Sorry about the complete and total silence lately. Life has been HAPPENING up in here and I just haven’t been sure how to share or write about most of it. I’m nothing if not open and real with you all and you’ve been so receptive and supportive – for which I can’t express enough appreciation. My point being though, if I can’t be completely forthcoming with you, I’d rather not be anything. Hence, the silence.
The thing I’m about to share is deeply personal and I hope that only people who love Dave and I will continue to read on. Or at the very least, put on your best judgement-free hat before reading. It’s hard to share something so personal, and even harder to imagine some people will judge you for things that are truly beyond your control. And believe me, we’ve spent enough tearful evenings judging and questioning ourselves.
We’ve been struggling with infertility for about 4 years now. There’s a sentence that makes my insides lurch. It’s hard to talk about – even harder to see it flashing before me on the screen. We started with a really young and inexperienced Doctor in Florida, who basically advised us to just “relax” and it would happen. So we tried to take a chill pill and heed her advice for a few years. Eventually we escalated things a bit to her, and she wasn’t too concerned. Her advice ranged from things like, “sometimes it just takes a while” to the extra helpful “people have babies well into their 40’s these days, you’ve got time.”
I think for a long time I was just really in denial about what was happening. I truly was “relaxed” about it. I love our life, and although we want to add a child to the mix, we weren’t concerned with timing. But as the years started to go by, and I approached 35, we started to feel like we may need some answers and outside intervention. I’m not going to lie, turning 35 was HARD. It’s why we went to Mexico and treated ourselves to a week of relaxation last year. We just wanted to get out of here and not think about my aging eggs. If you google infertility and a woman’s egg reserve, you’ll see 35 as the BIG number where things start to go downhill. You can only imagine the stress and pain when that age hits you and you are in the whole infertility process. Not to mention all the people around me having babies. It’s so hard to see yourself aging, and all the young ladies just getting pregnant so easily. While so so happy for them, I was also starting to worry that I might never have that opportunity myself.
At this point we began seeing another Doctor up here in Indiana. One with much more experience and age. She put us through a few rounds of the more minor fertility treatments, but none worked. At which point, she recommended various tests for both of us. Those took us several months to complete based on some travel we were doing. After she received the results, she referred us to a fertility specialist.
We were really excited to meet him, and see what he had to say. Because according to our labs, there was no reason we should be having any fertility issues. But, as with most things in this process, we had a lot of time to wait until we could meet him. Then he ordered more tests, which meant more waiting. Finally, he suggested a course of action for us, based on our current ages (we aren’t so young anymore, y’all!). He suggested IVF. In-vitro fertilization. And advised that we had a 1% chance of conceiving naturally, at this point. But with IVF, he felt with 80% certainty he could get us our little baby Miller.
Again, with the labs and waiting. There is a LOT of waiting in this process. We started our IVF cycle in March, and are actually still in the midst of it. It began with a series of 2-3 shots that I gave myself in the stomach every day for about two weeks. And we had to drive to Fort Wayne about 7 times in that two week period too, for monitoring appointments. At those appointments they drew my blood and did ultrasounds to see how my egg follicles were growing. When the timing was correct, they added in two more shots, one of them Dave had to give me. You guys, wanna test the strength of your marriage? Have your husband give you a nice inch and a half needle shot. We watched youtube videos, drew a circle around the area with a sharpie so he wouldn’t hit the wrong spot. And Honestly? It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Dave handled the shot like a pro, which I completely love him for. And the shots I gave myself weren’t too horrible either. I read so many blogs by women who have done this process and they made the shots sound super painful and overwhelming. I was prepared for the absolute worst. But the needles were teeny tiny, and once I got over the initial hesitation of sticking myself with a needle, it was no problem-o.
Next we went to Indy for part of the day and they did an egg retrieval on me. They put me under anesthesia, and the next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room, telling the Anesthesiologist and Nurse that I was ticked they woke me up because I was dreaming that I was making a million dollar real estate sale. Ugh, guys – seriously? LOL. This is what happens when you live, eat and SLEEP your career. You dream about it while drugged – it’s taking over my life! Ha.
We waited around a bit before they released me. During the recovery time, the embryologist stopped by to let us know she took 9 eggs, which was considered great. And they sent us home to, you guessed it, wait some more. The next call I received wasn’t totally wonderful. When you do IVF and they fertilize your eggs in a lab, you sort of expect to lose 1/3 t0 1/2 of them at each step. And there are about 3 steps. We expected to have maybe 4-5 fertilize. Then 2-3 make it to blastocyst stage, and then 1-2 be genetically sound. They informed us that 6 of my eggs hadn’t matured, leaving them with only 3 to fertilize, and as of day one, only 1 egg had fertilized. Do the math, folks. The odds were not in our favor. She did tell us that she’d put the other two in an incubator and see if they fertilized over the next two days. Sure enough, one of them caught up today, so we’ve got two little fertilized eggs.
We are currently waiting to see if they survive the week and grow. If so, then they’ll be tested to make sure they’re genetically sound. At which point, we will implant one and hope it becomes the next great realtor in this family. Just kidding, he/she can be whatever they want. Might be nice to NOT have a third real estate agent in this house.
I just really felt I owed you all some sort of blog post. The few people who knew about the process we were in have been so supportive and kind. And those who didn’t know, have been asking me why I haven’t blogged in a while. I just wasn’t totally sure I wanted the world to know about this process. There’s a chance it won’t work. There’s a chance we will have to do it again, with a different medication regimen. There’s a chance we will have spent all this money and time… and have no baby Miller. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be pitied or even worse, judged.
Last but not least, I wanted to add a couple pieces of advice for anyone going through something like this, or if you have friends going through infertility. When people tell you to “relax and it’ll happen” or “there are so many options, you can adopt” it’s not overly helpful to an already emotional couple. Yes, they’re aware of the options – they’ve spent countless hours reading and researching all those options, but they really, really want a baby that’s a little part of them. And yeah, they probably can’t “just relax”… they’re frustrated, sad and overwhelmed. I’ve done my best to maintain an attitude of “that person loves me and just wants the best for me” when people have said these things, over and over again. And I do know that to be true. But again… emotions are raw by the time someone is telling you they have fertility issues. And I promise you, the above comments will do little to help them feel better. Hugs are great. Telling them you’ll keep them in your prayers is wonderful – one gal actually emailed me the most amazing prayer when I shared with her our process.
Don’t be afraid to ask them how they’re doing. Someone reached out to me after a baby shower and sent me a text that, meant so so much. It was pretty simple, they just said they weren’t sure where I was at with all the baby stuff and wanted to check-in with me to see if I was okay. I broke down in tears, the good kind, and it felt like such a relief to be able to tell someone that I was having a hard time with my fertility and sometimes baby showers are sad occasions – despite being happy for the new baby. She was very understanding and told me she supported me in whatever fertility treatments we sought out because she felt everyone should get the chance to be a parent if they wanted it. It was one of the more supportive things anyone has said to me throughout this process.
As usual, thank you all for reading and joining in on the journey. I made paleo oatmeal cream pies today, finished a book, cleared my email and accomplished some work tasks. I even started a couple projects around the house. Things to distract me from the ever-present waiting game. I maintain a sense of calm and peace today that whatever happens, is okay. I border on faith and hope for our two embryos, but also try to keep a realistic sense of what the odds are. But… when have I ever been one to give in to the odds? 🙂
-Love y’all.
Stacey