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Monday, August 28, 2006
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Watch that screen, she tells me, they'll be coming up in just a moment.
I'm flat on my back in a small, dim room, knees hooked up in stirrups, calves dangling down, swaddled in crisp white sheets for "modesty". There's a doctor down at the far end, an ultrasound technician to my right. The embryologist, who I've just met, has disappeared into the back hallway.
I turn my eyes to the TV screen, which is blue and blank.
The screen flickers.
And then they're there. Two little round embryos filled with little round cells, captured in all their black-and-white glory.
They're so cute! I breathe, looking over at A, who's smiling first at the screen, then at me.
And for those few seconds, everything is perfect. I'm not thinking about the doctors or the nurses or the vast team of other medical professionals who have helped us get to this point; I'm not noticing the machines, or the hospital bed, or the faint hum of the electrical equipment. I'm not even thinking about the two weeks that await, when I'll get tense, and anxious, and wonder whether our two little embryos are finding their new environs in my uterus to their liking, whether they'll grow and take root, settle in, make themselves comfortable. It's just me and A and a whole lot of hope.
# posted by y @ 6:53 AM
7 comments
I'd been doing a good job of remaining cool thus far. hCG shot delivered Tuesday: check. (With minor confusion prefacing, but still.) First PIO: easy-breezy. So maybe this is what happens when things go just a little too smoothly. Because as A and I sit outside waiting for news of R's egg retrieval this morning, I feel calm, I feel collected, I feel sure that things are going exactly the way things are supposed to go. I feel good.
Then we get the news: they've aspirated five of the big follicles on one side. And nada. No eggs. Zip, zero, zilch. Nothing. I'm going numb. A puts his arm around me, tries to look at me; I stare at the far corner of the room.
Zero is the emptiest feeling in the world.
Did the shot go all right? the nurse asks. Was there a problem mixing? Every once in awhile, patients have issues with the mixing, or with the batch itself; it's very rare, but it happens; we're checking her hCG levels now. I'm only half listening as she tries to reassure me. A patient this happened to a few months back is pregnant now. This only makes me feel worse: I'm sure it's not going to happen for me.
The nurse is so kind; she looks like the women in the boy's family, jolly and solid and comfortingly round. We'll know more soon, she says. And then she's gone.
I have no body; I can't feel my arms, my legs, my head, my heart. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Let's go for a walk, the boy says, guiding my elbow, holding me close.
And so we walk. Down the stairs, out the door, past the other anxious couples who are trying not to look at me now. (The tears have started.) And because we still have to wait for R to drive her home (how will I face her? I'm sure she must be feeling awful too) we're stuck there at the clinic, hugging in the parking lot, walking concrete circles. The sky is blue; the sun is bright. And this is the worst view in the world.
Then, my cell phone rings. It's my mom (who's been waiting with R; they're close; when I'd asked R a couple of days earlier if she wanted anyone else with her on retrieval day, she'd requested my mom without missing a beat). The doctor's looking for you, Mom says. Then pauses. Says softer, Good news.
And so we race back into the clinic, ask for the doctor, get hustled straight into his office.
Ten eggs, he says, smiling.
And my heart that was somewhere in my stomach seems to be back where it's supposed to be, beating again, thump thump, thump thump. I'm so tired, and the next couple of days will be hard, hard, hard. But we're still in the game. One more step forward. And this is good.
# posted by y @ 1:18 PM
3 comments
It's not that I'm superstitious, not really, not usually, I swear. But each time I've signed in here the past few weeks to give the update, I've chickened out. I think I'm afraid that if I think too much, say things too loud, get my hopes up too high, that's when things will go crash. So I've been moving with toes inching forward, holding my breath, hoarding my thoughts in a great big knot in the stomach.
But yeah, I'm still here. And things are going. Really going. I'm back in Boston doing my cycle.
For the past couple of weeks, I've been dutifully popping tiny purple Estrace tabs left and right, knocking back folic acid and low-dose aspirin, turning up for occasional blood draw jabs and ultrasounds at ungodly early hours of the morning. To be honest, it's all been so easy on my part that things haven't felt quite real; most of what needs to happen has been happening to our donor. (Who's proved to be amazing, a total trooper, though it's obvious seeing how tired she's looked since starting the Follistim that this is all hard, hard work for her.) Meanwhile I'm the understudy, twiddling my thumbs in the wings, hoping I'll get to step up and take over soon.
So each afternoon after she's been in for tests, I sit by the phone between 2 and 5, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the latest report. E2's and follicle counts and more words and numbers that are only now starting to make some semblance of sense to me. My perch, by the coffee table, is awash in hastily scrawed post-it notes.
This afternoon though, the latest news: a whole heap of follicles are looking ready to go. Tonight we help her with the hCG trigger shot, which I'm studying up on (IVF newbie that I am, the whole world of powders and diluents and needles still freaks me out). All of which means that come Thursday, with any luck, we'll be gathering us some eggs at last.
Knock on wood, fingers crossed, keeping that bubble of hope close to my heart as we tiptoe one step closer still...
# posted by y @ 11:57 AM
2 comments 