Almost a new year…

Well. As many of you already know…I am NOT pregnant. As usual. We had to take the month of November off because our daughter had to have surgery, and it was just too much to handle. I am now on cycle day 3 (for those of you have no idea what that means…it doesn’t really matter), and I’ll start taking femara tonight. Femara (letrozole) is used to treat breast cancer in postmenopausal women. It lowers estrogen levels, which may slow the growth of certain types of breast tumors that need estrogen to grow in the body. Femara is often used as a fertility drug because it decreases estrogen, which results in an increase in FSH. An increase in FSH stimulates follicles to grow. Surprisingly I respond very well to femara. So well in fact that my doctors are left scratching their heads. I’ve gone through 2 cycles of IVF, which means I’ve been on very high doses of injectible medication. I didn’t respond well during either cycle. Before that I used a different injectible medication for IUI cycles. I didn’t respond well for those either. Unfortunately we know that my eggs are crap. We know that because I have done IVF twice (different protocols each time) with roughly the same the response. So while the femara is giving me 4-5 good sized follicles…most, if not all of those are probably not good quality. I’m not writing all that to be a debbie downer. I’m simply stating facts. I have a 10% chance of conceiving even WITH IVF. My chances are even lower with IUI (which is what we doing this last and final cycle). Despite those grim statistics, we are trying to stay as positive as possible. The truth is that it only takes 1. And someone has to be in that 10%. It sure as hell could be me!

When we started back up with fertility treatments in October our plan was to use 1 vial (we had 3 vials left of Finns donor at the time) each cycle for October, November, and December. That meant that by the new year we would be pregnant or not. We had to take November off. So that leaves us with 2 vials right now. We could do 2 more cycles. However, we’ve decided not to. When January rolls around we will have been trying to get pregnant again for 3 years and 3 months. That’s a long ass time. There has to be an end. We had planned for that end to be the end of the year. Part of me was devastated when we made the choice to be done when we ran out of vials. Part of me was relieved that this shit show is coming to an end. I had really come to terms with December being our last try. And January being a new year, fresh start…pregnant or not. So we are using our last 2 vials. But we are using both of them this cycle. I can’t NOT use the vials. But I honestly just need this to be over. I hope it ends with me being pregnant. I realize that what I’ve written so far might lead you to believe that I’ll be fine if I don’t get pregnant. I mean, I WILL be fine. But I will be completely devastated. If this cycle goes like my last cycle, our iui’s will be on Dec. 9th and 10th. Which means I will be taking a pregnancy test on Christmas Eve. If it’s positive can you say BEST mother f’n Christmas EVER!! If it’s negative…well, I just have to get through it. My wife will be gone over the holidays so we’ll both be crying alone.

A lot of people will say things like “at least you have Finn, you’re so blessed”, or “it could be worse”, or “if it’s meant to be, it will be”. I get that most people say those things and mean well. And I am blessed. 100%. I do have Finn. And she is spectacular. Her existence is so appreciated…I feel lucky to be her mom. Yep, it could be worse. It could always be worse, right? But I’m allowed to feel sad. I’m allowed to fall apart. I’m allowed to be pissed. And telling me it’s not happening because it’s just not meant to be is a pretty shitty thing to say actually. It has nothing to do with fate, or destiny. It has everything to do with the fact that some women are just infertile and my wife (as butch as she is) just doesn’t have sperm. We’ve spent over 3 years and $30,000 to try to make this happen. I’ve gone through painful tests. I’ve injected drugs into my body that make me feel ill and crazy. Our marriage almost didn’t survive this…THAT Is how hard all of this is. And before anyone says “well, you’re lucky that you could even DO IVF, most people can’t afford it”…I know there are plenty of people that can’t do IVF for various reasons. Money is usually a big one. Some people are lucky and have IVF coverage through their insurance. We do not. NOTHING in regards to IVF was covered by our insurance. We basically had to beg, borrow, and steal (ok, we didn’t really steal) to make it happen for us. And we couldn’t have done it if my parents weren’t generous enough to help us out with the money that we just couldn’t come up with. So don’t call us lucky. Making IVF happen had NOTHING to do with luck. We made it happen. We sacrificed. My wife worked constantly. We sold our motorcycle, our motorcycle trailer, my wifes truck, our mother f’n house. Lucky? Um, no.

So, here we are. ONE MORE CHANCE. It’s sad and scary to write that. Sad because it just might not happen for us. Scary because I wonder if my wife will resent me. She would have like 10 kids if it were up to her. Our life will change pretty drastically regardless of the outcome. If I’m pregnant…I’m pregnant. That’s a big change. A very welcomed one…but still an adjustment. If I’m not pregnant…that’s it. Our life will go back to “normal”. No more blood tests. No more fertility meds. No more tracking my cycles. No more living in 2 week intervals. We will be a family of 3. And that is perfect and heartbreaking all at the same time.

-C