After we had Tessa, many people (who knew what we went through) assumed that we just weren’t going to have any more children; that we wouldn’t go through it again. I always knew I wanted to try again. It was never a question in my mind. Especially as an adult, I feel so blessed to have grown up with siblings, my two sisters, that I knew I wanted that for Tessa. I wanted her to have a sibling, a little brother or sister. It is really important to me. And while I know this sounds funny, but it seemed so easy to me the first time around with Tessa. Yes, we had to undergo fertility treatments, but it worked, and we didn’t have any complications. I just assumed that if we did it again, we would get the same results. I figured…I can do that again. That was really a piece of cake. What did I know?
So in the fall of 2010, we decided that we were ready to get the process rolling to try for another baby. We made an appointment and met with my doctor in November and after talking things through, we decided that we were going to try IVF this round. He still offers the IVM, it’s just that it’s no longer a clinical trial, it’s something we would have to pay for, the success rate is still about the same, but the cost is not a whole lot less than IVF, so we opted to go for what cost a little more, but was likely to have better results.
In January, we started our IVF cycle. The shots drove me crazy. I felt really sick them, and I had such terrible pain. I can remember wincing every time I would stand or sit or change position of any kind. I read in a book somewhere that when going through an IVF cycle, your ovaries go from the size of almonds to oranges. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it sure felt like it. I can’t remember every feeling so physically miserable. The shots lasted about 2 weeks, and during that time, my estrogen levels got a little too high. One of the things that you have to worry about in IVF is ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). I don’t know exactly what it is, but it has something to do with your ovaries getting too stimulated from the medication and it can cause your abdomen to fill with fluid. Often, cycles have to be cancelled because of it, and it can put you in the hospital, and if bad enough, I think it can be fatal. I was never diagnosed with OHSS, but my levels were close. To avoid excess fluid in my abdomen, I was instructed to not drink any water for about 3 weeks. I could only have sugared drinks, because those are processed by your body, rather than water, which sits in your belly (as I understand it). I thought that was going to be great, an excuse to drink soda and juice and lemonade all the time, but boy oh boy, it didn’t take more than a day or two and I craved water so desperately. It was miserable.
Then the time came for the retrieval. The night before the transfer, I had started panicking about the doctor getting and fertilizing too many eggs. I didn’t want to be left with a bunch frozen and have to face the issues of what to do with them if we got the number of children we wanted and still had embryos frozen. I had spoken to my doctor before the retrieval about my concerns and he said that while they were legitimate, there’s no guarantee. He had had a patience once that retrieved thirty eggs, but not even one fertilized. So we decided to go ahead and let him retrieve what he could get. The procedure went fine and we had gotten 13 eggs. I went back and forth between being very nervous about that many and feeling great that at least we were going to have great chances for success. Then we had the five day wait while our little embryos grew. By the time we came back on day 5 for the transfer, we had lost three of them, and we had 10 embryos left. The doctor kind of chuckled when he told us that we still had 10 left, telling us that our chances were quite good of getting a viable pregnancy out of these embryos.
On that day, January 31, he transferred 2 embryos, leaving us with 8 to be frozen. The next week went by so slowly. We spent every night praying over my stomach and begging God to let these two stick. I wanted those babies so badly. I had my due dates all figured out in my head as to what it would be if there was one and what it would likely be if we ended up with two. I was so excited to have a fall baby. I remember thinking that I would be really pregnant at the time of the Sandwich Fair and how much fun that would be. The stupidest things go through your mind. In the back of my mind, I was still a little panicked though. I kept thinking, what if this one works? What if we get one baby? What if we get two? We still have eight embryos frozen, what are we going to do? David and I have known from day one of when we cycled with Tessa that we would never dispose of any embryos because to us, they are our babies. They aren’t just a grouping of cells, they are the beginning stages of a child and it was our child. But what was I going to do with these eight left over? I started adding the numbers up in my head, if these two took, what if all the rest of them did too, that’s 11 kids, and that’s not for me. I know some people can do it, but I have no desire for my own TLC show about my massive number of children, so what were we going to do? I tried not to let it worry me, after all, God is in control and He knows my situation. But still, it angered me that I had to worry about this; that I had to worry about this kind of situation. It seemed so unfair. Not only does it feel like the rest of the world gets pregnant at the drop of a hat and for free, but I had to go through all of this just at an attempt at a baby, and it was most certainly not free, and you got no guarantee of a baby. Then on top of it, I have to deal with what to do with these frozen embryos. It just seemed like it was all piling up on me.
Well, a week later, I went in for my blood test before school, it was February 7, the day after David’s birthday. I was so nervous that morning that I could hardly breathe in the car as I drove in. I kept praying and asking God to give me peace, to help me calm down because I was so nervous. As I was rounding the corner about 5 minutes from my doctor’s office, I turned on the radio to try and distract my mind. The song that was playing was a song I had heard before, by Kerrie Roberts and it was called No Matter What. The chorus is the part that was playing when I turned on the radio and it goes:
No matter what, I’m gonna love You
No matter what, I’m gonna need You
I know that You can find a way to keep me from the pain
But if not, I’ll trust you
No matter what, no matter what
When I heard that chorus, it was like the Lord was preparing me. I had this feeling down in the pit of my stomach that I was hearing that song to let me know that it wasn’t going to be good news, but that no matter what I needed to praise Him. I got my blood drawn, and went to school for the day. I was nervous all day. I kept checking my patient portal, hoping I would see results early this time like I did last time, but nothing was coming up. It was in the afternoon that my phone rang and it was the nurse from the doctor’s office. She asked me how I was doing and I said, “good, I hope?” That’s when she said, “I’m sorry sweetie, but it’s not good news.” As much as from somewhere in the back of my mind, I was expecting it, it was still such a shock. She said that the good news was that we still had eight embryos frozen and that our doctor would like us to come in for a consultation to discuss doing a frozen embryo transfer (FET). So I numbly set up an appointment for a couple weeks from that day and hung up the phone. It was at point that I completely lost it. I went next door to my teaching partner’s room and she knew I was waiting for the results, and all she had to do was look at my face and she told me to go home and that she would cover my class for the rest of the day. In tears, I signed out of the office and ran from the building. I cried my entire way home. I was sick to my stomach. After all we had gone through, it didn’t work. I couldn’t comprehend it.
The rest of that day was pretty much a blur to me, I don’t remember much. I do remember that my brother in law stopped by and brought me a slice of fresh strawberry cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. He didn’t say a word, just smiled and dropped it off. It was what I needed, and for that, I thank him. My heart was totally broken. I had lost two babies. This wasn’t just an unsuccessful month of trying to get pregnant, these were my two babies that were with Jesus now. And just as they were in the arms of the Lord, so was I. There were times where I would be sitting on the couch or laying in my bed in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and I could feel His presence wrapped around me like a loving embrace. When I didn’t know what else to do, I could rest in His presence, because He was there protecting me and lifting me up. I spent so many countless hours, just holding Tessa and crying with her in my arms. While I mourned my loss, I was just so thankful that I had her. She kept me going.
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