ivf ftw

The psychologist at my RE's office told me that if my transfer fails, it will be awful...but she's more worried about me if it's a success.

She talked about our baby making it to 6 weeks, heartbeat, then 8 weeks, then 9 weeks when I can stop the PIO shots, then 12 weeks when I'll be returned to the care of my OB, then 20 weeks, then 24...and so on and so on and I couldn't stop crying, and eventually I said, "I just can't imagine ever getting that far." And she said, "I know."

Three years of trying, two of absolutely perfect timing, 8 months of letrozole/trigger, and 2 IUI's resulting in: one miscarriage, one ectopic and removal of right tube, and five chemicals...and I'm ready to admit that something's not working. There's a thing that's wrong with me or there's a thing that's wrong with our embryos but there's a thing that's wrong. We have killer insurance and I'm at my wits' end and broken from the inside out and well, it's time to give it our all and our best shot so we're doing in vitro fucking fertilization. Starting in October.

Even though I researched this I didn't know what it entails, and what it entails is this, best-case scenario: self-administered shots to the abdomen for several days to plump up your ovaries and produce lots and lots of beautiful follicles, most of which hopefully contain a perfect maturing egg. You give yourself another shot that triggers your ovaries to release all of those eggies, then roughly 34-36 hours later it's to the doctor's office for Egg Retrieval Day, where they make a little incision and suck out the eggs and fertilize them in a lab using technology that I am grateful for and which makes my head spin, then they age the "embabies" (I am fond of this term) to three days, then to five, then they freeze them and biopsy them and send them for genetic testing. I get a little rest. THEN I start taking estrogen pills and injecting myself with a truly terrifying needle, right in my butt, which is all supposed to prime my body for Transfer Day, where they put the thing back in me and hopefully it implants and bam, I'm pregnant. Scary butt shots until 9 weeks but I'm pregnant so I do not fucking care.

Best case scenario.

Worst case scenario is that I don't respond to the medication and if I do respond maybe I ovulate too early and the whole thing is a bust, and maybe I ovulate on time but they aren't able to retrieve any mature eggs and maybe none of our embryos make it to three days or five days and maybe none of them test genetically "normal" and maybe they don't survive the freeze or maybe they don't survive the thaw or maybe somebody sneezes in the petri dish or maybe I get OHSS and have to stay in bed for five weeks or maybe I get pregnant and it's another chemical or maybe I get pregnant and miscarry in my second or third trimester or maybe the birth hurts or kills me and maybe I never get to take a baby, MY baby, home from the hospital and I don't ever have children and don't ever recover from the trauma of these last several years but most specifically from the trauma of my failed ivf cycles.

I am completely overwhelmed, I am so excited, and I am beyond terrified. I have isolated myself to an astonishing extent and I mostly speak to my husband, my mother and sister, and a few friends who persist in contacting me for some reason.

I'm going to write all about my ivf experience. Some who read might not agree with this crazy science (I am open to discussion but not to ignorance), some might gain insight, some might stop after the first paragraph because it's just too boring, but I'm documenting all of it here because this process affects so many of us and it is kept silent and the lead-up to this is the worst hardest most inexplicable thing I've ever been through. Maybe this starts or continues a conversation or something, maybe it's purely gratuitous self-indulgence but at this point and in this pain and with this renewed hope I do not care.

Been on birth control pills for a couple of weeks, hysteroscopy last Friday, slated for baseline ultrasound and bloodwork on October 2nd and will start injections (stimming) on October 4th.

Here we go.

The month that is

I came up with the name for this post when I thought that I was "just" having another miscarriage. We had been advised to take some "time off" after our fifth loss in one year. My reproductive endocrinologist wanted to do an hysteroscopy to see if there was something in my uterus preventing full implantation -- some reason why all of these little fertilized eggs fail to "stick." So he suggested we take a month off and I started crying in his office. It was embarrassing. but he's seen it before and reacted kindly.

At 5 weeks, hcg had dropped but a week later shot up, and that's a problem. I went to the ER where they confirmed ectopic and removed my right tube.

That's the short story.

The longer story is that I was coming off of another chemical cycle, then got pregnant. hcg started very low and rose very slowly, but I diligently went for my blood draws every other day even though I knew this wasn't going to be viable.

My arm after following betas down from the chemical and up for the "pregnancy" -- a rich hue of shit-colored with an afterthought of purple

I didn't feel right, and I know my body too well to ignore that.  I didn't *feel* right. So I was not entirely surprised that my nurse called and told me that hcg rose swiftly a week after it started dropping or when the ER team confirmed that the little embryo had attached itself in or right next to my right Fallopian tube, missing my uterus by essentially the equivalent of a football field.

