A Mosaic of Emotions: From IVF Baseline to Retrieval Recovery
Here's the thing about living with infertility - I’ve learned to hold hope in just a small pocket of my heart, sometimes hidden from my conscious all together, and oftentimes I’ve made it my business to charge ahead without expecting anything at all.
Based on my clinic’s calendar back in 2018, I wasn’t able to start IVF directly following my third IUI, so we ran double plays - we scheduled both a fourth IUI (just in case …) while preparing a contingency plan of outlining our stims dates and appointments on the calendar assuming we proceeded to IVF.
Spoiler - the fourth IUI went just the same as the first three.
However, the negative pregnancy test didn’t sting quite as much for me.
I knew just two weeks later that I’d be baselining for IVF. I was extremely nervous about what IVF was going to mean for my body, my marriage, my identity and my ability to become a mother, but I also knew it was the best chance we had at that point.
My clinic requires IVF bootcamp - and looking back, I can’t imagine jumping into the process without it or something similar. Shortly before our baseline appointment, we spent 6 hours at the clinic. We met with each department and team member that we would engage with during our treatments - from the doctor, to the nurses, the pharmacist, the psychologist, the admin team, and the financial aid counselors. We had in-depth conversations with each - from what to expect to how to plan to who to call with questions or concerns.
On the morning of my first monitoring visit, or my baseline appointment, I felt something like an electric buzz inside. My nerves were turning into hopeful energy, and anticipation was foremost in my mind. I had blood drawn for labs, and a transvaginal ultrasound, and was sent on my way. A message from my nurse a few hours later confirmed we were to start medications the following morning.
I wasn’t afraid of the injections. I didn’t struggle with finding a rhythm, or scheduling my shots. In fact, I felt hopeful. With each injection, we were moving in the direction of parenthood.
We were working diligently to create our baby.
Because we were planning on moving from egg retrieval directly to a fresh embryo transfer, my AMH levels required a “slow and steady” method for stimulation. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would cause me all sorts of frustration, and I would end up on stims medications with daily monitoring visits for 13 consecutive days before my doctor felt like triggering would land us a beneficial egg retrieval procedure. I was disappointed in the number of mature follicles that were being counted, but at that point I knew there wasn’t anything I could do but keep pushing forward.
I woke up to find that 16 eggs had been retrieved, a higher number than we’d thought going into the surgery. However, any feelings of relief were short lived.
Of those, 12 matured, 8 fertilized, and we were left with 4 embryos on Day 5. At the time, our doctor chose the “best” embryo for fresh transfer, and we had the other 3 embryos biopsied for PGS testing and then frozen for future use.
Recovering from the egg retrieval procedure was full of mixed emotions.
The actual surgery wasn’t too hard on my body physically, but mentally I’d hoped for better numbers, and higher outcomes. I knew that avoiding OHSS was critical as I transitioned from stims meds to fresh transfer prep, and I was anxious about any symptoms popping up and cancelling my ability to move forward as planned.
Several outside factors during that time created some significantly negative emotions, and balancing those with my hopes and optimism for our upcoming transfer was really really difficult. If you’re in a situation like this, please know you’re not alone, it’s not your fault, and the timing of life tends to be more ironic than logical.
Waiting for transfer day to arrive felt like a Birthday and a Holiday all in one. I mean, I was doing PIO injections twice a day, but I was so hopeful that being reunited with our first embaby would be the best start to motherhood.
