Hope Springs Eternal

Infertility feeds on hope. Each new cycle offers a clean slate, a reason to put aside grief over the last failure and start daydreaming once again about getting your “Big Fat Positive” and sharing the good news with family and friends. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, mainly because several weeks ago I got news that, for a brief moment, made me feel that all that hope was unwarranted. And writing about it seemed not only impossibly difficult, but also moot.

I had a bad feeling in my gut about the last Clomid cycle, which began in mid-January. Although I had ovulated in December – for what I believe may have been the first time ever – my first ultrasound of the January cycle showed follicles that were slower in developing than what we’d seen the month before. I returned on the morning of January 28 for a follow-up and was told that I had three follicles – a 13 mm, a 12 mm and a 9 mm. For those of you not schooled in all things follicular, those are still on the very small side and should have been much larger – ready to rock & roll – at that point (day 17).

Based on this news, I expected the nurse calling later that afternoon to tell me that the cycle was cancelled and we would need to move on to a stronger Clomid dose next month. Instead, the not-so-nice nurse (through this process you learn the precise definition of bedside manner, and that a health care provider is either going to have it or not) told me they were cancelling the whole megillah. In addition to producing less-than-optimal ovulation results, Clomid was thinning out my uterine lining, which is not such a good result when you’re trying to get an embryo to attach to it. So the fertility drug was making me less fertile. Because what would an infertility experience be without a healthy dose of irony?

Here’s what ensued following that phone call: hysterics. I did not know a person could cry like that. Several times, I thought I might puncture a lung or otherwise injure internal organs. I cried because I honestly, honestly thought Clomid was going to work. I put on a good show of pessimism (cautious realism, I like to call it) – but it doesn’t take Freud to tell you that has defense mechanism written all over it. Underneath that, I had been hopeful to the core. I was genuinely fearful of moving on to the vaguely ominous world of injectible medications, the next step once you call it a day with Clomid, which in my mind – beyond seemingly absurdly complicated – could make me the proud mother of a litter of six babies.

After several days of moping and obsessing over what had been lost – namely, a relatively easy journey in the land of infertility – I started to perk up. Partly because I talked myself off the ledge of despair and slowly back into the realm of hope (This will work BETTER than Clomid! And with fewer moodswings!), and partly because I had to perk up so I could get on with my life instead of sinking into a deep depression. I started reading Dr. Alice Domar’s book, Conquering Infertility (Lisa – you are so right about her – she is a living, breathing genius. This should be required reading for anyone going through this.) I started reading about the gonadatropin (injectible) drugs and found encouraging info. And I had another rendez-vous with my good friend hope.

I started Gonal-F last night – this is the drug that will stimulate my ovaries to produce follicles for ovulation. I must stop right here and say that I never, ever thought I’d see the day when one of the things my husband and I would do in the bedroom would involve a needle, some alcohol wipes and a pinch of fat from my lower abdomen. Hilarity ensued when he got ready to inject it, holding it like a dart aimed at the bullseye of my stomach. Once I convinced him to use a more humane grip, sweat literally ran down my forehead as he prepared to put it in, following the video instructions on my pharmacy’s website. But then: Almost nothing. The slightest pin prick and a count of five and it was all over.

The plan is to take these injections for four days, with an ultrasound scheduled for Thursday morning to see how things are coming along. I can handle this. I have all the hope in the world.

-J.