The other day, I came across a recent opinion piece in the NYT. In this piece, Beth Rodden, a well-established rock climber, writes about how over the course of her life she’s learned to accept the softer side of herself, to find strength in it. The need to be stronger, braver, more capable, and *prove it* is not just saved for female rock climbers. It permeates all fields. It’s synonymous with all women. We are expected to do do do do do do and when we really can’t do anymore, to still do. This bothers me.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a driven individual and I like to push myself. However, when I come up against a need to give myself a break or be gentle with my body [and heart], I deeply struggle. I’m not just talking about the completely unrealistic expectations of how our bodies look, but of how much we take care of in our households, the literal weight of childbearing, and the heft of working while being treated as less than. I am lucky to have a partner who shows up for me, shoulders responsibilities, and helps me do the thing - regardless of what the thing is. I am lucky that he’s been doing it for damn near all of our relationship. But it doesn’t change the fact that when I walk out into the world, I see women holding everything up. I see women doing the work. I see women putting themselves aside for a continuous, taking taking taking other. And I know that’s what’s expected of me.
I spoke briefly on this last time, but through this IVF egg stim process I have really struggled with sharing my experience. I didn’t want to complain too much, but also didn’t want to be too bright, cheerful or optimistic. I wanted to be honest and own the truth of how it was going, but not too much so that people would judge my actions or decisions. Last week, I was supposed to have an appointment with my therapist the day before the whole egg retrieval thing started, but I moved the appointment to the following week. I made up a lame excuse about how I was so tired and needed more time to rest, but really I didn’t want to talk about my feelings. I didn’t want to get into the deep weeds about my anxieties and my perma-rooted lack of trust in the medical community and beyond. I didn’t want to face myself.
Maybe it is easier to hide, to remain shuttered, to not let others in. Maybe it’s simpler to just do the thing and not remain, marinating, in how hard the thing is to live through. Especially when the thing is something I actively chose to do, to put myself through. Though I have been in therapy for decades, I still find it hard to open up and talk things I am going through. Some part of it the idea of sharing my experience make me feel ashamed or embarrassed. Like I don’t deserve to have the opportunity to share, let alone have, these feelings. Plus it cuts away at the tough, I-can-do-it-all-my-f*cking-self exterior I both worked hard to create and had no choice but had to learn to live with. I constantly feel torn between telling myself to stop writing this newsletter and telling myself I should continue.
But sharing is important.
Through this whole process, from the initial doctor’s visit through egg retrieval, the line between strength and hurting has felt blurry. I’ve felt like I had to be tough. I’ve felt like I had to put on a brave face. I’ve tried to push the really dark, painful stuff aside to just get through it. I’ve been thinking about the idea of softness and how to cultivate it more for a while now, and that article just hit at the perfect time. The hardest things we do as women isn’t child-bearing/rearing, it isn’t our work/jobs. It is finding ways to be kind to ourselves. To accept ourselves for who we are. To find strength in our softness.
Everyone’s softness looks different. It needs different things from us. For me, sometimes the softness is accepting that I need help. It’s asking for that help. Or asking someone to just listen without giving me advice or telling me to be positive about this very up and down experience. Sometimes, it’s being okay with being in pain or struggling, and not trying to do more, push myself, or gut it out. Sometimes, it’s stepping back from a project - saying I can’t do this right now - and not apologizing, like my struggling is something to be ashamed of. Sometimes, it’s looking at my body and working toward loving it as it is. Sometimes it’s allowing myself to remain hopeful. Sometimes it’s allowing myself to be loved and held by others. Sometimes, it is as simple as enjoying the sun on my face for one, small moment of the day.
Day 10 - Egg Retrieval Day
I wake up in a panic that I have missed the alarm and we are late. I throw the blanket around and rush to my phone in the other room. It is silent and dark on the counter. When I tap the screen, it illuminates telling me it’s 11:30PM. Damn it, I mutter and head back to the bed. I nestle under the covers and pinch my eyes shut. Willing myself back to sleep, my body remains tense. I usually struggle with falling back asleep once I wake up. I practice focusing on my breath. My body slowly relaxes and I drift.
