I’ve been on a little hiatus since my last post, taking a very rare moment between appointments and work to go visit my family on the east coast of Canada. Living so far away from where I was born is both a blessing and a curse. It often means going through this stuff alone, but…
Despite the failure of our first egg retrieval cycle, with 7 embryos and 3 transfers (2 failed implantation + one 7w miscarriage), I went into this cycle with so much hope. I surprised myself sometimes with how I was able to let the past go and really be positive about the future and our outcome….
IVF is one major life disruptor. One cycle with one transfer can involve 5-6 bloodwork appointments, 4-8 internal ultrasounds, getting pumped with liquids for external ultrasounds, timed and temperature controlled injections daily or multiple times daily for two weeks or more, popping 20+ supplements a day, going to the clinic sometimes 2-3 early mornings in…
At this point we had been working on growing our family for 15 months. Not a super long time, as some people go through years and years struggling with infertility. When you have repeat failure to conceive there are lots of weird things that start to become triggers – and now that I’ve been through…
— Skip this one if you’re squeamish. — Since going through this I have become a FIERCE advocate for women’s rights and abortion rights. I always was pro-choice, because I truly believe women aren’t out there in droves trying to abort babies late in pregnancy. I never thought I’d have an “abortion”, but that’s what…
I was pregnant. Pregnancy after loss is a beast, even if the loss was barely after finding out you’re pregnancy in the first place. My previous loss was so early that I didn’t really know it was happening, had it not been for my beta bloodwork telling me so. When I got this positive, the…
Our transfer day. There’s so much build up to these “major” moments that are catalysts for possible life changing events. It’s wild how lacklustre the experience is and how uneventful it is after the fact. More waiting. The hardest part of IVF is the waiting game. The complete unknown and it feels like every appointment…
Christmas. This can bring challenges when it comes to fertility treatment as many clinics go into a slowdown of sorts over the holidays (if you’re undergoing treatment now – it’s October as I write this, it’s worth asking about clinic closures and how they might impact your cycle). My period came on Dec 20, right…
Day 4-5 is interesting after an egg retrieval. They give you an update, and it could mean absolutely nothing. From day 4-6 everything can change for the better or the worst. For us, it was luckily for the better. On day 6 the clinic called to tell us that they had biopsied and frozen 6…
Attrition is something they somewhat prepare you for. After the egg retrieval, you begin to play a new waiting game. You’ve done your part, and now it’s time for the eggs and sperm to do their’s. Immediately after the retrieval, they look at how many eggs are mature. We got lucky and 13/13 were mature….