My mother rings on Saturday night, while we were at New Forest. I don't answer because my phone is on silent, but I wouldn't have answered anyway. We stopped being close some years ago, it's better this way. If the scent of disfunction is too strong for you at this, I understand. It's too strong for me, too.
A scathing voice mail remains, and I dial it in and play it on speaker with Aidan. The beginning is vitriol, it always is. She goes off on a tangent of martyrdom, and then drops the bomb.
My sister had her baby May 7.
She had her baby 5 days before we got our negative.
The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.
I know it is the norm to be happy to be an Auntie. I know that society dictates excitement and joy. I know that I should flog my karma and send massive gifts. Only we haven't spoken in over a year, and that's not going to change.
She is the golden child. Lives around the corner from Mom. Had her college, her home, and her car bought for her by Mom and Dad, while I went over 20k in debt for schooling alone. She's always had it all, and always will do. That includes the love and dotage of my family, because, you know, I've always been some form of nefarious.
We have nothing to say to each other anymore. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy, and for the most part, I'm there. My only struggle is with envy, and that I have spades of, to hell with the Seven Deadly Sins.
It sends me into a blind tailspin, in a day where, ironically, I was already struggling with sudden feelings of panic, of "what am I going to do if it never happens for me?" feelings. The kind of things that convince you that you can do IVF as many times as it takes, you can get on adoption rosters, you can do anything to fight the feeling that you have-that you may die alone, and cold, and never having had a child.
My mother told me to ring her if I wanted more details. She didn't say the sex or the name, but she didn't have to-something in my stomach tells me it is a girl. This is how it happens. The cycles, they don't get broken.
Mistakes just keep getting made, generation after generation.
Suffice to say, I am not remotely interested in ringing her back.
I've checked out of myself, and am living as a whiter shade of pale. My period should allegedly be next week, and if the zits on my face are any indication, then PMS is here. I just try to focus on that, to keep my eye on the FET ball, because if I look anywhere else I am in danger of falling down.
It was asked about my next cycle, and the details, we have some of them.
Aidan rang the clinic the day we found out it was negative (which, for those following along at home, was 10 days ago. 10 days seems so many days and so many bottles of pinot grigio away...). There, the RE (the one who used the "bummer" expression, which I still think: Hmm. We may need to talk about how to address people who have just found out their cycle is over. Use the word "bummer" again and I may offer to introduce you to the business end of the stirrups, babe.)
The next cycle is a frozen embryo transfer (FET), as we have 5 of the little guys sitting in a cryotank. The embroys vary-there are 3 at four cell (2 grade 2, 1 grade 3) and 2 five cell (1 grade 2, 1 grade 3). The 3 four cells are frozen together and the two 5 cells are frozen together. This FET commences 21 days after my next period, which according to the calendar is due the 9th of June, although my periods tend to be early but my body was supremely hopped up on hormones, so when it comes is anyone's guess.
Now, Aidan and I thought that meant that the little chilly buggers would go in 21 days after my period.
This is not the case.
Turns out my FET will be medicated, so the dreamsicles will be re-implanted the end of July, 2012.
No, not really. It's not in 2012, but it is a FUCKING LONG TIME AWAY.
I start taking the drugs on day 21 after my next period, actually. I start with the down-regulation stuff, the same I took last time. Then two weeks after that, they do a scan to see how my lining is. If I have sufficiently flipped my body into menopause-complete with the symptoms of last time, which were hot flashes and the new Kiwi sport called Extreme Tears-then I start taking a tablet called Progynova (thank Christ, there's finally an oral tablet in all of this nightmare.) I've never had Progynova before, but I am sure I will love it. Progynova then throws me back out of menopause and builds up my lining. Once the lining is in good shape, I start taking the butt suppositories again (which I loved. There is nothing greater than farts the size of Manhatten, absolutely nothing.)
Then, at some point in time, they transfer the babies back.
All told, this cycle is nearly as long as the fresh cycle, where I got the good drugs and had loads of eggs. This cycle will take 40 days, so technically I could have built an ark and saved the entire fucking animal kingdom in this amount of time.
The deep thaw of the embryos is cause for concern as well. Some embryos don't survive the thaw, and the hospital is of the early opinion that they will have to defrost all 5 of them to ensure I can get two good ones. We will wipe out our entire stash in one go, and this is a bit hard for me to accept, simply because it will mean we could be that much closer to my next fresh cycle.
