So, they called yesterday with the progress: of the seven eggs retrieved, six were mature and four fertilized. I guess that's pretty good, but it still felt like a gut punch. I cried and tried my best to be positive. After ALL THAT, only FOUR embryos?? It was so much hard work, so much determination, so much money. And I thought we'd have more, to be honest. But I did my best to keep faith and hope going and believe that all four would make it to transfer day.
This process can be so frustrating, let me tell you. You're jacked up on hormones, you want this thing to work so bad, everyone around you is giving birth and getting pregnant all the time, and you're just doing injections and feeling like shit all the time. All the shitty feelings you get when you're pregnant, you get all that. Except you're not pregnant. AND YOU GET FAT goddammit. So, yeah, this is tough. Today's call was great, though, because we learned that all four are still going strong, they're all multiplying and doing well. Transfer will be Sunday and I'm going to try to work from home on Monday to just let myself breathe a bit. But the good news is that we still have four. Listen, if we ended up with four great embryos, I'd be happy. We could transfer two this time and two the next time. And have babies and a family, and that's all I've ever wanted. Something that I've found helpful during this stressful time is to meditate and visualize the embryos doing well, sending them love and nurturing. It might sound strange, but I'm finding it better than that Mindful IVF app I wrote about a few days ago, which actually is stressing me out. Because instead of focusing on relaxing, I'm stressing about things.
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11/30/2017 0 Comments an IVF resource & something funHeeeyy. Not much of an update today. I started Ganirelix last night (so instead of doing two injections, I am doing three) which means we're a little more than halfway through injections! Phew. I find injections get more difficult as you go because you have to find new injection sites on your abdomen (which is full of past injections sites). Also you get more and more bloated / bigger in the belly as time goes on. Today I'm wearing a dress I happened to have that's a size bigger than normal and I just feel incredibly self-conscious about how big my belly is. I'm sure no one cares/has noticed but it FEELS big. Also I'm gassy AF. Top tip! You will be gassy AF if you do IVF.
So I thought I'd share some coping mechanisms with you for this post. When I did my first round of IVF, I wrote a few posts on mindfulness and other stuff I was doing for self care. Those still hold true but I have a couple more things to say on the topic: How to Buy a Baby If you want to watch a comedy about IVF (I challenge you to find one), you have some limited options. I did, however enjoy CBC Comedy's web series "How to Buy a Baby". It's centered around a couple not unlike me and J. They're doing IVF with donor sperm. It's pretty funny and I found a lot of parallels in terms of how I'm feeling (with a bit of poetic license to make it entertaining). I binged it all in one day. Mindful IVF Speaking of mindfulness, I found this app the other day (so well into my cycle). It gives you specific meditations for each stage of IVF, from when you start the birth control pill until embryo transfer day. There are also other meditations that I haven't explored. It's pretty good, I've been using it every night for five nights and it's calming and reassuring. This is on top of my nightly viewing party of Terrace House, Aloha State, aka the best reality show EVER MADE. I definitely recommend have a very light TV show on hand for evenings. Watching stressful TV isn't great when you're already super stressed in your everyday life. I watch it while I'm having my nightly mint tea. Off to put on soft pants, byyyye. 3/15/2017 0 Comments infertility self careSo it's been an emotional time. I thought once I stopped taking the hormones I'd level out within a few days. Not exactly so, I'm still experiencing aftershocks. Also, with IVF I got out of my exercise routine, which I think is really detrimental at the best of times in terms of mental health. I had a big outburst last night at a family member who didn't know what hit him (!) and had to apologize this morning. He was more than understanding, thankfully. But I have been Dawson (above) for a few weeks.
So part of this whole thing is that my husband is the one with the infertility issue, which I've mentioned before. When our IVF didn't work, the doctor pretty much said to him, "You can't have biological children." As much as I've been going through, I can't imagine someone saying that to me. Of course I have dealt with it alongside him and gone through a lot but I still get to have my biological child at the end of this, so I just don't get what it feels like 100%. As much as I can say, "It will be your child as much as any other parent" I just don't know. This has been hard for me because J is a guy, which in our society often means that he's been trained to suppress big emotions and section them off. The problem with this is that he hasn't really shared this process with friends, or anyone else except me (not even a blog!) and I don't think he's fully processing. Going from IVF (with J's sperm) to IUI (with a donor) is a turnaround of a few weeks. Which means that I will start new hormones (oh gawd) in a week and a half. And J has had a millisecond to truly adjust to this. Our doctor recommended going right into our next treatment to keep our momentum, which we both agreed with. But it's also A LOT. It's just a lot. From November, when J had his surgery, to now... it's been really full on. Part of me is glad I haven't been working but also I feel a lot of anxiety around not bringing in any money for all the grown up expenses we've been incurring. Timing has definitely been tough. Infertility does NOT make the rest of your life stop. And unless you're willing to share what you're going through, it's hard to explain to everyone why you can't keep certain engagements, you know? So part of this has been our ability to access not just fertility treatment, but a lot of other services. We have insurance through J's job (I had great coverage through my old job, which helped too) so we have access to some psychology coverage. I'm finding that self care for me is (sometimes) J taking care of himself. This is hard because he's a guy, and not a lot of men will willingly go to therapy. I realize you can't make someone do this if they don't want to, but guys, please do this. Finding out you can't have kids has felt akin to someone dying. Really. It's grief, it's mourning loss, and it's hard to deal with. So my post-IVF fail self care is: - Going to see a therapist (me) - Going to see a therapist (J) - Keeping a regular exercise routine - Eating well - Mindfulness meditation - Allowing myself a day off when I need one - Talking to friends / using my support network - Connecting with other people going through the same thing when I can / supporting others If you are reading this and have other suggestions, please comment! 3/8/2017 0 Comments mindfulness during ivfI've been participating in a MBSR (mindfulness based stress relief) program since I started my IVF treatment. It's a nine week program, in which I've committed to attending a three hour class a week, meditating for 45 minutes a day and attending a day-long retreat (which I did on Sunday). This wasn't a part of my IVF treatment - I was actually on a waiting list to do this course for several months - but I have to say, it was a very happy coincidence (non coincidence?) that it happened to fall at the same time as my treatment.
I didn't do any reading about the correlation of meditation and IVF success rates until just now, but it actually increases the chances significantly. The science behind mindfulness meditation shows that it helps with a number of different diseases and illnesses (not just mental health issues) and that's just one of the reasons to do it. During IVF, I found my mediation practice to be sacred. It helped with the uncertainty, the physical and emotional side effects and it gave me something to channel all that energy into. I have cut down on anything I used to use to react to stress (alcohol, sugar, etc) and meditation helped me deal with it in a healthy way. Here are some meditations that might be useful Also, this app has thousands of meditations |
AuthorCall me M. The About page should lower those expectations of yours. Archives
November 2017
CategoriesAll Celebrities Clomid Femera Fertility Hormones Infertility IUI IVF Male Infertility Mental Health Mindfulness TWW |