When I announced my less-than-positive beta result on my
Facebook page (because I couldn’t stomach telling anyone but my husband in
person), I received a lot of support and encouragement. As the days went on and
I decided to come out of my cave and actually talk to people like a real human
being, I got a lot of sympathetic looks; a lot of, “Are you sure you’re OK?” I
nodded my head in determination. “Yes,” I said firmly, “I’m fine.” I even used
the rather snarky comment, “This isn’t my first rodeo, you know.”
I’ve become used to accepting the loss: the pitfalls, the
negatives, the setbacks. Sure, the multiple losses don’t make it any less
shitty, but it’s become my new normal. Start meds, blog about my follow-up
appointments, get crappy news about my fertilization reports, get even crappier
news about embryo quality, lament about my fears during the two week wait, and
then get a phone call that the whole goddamn thing didn’t even work anyway.
So after three years of these intense procedures, not to
mention the two years of medication and timed intercourse, I’ve gotten rather
good at bouncing back to plan out the next treatment.
Until this last cycle didn’t work. Until I realized that
even another woman’s eggs couldn’t even get me pregnant.
The first three cycles were either covered under Attain or
insurance. My third IVF cycle with my own eggs failed last year and we got all
that money back, about twenty thousand dollars. Before the donor cycle this
past October, my husband and I agreed: treatments for a baby will continue
until that money runs out. The plan was relatively simple: go to Texas for a
frozen donor cycle. If that doesn’t work, then we would continue with our
clinic for a fresh cycle up here, and pray it worked.
But then the
frozen cycle didn’t actually work. I had a
chemical pregnancy, my second now, and suddenly we were faced with
biting off more than we could chew. There is something wrong with my
body—something more than just
shitty eggs. There is something else going on and I don’t know how to
deal with
that.
“I’m glad to see you’re doing OK,” someone told me a few
weeks ago. “I was expecting you to be sad.”
Sad? Sad was three cycles ago, when
I had my first miscarriage, but there was hope to try again. Now I am just
fearful.
I walk around with my head spinning, smiling and politely agreeing
with everyone that, “Yes, this next cycle will work.” It’s better to reassure people that I’m hoping the next cycle will be
it rather than opening my mouth and letting the scream loose: I am terrified.
I’m fucking terrified that the reality of me having a child is getting slimmer
and slimmer. The money is going to run out. I have two, maybe three cycles left. Emotionally, I
can handle ten more. Physically, I can keep self-injecting medications until
the doctors tell me to quit. But soon, sooner than I can handle, the money will
be gone, and with it, a baby. Because I have never been able to get pregnant on
my own. IUIs are a joke. The only way I can even catch a glimmer of a pregnancy
is through a $15,000 IVF cycle. And, friends, we don’t have the means to
continue that.
So I will await the blood work that will hopefully tell us
some sort of next game plan. And then we will pursue another cycle, whatever
that entails. I will keep my mouth shut tight, and agree with all my loved
ones: This next cycle will work. It HAS to.Labels: Beta, donor egg, Grief, mom.me, Money, strength, surviving days post-transfer