Hi, it’s me, well actually you. Just to start off with what you want to know most: You have a child. Two actually but that’s a whole other story.
He’s smart, cautious, kind (you know, relatively), funny, and he has your curls. At times, he can be a handful, but remember, you paid thousands of dollars to get to do this.
I digress. Let me get into what to expect this next year and a half.
I’ll start at your first consult at the fertility clinic. Be sure to enter the room with the air of someone who doesn’t truly fit in there. See, you’re different. You are there for a simple prescription and will happily be on your way, body fixed, ready to go.
You’ll want to pinch your hand so you don’t let the doctor sense the chaos inside as he escorts you through a plethora of potential issues you had no idea existed, that could stand between you and motherhood. Don’t appear too shocked when it hits you that getting pregnant is only the beginning. There’s a whole world of worry for you past a positive test, and it’s OK to be shocked that you haven’t thought of that.
Next, head straight to Google with the assumption that any of the ailments mentioned will soon be uncovered.
Dive deep, and go down that rabbit hole of symptoms, statistics, and outcomes between now and your next appointment.
I know you can’t help it, but please stop with your timeline. The math you’re used to doesn’t work in this world.
You’re going to go through a lot of tests before they just hand you any medications. It will feel like a waste of time but it’s not. Try and trust them, and stop being so impatient.
Be thankful you aren’t afraid of needles because you will have SO many blood draws. Be sure to drink lots of water before, and tell the nurse that your veins are tricky. They’ll try each arm on more than one occasion.
While you’re waiting to start the Clomid pills that will help your follicles grow and produce more eggs, I highly suggest connecting with your friends who have done this before.
Most people have zero idea what any of this is like, and many of your friends don’t know exactly what had to happen for them to get pregnant. But, by the time you’re done with all of this, you will have a better understanding of gynecology than you thought possible.
When it’s time to start Clomid in prep for your first IUI, that’s intrauterine Insemination, be sure to remind yourself for the entire two weeks of waiting to see if it worked, that there’s only a 10% chance that it’s successful.
You’ve likely already calculated the due date, figured out how far along you’d be at Christmas, and pictured yourself showing off your bump in the Spring. I know you cannot help it but it will only make you feel cheated when it doesn’t work.
Next, I want to tell you about The Two Week Wait.
The shorthand is TWW. These two weeks will be a complete roller coaster. One moment you’ll feel so much hope only to be followed by the assurance there’s no way this could possibly work. Don’t even try to sort out how you actually feel, it’s going to flip-flop at a pace you cannot keep up with.
A note on fertility Facebook groups: They sound good in theory, connecting with others going through what you’re going through, but beware. The moment you enter, you will be hit with a wall of desperation and anxiety you weren’t expecting. You’ll realize there are more hypothetical worries than any real concrete support. Leave them immediately.
You’ve likely mapped out 3 months on your timeline – because 3 is the average number of IUIs it takes to get pregnant – but what they don’t tell you is that you could do a round of Clomid and not be able to even try an IUI. This is a hard reminder that your body does not always respond how it’s supposed to.
Our next chapter is called, “Do not let this time become a black hole of waiting.” It’s too easy to fall into the Two Week time suck. Two weeks of waiting to test, and two weeks until you can start another round. It’s also easy to put things off until you’re pregnant. Please don’t do this. It’s hard, but try to live fully while waiting.
When it’s time to make the jump to IVF you’ll likely have made so many concessions it doesn’t seem nearly as extreme anymore.
At first, you’ll be disappointed to find out your pregnancy status from a doctor’s call and not two pink lines. Quickly that will become OK, as long as you don’t have to do IVF. Then, IVF will be fine, as long as you can use your eggs and his sperm. It’s natural to make the unnecessary call on whether surrogacy would be preferred over a donor embryo.
Again, I digress. Let yourself be excited when the meds arrive at your house. It’s an unboxing you’ve never experienced before and it will be nothing short of overwhelming.
Watch the video of how to give yourself injections no less than 5 times. When it’s time for your first shot, get the bandaid ready. You’ll be a pro within a few days but go over the instructions as if you’re following a recipe for the first time.
When you schedule your egg retrieval it will feel like you’re at the finish line. But this is a marathon, not a sprint. This is the end of a long training run.
It will take a literal eternity – one week – to find out how many of your 19 eggs made it to blastocyst. That is, how many eggs were not only fertilized but are viable after 5 days. These numbers will stay with you forever. 19 eggs, 11 fertilized, 2 blastocysts.
Thoughts of why only 2, will try to steal the spotlight of having 2 healthy embryos. You’ll want to dwell on that information, drown yourself in what it means. Instead, look ahead to your transfer date.
It’s tempting to try a fresh transfer.
To immediately see if one of these blastocysts will implant and become what you’ve been waiting for. But you’ve waited this long, and the statistics of frozen transfers over fresh make sense. After you agree to put your 2 blasts on ice, you can settle into excited anticipation.
