This month, we had 7 antral follicles so Dr N suggested that we start before the efficacy of the DHEA wore off. If you ask me how to describe what I felt, I guess I felt good to not have a sense that it was impending?
I was trying to enjoy my time leading up to it, truly, but a couple of things happened which derailed the serenity of my last few free weeks. First, I had another unscheduled work trip, which coincided, very stressfully, with the first few days of the new cycle, and which I had to do just a few days after my boss unceremoniously told me that, despite working really hard for a good appraisal and peer ranking, I would not be getting promoted. (Gee thanks, guys, you make this so worthwhile!) The second, of course, was that my last cycle had erratic basal body temperatures, and I couldn't pinpoint the actual ovulation. And the third is that a close family member had a bad brush with health and a car accident that landed us all in the police station and ER late at night.
Life is funny. The first week on Elonva was fairly uneventful and this time I tried to sleep as well as possible, eat and go to the bathroom (sorry) as healthily as possible. I pretty much just abandoned a work schedule in favour of rest. I felt a little less tired than the first time and tried to keep my hopes low (yeah right). We had our seventh-day scan today and guess what, we had 7 decent-sized follicles and a couple of smaller ones.
I knew as soon as the ultrasound flickered on, that there weren't as many follicles as previously. I also felt less bloated and had fewer twitchy pains than the previous time. I don't understand why my response seems to decline with every reiteration of every medication even at the same dosage. It's very frustrating.
In the previous round, we had 15 follicles from 5 antral follicles at Day 8. 12 were 10-13.8mm. After the attrition of retrieval, fertilization and scrambled-egg embryos, we retrieved 12 — 11 mature, 8 fertilized — and from those, nothing to freeze or transfer. I keep thinking back to that awful result and I feel scared and hopeless.
As much as I try not to think about it, and I recognize that otherwise you just live with fear, it would be a lie to say it's something you can forget. The odds of the arithmetic this time really aren't in our favour, so we have to pray that the quality is enough to get us over the line.
I guess it is true that each cycle is just different. We waited from last month's 3 antral follicles to this month's 7 antral follicles to begin, but on a look-back basis, we've actually wound up with far fewer follicles than when we had just 5 antral follicles. It's so weird but it's really true that it's out of your control and you never know what is going to happen or what is enough.
Quality is supposed to be more important than quantity, but in that respect also, the sizes on Day 7 at 10-12mm, are also smaller or, at best, on par with the previous round. Dr N increased the latter dosages of meds to try to get the follicles to grow better and to improve the quality.
I really hope that something picks up for us and I'm trying to stay calm and positive. Please send us your prayers and most cheerful, optimistic thoughts and love. These couple of weeks are when I probably don't want to hear the low-down details of your child or your pregnancy. I might not even be able to deal with the hormones coursing through my veins and actually see your child (apologies if that sounds harsh, but it is near the truth on some bad days). If you have gripes about the education system or what nursery to choose, take it to someone else for a while. Doesn't really need explaining, right?
If you are reading this and you've been through or are currently trying to conceive, then I'm really thinking about you and hope you get what your heart desires. If you are reading this and have never had this problem, seriously, get on your knees and say a prayer of gratitude that no matter how big your own problems are (yes, really), you've never had to deal with this desperate emotional rollercoaster, nor had to consider thousands of dollars of expensive, painful and probably damaging self-injections and uncertainty.
More than anything else, I think it's crazy that this is our fourth stimulation. Fourth! I know the second was cancelled and so it's really the third, but still. The doctors keep telling us that we are young and there isn't anything to do but keep repeating the cycles until something takes. I keep thinking: what will we do if this does not work? We can't keep doing this. But what is there left to do, really?
That's primarily what I've been thinking about. I guess for a while now I have felt uninspired and angry, because I feel that work has penalised me for the personal challenges we've been trying to deal with, and I also feel like I've been unable to do the work that I want to do, because of my own distraction, and yet feeling tied to the health benefits that I need.
I resent that being on the cusp of a promotion enlarges my feeling like a talentless hack, trying to measure up against a constantly amorphous yet unreachable benchmark.
I've been asking myself if I really want to plough directly into adoption, if IVF leaves us wanting. In a way, I feel like I've neglected dealing with my own issues and ambitions, not in the sense that I want to do better, but if I want to consider doing something different for work or living in the US, and if there is no time pressure to adoption or having a kid, then do I really want to adopt and be an instant-parent right now?
I am well aware that doing so now is not going to take away the restlessness, and it would mean, even more, that we are in no position to change or stretch ourselves. If we want to enjoy ourselves, do we really want to just roll on and have a kid no matter how? Will I feel any happier from exchanging work angst for stress about teaching my kid, sorting out infant care, cluttering my house with expensive toys and learning material, or finding time to deal with childhood illnesses?
Sometimes when I think about this, I have latent anger from my upbringing and even for my parents, who keep telling me to be happy, content and have fewer expectations. No, I want to tell them, you can't tell me that now. My whole life, you've told me to have expectations, to believe in myself, to be the best and the most competitive — what does 'be happy in Singapore, living near you, subsisting on the shared experiences of old people and single friends' really mean, except wanting me to be successful in the way that they define success?
I increasingly feel isolated from the life that people have here, from my peers. The invitations to children's parties and full moons are so frequent and recurrent that I feel all I'm doing is watching other people's children grow up, year after year, and it frightens me how many years I've been watching them grow. I don't feel like I'm living my life. I feel like at work, I'm living holiday to holiday, instead of feeling hungry or curious in what I'm doing every day.
And I'm asking myself whether that is baby-wistfulness talking, or whether I am just unhappy, anyway, with my thirties? Have I just been substituting a baby for being happy — does it work that way? I'm still mulling over progress (that's me, always inert), but I hope to make steps forward, somehow.
