Gabby Writes

It’s been a minute since I updated about all this stuff.

I am currently in the middle of an IVF cycle. I have several medications I need to take daily. One was an antibiotic that I was only on for a couple of days. The other medications are to stimulate my follicles so that multiple eggs will be ready to get taken out of me. One is a shot that I have to give myself everyday. When I had the consult with the IVF coordinator, she told me that ovaries are usually the size of almonds, but since multiple follicles will be growing, they could grow to the size of oranges or grapefruits. She also said I would be aware of them. I guess I kind of am. When I lay on my stomach I can feel that they’re there, which I never experienced before.

There’s still more I have to go through, of course. I already had a couple of monitoring appointments, which is where they measure my follicles and take my blood to check my hormone levels. I guess today everything wasn’t quite high enough, so I have to go in on Monday. Hopefully things will be ready then and I can get the procedure scheduled.

Unfortunately, this may coincide with a planned friends trip to the Poconos. Since my family owns the house, the kind of can’t go without me. So, now I’m going to feel all guilty and think everyone is mad at me if I can’t go. Because I’ll be out for at least a day. I’ll go in and get knocked out before they take the eggs out. Someone will have to drive me home and also be around to watch me for 12-24 hours. I’m at risk for hyper-stimulation syndrome since I have PCOS. Liquid could fill up in my stomach and if it gets bad, I would have to go to the hospital. All I’m gonna want to do is sleep all day after the anesthesia, but I guess we still have to be cautious. Of course, now I may be too paranoid to sleep. They want me to have a scale available to watch out for a big weight gain in a short amount of time.

After all they add sperm to the eggs, we need to wait until any of them fertilize. Then we have to see which ones make it to a certain stage. Any that reach that stage will have the chromosomes tested. Any that have too many or too little won’t be implanted. I picked the option to have them used for research instead of them just getting thrown away.

They also told me that they could tell us what the sex of the embryo will be, but my husband and I don’t feel the need to know that beforehand. I’d rather find out after I’ve already been pregnant for a while. I also don’t want to become that attached at the beginning, which I would if I knew the sex. I’d already start daydreaming about the baby and would just be even more devastated if I end up miscarrying.

I am still finding it hard to get excited about the possibility of getting pregnant. If I have hope again, I’ll just end up disappointed and depressed. Honestly, I’m not totally sure how I’ll handle it if I don’t get pregnant again. I may just have to accept my fate and realize I’ll never have a kid.

I don’t know. I’m probably just going to be in this weird state of depression for a while.