I’m waiting. Waiting…. waiting. We have prayed. We have cried. We have grieved. August turned into September, turned into October, and here we are. During these months, I’ve done much acupuncture, changed my diet completely, rested and relaxed, attended adoption seminars… Somewhere, in the midst of this, we felt this pull, this call, towards foster care. So many children out there needing a safe place, a secure place, a place to be while their parents are learning how to be parents again and be reunified with their children. This felt good, felt right. We were the last couple to get into the foster care class. We’ve been meeting once a week for 3 hours and it is intense. We would open our home to younger children (infant to 5) because that is where all of my training and experience is… We are willing to take a small sibling group so that brothers and sisters could stay together. We have the room, we have the time, we have the love to give. Sometimes, children in foster care do not get reunified with their birth parents and are then available for adoption. As foster parents, we would be eligible to adopt these children. We are so excited about this!
In our need to move forward towards fostering, we decided to move up my appointment with my RE. We were anticipating bad news and wanted to get it over with… we were ready to move on. We moved my appointment to October 7th. I woke up that morning to the great surprise of having gotten my period. The feelings of dread prevailed. We met with Dr. P and recapped our journey so far. We talked about egg donors and embryo adoption. We talked and talked. He wanted to do a quick ultrasound to check my ovaries, to see if there had been changes. This would give an indication as to what exactly might be happening… and if any changes had occurred. I told him that it might not be possible to do the ultrasound check because I had just gotten my period. Dr. P said that was actually perfect. Down the hall we went to an exam room and got ready for the ultrasound.
There, on the screen, was my uterus. Healthy and lined well. There were my ovaries… each with developing follicles. Each, with developing follicles. 10 in all. We counted them together with Dr. P. We counted them three times. A miracle? My ovaries were working! Dr. P instructed me to get dressed and meet him in his office.
Back in Dr. P’s office, he smiled and said that these changes were beyond great. Way better then he could have anticipated. He then told us that they were to begin IVF cycles that same day for two other women, and they had both came in this morning to find cysts on their baseline ultrasounds. And now, here I was, on my day 1, perfect baseline, 10 follicles growing, ready to go. He asked if we wanted to fill one of those slots… We talked and debated the pros and cons briefly, before jumping in and saying we wanted to go for it. A whirlwind of finding a nurse to do a calendar/medication class… paying our huge bill…. ordering meds…. and we got it all done. The car I follow on the highway on the way home has this license plate: CGODDOIT. See God do it. I do see!
October 8th I began lupron shots, twice a day. On October 10, I added the lupron along with follistim to menopur. I then did these injections twice a day. On October 14 I had an ultrasound that showed I had seven developing follicles. More ultrasounds on the mornings of October 15th, 16th, 17th…. On the 17th I was cleared to administer HCG injections (2 shots of ovidrel) to myself that evening. On the 18th I started a 5 day course of antibiotics (z-pack). I pray and pray for a sign that we’re on the right path. I find, on my closet floor, (the middle of my closet floor), my long missing necklace that I had lost hope of finding. The pendant, ‘BELIEVE,’ is face up.
My egg retrieval was at 8:30 on the morning of October 19th. My stomach was empty of food, but full of butterflies! The anesthetist hooked me up to an IV while my husband went to do his collection. I was taken to the retrieval room and the doctor asked if I felt sleepy, I said ‘no’… and then don’t remember anything else. I woke up to murmurings of ‘five,’ ‘five eggs,’ ’there were five.’ All I knew was that that was very different from 7. I was groggy and couldn’t find my words and started to cry. Dr. P was found and explained that five was good, five was fine. I slowly came out of my fog and we went home. I spent the day in bed with percoset and anti-nausea medicine.
On October 20th, the embryologist called and said that using ICSI, 4 of the 5 eggs were able to be fertilized. Because of the low number of fertilized eggs, the embryologist and Dr. P both recommended a day 3 transfer. I started progesterone shots, one shot each evening administered into one of my hips by my husband. Ouch.
On October 22nd, we arrived at the clinic for our transfer. We learned that 2 of the 4 embryo’s had evolved into a textbook perfect 8 cells. One of the other ones was a 4 cell and the fourth was a 6 cell. The two 8-celled embryos were transfered. No anesthesia this time — this one was easy. Acupuncture before and after while listening to guided imagery. We went home and I spent the rest of the day, and the next morning on the sofa. Progesterone shots continue every night until pregnancy is confirmed… or not.
And so, we wait. Today, (October 25), the embryologist called and told us that our other 2 embryos did not make it to the blastocyst stage and were therefore, not frozen. We had been really hoping and praying that these two would make it so that we could have one more chance if this one doesn’t work… or to be able to have additional biological children if this cycle did work. That is not an option anymore. It scares me. If those two didn’t make it to day 5, who’s to say what is happening to the two that were placed back into my uterus.
We continue on with our foster care classes. We are getting our two extra rooms ready for children. We pray. Tonight, I was baptized at our church. We’re not sure what we’re doing… but it all feels right. Somewhere in this, God has a plan, and while we don’t understand it, we know that it’s there. We wait to see it unfold. I wait.