Because this is the hardest part-the success rate of FET is 16%.
Just 16%.
I cried when I saw that, as I thought it was so low.
It terrifies me, while at the same time, I am going to work hard to be positive.
We have an appointment to go over it all next Thursday, and one point Aidan wants to discuss with them is the option of another fresh donor cycle, thereby adding to the frozen bunker. On one hand I do want that and on the other, if it fails then we have to determine what to do-either keep going and pay ourselves, stop altogether, or one other option-ask about the other donees. If both of them got pregnant, it could mean I get a third cycle, only that? Yeah. That would hurt, and I am trying not to be selfish about it, as I really want all of us to get truly knocked up with my eggs.
It's a lot to think about, and my fingers are hurting for being crossed so hard.
The progesterone (a short shelf-life drug in body) is gone.
The uterus-wrenching period has finally dried up and my uterus is now hanging on the line to dry out for the next 21 days.
We've just got info on what the next steps are, which blew my head out and I will bring up later.
And the biggest news? The progesterone-suppressed sex drive was gone during IVF. But now the progestone has packed its bags and taken the kitchen sink with it.
So much to Aidan's delight and despite us feeling sad and disappointed and all that, my sex drive has come back, and it brought steel-enforced tires for improved traction.
Mount up!
I sometimes think about the other woman, the woman who got 9 of my eggs.
I sometimes wonder how she's doing, and if it worked for her. Both of our two week waits ended on the same day, and I wonder if they have the same outcome. We are allowed to find out if it worked for her or not.
But we choose not.
Maybe someday, many years down the line, we will ask. Or maybe 18 years from now someone knocks on my door, as they are allowed to do when they turn 18 and can find out who the biological mother is.
Or maybe not.
For now, I truly just wish her luck.
I don't want to know.
I haven't cried.
I admit I got really wobbly when watching Desperate Housewives Friday night, which we'd recorded on Sky Plus. Gabrielle went to the birth of her adopted daughter, and that part got fast forwarded in our household as it was a step too far for me. I've had 7 weeks of back-to-back tears on all these hormones, but with one negative I was all dried up. The well is empty. I am completely numb. As I told my therapist this morning, I have checked out of the building and I have taken any and all emotions with me.
He cried for me instead, as I sat there, numb.
8 hours after receiving the negative, my period started. The RE had asked if I'd had any blood and Aidan had told her no, I hadn't (he's the one who called in to the clinic to inform them I was negative because I couldn't face it. To which she'd replied, "Bummer." Sitting here now, that feels rather unreal but at the time I was wondering why she said "Bummer," or if she herself even knew what that felt like. A "bummer" is when you just missed your train by 30 seconds. A "bummer" is when your lotto ticket was one number off. A "bummer" is when you realize the zip is broken and your kickers are exposed to the world. A "bummer" is not when you find out 7 weeks of yearning was, quite literally, fruitless.) Just 8 hours after the no, the blood I had feared so much for two weeks was here.
Combine that with us receing a letter that day from our IVF doctor informing us that our 5 other embryos are cryo-frozen and wishing us the best of luck, it really was coincidence slapping us in the face.
My period started off as a slow brown leak, constant yet unassuming, the beginnings of my body dismantling that oh so perfect lining I had once had. By Saturday morning the flow had picked up in speed and turned red, and inside I felt like something was being pulled out, that there was some kind of tearing from quite high up, that things were being ripped out.
I suppose that's exactly what it is.
The RE talked us through next steps-I have to have this period, but as it's not really considered a period since my hormones have absolutely no idea which way is up, only that it's spring cleaning time, a 50% off sale, and this uterine lining has got to go. I have to wait until my next period, and 21 days after that we will transfer either one or two frozen embryos, depending on advice from the RE (however I am ever mindful that the success rate from one FET (frozen embryo transfer) is around 15%, and that is so low it's uncomfortable.) Depending on my next period, we're looking at kicking things off around mid-June and implanting the last week of June.