Matt was able to leave work and meet me at Northwestern, and after just a couple of hours we got a room. Spent the next 8? 9? hours laying down and trying not to breathe because, as scary as this was, it would be worse if the pregnancy ruptured and destroyed my tube, ovary, worse...and Matt watched and waited, watched and waited: watched them take blood from my hand with a big needle and watched them give me 2, 3, or 4 pelvic exams and waited through the longest ultrasound ever and watched me break down when talking to the ob on-call and then watched me on hardcore valium and then waited for the surgery to be over at 12:30, then 1, then 1:30am all alone in the room where we got the first unofficial diagnosis of Dad's GBM.

And then the fucking badass team of women at Northwestern laparoscopically removed my right tube and I came back to the room sore but alive, and then I peed and came home and we ate leftover pizza and thai at 5:30 in the morning. And then I couldn't really move for a couple of days was very sore but then the incisions healed nicely, and today I got my dressings taken off.

But the REAL long story is that my sister and two friends came over to watch our dog while we were in the hospital. And my sister and my mom came over every day that weekend to watch me while Matt went to work. That two beautiful friends, who I was supposed to sing karaoke with the same night I had surgery, instead came over and listened to me and sat by me and held me. That I was able to take 2 days off of work to recover and still get paid. That my best friends, who have very big things happening in their lives right now, showed me incredible grace when I whined and cried about my crummy lot and gave me strength and gave me hope and sent us flowers. That my guardian angel advised me through it, from beginning to end. That the internet support group I've come to be closer to than many real-life people followed the whole thing, whispering gentle encouragements and allowing me to wallow, wallow, wallow in the stink of it all.

That my sweet puppy continues to save me without even knowing it.

That my husband still wants to be married to me...after this:

Acne from months of hormones plus valium = sexpot

That is the long story and this has been the longest story of my life.

Long story short, though:

My luck is terrible and my people are the best.

And, also, fuck this stupid-ass shit.

Loss

I'm writing this because I'm desperate. I'm writing this because I've alienated myself from so many of you, because you've been able to do something that I've been trying to do for years and years...and I'm lost, and I'm lonely, and I'm terrified.

I had a miscarriage that lasted from May-July 2017. I had two more early losses, one in Sept. 2017 and one in November 2017.

Also in 2017:

• We started renovations on our house. Big-time renovations that will make our space beautiful and bright and more of our own.
• We got the most incredible dog who lives through everything with us. He's real cute, too.
• I got an insane promotion at work. Living my career dream, quite literally.
• We ate really well, drank really well, and continued to be married which I think deserves a fucking medal in and of itself because when you're trying to conceive and you're not able to...holy FUCK the toll it takes.

But none of that matters to me. Not really. Because I'm empty and I continue to be empty, and this isn't a something that comes up every so often, no no no, this has consumed me and inhabits me and takes the place of any growing life inside of me. It's bigger than I am and bigger than life is and I never expected this, never, ever, ever, ever, ever.

Women should build each other up. Women should support each other and give to each other and be there for each other because the world isn't there for us. I believe this so completely...but when the women in my life (all of the women in my world, it seems) started to get pregnant, right after my loss, I felt betrayed and abandoned and angry. I felt jealous, for the first time in my life, of my friends...and I continue to be jealous of my friends, and I continue to hurt and it is *excruciating*. Because I don't want to feel this. I want to be there with my women, in their joy and fear and overwhelmed and excitement...but instead, I'm anxious about my next cycle, wigging out on hormones to try and get me to a place where I'm even able to attempt to conceive a child, seemingly ignoring the needs of my husband, my family, my friends (those that I have left)...I'm there with myself, alone, and I've put myself there, and it's ugly and it's tragic. I've been through some shit...but this is Fucking. Tragic.

I wanted to wait until I was pregnant again to write something, but I'm not pregnant, and so many others are, and I keep on blocking people on social media and cutting people out of my life who have any association with anyone I know who is pregnant, and I avoid speaking with women who could potentially possibly even remotely be trying to get pregnant, and the word pregnant sends white-hot searing pain down my spine, but it keeps on going through my head. Over, over, over again. And I'm desperate.

And I'm sorry.

In Which You Are Here At Thanksgiving

We show up at the door shaking the cold from our hair. You open up and let us in, and a kiss then a hug that's a little awkward because neither of us is sure when to let go and so it's stilted and strange, but I'm expecting this. You're probably wearing a bright yellow apron and I say something sarcastic and affectionate which you grin at.

"Come in, come in. Happy Thanksgiving."

