Nevermind

Well. That ended rather quickly.

During a conversation yesterday morning with our GC (we were discussing transportation to next Friday’s 3^rd embryo transfer) she casually mentioned that her wife would be having a PET scan the day before the transfer.

….

Oh that? That’s the sound of a needle scratching.

Apparently she has spots on her liver. Enormous spots. Spots the size of a salad plate. Spots that were 1/10^th the size in November. They’re trying to think positive and just go on with their lives with a ‘business-as-usual’ mentality. ½ denial + ½ overwhelm + ½ they don’t live with a scientist.

But I do. And I instantly understood what we were potentially talking about here. Sometime the day before or the day of the embryo transfer next week, they are likely to learn that my best friend’s wife has terminal liver cancer. My husband did a quick pubmed search and discovered that the skin cancer she was diagnosed with 2 years ago typically metastasizes to the liver and has a 22% survival rate at 5 years.

We of course, did not know this when we agreed to try and have a baby with them. I’m not sure they know it. And of course, none of us is sure if this is what has happened. But salad-plate sized spots are never a harbinger of smooth seas ahead.

So over dinner last night my husband and I discussed what to do. Gamble on the test results coming back fine? That seemed so unlikely given all we were reading. And if we did that and the test results weren’t OK, we’d have to make all these decisions at the very last minute. And if for some reason we didn’t have all the information and went ahead with the transfer anyway we’d be in a really terrible spot. Either it’d fail and we’d always wonder if the stress of the situation had done it, or it’d WORK and we’d be watching our baby be gestated in possibly the most stressful situation we could imagine – while our GC watched her wife die. And if she is going to be extremely ill or die we’d be the ones who would want to help – not add another stressor to her life. We’d need to help out with her sons and support her and… and this was all getting WAY TOO FUCKED UP.

I looked at my husband and said: “I don’t know about you but my gut is screaming, ‘this is 110% more crazy than I can tolerate’”

And then I picked up the phone and in the most delicate way possible, told my best friend that we were stopping. I told her it was a “break” but I don’t really think that’s true. I think we’ve hit an enormous brick wall that we are not going to see the other side of. I think this is really and truly it. They will be dealing with a very serious illness and husband and I will be moving on with our lives.

Yes, we might briefly talk about if there are any other ideas left out there. I could attempt to wean myself off my medication and have a go at it myself. But I don’t know if that’s even possible or a good idea.

Right now, I have three main emotions:

1. 1.     Relief. This cycle was getting hard to deal with. I don’t know why exactly. Chalk it up to battle fatigue. But knowing you’re walking into almost certain failure was not sitting well with me each passing day. And yesterday, that fatigue turned into panic and I just wasn’t going to be able to sit with that for the remaining 3 weeks.
2. 2.     Guilt. I cannot believe my desire for a kid dragged my husband and I, my best friend and her wife and my parents into what turned out to be an incredibly expensive, upsetting and bafflingly complicated mess. I did not want to spend a year of our time/money/energy on something that turned out to be so pointless.
3. 3.     Fear. I am not ready to hear that my friend’s wife is as sick as I think she is. I’m truly petrified for them. I’ve known her for 20 years. She is essentially my sister-in-law and the primary caregiver for my two ‘nephews.’ I do not want this for any of them.

I suppose if this really is the end – there will also be grief. But honestly, right now that’s just going to have to wait it’s turn.