So I have 6-7 weeks now. 6-7 weeks of making sure I look forward instead of behind. 6-7 weeks trying not to panic that we are one step closer to the end of the possibility of children. 6-7 weeks trying not to dwell on the fact that IVF #3 was a bust. I can try to do that. I can work with this nice boy in the house who is treating me like a fragile flower, and in his constant reassurance that this is just a setback, not the end, I take the greatest comfort.
I have not been depressed, just melancholy and unable to go deep and long. I don't want to be introspective, introspective is uncomfortable. I don't take my laptop with me, I don't want to write about anything. People who have known about this cycle (I did have to tell a few people due to time constraints) ask about it and I brush it off, I don't want to talk about it. The iPod is tuned to perfectly ambivalent music, designed to be background noise and nothing more. I watch mindless comedies and ridiculous rom-coms on TV. It is not the stuff that either of us go for but Aidan smiles and curls up on the couch with me and makes all the meals, because along with the lack of tears, I am really scatter-brained and food just sounds ok, it's not the usual drive of someone who loves her some good food. Although Friday night Aidan came out a trooper, having made me my favorite meal of homemade mac and cheese, I just really don't care about food just now, he's the one who's covering the basees.
Aidan has been brilliant. From the constant reassurance and protection to ensuring that my wine glass is always full, he's been a rock. We've had a hard past two weeks that was fraught and full of arguments (if anyone tells you that IVF isn't difficult on the woman AND the relationship then hit them hard in the windpipe for me because they're LYING. Or else they have one of those weird, freaky crunchy-granola overwhelmingly happy marriages, in which case HIT THEM ANYWAY) but we came out the other side this week, and he has been fantastic. He worked hard to get across to me that this isn't the end of the world, it is a disappointment and sad and a setback and only that, that we will try again.
His message worked, and he alone saved me from the dark side.
If I sound effusive about my boy, it's because right now I am. I know that often I write glowing things about him, that on my other blog I sometimes gush a bit. But to tell you the truth, he has been a rock. I am handling things because he's here handling them with me, and my God I love him for that.
It's been so hard to say goodbye to this cycle, to something I believed in and wanted so much.
All this, and I still haven't shed one single tear since finding out I was negative.
When you are towards the end of the two week wait, everything becomes a sign. The little things that you think or feel that would ordinarily never pass you by, become something that may or may not mean that you are pregnant. It is or isn’t working. IVF did or didn’t work. I will or will not be drinking heavily and back on the sleeping tablets.
With pregnancy, I guess it really is so black and white. In previous cycles I wasn’t superstitious as I simply didn’t know one way or another to be so. But I have been around the IVF block now, and even though I know that there is absolutely nothing I can do to influence this to work or not work (other than avoid things like bungee jumping and maybe laying off the crack brownies) something in my head still twigs things.
Statia had commented that she needed lucky socks, so I sent her some (which turned out to not be lucky. They were not the socks you seek. So I have sent new socks that I truly hope are the lucky socks.) She, in return, sent me some which I wore during the retrieval and transfer.
I hope they are my lucky socks.
I started this process two days before Mother’s Day here in England. I do my test two days before the American Mother’s Day, which I can’t help but feel that, while maybe not a sign, is at least a strange coincidence. As a donor my cycle was much longer than most, but so perfectly spaced between the two big Hallmark days is a pretty bizarre fluke.
The day I came home from retrieval a thin and lithe black cat dove out of the bushes on our street, crossing before me and the dog. I actually have a thing for black cats, I think they’re gorgeous, and this is one I have never seen on our little gravel road before. In England, a black cat crossing your path is a sign of good luck.
Right, then.
Yesterday on the way to the train station I saw a huge shadow in my driver’s window, and I turned to see an absolutely enormous bird flying next to the car. I started at first as I was 100% sure it was a stork, but it was instead a heron that flew alongside me for a minute before swerving off. I couldn’t believe such a large and beautiful bird accompanied me a short distance, a silent protector against the world at large, or at least the eater of the fish in our fish pond.
And that’s not taking into account the due date. I plugged the transfer date into an IVF calculator I found online, and it told me the date. Now, first off, nearly every single person in Angus’ family and extended family have birthdays in January, February and March (there are a couple of exceptions, but really it’s an expensive time of year for us.) January is the busiest month. And the due date pops up to be in January. Further, on one IVF calculator I found online (I found two) the due date came up with a specific date, a date on which I know so well. It was the anniversary of a suicide attempt I had some years ago, and the irony that perhaps there may be a life on the day I struggled for my own life is not lost on me.