Right to the kitchen, controlled chaos, and to cooking. Sweet potato gnocchi? Green bean casserole with deep fried shallots and homemade mushroom sauce that's twice as expensive but half as good as the original? Maybe both. You stand above the turkey with an electric knife and I chuckle at the gender role that you've assumed for years and are actually quite convincing at, despite the fact that you've never watched a Sunday football game in its entirety and you're still in that silly yellow apron. I'm really amused and forget that I'm chopping with a sharp knife and I cut myself, and although it doesn't hurt there's a lot of blood. I calmly run my finger under water and apply pressure while you lose your shit. You are in crisis mode: you run through the house frantically looking for a band-aid and talking yourself down which I laugh at more. I let you put the bandage on and I am irreparably touched by your tenderness and your concern and your kindness, because I am still your baby after all these 31 years.

The meal is fast and plentiful, and before we know it it's dessert which we somehow find room for, and then we sit and smile and finish our wine and then it's time to go.

So we hug goodbye and this time it's a little more natural because we shared a meal, and I give you a kiss and leave you to do the dishes. I drive off and go home and go to sleep.

If you were here.

Checkered Tablecloth Joint, SoHo

The couple next to me don't know what ravioli is. Can you believe it. Can you. I can't.

A little girl behind is corrected, made to say "yes ma'am" and my heart is filled to bursting.

And I commiserate with a server over a slice of cheesecake and English tourists, not because she knows anything about me and not because I know any of her but because I am wearing black pants, a white shirt and black clogs. She knows because she smiles and winks. Do we all know? And does she know that even though I wear the uniform I also get a good wage, health benefits and vacation time after 3 months? Well. I don't tell her.

Dinner on this very specific night brings back other dinners: feta and figs with lamb, mussels and mess, loads of chimichurri, apple tart with tequila, beef stew Thanksgiving, ravioli and vegetable stacks, brandade, instant ramen enriched, mac and cheese and ham and peas, chicken and dumplings, tortilla. Sexy breakfasts and even some desserts. Meals made significant because of first times, of many times, but not because of last times. Meals shared finally, oh what we've been missing.

I am young and very stupid and I am very stupid and I am very stupid. But I know. These meals cannot be important enough, they are of the utmost. I'm alive because of them. Maybe too alive, maybe too quick to cry, but I'm alive alive alive alive.

I think it's important to point that out.

My server asks how I'm enjoying my food. "It's good, it's what I need," I say.

She winks.

Road trip

"well it's a big, big city and the lights are all out
but it's much as I can do you know to figure you out"

Bob Dylan and Central Park saved my life, while Upper East Side doormen tipped their hats and wished me good day and I gulped down cup after cup of the worst and best coffee I've ever had. Bob Dylan and Central Park saved my life, how cliché. But...it's true. A walk to Little Italy for San Gennaro, a love affair with Queens that I wasn't ready for. Thoughts of a lost boy obscured by my own dusty path home. But home nonetheless, closer than I've had and further away than....

...This is my New York phase 1. Fresh from Chicago crisis, green and hungry. Walk for miles each day and return back different than I was. Crazy with newness, homesick and silly, in love with in love at my new rented place.

"and it's 4 in the morning, and I'm walking along
beside the ghost of every drinker here who has ever done wrong"

The weather got cooler and the outside got darker. A quick jaunt east to a Brooklyn I'd read about, consciously adhering to its spot in history, a secret personal pride about my place in (though always outside of) it. While I constantly check to see who's checking me. But I'll never admit that. So. Shh. Thanksgiving centered around beef stew and store-bought cinnamon rolls and each bite sees a shift in expectation. Bob Dylan gives way to David Bowie who wrote a song for him and several for me. Little boy lost gets found and little girl trips and falls, and trips, and falls.

...This is my second New York phase which establishes me once and for all as a non-entity and which systematically destroys and makes bloated my self-confidence. I agree to tough it out but only because I'm embarassed by failure. Not because I want to and not because I believe that I'll survive.

"so if you're lonely why'd you say you're not lonely"

A winter that sees me stranded, god damn did the blizzard really need to stick me in Park Slope? Long commutes and boiling subways and for the first time I realize I'm happy to stay home at night. Bad delivery pizza and cheap wine from my plexi-glassed local sadden me but there is none more convenient. Lonesome becomes me and music? I don't remember music, but I remember snow and I remember indoors.

...I don't know much of me in winter. I think that I was tired and I quit a job in Queens (I'm very sorry, darling) and I watched a lot of flamenco and must have celebrated some holidays and somewhere I got myself another year older. That can't be all but? Maybe that's the point.

