Round 3

p.s. sorry about the small text, blogger will not let me change it! Zoom in, old friends!

We did in vitro for the third time this last summer. 

We started the process back at the beginning of the year, we had to find a new doctor because ours picked up and left the state (with our sperm!) and went back to California to stay. We got a letter in the mail saying they were gone and that was that. We were incensed at the time, first because that is some pretty valuable sperm to us, and knowing that it was no longer near us we went from 0 to 100 real quick; and two, we had just done a consult with him a few weeks before and paid for it, only to get a letter saying he was peacing out. 

As with everything, there was a back story and it wasn't as personal as it seemed at first. The two doctors we had severed their relationship, and frankly, the doctor in CA is the one that I do trust and am glad that he took our future with him. 

We made arrangements and got our sperm transferred to a new clinic here. I looked around and felt that this one is the only one in our area that I felt confident in their abilities. But we had a rough start. They were poor at communicating with us, I hope we are the exception to the rule, but even now I still struggle to get good communication from them, and I don't really feel like they care about us. It's hard when you are going through such an emotional process and you are paying them a ton of money and you feel like you aren't even on their radar. 

They are still our care providers, but I feel like most of that is because I still can't find a better option. I know they can get people pregnant, so I just kind of bear it. It's not terrible, it's just you hope to have staff and a doctor that feel like they know you, care about you, and want to help you through this hard process and to grow your family. I don't feel any of that. 


But that was a tangent, back to the story,

We started the process in April, which leads all the way through to finding out if we were pregnant on June 1st, which was the day I was set to leave for Girls Camp. They called me as the Ward Camp Director late in the game, the previous one was moving. I eagerly accepted, but it was before we had a schedule for camp or for in vitro, at the time I didn't realize they would line up at the exact same time. I would have accepted anyway, but it was hard. I relied heavily on the YW Counselor that was assigned over camp, and she did a lot of what the normal Camp Director would have. I am very grateful for her. One of the first times we met, I confided in her that we were going through the process; I had to, I just didn't see a way around it, and she stepped up and filled in all the gaps and I'm very grateful for her.

I think the process was not as bad as the first time I did it, with all the shots and meds and the ovaries the size of basketballs. It was really bad, but I knew what was happening so I think I coped a little better (mostly I did better after it was over). It is so exhausting, and draining. I gained weight, I felt terrible, I stopped working out (you actually have to). We prayed and prayed and prayed, we fasted, we asked people to fast with us this time. It's one of the things that makes this so hard, is that while you are feeling like this is never going to work, seeds of hope still spring up. You simultaneously prepare for bad news and imagine scenarios where somehow this is going to be the one. I daydreamed getting the call that said, "You're pregnant." so many times, I quickly washed it away with the memories of the calls saying "I'm sorry, you're not pregnant." and then felt guilty that I can't bring myself to have a more full hope. 

How do I have faith that this will work and stay grounded in the truth that it hasn't so far? I went to each appointment on my lunch breaks, hiding it from work and others is another exhausting element to it, but I managed. The 10 days of waiting passed as slowly as you can imagine, and I skipped the first day of camp, waiting by the phone for the result. That part worked out: work thought I was at camp, camp thought I was at work. We did take a home test the day before... I was nervous to, but we always have that desire to be the only two people in the world to know that we are pregnant, for one day. I can't imagine (okay I have imagined that moment countless times) what it would be like to just have Eric and I know. 

We didn't get the call until about 4:30 or 5pm, I think they wait to do the NO calls until the end of the day, but maybe it's all calls. Anyone that's received a yes that can validate my theory? Because man, they make me wait. As you can tell, we weren't pregnant. We were in our bedroom when we got the call, and simultaneously the doorbell rang and I was crying upstairs while Eric helped out at the door. 

Then we put our pain away and went to a movie, Aloha, and we both liked it. Afterwards, everyone else that saw it said it really wasn't good. I think maybe it was just the moment we were in, that it was a relief to us to escape our current reality. 

I went to camp the next morning. I knew whether the news was good or bad it would be hard to go, but I think it was a blessing to be there with the bad news. I had to not think about it much and serve the girls, serve the leaders, and work. The downside was the long camp nights, alone. It was a really long week. But I didn't spend all my time thinking about it, and I was grateful to not have to go to work and be sad at my desk for that time. 

The other tough decision was to start the process again right away, which we chose not to do. We didn't want to spend the whole summer trying and feel like that was all we did (and have nothing to show for it). So we enjoyed our summer and will soon make plans to try again. We had 16 eggs retrieved, 8 embryos on day 2 or 3 of growth, but only 4 by day 5/6. I can't remember if we transferred on day 5 or 6. We put in 2 embryos (we have every time), so we have 2 frozen left. 

We'll try again soon, so send up a prayer for us if you're so inclined.