I have absolutely no signs of my period coming, but that could be the progesterone. My breasts are still swollen and sore but that’s likely the progesterone, too. I’m hungry a lot and constantly have a sore throat and headache but, once again, could be the progesterone bandit. I’m struck sometimes by a strong, painful cramp but sometimes that’s just gas (nice) and maybe sometimes it’s the progesterone, shifting around the massive uterine lining that I’ve built up. And then this morning I was hideously nauseous and absolutely sure I was going to toss my cookies. In the end I didn’t but the point is I was nauseous. Then again could have been anything-dodgy food, ulcer, stomach flu, or karma kicking me in the stomach for being a bitch to whomever blocked my car in at the train station yesterday..
I have to force myself to not read too much into everything, because the fall could be so spectacular. I am a day and a half away from knowing what’s next. In 36 hours there will be an answer to the past 7 weeks, and that’s almost too much to wrap my head around. Every day this week has mercifully been spent going to and from London, and this business alone is what has kept me from wondering to the point of head explosion.
Tomorrow Aidan and I are going up to a part of the country I call Buttfuck (because it’s an extremely long journey for us to get there.) We have a meeting there all day tomorrow, which goes into a dinner tomorrow night. We’re staying in a hotel that night (while our puppy stays with a friend before getting dropped off to lose his testicles. Ironic, the day he loses his fertility I check to see if mine has succeeded.)
I had changed my mind about this. Previously I was adamant that we be home on Friday, but now I think it’s good to be away in many ways-Aidan and I get a night in a hotel room together, and we need the couple time. We get the distraction of a huge group dinner (which is on a boat, and I get seasick and I can’t drink so this’ll be BIG FUN.). And in the morning, we get to wake up in a place that’s not our own, and so if the message is bad, we won’t have to associate it with our beautiful home. We can have breakfast in bed and cuddle and take our time getting home, maybe stopping for a boozy lunch in London if it’s negative (if you see a theme about alcohol here, let me just say this: IT'S NOT A CRUTCH. IT'S A NECESSITY).
And let’s be honest-there’s a large chance it will be negative.
Statistically, it is the most prominent option.
But it doesn’t stop me from hoping that it won’t be.
I won’t be online until we get home on Friday, at which time we’ll all know which way the wind is going to blow.
There is no greater game of What If than IVF. IVF is the single biggest "Choose Your Own Adventure" story. Everything you do could lead to something else, or it could end the whole thing, or so you think anyway.
I bought a new soap/shampoo to try, which I did. And as I did it, I thought-what if switching from the soap I had been using (Philosophy's Grace) to a new one (Philosophy's Strawberry Milkshake) somehow threw the balance off, thereby causing the embryo to ditch me? What if there was some new chemical in the Strawberry Milkshake that soaked through my skin and killed the embryo, or what if the would-be baby was just a strawberry hater? I walk the puppy in a field near the house-if I turn left at the fork instead of right, has that altered the state of the universe, thereby causing the would-be pregnancy to end? The cat jumped on my lap, did it rupture the lining somehow? And I take the hospital's advice to drink 2 litres of water a day and a litre of milk, only the litre of milk is a stretch and I manage half of that, and it's really chocolate milk and not regular milk, so could the chocolate milk kill off my little cell?
It's constant, and never-ending. The what-ifs, the am-I-doing-it-right, the what-can-I-do-betters. I eat way more than I do when not going through this (although, with the exception of the chocolate milk and the mac and cheese I had today it tends to be healthy) as I figure something tells me that I'm hungry. If I get pregnant, I'll be set. If not, I'll crash diet anyway.
I'm now 9dp2dt. On Friday, I will at least have an answer one way or another.
My RE said no long caar journeys, which is why I'm heading to BFE today as dictated for a one-hour lunch meeting. I get the singulary thrill of being on trains/tubes/cars for a total of NINE HOURS today. I'm so exicted-especially as the weather is incredible and gorgeous, so why waste time like doing something like being outside or anything like that, when I can be on public transport for NINE HOURS?
I've been assigned another massive project as well, so now I'm juggling two. If it goes to the current plan, I'll be delivering it next January, so at least I can be sure that nine months from now I will definitely be delivering something, anyway.
