The aftermath

Ok. Where to begin. Firstly, it didn't work. Why? Who knows? I suppose one can have the opinion that it sometimes doesn't work. In fact, according to statistics of other people like us going through procedures like this it only works about 60-70% of the time. There can be any number of reasons why a cycle works or doesn't and sometimes we just cannot know. The implantation part is particularly mysterious still today. Anyway, WE seem to be on the losing end of these statistics again and again so the statistics are starting to seem pretty meaningless to IM and I. In fact, everytime I see success rates of 60% (or something) I unwittingly consider our failure rate of 100%-60%=40%. Why are we always in that column?

So, here's how it plays out. IM takes a blood test early in the morning on the prescribed day (usually I go with but it's really uneventful and I skipped it this time). Then we get a phone call, usually early afternoon, with results. We've also learned not to answer it but instead listen to the message they leave instead. This time IM and I were at our respective jobs. They called her cell but she chose not to answer and they didn't leave a message....instead they left a message at our home. We had plans that night to take our minds off a negative result (as we figured it was since the home pregnancy test 2 days earlier was negative) and I was gonna meet IM there. But, there was potential beer drinking to be done and so IM wanted to confirm the negative so she could drink which meant I had to hurry home so we could listen to the message from the nurse together...it's super lame for either of us to do it alone. Well, it was negative. You can tell from the first word...not that we'd know since we've never heard a positive message. Such sorry and pity in their voice. I don't expect anything else. It's good bedside manner I suppose but still it's pretty hard to hear that pittying tone...."unfortunately, your test was negative...." Where was our miracle? Just one fucking time I'd like for us to be lucky. You know, get a negative (expired) home pregnancy test and be surprised by a positive blood test result. Why not? This kind of shit happens to people. My sister-in-law wins every fucking stupid raffle she signs up for....she won a fucking diamond once! A diamond!!!! And two beautiful kids too. No such luck for us. Even when all our ducks are in a row and everything is looking super positive we lose. Always.

Ok...enough....so then later in the day the Dr. calls. Now of course they try to think about or speculate what went wrong. They never have any fucking idea ever so the point of these conversations is usually unclear. Actually, it is to preliminarly map out what comes next (we have 3 frozen blastocysts still). But this time it was slightly weird. Our clinic has a on-call Dr rotation doing embyro transfers (that's probably not the right medical term but you get the idea) and the Dr we got kinda sucked. IM has a tricky little passage way through her cervix into the uterus and good Drs manage it perfectly. This Dr sucked. It hurt and IM had a lot of cramping. Then the Dr switched catheters blah blah blah and it worked, but not without a lot of pain for IM and cramping. Back to our conversation with regular Dr. Regular Dr indicates that having that kind of thing happen during a transfer (cramping presumably) can effect that outcome of the cycle and might be why it didn't work. WHAT THE FUCK!!! Really? So, the Dr might as well have just dropped the embyro on the floor? That fucking thing was a beautiful looking five-day blastocyst that essentually cost us ~$2000 and the donor to overstimulate and the on-call Dr fucks up the transfer. I almost, literally, cannot let myself think along these lines for too long b/c I just become furious! Well, we got a promise that the transfer for the frozens would be handled by our MAIN Dr or a pro, in the very least.

Good, right? No. Not good. The odds for frozen embryo transfers is about 30%/embyro compared to about 60%/embryo for a fresh embryo. Awesome! Our best chance has been official lost and maybe it was the Drs fault. So, this time we'll go with a two embryo transfer since the odds are shittier--hence the odds for twins or triplets is rather low (actually the twins odds are still 20% but the triplets are low). Great. Oh, yeah, and there's a 90% chance the embryo will survive the thawing process. But, to me, that big 10% is standing tall and proud and laughing at me.

Well, ala George Costanza's instincts, if our cycles fail miserably when the odds are in our favor then perhaps it will work if the odds are not in our favor. :)

This type of experience really kills the hope in a person. I unequivocably believe that miracles DO NOT happen! It is so hard to keep going and keep trying. The best attribute to have when going through IVF is be stupid and have a really short memory. That way you can blindly do cycle after cycle and eventually you get lucky. Luck? There's that word again...and I remember that I don't believe in luck. Not anymore.