Tag: Anakin and Olaf

Four-day pregnancy

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Last Wednesday night I had a dream that my beta test was negative.

On Thursday morning I woke up, still recalling the dream, and wishing it not to be true. I found a leftover home pregnancy test and went to town. It was positive.

I snapped a photo and immediately texted it to my husband, who is working out of town for the next several weeks. He replied with appropriate emojis.

The next two days were spent secretly happy, but cautious. Sore boobs. Intermittent nausea. Fatigue. I decided not to move up my beta, which was scheduled for Saturday. That morning I woke up, went to have my blood drawn, and then waited.

Since it was Labor Day weekend, I heard back a few hours later from the doctor on duty. My beta was, indeed, positive, but my hCG was a little on the low side at 31.5. Commence Googling. I knew enough to know that at four weeks pregnant “normal” hCG levels can vary wildly. As long as the number doubled in 48 hours, things could still be perfectly fine.

I tried to spend the rest of Saturday and Sunday off of Google, and allowed myself to be a little bit excited. I had noticeable symptoms. Before I went to sleep each night I talked to Olaf and Anakin in my head. I told them to stick around, please. I was ready for this. I promised my endometritis-free uterus could take good care of them if they just stuck around.

Monday morning I went in for my second hCG check. I felt like things were on track.

It’s all too easy for me to ask myself why I even bother being happy or excited about anything when it will just be taken from me. That was my first thought when the doctor called on Monday. My levels has dropped by half. She said she was sorry. I could stop the PIO and estrogen. I should expect a slightly heavier period soon. Did I have any questions?

My husband was sitting on the arm chair to my left and I just shook my head as I finished the call. He buried his head in his hands.

This was the briefest of all of my pregnancies. Because I was only four weeks and two days, it’s classified as an “early loss.” A chemical pregnancy. It was barely real. It felt barely real, too, I guess.

We’d said this was going to be our last try. A large part of me still feels that is the right call. The emotions are raw, though. I ask myself, as if on a loop, if I’m okay with never experiencing a baby kick me from inside my body. I don’t know. Why do other women get to experience this, and I don’t? I don’t know. I never seem to get closer to the answers.

These questions and many of these feelings are wrapped up in the idea that my body continues to fail me. I’ve talked in therapy about this at length. I want to forgive my body and make peace with her. I hope that I can.

Of all of the outcomes going into this last FET, pregnant for four days wasn’t one I’d considered.

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Transfer Day

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Olaf and Anakin thawed well and are already starting to hatch. Let’s do this thing.

Edited to add: My sister-in-law, who accompanied me to my transfer since my husband is out of town, surprised me with these baller socks that have MY DOG’S ACTUAL FACE ON THEM!

Desperately positive and hopelessly negative

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When you’re infertile, there rarely seems to be a middle ground in anything. Emotionally, I am certain that my next fertility treatment will be successful one moment, and I’m a dumpster fire of despair the next. Nothing will ever work, I tell myself as often as I silently say this is it.

Starting this last round has probably amped up these disparate feelings. I’m two days into my estrogen (Estrace) regimen to build up my uterine lining pre-transfer, and my emotions are already on 11. Plus, my feeling nauseous. I asked my husband last night if he remembered me feeling sick during my last FET cycle when I started the estrogen, but neither of us recall it. It’s funny how every cycle is just a little bit different. Funny in an oh lord what’s next way, not in a haha way.

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As I’ve written about before, I see signs in everything. There’s already so many in this last round. Despite my best efforts to plan, my transfer of Olaf and Anakin will be after my husband has left for a three-month new job training. One day after. This, of course, makes me sad. If the transfer does work, he missed it, and he’ll also miss almost my entire first trimester. Which means I have to get my own damn ice cream at midnight. If it doesn’t work, I’m alone to process it. If it works and then I miscarry again, then just commit me to the psych ward because I’m likely to break.