"and I must confess, my hearts all broke in pieces
and my head's a mess"

Tom Waits, scream me a lullaby while I drink my coffee water (ice melted long ago) at a coffeeshop in this scorching city, oh, has all of the wind died? And, oh, where have all the PC's gone? Away, certainly, from this nutjob town where efficiency trumps all and Trump trumps none. Tom Waits, give way to Elvis (well, hello) singing Christmas songs out of season while the crumbs of my almond croissant scatter themselves across the table, butter pastry defenseless against a ceiling fan with an agenda. An agenda of which I have none after two months of nothing but.

...New York phase well, I forget. A rare second of respite at least. I've recently traveled from East to Midwest, back East again and a four-hour turnaround then to Washington DC, itself a confused jumble of architecture and status symbols different from any I've ever seen. Grateful to be back because, my dears, a surprise: I've fallen in love again.

"well it's a big big city and it's always the same"

Home to heat up leftover Indian food, into my room for a documentary when I smell food and smoke, open my door to two new friends who invite me to sit down, eat, play a game of cards. Then settle onto my (our) couch, look at my (our) table and...our...bookshelves and talk 'til it's light. And into bed to hold a hand and smile to sleep. Is this forever, as my eyes close, forever is awful long. But forever, also, is a thing I've never thought and here I am.

(That was yesterday.)

And then was today, when I danced in the rain.

On taking time off

-Perhaps I'm lonesome sometimes I think and look at my Modelo, the last of the night, taken with the herbal sleeping pills, one of the most thoughtful gifts from a man, ever, the other being a trilogy of books about killing god and teenage sex

-I dressed up in what could only be described as "cocktail business casual" and flirted my way to a job but have been wearing a long t-shirt, my dad's, since I got home at 4

-Broken Flowers I finally got around to watching, thinking I had seen it years ago and then I spent an hour researching "road movie" which is actually a genre borne of tales like The Odyssey and drafting my own hero's quest though hitting myself on my forehead with my palm because I actually expect to learn something

-I stare at all of my new furniture which is familiar enough to make me sad for what I don't know how to build

-Reflections on a cancelled promise which is familiar enough to make me sad for what I never tried to build

-The guy across the way looks in and I realize I'm pantsless and man we really need to get some curtains

-The air conditioner wakes me up just as things are getting good

-I'm very angry at grammar. Again.

-I've been here for a year now and still get drunk and ramble on the magic, the serendipity, the parched filthy glamour that is this asshole of a city: Romance that sticks me in the guts when I need a reminder or when I'm feeling complacent.  Oldest train I've ever seen creaking me reliably between burroughs. Exhaustion that's become fundamental to my being and my being here, makes it possible to function in such a way which is the only way. French restaurant that I return to because it really is the best. Vaulting ambition full 'o the milk of human kindness...where else but here, and I mean it, where else but here.

-And this, because it comforted me on the first cool day and I hear it's fall

Boozy Onion Soup

This stuff is warm, it's thick, it's resplendent with onions. And if you're feeling particularly bad for yourself, it's very helpful as it contains both wine and beer, which I'd recommend drinking while waiting for the onions to brown, and afterwards, and well into the night.

2-3 servings

1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
2 onions, cut in half and sliced very thin
7 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
A whole mess of thyme leaves (2 tbsp at least)
1/2 cup dark beer (I used Abita Turbodog 'cause I had it)
1 cup red wine
2 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Salt

Slice of bread per person (I used pita because it was all I could get)
1/2 cup swiss cheese, shredded (gruyere is dandy but just try to find it at my local supermarket...)
Handful of parmesan

Melt butter and olive oil in a large pot over low - medium heat. Add onions and thyme and season with salt, then stir every few minutes until the onions caramelize (this will take awhile and you can step away for a few minutes at the beginning, but once they turn very soft -- after about 15 minutes -- make sure to stir constantly and watch closely. You want them a deep, dark brown but not burnt). Add garlic and stir for about two more minutes, then pour in beer. Let beer evaporate almost completely (you'll be left with a gorgeous, concentrated taste) and add wine and more salt if needed. Let wine come to the boil for about one minute, then add stock and reduce heat to low. Let simmer for about 10 minutes and prepare cheese toasts:

(Butter each slice of bread on both sides. Warm a skillet over medium heat and brown each side slowly. After you've flipped the bread for the first time, sprinkle with equal amounts cheese, reduce the heat to low and cover with lid just until cheese is melted. You could also do this under the broiler or in the oven, but I like it in a pan)

Taste soup for seasoning, ladle into bowls and top with a cheese toast. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and serve immediately.