The TWW (Two Week Wait) to find out if your treatment worked is the hardest part. Trying to have the will power to not test too soon because the trigger shot will cause a false positive. Trying not to get yours and everyone else's hopes up. Counting out the months to when you would be due if it did work. Trying to decide what your next steps will be if it didn't. Thinking about how you will break the sad news yet again to your husband if you don't get a second pink line.
I tested negative yet again, another failed cycle. All the injections, medications, fatigue, headaches, stress, excitement, hopeful planning, wishful thinking... was all for nothing, again. I didn't sit and ball my eyes out this time. Somehow through this whole cycle, I just knew in my soul it wasn't working. I wasn't surprised when I did not get the positive result I hoped for. I wanted so bad for my intuition to be wrong. Every injection I felt like I was just going through the motions. I felt numb and lacking hope. How much longer can this go on? How much more torture and disappointment can I actually keep enduring before I break?
Onto IVF.
We decided the next step for us is to start the IVF protocol. We are skipping over IUI because we know that IVF, while it may be more invasive, will give us the better odds. Speaking of odds, I am not really one for statistics. Outcome odds and statistics aren't even worth wasting my time researching and thinking about. When I was first pregnant, my doctor gave me the go ahead to start announcing because my "chances of miscarrying that far along were so small". My last pregnancy, we got to a point where my doctor told me my chance of losing the pregnancy was only 1%. So excuse me if I am not one for putting my faith into statistics. At this point, anything can happen so why even try to calculate what may or may not happen in a world where nothing can be guaranteed and yet nothing is impossible.
Like our last cycles, we debated actually telling anyone what we are going through. Again, for what reason? We have been very open about what we have been through over the years, with pregnancy announcements, talking about our losses, honoring our son's memory regardless of how short it was, hearing other's stories they've shared with us, etc. Why should this be any different? If anything, explaining what we are going through to people will hopefully mean they will be more understanding, right? Wrong. Those who have not lived through what we have/are, can't understand. They can be empathetic and supportive and for that we love them, but they can't understand. It's not possible for someone who's body works properly to understand everything someone who's body doesn't work properly goes through. And that can be a pretty lonely thing.
As I'm sure many others do, I am having a lot of anxiety about starting this protocol. It is more meds, stronger meds, more injections. It will be multiple injections, morning and night. Bigger and longer needles. It will be a longer period of time on the meds. It is a lot more scans, a lot more bloodwork. A lot more mental and physical torture, and yet, it may not even work. Even if it does work, there is no guarantee that I still won't miscarry again. But SO many people do it. It has become such a routine process for so many. Everyone else who may have gone through this did it without batting an eye - or rather, just didn't talk about the struggles. I find it so hard to believe that so many people go through this process and don't have anxiety about it, or have difficult thoughts. Most likely, and most troubling truth is, no one talks about it so it seems like it doesn't phase them. I can't be the only one out here with scary IVF thoughts. I am here to share my thoughts and stories, but if you have been through it, I want to hear yours too.
I had another procedure done the other day. All the procedures, all the scans, all the hands and eyes every time, it starts to desensitize you after a while. Starts to dehumanize you a bit. Starts to make you feel like all this intervention, all these things that have to be done to my body, is just so unnatural. Science is great and all, but isn't the beauty of pregnancy and childbirth supposed to be so magical, because it is so natural? Does forcing the process take all the beauty and magic away? Because I feel like I have lost all my beauty and magic. At the end of the day, if it will eventually provide me with a beautiful and healthy baby, does it matter?
I have lived for so long in the wait. For so long our life has consisted of more "we will have to wait and see" than "let's do it". When I was younger I was always up for anything, anytime, anywhere. Now, we can't even plan a vacation, or buy concert tickets unless it is at the last minute, and I'm not in the middle of a treatment. Because when/if I ever do get pregnant, my pregnancies will be high risk which means I most likely will not be able to fly anywhere, and I may not feel well enough to make it through a concert/don't want to risk something happening while I'm there or because I went. At what point do you stop trying to force something that may not ever be meant to be and just start living life again? When do you decide enough is enough?
So for now, we wait. We keep waiting. Waiting for test results, waiting to start meds, waiting to see if the meds are working, waiting for good news, waiting for the next steps, waiting to test, waiting to see if it sticks, waiting for a positive outcome, waiting for success, waiting for our rainbow.