Merry Christmas and a Happy Ne… wait, that shot goes where?!

After another month on BC and no ovulation (ironically great news), we were ready to officially start our first round of IVF. So, on December 23, we began twice a day shots of Lupron. Yes, twice a day. Lupron is a menopause-stimulating hormone that puts your body in a baseline phase, which allows the doc's to start stimulating your hormone levels without fear that you will ovulate on your own.

And then, on Christmas day (shout-out, Jesus!), we started some real heavy drugs (Gonal F and HCG). These bad boys trigger your ovarian follicles to grow, grow, grow. All of this while continuing the two-a-days of Lupron.

During this time, Robin would visit PREG every couple of days for ultrasounds and blood-work. Unfortunately, during cycle #1 she got overstimulated and had to "coast" on her medicines for several days to make sure she didn’t get ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (OHSS) and have to cancel the cycle. Luckily, we didn’t have to cancel, but Robin was in a lot of pain because of the rapid growth of her ovaries. We were very blessed that this happened over her break from school where she could work fewer hours, or from home, or from her second homes (Panera/Starbucks).

A note about the shots: [Robin] "Prior to our transfer, we also started progesterone injections every morning. These entailed a 1 ½” needle that Jay had to do for me in my backside. I don’t know who hated this part more, but I think it was Jay. We had to continue these shots until 10 weeks pregnant or a negative pregnancy test.

They really weren’t that bad. And to be honest, it was a bonding time for Jay and me. We finally felt like we were in control of something in this whole process. Another awesome thing was that my dear friend (and IVF coach) Ashley sent me a care package. Among the goodies (like lucky socks for my retrieval/transfer and a mediation CD) were stickers and a sticker chart. For every shot or blood draw, Jay and I would put a sticker on the chart and after every so many I got a prize (usually sweets and honey-dos, or even big things like spa trips/massages)."

 

 

 

[Jay] "Outside of spiders, the idea of stabbing a giant needle into my wife was the scariest thing imaginable. Luckily, I found a YouTube video of a real no-nonsense IVF nurse detailing the steps. After the first few times, I felt much more comfortable with it. But man, for those first few shots I felt like Vincent Vega."

So, on January 6, we had our egg retrieval, which consisted of 13 eggs: 8 mature, 6 fertilized naturally. By day 3, five were still developing, but there were two clear frontrunners. We transferred those two on January 9. Unfortunately, the other 3 hadn’t progressed by day 5, so we had nothing to freeze. 

Three days after the retrieval, we went in to PREG and they transferred the two fertilized eggs. That started a period known to many as the "two week wait." It's a very difficult time because of the not knowing, being in pain from the roller coaster you just put your body thru, and having crazy emotions. But the worst part by far was the waiting (remember, no patience). The last weekend of the "two week wait" was Robin's birthday. We had planned a trip to Asheville, but then decided to stay in Greenville because Robin was not allowed to get a massage, swim, get in a hot tub, drink, or do anything physical. Still, we had a good time with some fun, low-key activities, like making gf pancakes and doing puzzles. However, the fun was about to end. 

[Robin] "On my birthday, [January 19^th] aunt flow arrived. We were still trying to hold out hope until the blood test on Tuesday (some women have breakthrough bleeding or spotting), but I know my body and knew we weren’t pregnant. The doctor confirmed."

By this point, Robin was in the throws of spring semester. While both of us were very sad, we weren't doing a very good job of processing feelings, and both us tried to hide ourselves in work. We both realized this about a month later when we went back to the doc to make a plan for the next round. The worst part about this meeting was that our doc expressed concern over egg quality since the other embryos didn’t develop. There is no real test for this, which means they could be perfectly fine, but it could also mean we need an egg donor. We also found out we needed to wait two more months to let the body fully recover before we started again. Thus, marked the beginning of a period we now refer to as the dark period. Both of us were still heartbroken.

[Jay] "Yeah, it sucked bad. I'm usually pretty good about playing doctor, but this was something else entirely because I was in pain too. My eternal optimism was beginning to fade."