I had no idea it would be this hard.
I've been through this twice before with IUI. You go in, you do the thing, you leave and you wait. And wait. And wait some more. The two week wait inevitably comes complete with a massive uptick in Facebook pregnancy announcements and pregnancy test commercials promising a positive result "6 days sooner!"
With IUI, I felt the stress a little less. Yes, I looked into my symptoms more than I should have. But somehow I knew it wasn't going to work and that was okay. We could always move onto IVF.
IVF is different. Financially it's stressful, sure, but it's everything else. The emotional toll of it. The medication and injections. The mood swings. The uncertainty. But more than anything else, the unavoidable realization that this is the end of the road. If IVF doesn't work, where do we go from there? There's no "next step", other than to just try, try again.
(And if I had Kim Kardashians bank account, trying again and again would be the obvious choice.)
When we had our transfer last Tuesday, I felt so, so hopeful. We saw the embryo hatch and everything went beautifully. (PS, peeing in a bed pan is THE WORST.) The Valium was a huge help in calming me and my stressed out uterus. Hubs was amazing during the next two days of bed rest, keeping me calm and in the damn bed when all I wanted to do was get out and go shopping.
(Denver has amazing shopping, ya'll.)
After the two days passed and we returned home, I immediately broke the cardinal rule of the two week wait. I started Googling pregnancy symptoms and when I was supposed to experience them. Technically, because we did a 5 day transfer, I only have to wait for 9 days before testing, so not even a full two weeks.
According to Google and 257 complete strangers, I should have started exhibiting symptoms on Friday or Saturday at latest.
And I have nothing.
Not a peep. Not a twinge.
(Well, that's not true. On 2 days past transfer, I woke up with what felt like the beginning of my period-type cramps. Discouraging.)
Hubs tells me I'm being too negative. And trust me, I know I am. I know that staying positive is important and your body can sense when you're being less than optimistic. I know the power of positive thinking. But, at the same time, I just can't help it.
WHAT IF THIS DOESN'T WORK?
As my doctor said once, the good news is I have 14 amazing embryos to pick from. Hubs swimmers are great. My uterine lining is fantastic. I'm young (ish), healthy and I have a fantastic set of boobs.
(He didn't say that, but I feel it necessary to list among the positives.)
The bad news is...the doc doesn't have a clue as to why I haven't gotten pregnant yet. Which begs the question, if IVF doesn't work, what's wrong that's preventing it?
My fear is that we will have exhausted all the possibilities of what to fix and will be left with just a big question: why can't I get pregnant?
I know, I know. I'm so far down a road that hasn't even been built yet. But it's impossible not to go down.
Especially because I feel NOTHING.
Two of my very good friends are less than 14 weeks pregnant and they both shared with me that their number one symptom was feeling exhausted. But I'm not exhausted. I'm not even kind of tired. I feel great and completely normal and I will be 7 days past 5 day transfer tomorrow.
Needless to say, I'm anxiously awaiting Thursday so I can have my blood draw and find out for sure. At least then the waiting and the torture will be over and we can decide our next steps, whether that be preparing for a baby or preparing to try again.
I'll keep you all posted. If I haven't had a heart attack before then.
XOXO,
2 comments:
Since we didn't "meet" until well after my BFP, I'll chime in with my story. I have long, strange irregular cycles. My dr required CD21 bloodwork to "prove" I wasn't ovulating (because apparently my charts for a gamillion cycles wasn't good enough) so we did the damn test, no big surprise that I hadn't O'd... He prescribed Prove.ra to jump start me and Clo.mid for the next cycle.
Let me just say I HATE my periods after taking meds to force them. They are pretty terrible. So when I picked up my scripts (on Mothers day, I'm a sadist) I planned to wait it out a couple weeks before taking it. I had had some "fertile CM" after my blood test but didn't think much of it.
I started to get all my Pre-AF stuff.. boobs hurt, total bitch, crampy. That continued for about a week with no period. So I figured I'd POAS, get my negative and start the damn Prove.ra! But it wasn't a negative! I had O'd on like CD23ish!
So, there I was, CONVINCED I was starting when I wasn't. Don't put too much stock in the symptom spotters, especially on the internet. Hindsight is 20/20, you can "find" symptoms you didn't even have... ("You know what, come to think of it, I did feel that tiny twinge, I just thought it was gas from those tamales")
So there's my story, I hope that you get your BFP this cycle so you can continue on to dispel this myth that you just "KNOW" when it happens.. because it's bullshit, you don't know.
Oh and just FYI, those crampy things 2 days after transfer, COULD have been implantation cramps :P
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Holly. I think you're very right about the hindsight. I think a lot of people realize they were having symptoms after the fact. My big thing is, I'm LOOKING for symptoms and don't feel like I have them. I feel exactly the same as I did with two IUI's that failed, and countless months of failures.
I know I'm being negative, but I also think I'm just trying to prepare for the worst so I won't be as hurt if it doesn't work. Ugh. You aren't the only sadist out there. :)
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