The End: IVF Result

Well, they finally called yesterday, approximately 24 hours ago now, with the results of my beta blood test.  "It's not positive, I'm sorry," the nurse said after confirming I was in fact Heather.  Obviously my heart sunk.  "Of course not," I told her in reply, sadly.  "Yeah, your progesterone level was great, so the environment was there, just no pregnancy.  I'm sorry," she explained before going on to tell me that I have 5 frozen embryos left and wondered if we would be interested in flying back to do another cycle.  The news had left me feeling completely deflated, like she had actually just slapped me back to Earth from cloud 9--which is why I said "of course".  Of course I'm not pregnant.  Of course, because this is me we're talking about.  I've been living a foreign life for the passed month, and stupidly allowed these people to convince me that this could actually work for me!  That I could actually become pregnant!  I told the nurse we would love to try again, but had no money left so we would have to wait.  Lastly, she scheduled a follow-up phone consultation with our doctor to discuss the failed cycle and talk about what we should do next.  It's not until next week. I want to talk to him now.  I want to know what happened, what went wrong, and why he was so overly optimistic about my success when I knew deep down that was a mistake.  He had to have overlooked something.  I have not been able to get pregnant since I began actively trying at the age of 22!  WHY NOT??? Meanwhile, I was told to stop all medications and don't worry about taking the 2nd blood test.  The first result was quite clear.  I'm not pregnant.

I don't understand how the world is so over-populated.  I really don't get it.  It is so foreign to me that people can accidentally get pregnant "washing their underwear together" as they say.  I hate those people.  I absolutely hate them.  We went through the most scientifically detailed procedure there is in the world in order to have children, and even it did not work for us.  I don't know what is wrong with my body.  Why is it that everything was going so clinically perfect with my cycle, but it failed anyway?  It doesn't make sense. 

 I love you flowers from Mike 

 

On his way home from work yesterday, Mike stopped to buy me flowers.  I had called him the second I heard news, as I promised, so he was already heartbroken and aware, and completely helpless, and wanted to give me something to remind me how much he loved me.  As he walked through the store with the flowers, he said it was our old irony back with avengence to haunt us.  Pregnant women and babies everywhere.  So, in order to save me from going to prison with assault and battery charges to pregnant women and women with babies, perhaps I should stay indoors for awhile.  I agreed.  Although attacking women with a herd of stair-step children behind her is my dream...

But honestly, I don't want to do anything.  I don't want to go anywhere.  I don't want to see anyone, and I don't want to talk to anyone.  My 31st birthday is in 5 days, and it's completely ruined.  I want nothing to do with a birthday party of any sort.  There isn't anything in the world worth celebrating right now, and I would just appreciate spending it alone and quietly with no one but my husband. 

Up until this point, we have been overly open and extremely public with our IVF cycle.  We did so not for ourselves, but for the benefit of other people so they could see what it's actually like to be unable to conceive.  We have always felt that the world has no blooming idea what it is to be infertile, and wanted people to know.  I guess we succeeded.  Now that it's over, we want to end the website blogs about our fertility journey.  Not that we are closing the book to try and become parents, but just so we can go back to our private lives again.  The sacrifice to be public for the sake of awareness was truly difficult because when you get to the sad end like this, everyone wants to know how it went and talk to you about it, and all you want to do is be left alone to grieve for your unborn children...again and again and again.

There are enough sad reminders in our life as it is.  We don't need people to verbally remind us about our failure, too.  All the syringes and vials of medication, and the sharps container sit on my dresser.  My bottles and bottles of oral drugs and vitamins took over the kitchen.  IVF papers from our clinic are scattered about everywhere in the house, and our folder with the first photos of our now deceased twin embryos sits untouched on our desk.  I feel almost foolish every time I look at my battered stomach from all the fertility drugs and Heparin shots, or feel my aching hips from the deep inter-muscular progesterone injections.  All these things remain as silent reminders of our IVF experience.  The last thing yet to come is the icing on my birthday cake, as usual; the period I am to expect within the next 5 days.  

 Heparin injections on my battered stomach

To think we went through all of those months of raising money and insane pre-ivf testing, financial applications and calculations and legal paperwork, house sitting arrangements and pet sitters and flights from hell, choking down a thousand drugs a day, all the painful injections, weeks with swollen ovaries, ultrasounds, going under anesthesia, recovery, IVs, bedrest, fluid restriction and more just to get home, wait painstakingly for a day and a half for a phone call from the nurse telling us it didn't work.