There are some phone calls you just dread. Yesterday afternoon was one of them. From the second the number of our specialist’s Lab came up on the screen I felt a tsunami of fear wash over. They’d already called me at 8.30 yesterday morning to say the three possible embies we had, had dwindled to just one.
‘That’s okay, we only need one,’ The Vet said enthusiastically when I told him our hopes were being sucked down the plughole of infertility. If I had a dollar for every time someone said that…we’d be sunning our pins in Monaco on our 100-ft yacht right next to Kenny & Harry right now.
I am hopeful but my heart is telling me don’t be so stupid.
Why would the clinic be calling again? Twice in one day is not likely to be to tell us they think we have wonderfully supersonic embryos bouncing off the side of their petrie dishes, they’ve never seen anything so incredible. No it’s more likely to be a big steaming pile of shitty news.
I try to answer as cheerfully as I can and after spouting off my personal details to ensure she was delivering the blow to the correct person…it came like a left hook from Ali. And sting like a motherfucken bee it did.
‘I’m sorry but the embryo we had this morning has developed abnormally, it isn’t our practice to continue with such embryos, I’m sorry we have to cancel your cycle…you have nothing left.’
Cancel. Done. Finished. Nothing. No fucking embryo to transfer on Wednesday, nudda little potential wriggler. My empty womb has been kicked hard.
Like that our dreams are gone. I don’t know what to say, my tubes are still swollen like I’m three months full and aching like fuck from being scraped to within an inch of their lives…all for what? Shit fucking all, that’s what. ‘Thanks, uhm yep okay,’ I say stifling in my tears. She tells me a nurse will call me in the morning. I don’t need a nurse, I need a baby I want to say but it’s not her fault.
I want to scream so loud my lungs collapse. This is so far out of my control.
Now I have to deliver that multi-fucked-blow to The Vet – whose still wincing from a three-inch fucking needle being drilled into his clacker (and yes, for any blokes playing along at home, it hurt like you’d been kicked with steel-capped boots in your money-makers). I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell him, to destroy his dreams too. He’s still at work, saving lives all the while smiling heartily to his clients. ‘It didn’t work, we don’t even have one left anymore.’ I think the short silence between us is deafening but at the same time loud enough to hear both our hearts shattering. He tells me it’ll be okay and he’ll be home soon. We can go and have a few drinks, celebrate what wasn’t to be.
I have no idea where we go from here. We’re on the crash collision course of infertility with no brakes and no fucking road map to direct us.
It’s so bloody achingly numbing to know we went through all that for absolutely-shitting-nothing.
Our ninth round, the one we’d thought would work, the one that had all the trump cards up its sleeve, our lucky last, the Cadel of cycles…FAILED. It fucking failed.
I decide to wait to tell the 12 y o until when we got home late last night and I let him know too, that he won’t be having a brother or sister any time soon. His sweet little face drops. He goes to The Vet and hugs him tight. Then he comes and gives me one of our Squeezy Hugs I love that’s so tight his head might roll off. ‘I’m so sorry it didn’t work, mummy but I love you,’ and that is the reason we can’t give up. He is so damn beautiful. Well that coupled with the fact I have the Most Incredible Human Being in the World in The Vet and who wouldn’t want to procreate with him?!? Lov n’hugs from a brokenhearted Lady MamaG (and my boys) xox
thirtysomethingmama 
I’m so sorry. I know there are no words that can help. Fingers and toes still crossed for you. xxx
Hi, I use to work with a girl who had multiple attempts at IVF with no luck. . I suggested she try the ‘other’ clinic (it took some convincing coz her doctor always built her hopes up to the point she had so much faith in him that he would make it work) She finally took my advice and fell pregnant on their first attempt with the new doctor. Just a suggestion….
Been there too many times, recall the ovaries swollen so painfully i looked 4 months pregnant. how ironic. A whopping 24 retrieved and a crappy 2 fertilised and failed to the divide. 24 to zero in 24 hours. I remember the phonecall, the fact it was the head honcho gave it away it was shitty news again. Too many rounds, too many injections and more dollars than i care to think about i made it to being a mummy. I hesitate to share the ‘you’ll get there’ type stories, i know they sting and i know you’ll have that niggle of doubt that maybe you won’t, maybe you are the unlucky statistic. again. But i really want to say this – infertility was my life for many years, i got to know many, many women both in real life and via forums and you know what they did all finally make it, 100’s of them – and not those first or 2nd ivf’ers, the repeaters who try every drug and method known in the ivf world, who travel overseas to try different clinics. Some made huge financial changes, some finally adjusted their goal to consider donor sperm, embryos. Some adopted and some US mums used surrogacy. None of them regret it now, even if they ended up with plan ‘j’ rather than b or c. Me i finally tried a frozen cycle, never had anything to freeze then finally oddly did and that first low chance frozen cycle worked. Same batch gave me baby 2 . maybe my body hated the drugs as much as me, who knows.
The point is it’s a small consolation i know but if you keep at it you get there, you have to be in it to win it. keep playing and surrounfd yourself by women and men who know, really know (not think they know ) how it feels xx
Hi The Vet’s Patient…thank you for your words of encouragement…sometimes I think I’m too damn positive that it will work but I guess that’s what gets us through…?! If writing this helps, one or even a hundred women who can never openly talk about their shitful ride through fertility then my job is done. As for our success, I can’t give up, we can’t give up and the world sure does need more beautiful people like The Vet in it. Hugs to you xx
Hi ive been debating writing this for weeks. Mainly because i used to hate the i did this and got pregnant stories. So please don’t think of it that way. Just wanting to share my experience to maybe give you another path to research (if you haven’t already)
I spent 3+ years trying to conceive. I have PCOS so thought that was the reason it was taking so long. Working with my naturopath i managed to get my horomones balanced and cycle regular. After 2.5 years we finally got pregnant. I was ecstatic. Then things went wrong. Spotting, bad scans and slow declining progestrone levels lead to our first miscarriage. Since it took so long for us to get pregnant i needed a reason why it didn’t work so pushed for testing. That showed our true problem. I have a balanced chromosomal translocation. Which means parts of two of my chromosomes have broken and switched places. This means every egg i produce only has a small chance of being normal or balanced meaning its viable for a healthy baby. My naturopath tested me for the MTHFR gene. Which i have one copy of. A change of supplements and 2 months after our first pregnancy i was pregnant again. Resulted in another miscarriage i was crushed. Our dr told us IVF with PGD would be our only option. Not being able to afford IVF i was crushed. Our naturopath said new supplements needed minimum 3 months to work. We decided to keep working with our naturopath and keep trying.
6 weeks later i was pregnant again and a nervous wreck. Every milestones we passed gave us comfort but i spent the whole 9 months terrified. We didnt do an amino or cvs to check if my translocation had passed onto our son due to the risk of miscarriage. We decided if we made it full term and he had special needs we would love him just the same.
With ultrasounds and my paranoia i was up at the hospital almost every week having bubby checked. (I cannot recommend the lovely people at maternal fetal medicine at the gold coast hospital highly enough. They deal only in high risk pregnancys. They were truely amazing)
But now it is 5am and i am holding my baby boy. My perfect little guy who has completely normal chromosomes.
So after my novel hahaha all i really wanted to say is our naturopath was our life saver. I believe without him we would have had a lot more heart break.
I am wishing you and your family all the best for 2016. If you ever want to talk ill add my email 🙂
Thanks for sharing your joyful yet painful piece of your fertility history. I’m so glad you finally have your dream 😘
I hope you will too soon 💖💙