If anyone needs me today, I'll be the one on the train in the pretty humorless mood.
So I'm nearly to the halfway mark of my two week wait. The first week, I have to say, has gone by fast and thank God for little favors. This weekend is shaping up to be a busy one, as Aidan is in Stockholm for the weekend, so it's the cats, the puppy and I dancing around the living room while watching Chicken Little and painting the living room a bright cheery color, as opposed to the drab taupe color it is now (if I'm here thanking the deities, I might as well offer one up to the Dulux God. The Dulux catalog is my new bible, there can be no house painting without it.)
Next week is back to back with meetings in London as well, so I'll have little time to sit around in the house and watching my sprouting gladiolas in the garden and wonder if I'm pregnant. Instead, I'll be sitting around on trains to London or in meeting rooms trying to whack a path into my email inbox and wonder if I'm pregnant. You know-a totally different thing. On testing day next Friday I've arranged to be home the whole day-while I was previously opposed to Aidan being away that day as well, I've come to change my position-if it's negative I'll be taking to the bed first thing in the morning with a big bottle of alcohol anyway, so I won't be much fun. If it's positive, it'll still be positive when he gets home so nothing changed there.
As far as symptoms go, I have loads but then again it could all be the progesterone. I have cramps, I have gas (the unable-to-tighten-sphincter-in-time kind, so when I'm sitting down I make sure I never lean forward. This will be my golden rule in London meetings next week as well.) I have swift and sudden cramps that then disappear. I have cravings for cheese, but then again that's not so unusual for me as cheese is the solid form of the elixir of life (although I will be refraining from buying Emmenthal or Havarti for a little while as I jsut plow through those suckers.) I am pretty scatter-brained and haven't been reading and commenting on blogs, as I'm a wee bit forgetful just now. None of my lining is coming off, so it would seem, and I just don't feel my period is anywhere near, but once again, the RE told me the progesterone might keep the period from arriving anyway. I'm not really nauseaous although the idea of some foods puts me off and I have no interest in my good friend Pinot Grigio (which is a good thing, as I can't drink now.)
Previously we've had a very active sex life. It was like: Ooooooh!! Sex!!
Now? It's more like: Huh....oh yeah....sex.
The hormones knock your sex drive into left field, and the last time we tried to have a go it was very uncomfortable, like someone had shifted one of my kidneys and parked it on the outside of my cervix or something. It does make me feel very bad for my lovely boy who is probably more than a little sexually frustrated but as for the sex drive, well, when the get up and go has got up and went, I hanker for a hunk of cheese.
But there is one fantastic symptom I have-I am exhausted. Utterly, completely knackered all the time. I can take naps, I can wake up in the middle of the night and go right back to sleep, and when I go to bed the head goes down and I am out like a light. For a chick who's spent a lifetime battling insomnia and sampling the pharmaceutical wonders of the unable to sleep zone, I think progesterone is the world's best sleeping tablet, if only it weren't for the wind and the incredibly sore boobs.
My RE warned me off of doing any kind of Clearblue home pregnancy tests of any kind, and I have been against it-if it's negative it will be impossible to keep the positive mojo up. If it's positive, then it could be a false positive and come testing day I may stumble and fall. Either way, there's no way I could keep my reaction to myself, and so I just don't know about testing, although I think it's safest to not do it (but let's see how smug and full of resolve I am next week, huh? Yeah?)
And what constantly runs through my head is the mantra of every Jerry Springer trailer park Cindy Lee-Am I pregnant? Am I not pregnant? Am I pregnant? Am I not pregnant?
Am I pregnant? Am I not pregnant?
I’ve been thinking a lot about you, about what it’s like where you are, how it feels, how you are. I think of the world like the story of the Guff, in which there are millions and millions of souls floating around, waiting to find the right place to go, the right baby to be born in. I wonder about this as I wonder what I can do to make sure you know that if you choose to stick around, your life will be one filled with wonder, adventure, and love. I've had a quiet list in my head of the things I can promise you in your life:
If you let me be your mother I will look at you with shining eyes.
If you let me be your mother I will smell the top of your head every time I hug you.
If you let me be your mother I will sometimes be strict, as I want your life to have structure and support.
