What's Next?

August 3, 2013

After the frozen embryo transfer, I spent many hours being lazy. Now being lazy for me is stressful! I kept feeling guilty for lying around the house, which was not helping the fact that I was supposed to be relaxing and having no stress. I don't recall just lying around the house this much since I was 16 years old!!

I practiced meditation, focused on a positive outcome, envisioned our little embryos implanting into my uterus, telling the embryos that I loved them, avoided caffeine and alcohol, did not work out at all, didn't even take our dog for a walk of any sort and drank as much water as possible. My husband got up early with me every morning to give me my intramuscular shots and the horrible Lovenox shots (the most painful sub-q shots I have had to take so far, the burn was torture and the bruises last for days). While I heated the area from the progesterone shots to break up the oil, I had to ice another area from the Lovenox burn. But while I was feeling the pain of the shots I kept envisioning us having little babies and somehow that got me through the morning shot routine.

As the beta test day got closer I started worrying, because I felt nothing. I did lots of research to see what day the embryos should have implanted and what day my body should start producing hcg hormones so that I can take a home pregnancy test (HPT). It seemed as most women were getting positive results at 7 days past transfer. Well I waited until 8 days past and got a Big Fat Negative (BFN). Slightly depressed I kept telling myself I still had two days before the beta test and maybe the embryos just implanted late. I kept thinking positively and hoping that we were pregnant, I mean I could not fathom what we would do if this didn't work. So the morning of beta (10 days past beta) I took an early response HPT and once again got a BFN. That was it, I knew it didn't work. I certainly know what it feels like NOT to be pregnant and that is exactly how I felt, not pregnant. Some people discouraged me from testing at home, but honestly there is no way that I could have some nurse over the phone tell me my destiny. I had to prepare myself.

8:00 AM on Friday morning I went in to get my blood drawn. I told my IVF nurse that I took a HPT and it was negative and I am pretty sure I am not pregnant. She told me about how many women come in and think they are not, but they show positive on the blood test. That gave me a bit of hope, which I wish they would not do! I made an appointment with the RE for the next week anyway, just being proactive. I always am trying to prepare for what's next.

About 2:00pm on Friday, I got the call while I was at work. I have a theory that they call the positive results people earlier in the day and save the BFN's for later. So once 12:00pm passed, I knew I was in the negative category. My IVF nurse sounded sad, so I knew before she said anything. After four failed IUI's (artificial insemination) and four calls from nurses telling me I'm not pregnant, I can now tell by the sound of their voice.
"Sorry Elizabeth, you are not pregnant. You can stop taking your medications. I see that you already made an appointment with the doctor, so we will see you then. Are you okay?" I remained calm and simply said, "Yes I understand, thank you." The end.

I had to go back to my desk and pretend like my entire world did not just shatter beneath me. I let our family and friends know the results and kept working. I got teary-eyed a few times as I deleted baby photos from my phone and my desktop computer. I tried to look at pictures of babies during the process in hopes that it would make my body understand what we were working towards. Obviously my body wasn't paying attention.

Do we know why it didn't work? No. Are we now looking into adoption? Not yet. Are we okay? Sort of.

For short moments I think "we did all of that for nothing", "why doesn't God want us to have a baby?", "what did I do wrong to deserve this?", "why does everyone else get to experience having a baby, but me?, "how can I go on?" I do not let these thoughts stay long and I try to counteract them with positive thoughts and thankful thoughts of what I am blessed with. Our friends and family have been nothing but amazing and supportive during this journey and for that I am thankful. I just tell people that this is unfortunately the cards we were dealt.

So what's next? I have no idea! We meet with the doctor next Friday, where he will tell us what he thinks happened. Hopefully he will give us hope that there is still something we can do to get pregnant. My husband and I have not given up hope that we will get pregnant! So please don't give up hope for us.