insurance companies that my employer presented as options for the 2007 benefit year. I chose United Healthcare. In terms of how much I’d have to pay out of each paycheck to participate in this plan, it was one of the most costly options before me, but it offered me a $20K lifetime benefit in the fertility category without any restrictions that other plans had.

While IUI procedures aren’t terribly expensive, I have since decided to go after my goal more aggressively through in vitro fertilization. (If you’re unfamiliar with the procedure, that’s where you administer fertility injections to trick your body into producing many, many eggs; the eggs are surgically extracted and fertilized outside of the womb; several days later multiple embryos are introduced into the uterus). Although four embryos were transferred, only one of them reached the expected growth hurdle, so my doctor didn’t even approach the topic of multiple births with me.

Now, two weeks later, the quantitative hCG (a.k.a. blood pregnancy test) results were negative; I am not pregnant. I’m scheduled for a post-op consultation with the doctor who performed my surgery on Thursday. There, I expect to hear about my egg quality and to determine next steps.

In the weeks leading up to the IVF procedure, I let the cat out of the bag and informed my immediate family of what I’m up to and up against. The reaction and support I’ve received from my family vary from person to person. Surprisingly, my father has been most supportive; I would describe my mother as being rather despondent on the matter and my sister is somewhere in between. Yes, this approach is indeed unconventional, although not as uncommon or new as one might think. (The first donor insemination procedure was performed in 1884 on a Quaker couple in Philadelphia) With time, I expect that all of them will step up and stand behind me, especially by the time the baby arrives on the scene. Hopefully, that day will be soon.