Another sign in the positive column is that my husband got this new job at all. He’s been stuck in a crappy job that he hated for years and no leads had panned out in a very long time. In fact, the last time he got a new job, we were also apart. Two days after our wedding he left New York to interview in North Carolina for his (still) current job, and less than two weeks later he moved here. We spent the next five weeks of our newlywed lives hundreds of miles apart until I could move South as well. Major life change seems to equal time apart for us.

The final sign is that, if this transfer sticks, my due date would be sometime in April. And previous Aprils have sucked hard. The birth of a rainbow baby would certainly have a lot of meaning during that difficult month…

One last time: Olaf and Anakin

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I’m in a weird place fertility-wise.

After several months of considering and discussing our next steps, we’ve decided to do one more FET before pursing non-treatment options in earnest. I didn’t come to this decision lightly, of course. I say I here, because it was primarily my call. My husband has graciously allowed me to steer the ship since we began fertility treatment two and a half years ago, and he weighs in when he has strong feelings one way or another about something. While this decision-making compromise can feel lonely for me at times, I’m ultimately grateful that he understands it is important for me to dictate what happens to my body. The feminist in me has trouble with that phrasing, but I’m going to leave it be. Infertility is complicated and does affect both partners.

Much of the continuing conversation about how to proceed happened between me and my therapist, actually. Last fall, after our second failed FET, my therapy sessions started to revolve around moving forward. I questioned whether I was ready to try again. What if that meant another failure? Or worse, another miscarriage.

One of the very important things I had to start working through was if I could forgive my body for failing me. Following my diagnosis of chronic endometritis earlier this year, I started to make peace with myself. This was the reason I wasn’t pregnant and once it had cleared, I felt almost renewed.

That feeling of renewal was short-lived.

I’ve worked hard in therapy to better understand myself and accept that, without unlimited resources at my disposal, perhaps my body cannot sustain a pregnancy. I’m still working on this acceptance. In many ways, it feels just as emotionally painful as my miscarriages. Accepting that I can’t do what I want is as much a loss.

So the decision to conclude our treatment following this last IVF cycle didn’t come easily. But we’re preparing to move on.

My period should arrive this week, we’ll shell out the cash, and I should begin the preparation to transfer two of our last embryos, Olaf and Anakin (Kristoff will remain frozen for the foreseeable future, provided O and A survive the thaw).

So I’ll be here, singing “One Last Time” from Hamilton under my breath. Apt and giving me all the feels.

IVF: TWW

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Right now, there’s a blastocyst swimming around in my uterus looking for a cozy spot to park and grow. I picture it a little like Dory in Finding Nemo, actually, but I biologically know it doesn’t really swim. The embryo we transferred on Wednesday was a grade 3AB, which I’m told by the many, many trained professionals that have seen my anatomy in the last week, is great.

The transfer went smoothly and was not at all painful like my egg retrieval. Some discomfort and pressure with a very full bladder, but a cake-walk, relatively speaking. It took about 10 minutes from start to finish and was fascinating to watch on the ultrasound screen. On the grainy screen, my husband and I watched the entire process as my doctor put little 3AB in where he/she belongs.

Now, we wait…

I’m relieved to have the injections over, and certainly grateful for the end of the pain of my Dark Willow ovary. Every other time I’ve been in this TWW limbo has been me white-knuckling through the anxiety of the wait. And while I’m certainly eager to see if 3AB is successful, I feel mostly relief that I have my first IVF cycle behind me, regardless of the outcome. 3AB is in there now and I just have to keep it as safe as I can.

While 3AB swims around looking for that warm and inviting spot, Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff and Anakin are now on ice. We were able to freeze five embryos. Two more of good quality (two more 3ABs), and three more of good/fair that appeared likely to survive the freezing and thawing process. When I texted my sister-in-law  about this process, she sent me a gif from Frozen, and the embryo “names” were born. Its become an amusing inside joke, and one I’m sure I’ll repeat pretty regularly over the next few decades. I’ve denoted Anna and Elsa as the two superior embryos, only because they were frozen together, but I’m personally pulling for Olaf to make it to my uterus next time. If only because it will be endlessly funny to call him Olaf in utero.

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