If you let me be your mother I will attend every school play, concert, and sporting event and I will be the one with the great big smile as I will be uncontrollably proud of you.
If you let me be your mother I will believe in you every step of the way.
If you let me be your mother we will make chocolate chip cookies and I’ll always let you lick the bowl.
If you let me be your mother I will exclaim over every picture you draw, and will have a rotation of them hanging on my wall in my office to remind me of what a gift you are.
If you let me be your mother I will blow on your skinned knees and always have Band-Aids with ridiculous characters on them.
If you let me be your mother I will sit down and watch the Disney movies with you, and I will love them as much as you do.
If you let me be your mother I will make sure you see the world, because when you see the world you understand how to act with love, care and compassion.
If you let me be your mother I will soothe the bad dreams and make sure the monsters under the bed are chased away.
If you let me be your mother I will worry endlessly the first time you go on a date.
If you let me be your mother I will do everything I can to provide you with a solid, comforting past so that your future can have so many options and hopes and dreams.
If you let me be your mother I will make mistakes, but when I make them I will apologize and work to never make the same mistakes again.
If you let me be your mother we can eat popsicles in the sun and wonder why the sky is blue.
If you let me be your mother you will have fantastic Christmases and three sets of grandparents, as well as a few great-grandparents. There may be some of my family that you will never meet but the love you will get from all of the others will more than compensate.
If you let me be your mother I will never move you constantly, I will never degrade you, and I will never wish I'd never had you.
If you let me be your mother you will be my miracle and I will love you so fiercely that you won’t regret jumping from the pool of souls into the here and now.
This list is not endless, sweetie. I think about you all the time. I really want you to stay and I will work so very hard to be the mother that you need, to be the kind of mother I never had.
If you will just let me be your mother...
Meredith: Hi, this is Meredith, and I’m here with Bob to bring you live up-to-date coverage of Vanessa’s 2 week wait!
Bob: That’s right, the action is about to get going and we’re here above the bleachers to witness the parade of symptoms that Vanessa is undergoing. Meredith, it’s nice to be here on this crisp early Summer morning! You look different, have you had any work done lately?
Meredith: Thank you Bob. No work, just the waxing, but let’s hope our viewers don’t see any of that, shall we?
Bob: I couldn’t agree more, Meredith! Now, the parade is just starting off! Let’s see what’s kicking off with Vanessa.
Meredith: Well Bob, we have the bloat going on here, I’m afraid. She’s suffering some pretty major swelling around the midriff actually.
Bob: Yes, we do have a bit of the Michelin man syndrome, I’m afraid. Although the doctor did say that her body still had to absorb the 19 enormous follicle sacs after the eggs were removed, it looks like this parade has a little more bloat going on than just the follicles, doesn’t it?
Meredith: Well spotted, Bob. I see someone has finally been reading the editor’s notes that come with the job, instead of using them as a coaster for that morning glass of whiskey, eh?
Bob: Whatever Meredith. Next on the parade circuit here we have the breast tenderness! That’s right-touch those boobs and she’s likely to stab you with a pencil!
Meredith: And some people would rightfully deserve it! Next up-the complete lack of cream cheese goodness in the knickers. The lining, she is at least staying in place I see.
Bob: That’s good, because there’s no way that Aidan’s going to be snacking at the snack bar with the snail trail going on.
Meredith: And next in the parade-incredible cramping!
Bob: Indeed! They’re even stronger than the usual period cramps that a woman has.
Meredith: What the hell, Bob. How would you know about periods, you fat balding petroleum bastard?
Bob: Someone’s on the rag, aren’t they?
Meredith: Bugger off, Bob. We also have the special guest of gas! That’s right-she can trumpet like a crumpet!
Bob: Well, the nurse warned her that the progesterone could cause wind, she just didn’t say it was uncontrollable wind!
Meredith: I know someone else who’s full of hot air….and last but not least, we have….is that…?
Bob: That’s right, Meredith! We have enormous breasts! Her breasts are swollen to be roughly the size of a junior Dolly Parton’s!
Meredith: Ooh! I was hoping to see the big breasties in the Macy’s Day Parade, what a great experience to see this sooner!
Bob: Whore.
Meredith: Fuck you.
Bob: Sure, the news van's just around the corner.