In Medias Res
It’s only been a couple weeks since I last updated, but it feels like forever! And hitting "Publish" on that first post 2 months ago feels like eons ago. As I’m writing this we are actually in the middle of our first IVF cycle, but there’s so much to catch up on. So much has happened in the last few weeks!
I imagine I’ll be explaining a lot about the IVF process and timeline, assuming many of you don’t know the ins and outs (I know I didn’t until we started down this road, and I’m constantly learning just how much I didn’t know). There are a lot of steps, but that just makes getting through each one feel like a milestone to celebrate, however small!
Our first milestone was getting our IVF protocol (treatment plan for types and amounts of medication) from the doctor on September 25. We were given a document outlining everything I would need to take and when - this included 5 supplements I was already on, a new daily medication, and 6 medications specifically for the approximately 2 weeks leading up to our egg retrieval. It was instantly overwhelming and I think I read it at least five times trying to get everything straight. I was so nervous that I was going to forget a medication that I put together a calendar so I could see in black and white the plan for each day. I think it helped me to feel like I was doing something, anything, and not just waiting around.
Not long after receiving my protocol, I also got the quote for all my medications. These aren’t normal prescriptions, they have to be ordered from a special pharmacy and shipped. From reading online I had ballparked that they’d be around $5000, but I was hoping that was on the conservative side - nope! All of our meds came out to be just over $5000. We actually paid for those the same day we paid the clinic the full cost of the IVF treatment, making that almost that the most money we’ve ever spent in a day (second only to the day we bought our house).
After got our protocol on September 25 and didn’t have another appointment until October 12, so those couple weeks of waiting to start were a bit rough. For one, I had to go on birth control, which I hate, for those weeks to make sure I was at the right point in my cycle to start IVF on the right day (our clinic puts everyone on each month’s IVF cycle on the same schedule). Two, I was having a hard time waiting and feeling like I couldn’t do anything to help or hurry up the process. Patience is not my forte. And three, if I’m being honest, I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we have to do this at all.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful - in fact, I recognize that we are lucky for so many reasons to even have this opportunity - but it still sucks. I can be grateful and acknowledge that it sucks. It really weighed heavily on me for a while just how unfair this is, how we have to invest so much money and time and our emotional and mental wellbeing into just the chance that we might end up with a healthy baby at some point in the future. I had a complete meltdown over someone I don’t even know taking their newborn out in public during a pandemic...it shouldn't have, but it hurt. It just reminded me that if things had gone like they were supposed to last year, this year I'd have my own infant to worry about right now. It bothered me that I will never be able to be that brazen or cavalier with my kid, because I'm having to move heaven and earth just to have a shot at motherhood. Blame it on the hormones or whatever, but it was really ugly.