Making the Call

I've said it a thousand times before and I'll say it a thousand times more, and anyone who knows me well knows this to be true: I make all of my decisions, big or small, slow at first then all at once. I will hem and haw over even the littlest things ad nauseam, collecting all of the information I possibly can, until I'm confident that I have enough data to move forward without whatever decision I make being completely disastrous. Thus was our path to deciding to pursue IVF.

When I last posted, it had been a few days since Ben and I had had our consultation with our fertility doctor. He never outright told us that we should do IVF, but was clear that that was our most promising path. This was both a relief and a frustration: while I’m relieved to have not been pushed in any one direction, deep down I think I was hoping for someone to tell me what to do so I didn’t have to make the decision myself. Ben and I of course did a lot of talking about it between the two of us (mostly at our local Starbucks), and at in the beginning I especially felt like I needed some time to process all the new diagnoses and prognoses and treatment options we had received in the last couple of months before making any decisions. 

There is so much that goes into making the decision to proceed with IVF.  There's the significant financial investment (fortunately for us, and we cannot overstate enough how grateful we are to be able to say this, but this was the least of our concerns - we understand that is not the case for a lot of couples and are sensitive to the fact that we are blessed to be in a position to not have that be a primary factor in our decision), the hormonal implications (sooo many medications and sooo many hormones, neither of which I am particularly thrilled about), the anxiety and stress of endless doctor's appointments and tests, the reality that even with the best odds we're still only looking at about a 40-60% success rate (with multiple tries), and, a big one for me especially, the complete loss of normalcy of what should be and is for most of biology the most natural process in the world (since I can't stop alluding to that part, I really am going to write a post on it soon) which leads to the constant questioning of, "Is this really my life?!"

But, it turns out that after only a week or so of sitting with all of those questions and deliberations, we both came to the conclusion that if this was inevitably in our future (and I think we both knew deep down that it would be whether now or later), there was no point in wasting any more time. We both agreed that we've built up some momentum with all of this in the last few months since we started seeing our fertility doctor and we didn't want to lose that momentum. 

A few days later, less than 2 weeks after our initial IVF consultation, I made the literal call to the clinic (at 8:30am on a Monday, as soon as they opened, naturally), to let them know that we were ready to proceed with IVF. I was so nervous (I hate making phone calls in the first place, and this felt like a BIG phone call) that when the call went to voicemail and I had to leave a message, I literally temporarily forgot my phone number for a call back. Like, I could remember some of the numbers but they were all jumbled up and I wasn't totally sure any of them were right. Luckily whatever I said ended up being assumedly coherent because I was able to touch base with the clinic later and schedule a start date.

From there everything has been more or less...slow at first, then all at once. I had to wait for an appointment  for preliminary bloodwork and an ultrasound to determine if I would be able to start this month (October), since I didn't know exactly where I was in my cycle since having surgery in late August (disclaimer: if you are a person who is bothered by hearing about my or anyone's cycle, hopefully you have figured out to stop reading by now). Then I had to start some medication to get my body ready to start the IVF process. Now I’m waiting for what they call a baseline appointment, which is exactly what it sounds like: more poking and prodding in various places to do all kinds of preliminary tests to make sure my body is actually ready to do the damn thing. I’ve been taking multiple medications and supplements for weeks and/or months in some cases to make sure that I am, but I won’t really know for sure until that appointment. 

One step at a time. For someone who usually thinks multiple steps ahead, this is my greatest challenge. As much as I want to just hurry through all of this, I’m being forced to slow down at every turn. Waiting and being patient is not my forte by any means, but I am doing the best I can do. As of now, that's all we can do. 

Until next time,

T