Throughout this entire time, you’ll cling to stories. Stories about the friend of a friend whose cousin had tried everything and switched doctors finding herself spontaneously pregnant in between. You’ll know firsthand of a friend who did IVF 3 times for their first and before their consult with a doctor for their second, took a pregnancy test, and is now 6 months along. These stories will give you hope yet make you equally jealous.
Again, your timeline will play out in front of you. With a transfer date, you instantly have a due date. You imagine the temperatures when you start showing. You wonder if your water will break while running errands (likely not, only 15% do as you already know).
You’ll have an anxious excitement going into the transfer. You’ll be advised to sit in the hospital bed for 30 minutes, but you will enter every movement you make after that with caution. A sudden cough spurs the image of the embryo breaking loose. Stick, stick, stick, will be your mantra.
This TWW is the most tumultuous you’ve experienced. Do you test early? How early? What does a negative really mean? Are there false positives? Don’t worry, there are dedicated blog posts to each and every one of your questions, but the only person who can tell you to home test or not is you. This time, you won’t.
Waiting for the nurse’s call will be all-consuming. In mere hours you will have an answer. Of course, the Universe is keen on curveballs and you’ll find yourself in the inbetween. “You’re pregnant, but your hCG (the “pregnancy hormone”) is 35.”
You will once again have a shadow over your literal positive news. You know by now that the test in two days is just as big a determinant of a healthy pregnancy. The hCG needs to at least double in that time, but you also know that 35 is a low number. At-home tests register as low as 25 but you now realize you were expecting something closer to 100.
The day of the next test will be hard. A restlessness will overtake you as you wait for the nurse’s call, you recognize that you will be highly surprised if she says things are OK. You’ll feel the blow coming but try to busy yourself while you wait.
Walking the dog is a great distraction and of course, it’s when you will receive The Call. Sit down, the curb will do. It’s OK to cry, you have sunglasses and the nurse has heard it all. It’s also OK to wander aimlessly through the neighborhood with the dog. It’s also reasonable to not wear that shirt you’re wearing again until you have a baby and that baby can eat solids.
When your husband says you have one more embryo to try, understand that he is equally upset.
It’s true when he says you can’t both lose it. It’s your turn to lose it and his turn to look ahead.
Note the time when you feel your viewpoint shift. It will be noticeable. One moment you’ll be immobile on the couch, and the next you’ll be on your phone estimating your next transfer date. Just so you know, it’ll be about 90 minutes.
With a practice round over, you’ll up your game. You’ll designate a special shirt to wear and put thought into how you want to feel these next two weeks. You feel content while you read during your 30-minute post-transfer wait, and happy and relaxed on the bus ride home. You’ll swear this time feels different, just like everyone says it will, but you can’t be sure.
Waiting for the call after the first blood test will definitely feel different. You won’t be anxious until your phone lights up and suddenly you can feel your actual heart beating in your actual ears. When she asks how you are you won’t think before uttering, “Anxious but good!!!” knowing you sound slightly hysterical.
Your gem of a nurse cuts right to it and gives you the news you’ve heard once, you are pregnant, but this time is different because this time your number is in the hundreds. Yes, now you can breathe, your next blood draw is in two days and you won’t be worried at all. By now you’ll be a master at predicting the roller coaster, and know that in about 2 hours you’ll be looking up statistics for hCG doubling but in the meantime, you can allow yourself hope, and time to wash your lucky shirt again.
Let’s fast forward to the pure elation you will feel when you learn your numbers have nearly tripled.
Barksdale will bark and sniff at you as you jump and scream then lay on the bedroom floor, unable to stop smiling. Don’t feel ridiculous for how quickly you research the relation of high hCG numbers to twin pregnancies.
There will be one scare at 6 weeks. After holding your breath every time you go to pee, you will finally see the blood you feared would show up. The nurse who answers is a calm antidote to your spiral. She will tell you how normal this is, what to look for, and that you can come first thing in the morning.
You will hang on to the lack of worry you have the next morning as you bike to your scan. “Everything looks normal” will be your new favorite phrase, and when you hear the heartbeat 2 days later, you are absolutely sure that you have never been happier in your life.
Your feelings during the week between appointments at the clinic will follow a pattern. Elation for 1-2 days, hesitation for feeling confident for 2 days, then the last 2-3 days will feature increasing worry, Google rabbit holes, and an hour-by-hour countdown until you hear a healthy heartbeat.
The 8-week appointment will feel big. The stakes are high and you’ve been through so much that you are offended when the 8-week mark is tossed around flippantly by the naturally pregnant. You know too much. You understand what Ignorance is Bliss means and deeply wish you were ignorant to all that has to happen to create a life. Everything will seem wildly fragile.
At this appointment, you have a meeting with the doctor afterward and he will say words you will never forget. “You’ve graduated. You’re just a regular pregnant woman now.” You’ll walk away with a recommendation for an OB, knowing that when you go to your first appointment, it will feel much like your consult at the clinic. You don’t truly fit in there. You are different.
Also check out: The Hard Parts of Trying to Get Pregnant That I Wouldn’t Give Back