#ivfsucks

I can’t even begin to put into words my feelings about how this last cycle played out. After the first nightmare we went thru on the first cycle… (eptopic resulting in one of my tubes being removed on an emergency surgery), I am pretty even keeled when things are looking up because I know SO many things could go wrong. This time, I totally gave into the excitement. Seeing that second line FINALLY showing up on the pregnancy test, then the digital tests actually saying you’re unquestionably pregnant.. my husband I were talking about which gender we’d prefer but at the end of the day unconditionally love no matter what, what names we’d choose. We saw the future, we saw the dream, we were engrossed in hope. I promised myself I wouldn’t give in after the first cycle and there I was… like an idiot totally neglecting my gut feeling to wait for the final hand off of the OBGYN.

 So we go in for the beta, and I’m convinced this would be a small victory until it was about time to worry about the next thing. Well the call comes a few hours after the blood test and BOOM… “Ashley the good news, is the test was positive” (celebratory dance right? – wrong), “however your beta was only a level 16.. we like to see it 50 so we want you to be cautiously optimistic”. There I was, shattered yet again, and walking back into a meeting at work that I just left to take the call. It broke my husbands heart. That man… let me tell you… truly a saint. He’s always so cool calm and collected, but this time… as I called him and played the “what if” game (what if we can’t have kids, what if this never works, what if…) he snapped at me stating he couldn’t do it right now… he was too upset. If I wasn’t crushed already… I broke. In my head I did this to him, I let him down, my body failed, it was my fault.

 By the time I got home that night he was much better and I pretended to be.. key word pretended. He went to bed, I stayed up.. and there I was.. alone with my thoughts. Queue the tears, the sobs, the lack of ability to breath.. and I had already felt bad about upsetting him so there I was… a little after midnight, in my back yard, sitting on the cold concrete… bauling my eyes out… talking to the stars and my loved ones (I believe you can talk to them when the stars are out… don’t judge it helps me cope), asking why this is happening, what am I doing wrong, am I questioning the will of god, am I going against the plan and that’s the problem? Yup, all the crap they warn you not to even consider… flooded my head.

 So fast forward 2 days and I’m back for the second beta to confirm if it was viable pregnancy or not as they want to look at the HCG levels… and sure as the sky is blue.. went form 16 to less than 5 so there we were… crushed yet again. Although I already saw that one coming as I started bleeding on the day before.

Another cycle bites the dust, another dream down the toilet and another angel baby up there.

 Earlier in the week we also had what I like to call the “WTF” appointment. I warned my husband that I wasn’t emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc ready to sit down with the doctor and talk about what went wrong. I knew they wouldn’t be able to tell me anything concrete and I wasn’t ready to hear about the next test they’d run on me to tell me if something is wrong or new tactic they’d try to get the next cycle to work. I just couldn’t do it.

 But we went to the appointment anyway. My husband is an EXTREMELY logical thinker while I on the other hand tend to work off of instincts and emotions. He’s the ying to my yang for sure. Well of course we went in there and I asked what happened… of course no straight answer but more than likely chromosomal issues which if we want to screen for next time is 6k out of pocket and we’d have to do another fresh cycle that I’m not even ready to wrap my head around. Then there’s a test they can do, similar to the scratch test (which was also brought up) where they can tell you exactly what date to do the transfer on… the ultra sounds give you a visual but this test I guess “tests the soil to make sure the crops will grow” (the doctor referred to my uterus as a garden where the soil might need to be churned with a scratch test before they plant the seed). Weird right?

 We walked out of there… not with a concrete plan, but with options as I refused to sign anything as I wasn’t ready and due to insurance issues… we’d have to wait a few months to do anyway. My husband was optimistic and felt good about the conversation (let’s face it… they weren’t talking about churning any gardens, scratch tests, types of cycles, etc on him.. so maybe that’s why he took it better than me) but I was so incredibly overwhelmed as they threw a lot of info at us, all of which I wasn’t ready to hear. I’m still not ready. This cycle kicked my ass… my hope in a positive outcome was diminished. I know it’s going to work out in the end. And if IVF doesn’t… we have other options. But let’s face it ladies, when a woman has something in her mind set… and it doesn’t happen, some of us don’t take it that well. Especially when it’s the third time. Especially when EVERYONE who knew I was going thru this was doing the “3rd times the charm”. Especially when we went into this cycle thinking it’s our last shot of 2018. Especially when this is supposed to be a natural process, and it’s turned into anything but. Especially when it’s a dream you want so bad.