Goldilocks and the Eighteen Eggs

It's only been a few days since my last post, but it feels like a lifetime of things has happened. Remember how I couldn't ovulate on Clomid? Yeah, um, not my problem on Gonal-F. Turns out I am a follicle producing machine.

My ultrasound/bloodwork last Thursday showed that everything was progressing nicely -- I actually heard the words, "You're doing great" from a nurse's mouth for the first time. When I returned on Saturday, though, the pendulum had swung too far -- I had too many follicles growing too quickly. They told me I could either "coast" -- not take any more medicine -- or convert to IVF, because there was no way they were going to give me an IUI with that many follicles. After a lot of deliberation, I decided not to take the medicine that night, which I thought was ruling out the option of converting to IVF. I went back on Sunday and my levels were still high so it didn't look like coasting was going to work. The options -- if you can call them that -- were to cancel the cycle or I could still convert to IVF. In a fit of optimism and exuberance, I took the medicine (though a sharply reduced dose -- 37.5 instead of 150 cc) thinking I would go for the IVF.

Yesterday, I went in for a "pre-op" and to sign a dozen forms basically agreeing not to sue them if anything catastrophic happened (those possibilities were spelled out in detail). That's when I really started to freak. First of all, I am phobic of anesthesia, due to a traumatic experience when I had my tonsils out at the tender age of 9. I guess these things stick with you. Quite simply, I don't like the idea of not being in control of my brain at all times. And they can call conscious sedation "a nap" as much as they want, I know that's not what it is. The other option for the egg retrieval is a spinal, which they don't like to do and therefore aren't shy about describing the dangers of.

Also, I made the serious error of searching on the Internet about the actual egg retrieval procedure, rather than listening to my doctors. As a result, I became terrified of a series of bad to disastrous things that can go wrong, which I won't describe here because if I shouldn't be thinking about them (the odds are less than one percent), you shouldn't either.

Overall, something about it just wasn't sitting with me right. It felt awful -- so wrong -- to be passing up such a tangible opportunity to finally get pregnant. But it felt like rushing into something that may not be necessary. We hadn't had time to make a decision about whether IVF was something we even wanted to do -- hadn't fully explored this stage before rushing into the next. I think IVF is a wonderful thing for people -- maybe me -- who need it, but if there's a way for me to get pregnant through a bit of a lower-tech method, I'd like to see that through first.

Next steps: Wait for a period. No sex (unless 18 children appeals to me -- yes, I have 18 follicles growing in there). I don't even have to wait a month, I can jump right into the next cycle when I get a period. Meanwhile, I guess I'm the Goldilocks of infertility treatments -- not enough, too many eggs -- until I find something that's just right.

-J.