This week on Oprah (yes, I watch Oprah while eating Bon Bons and vegging on the couch) anyhow, there was a girl on there struggling with infertility. I didn’t realize that I still felt so emotional about it all. The woman and her story really struck a tender spot with me. I almost cried while watching it because everything she said brought back all of the memories of IVF and how stressful and emotional it was. Everyday I look at my babies and feel so blessed and lucky to finally have my greatest dream, to be a mom. For so many women that dream is unrealized and it makes me so sad for those women. Going through IVF and infertility was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, physically and emotionally.  Of course it was worth it as I have my babies, but I would never, ever want to do it again.

It starts with waiting. Waiting to save up enough money for a cycle. (On a side note, the fact that most insurance companies do not pay for one penny of IVF is a joke since it is a medical problem that makes IVF necessary in the first place). Waiting on the results of the many, many tests you have to undergo before you can begin the actual IVF. I remember them taking over 15 vials of blood, a hysteropingogram (inserting dye into the fallopian tubes - OUCH), many, many ultrasounds including a hysterosonogram (filling the uterus with sterile saline during ultrasound - OUCH again), not to mention the testing Jeff had to go through. Then the wait begins for the actual cycle to begin. You start the daily injections of hormones that make you insane crazy, not to mention painful (and I’m not even going to go into how very, very painful the stupid progesterone shots are that I took 2x a day for 8 weeks that made me cry).  You are then monitored through ultrasound and bloodwork every other day to see how many follicles (eggs) you have and how they are growing. When they are nice and juicy you go for retrieval. They knock you out and stick a HUGE needle into the ovaries numerous time to get as many little eggies as they can find (OUCH). I ended up with 16 (I think) on our first cycle, 12 were fertilized with ICSI (injecting the spermies directly into the egg), and of those 12 none of them, NOT ONE was of good enough quality to put back. So basically we wasted tens of thousands of dollars, an entire month, and loads of energy for nothing.  I was not emotionally ready to try again for quite some time so again, more waiting. Our second cycle (with a different doctor) was much better probably in part because I knew what to expect. I really liked the doctor and her staff and of course she got us pregnant with our babies so I’m so glad we went to her! I had a HUGE cyst on my ovary they had to aspirate (OUCH OUCH OUCH) and really felt negative about the whole cycle so when it worked I was very surprised. We only had three eggies that were good enough quality to put back, so we put all three.  We had 2 Grade A - 8 cell (perfect eggs)  and 1 Grade A - 5 cell. I would imagine the two perfect eggs are Shenzie and Heaten, but you just never know.

I don’t think you can even begin to understand what it is like to have infertility issues unless you have them. Kind of like you can’t understand what it is/how it feels to be a mom until you are one. You can’t explain either of them to somebody who hasn’t gone through it. A piece of advice I would offer to anybody who knows somebody going through IF…don’t offer the unwanted advice like “it will happen, just relax”, “don’t think about it and it will happen”, ” maybe if you didn’t worry about it so much it will happen”, or “so and so who finally quit trying to get pregnant got pregnant” etc. While it does happen (it happened to several people I know), it is not what women going through such a tough time want or need to hear.

Each time someone does IVF they have about a 50% chance of it working, which of course means 50% doesn’t. My wish to anybody undergoing any IF treatment is that they are successful. I’m so thankful, grateful, blessed, and lucky to have not one, but two perfect babies.