You know how sometimes you want to tell your friends something but for whatever reason, you don't tell them? Know how there's that little feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know that you haven't been, oh I don't know, 100% forthright with them? Well, we do. We've told a couple of white lies and it's now time to come clean. So, here goes...
We love our friends. I mean, we really love our friends. We know that they love us and want only that which is best for us. And because of that, they care about how our little process to knock Heidi up is going. Well, the flip side of that caring is the difficulty that comes when we have to answer those questions asked with only caring and concern with bad news. "No...the process didn't work. Heidi's fine. Really, she's fine. Don't ask her though. She doesn't want to talk about it. Don't look too closely at her either. Her eyes are a little red from grieving the loss, again, of what might have been." There's a weight that comes with this process. Every try is met with excitement and anticipation. This will be the time it works! Well, when it doesn't, it gets more and more difficult to say those words. It gets more and more difficult to hear the words "I'm sorry, maybe next time." So, after the last time our attempt didn't work, we decided to just, well, to just tell a teeny tiny white lie. Our lie was that, well, nothing was happening. In real life, we kept going.
In June, we tried another insemination. This was the first one after Heidi's surgery. We felt like this was going to be it. Heidi's endometriosis was burned and sizzled out. It was like her uterus was brand spanking new. We were going to inseminate the hecks out of it! So, we scheduled our appointments discretly at work. If anyone asked, we just responded "Oh, well, we're just having some tests done...". And we did our thing and yet again, we took the dreaded pregnancy test (which we bought a day early because we just KNEW it worked...Heidi didn't have ANY symptoms that she was getting her period, we just KNEW it was going to work!). Well, no exaggeration, not even two hours after we get the evil "Negative" response on the test, which we justified saying that it was because of the shots, or something, but there was a reason, I guarantee you! Anyway, not two hours later, Heidi gets her period. That, my friends, is what we like to call adding insult to injury. Not only did we get raped, but damn, someone forgot the lube. Ouch! We were, however, glad that no one knew. It made the pain of dealing with it less, er, public? I don't know how to articulate this. Sometimes, though, you just have to deal with your pain privately. That's what we chose to do.
So, now what? We were at the end of our financial rope, so to speak. We had bet against the house and yes, my friends, the house won. Four inseminations and a surgery later and still no pregnancy. And a significantly diminished bank account. What now? We talked about taking a break, saving some more money, paying off some of the credit cards we used to buy sperm, taking a much needed emotional break. But if you know my wife, you know that she is slightly impatient. So, my financial planner/wife took a looksie at our 401(k) plans and figured out we could take a loan and pay for not just an IUI, but an IVF. Yes, I said it...I-V-F. In Vitro Fertilization. A little test tube baby, if you will. Now, again, if you know my wife and you know how much I love my wife, when she gets a look in her eye, a look that says how important something is to her, you also know that there is no way I can say no to her. So, we made the call to the doctor and got some more detail.
Here's the short and skinny of the detail...money, money and more money. The drugs alone cost $4000 - $5000. Then there's the doctor's fees. Then there's the embryologist fees. There's extraction fees. There's implantation fees. Yea, I think you get the point. There are a lot of fees. About $11,000 total. But again, if you see my wife's eyes and how much this means, you know that it's only money. A lot of money, mind you, but only money. So, we decide to go for it...IVF it is!
Now we have a whole new ballgame to learn. We knew all of the IUI terminology and processes. Now, we have a new game with new terminologies and new procedures. OMG...I'm not a frigging sponge here! And much to Heidi's chagrin, a lot more shots. Some in the butt and some in the belly. God love my little Heidi for what she's taken on with this process. She's become a pin cushion for love. I'm so poetic. :)
So, in July, we started with the IVF process. We were super lucky in that our fabulous friends, Laura and Tootie, had some left over meds from having Liam (our amazingly beautiful God son, I might add). And oddly enough, our insurance covered some of the meds. Cha-ching! Can you say way better than a coupon, my friends? Yes! So, our nurse orders a whole regimen of drugs. A lot of drugs. A lot of needles!!!
We start with an ultrasound to count follicles. Weird because in IUI, we tried to make sure we didn't have too many follicles. In IVF, we need more. It's like it's bass ackwards! So, we do our first ultrasound a couple of days after she stops birth control (funny irony, isn't it?...she has to take birth control to get preggars) and we do a little easter egg basket count...how many eggs are coming to the party? She has lots of little follicles. Check. Next ultrasound is about a week later. We have to make sure all of the eggs are growing according to plan. We have to be very careful not to let her ovulate too so we are counting, measuring and managing. OMG. I'm tired for her! Her little fallopian tubes must be exhausted! She had ten follicles, eight about the same size, two we might consider the runts of the bunch. Two days later, another ultrasound. A small little aside here...when I say Heidi is a trooper, I mean a super trooper! In the past week, she's had three vaginal probes (ultrasounds), at least one shot per day in her stomach (on the day of the third ultrasound, we introduced yet another shot into the regimen so that makes two shots per day), blood draws, medicines, the works. And she does this all without complaint. I'm not exactly an expert shot giver, you know!She has small bruises on her belly from the shots (uh, check out her body fat...none!) She's on all types of hormones, her body is doing all kinds of new and strange things and yet, every day, she takes more and more and does it without even hinting at how uncomfortable it all is. This, my peeps, is why I am madly in love with her and lucky to have married the most amazing woman in the entire universe (plus, she's hot, I mean, really hot).
So, as I sit and draft our blog, not knowing when we are going to post it, I wait for tomorrows ultrasound. We gotta check those eggs again! If all works out, we extract on Thursday.
To our friends we may have told a little white lie to, we are sorry. We love you and we know you love us too. We just needed a little private grieving time to process the pain of being unsuccessful in realizing our next dream. And we know you care...so much! And we love you for it. So, until we come clean, we'll be keeping our fingers crossed. We know that if you knew, you'd be crossing your fingers too!
