well. I suppose an update would be in order - though in truth, there's not much to update. At least, not yet.
The first transfer cycle failed. No idea why - good embryo, good uterus... just didn't grab on. When I heard, I was surprised to find I was 15% sad, 75% angry and 10% relieved. Why sad? Well that's self evident. Why relieved? Well because I know just the pregnancy itself (not to mention the actual child) will completely turn our lives inside-out and, like all prospective parents, we do get nervous about what that'll look like for our jobs, marriage, sleep, finances, ect.
But why mostly angry? Well I'd just read an article on the NYTimes "Fertility Diary" series titled "How Much Would you Pay for a Baby." And it exactly described how I felt and why I was so angry. I'm NOT a gambler - last time I was in Vegas was on a research trip and I played nickel blackjack 'til I got my free drink and then left.
But this time we'd put our money on black and lost. It's hard to estimate exactly how much we lost... somewhere in the neighborhood of at least $20k when you figure the embryos cost approximately $10k each to make and the fertility clinic costs are about $10k each try. Of course that doesn't get into all the other costs of lawyers and travel time and thank you gifts for my friend, but you get the picture. And sure, it's not all our money - as I mentioned in my last post we're using part of my inheritance so it's not like we're going hungry over here. But STILL. That's just a lot of money to lay out for absolutely nothing, well except the pleasure of getting kicked in the nuts. Because of course, that's the other thing we lost... hope. After seeing a cycle fail, it became hard to see this process as anything other than a very long and painful slog. You stop thinking about how awesome it'll be to have a child of your own and start thinking about how much it's going to suck to keep going through this again and again and again.
But practical people that we are and knowing that it's about a 50/50 chance each time, we said we'd ante up again. Great, our doctor said! Next cycle starts in mid January with a transfer date of February 7th. We took a break from thinking about all this over the holidays and honestly felt a bit saner after a month.
And now we're in the thick of it again and, true to form, this cycle's been absurdly challenging from start to finish. Each weekly checkup for our gestational carrier been screwed up by some ridiculous bookkeeping error. They didn't send out the initial instructions because our "coordinator" was away. The monitoring clinic canceled for Chinese New Year but we were told a different day so then both days had to be rescheduled. And then, like the fucking cherry on top of the sundae, on Thursday night, our clinic called and said the our carrier's day-before labs looked off and we may not be able to go through with this cycle. So on Friday we all drove the 2 hours to the clinic, assuming we'd only double check the labs and then be told to go home - sorry about that $3k of monitoring fees, play again next month! And then the labs were fine and we went ahead and did the transfer as planned. Well, except with a lot more sobbing from me because COME ON! Jerk me around a bit more while you're at it universe...
And so we wait. One day down (the only day that actually matters of course - it's either stuck by now or it hasn't) and only 12 more to go! Whee.
I'm scared it won't work (of course) and I'm scared it will. If it works, I then have to make it 9 long months with my kiddo in someone else's body. The further we get into this, the scarier that seems. I've gotten a pretty good look at myself throughout this whole process and I've learned just how hard it is for me to put my trust in others. I absolutely trust my friend to be a good carrier. However, that doesn't mean that every single day she carries that baby, a very good chunk of by brain is going to be pre-occupied with how they're doing.
So in summary:
Give me our baby NOW.
We've been really patient.
And I'm not sure how much longer we can wait.
We're both getting incredibly tired.
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