On disappointment...

When Michael and I started our IVF journey we never expected it to be easy. However I felt this false sense of hope like maybe it would be easy for me. Surely, I’m healthy enough and I take good care of myself and my cycle is perfect and my OB assures me I have a very hospitable womb.

The road leading up certainly was bumpy, but when we got there it all just seemed to sail by. Sure it was a little frustrating waiting for our insurance, ordering meds, and staring at them sitting on our table waiting for my cycle to start. But as soon as it did I felt like it went by in a blink. The shots didn’t hurt as much as I thought they would, in fact they didn’t hurt at all. My doctors appointments were quick and painless, although I can’t say that I’ll miss getting internal ultrasounds every other day. Our retrieval was a breeze, minus the traffic jam that almost made us late. But it was what came after it has been the hardest part.

When the nurse told us that they had retrieved seven eggs I was immediately disappointed in myself. “Why didn’t I get more?” I had felt so positive leading up to the retrieval. I had been told that I had so many good follicles. I saw them, in their bulging glory on the ultrasounds and watched them grow as the week progressed. Seven, that’s all? The nurse assured me that was a great number and it was on par with what they typically get. Then doubt started to creep in “what if they’re not all mature? what if they don’t fertilize? What if none of them are normal?” I could literally see that number tanking before my eyes. The next blow came the following day. When I got the call about how many were mature and how many fertilized. 7 retrieved, 5 mature and 4 fertilized. I looked at it as a failure. “Why weren’t all seven of them perfect?” I know logically, (and statistically) it is impossible for all of them to be perfect but somehow I blamed myself. Could I have taken more vitamins? Could I have drank more water? Could I have taken it easier on myself? 

I’m not gonna lie, I kind of spent yesterday in a pity party for myself thinking “oh well it’s already failed, I’m already doing a terrible job, my outcomes don’t look very good.“ My husband, Michael, the forever optimist, is beaming with glory. Four babies... I can already see him dreaming. I put on my smile, posted a photo to Instagram, beamed about my four growing embabies, while inside I tore myself down. I went to bed pretty early, Full of nerves and already impatiently waiting next weeks report.

 But something happened overnight. This morning I woke up to so many encouraging words on social media and another woman commented about the incredibly high number of egg she had collected and only three that fertilized and I thought to myself “Girl! You’ve got three!” And in that moment I thought to myself “Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we automatically feel as if we failed because we have made three embryos in one month?” We literally did some thing that our bodies are not supposed to do. We made the possibility of three babies in one month. If we were conceiving naturally we’d be a one in a million, an anomaly, but instead we are doubting ourselves because we only made three.

I can’t say that there won’t be days that I will be discouraged, or that the wind will be taken out of my sails because of an update, but I am going to look at myself now as lucky, as amazing, and a goddamn miracle for making MY four this month. 

I know that there’s still a lot of time between now and the day they tell me how many made it to day 5 Blastocysts, and we’ve chosen to do chromosomal testing so there’s even more time until we get the results of those. But for now I am going to love these for embabies with all my heart and commend myself for the job I did creating them.