My Plan Didn’t Include Six IUI’s and IVF at 35
I had a plan, or at least I thought I did. My plan didn’t include six IUI’s, IVF at 35, or countless injections, meds, and doctor visits to conceive. It was more like my fiancé, and I (then boyfriend) would get pregnant at the end of the summer/early fall of 2016 and make the cutest announcement as a Christmas gift for our family.
After years of not actively trying nor actively preventing pregnancy, we agreed that there may be some issues and we should see a Reproductive Endocrinologist. After weeks of testing, exams, and bloodwork, it was determined that we had unexplained infertility. At first, I felt relieved because there wasn't something wrong with us. After all, we're relatively healthy 31/32-year old's, we work out 4-6 times a week, eat healthy/organic food, and drink Kombucha! Yes, we are those people!
We started our first IUI with clomid (adding in trigger injection for ovulation induction and progesterone) in September 2016. Failed. Plan B: We will send out Happy New Year postcards announcing our pregnancy and our new home - you know, the one we were in contract to buy because we needed a bigger house since we were going to be expecting soon. I even had a slogan “New Cribs coming in 2017.” The second IUI, we increased clomid and tried again. Fail. Third IUI, I thought for sure this time it would work - after all our pregnancy test was on thanksgiving! Fail. Forth IUI, we did injections instead of clomid, and I was hopeful again using a new medication - plus our pregnancy test was scheduled on Christmas Eve. We were due for a Christmas miracle. Fail. And guess what, the fifth and sixth IUI’s failed as well. Nothing was working.
I changed my diet, eliminated all processed foods, sugars, sugar alcohols, started acupuncture. Nothing worked. Luckily for us, we were able to pull out of our contract to buy that new house. I needed time to decide what our options were, and I needed a break from the meds. I had spent the last seven months on hormone medications. I was bloated and tired and gained a healthy 15lbs. I didn’t feel comfortable starting IVF with our relationship status. I thought that to go through IVF we needed to be married and we really weren’t ready for a wedding. He didn’t want to settle on a small wedding, and I couldn’t come up with a plan to afford a big wedding and IVF. So, we decided to completely renovate our small city house we were living in to buy us some time. Makes sense, right? It bought us time that’s for sure.
Our house took a very long and aggravating 9 months to finish. We agreed that when we were able to move back in, we would plan a wedding and then circle back to our fertility treatments.
June 2018, we were engaged. A December 2019 wedding was set.
While at a friend's bridal shower, I was engaging in fertility talk with one of the guests. She was a mutual friend through the bride, and I knew she and her husband had a successful round of IVF on their first try and again during a FET for baby two. Ironically, she and I were going to the same RE before she was referred elsewhere. She highly recommended her new RE and suggested I meet with them for a second opinion. I come home from the shower to tell my fiancé and he insists we follow her direction. I was hesitating for weeks on making that appointment. Quite honestly, I wasn’t ready for the emotions to resurface, and I was in happy wedding planning mood. I caved and made the appointment.
We met with the RE and she was a saint. She reviewed my records and didn’t see anything standing out - no signs of PCOS, endometriosis, nothing. In between our tries with a RE, my fiancé had a varicocele. On the day of the Eagles Super Bowl parade. He wasn’t happy, but we were hopeful that it would help with his swimmers. She ordered new labs and scheduled exams and couldn’t come up with a solid answer. We were told the clinic was starting a study of a new injectable stim med and giving IVF for free to participants. We qualified. I couldn’t believe we were getting IVF for free! I was elated, or at least I thought I was. I was holding on to all of those failed IUI’s and the fact that there was no answer or diagnosis. I couldn’t help but have negative thoughts about starting IVF, starting meds, the weight gain, the mood changes, etc. I spent the few weeks leading up to my start in misery. I was miserable and depressed. I can’t believe I have to do this, I felt like I lost all control over my body. IVF was my only option if I wanted to have children and I couldn’t get over those thoughts in my head.
I then started the stim meds, and so far, so good. I couldn’t believe I got myself all worked up over this. It was easy pease. It was time for my egg retrieval, since I over stimulated (I had 28 eggs retrieved) a fresh transfer wasn’t an option for me. Out of the 28 eggs, 22 were mature. 17 fertilized using ICSI and 9 were frozen blastocysts.
A few weeks had gone by, and I started getting very cranky, I pushed it off as if it were PMS. I was due for my period and being cranky the week before is not out of the norm for me. I actually get very bad PMS/mood swings. I got my period, and the moodiness was very much still present. Even after a week. Before I knew it, I was due for my next period, and I was still so miserable. I had such a delayed reaction to the stim meds. I must say, if moodiness was my only side effect, not bad at all. I worked out during stim, up until the week of my egg retrieval. I gave my body rest the week of retrieval and since I over stimulated, I waited until my period started to resume. I needed to stay motivated and working out is such a good stress reliever. Bring on those happy endorphins.
Since my cycle following egg retrieval wasn’t a normal cycle, I couldn’t begin my transfer process until the cycle after that.
Let me be the first to say this - the transfer process for a frozen embryo has been miserable. The two week wait takes the cake. I’ve started with estradiol - oral medication, 3 pills twice a day. Antibiotics - twice a day. Thyroid meds every morning and the prenatal pill. Break out the pill organizer. Two weeks later, add in progesterone in oil intramuscular injections. Ouch. Wholly shit. Ouch. I’m 10 days past a day 5 frozen embryo transfer. My meds started on July 5, PIO injections July 19, transfer July 26 - the feast day of St. Ann - I’m hoping that’s a sign, and pregnancy test on August 9. I feel like shit. I’m super moody, bloated, achy, feverish, etc. literally every bone in my body hurts. I took a pregnancy test on day 7. It was negative. I’m hoping beta is different. I don’t know how I’ll fee if it’s truly negative.
Some thoughts, I think, maybe I’ll be relieved to stop these meds and get back to normal, only though, I know that’s temporary, and I’ll be ready to start another FET cycle. This process is hard, no doubt about it. Nobody knows how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking. People give their unsolicited advice to “try to make you feel better.” But nothing makes you feel better, and the advice is, in my opinion, pure ignorance. Here’s a tip: if you feel compelled to give advice - especially if you have no experience in this - just simply say “I’m praying for you.” Save all of the “it’ll happen, have you tried missionary, you know you can’t have sex every day when you’re trying because it depletes the sperm, at least you have 9 embryos to try with, have you tried this, have you tried that”! Enough already! I’ve tried everything under the sun before pumping hormones in my body. Before my fiancé had a varicocele. Sometimes, I want to ask these people, do you ask cancer patients if they tried to not eat out of Styrofoam, or not use a microwave, or not use anything that causes cancer (which is everything these days) or try a vegan juice diet instead of chemo. I bet you haven’t. Why are people so damn ignorant to infertility?
For the most part, I’ve tried really hard to stay calm, cool, and collective. I’ve worked out even when doctors told me not to, I honestly had to. It was my only clear hour. Now, I wasn’t training and running marathons, but a nice little sweat sesh never hurt nobody. It’s what I did to keep some control over myself. Here’s to hoping the next 48 hours fly by and to a positive pregnancy test. If it’s negative, well then, I guess at least I have eight other frozen embabies.
-Dana
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