The pitter-patter tapping of my little dog’s paws around the living room pulls me from sleep. It is still dark outside, but I can tell it’s windy. The shadows from the large pine out front against the lights of the condo complex, vibrate across the shade in the bedroom. I push myself up, careful not to twist or turn too fast. When she sees me moving, she stretches and spin-jumps in a circle. You having the scare, bun? I ask her though I know she is and also that she can’t talk back to me, you wanna go to your room? She races into my bathroom. I go in with her, flip the night light on, and turn on the very loud bathroom fan, which obliterates any exterior sounds. She tucks into her small dog bed across from the toilet. Sitting down on the floor, I scratch her head and back until her eyes start to shutter. Mine flutter too and I remind myself that I cannot sleep on the floor. I kiss her on the head and head back to the cold sheets.
The little dog’s scratching at the door wakes me. It’s time for her to leave her room. I get up and move through the dark of the hall toward her anxious paws. The clock on wall tells me it’s shortly after 3AM. The second I open the door, she is out, weaving past my legs and toward the bedroom. I turn the light off and set the fan to turn off in fifteen minutes. Her small body disappears into the darkness, so I make my way back to the space I vacated minutes before. I am careful not to knock our small tan dog, who is taking up most of the foot space on the bed, with my legs. Sleep calls me and I fall back into it.
Around 5AM, I am awake. I am used to the alarm going off at this time, moving out of bed to stop it, and take my thyroid meds in a half-conscious state. It’s been like this for so many months that it’s become routine. But today, I am not supposed to take my meds. I am not supposed to drink anything. The rules of anesthesia dictate that I can’t have anything, including water, past 12AM. I go to the bathroom instead. Tiredness sifts through my blood as I check to make sure the next alarm is set for 7AM. When I navigate my way back into the bed, I notice that small puff is curled into a ball in-between where R is and my space. I bend myself around her and big puff at the end of the bed. I barely have any covers over me, my body is contorted into a strange position, but I am happy enough. Sleep engulfs me again.
When the 7AM alarm goes off, I sit up from the strangest dream. The last thing I remember was being in an open-concept type of room, that was maybe also a bathroom. There were people, but not particularly nearby to me, maybe they were in other rooms. I did not feel like I knew them. Covering every surface in the room were disembodied genitalia. What was I supposed to do with them? The walls of the room were smeared with blood. Even in the dream, I was baffled. The alarm keeps blaring. I finally get up and turn it off. I had the weirdest dream, I say to R, who blinks the sleep from his eyes, and I tell him about it. That’s weird even, for you, he says, But maybe it’s because of this whole process. It’s kind of removing the body from getting pregnant. Yeah, maybe, I say trying to push the unsettling images from my mind. We decide to get moving. There is a good deal to get done before we need to leave at 9AM.
On the drive, R asks me if I’d like to choose the music. Ordinarily I would, but on this day I can feel myself retreating further and further within my mind. I am flooded with a wash of negative emotions and can’t get a grasp on them. He tries to make conversation, little observations. I mostly ignore him and stare out the window. This isn’t going to work, my internal voice tells me. So much effort, so much time, and I can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t going to happen. It dawns on me that all the positivity I had felt up until yesterday may have only been from the medications. Perhaps it wasn’t me who had found a way toward acceptance or optimism. Maybe I am still the negative, depressed, unhappy person I’ve always been. That’s real nice, what a lovely way to go into today, I tell myself. I bite back tears and stare out the window into oblivion.
Finally, R punctures through my sadness. Perhaps it’s cause I am too tired to keep feeling down. Maybe the drive is long enough and he keeps talking and making jokes and putting on my favorite songs, that something ebbs and I need to lessen my grip on fear. I try to focus on him. I watch his face as he speaks, how his jaw moves. I watch the way his eyes move from the road to me and back. I tell him I love him and a smile blooms across his face. I love you too, he says and holds my hand tight.
When we arrive, I am quickly ushered into a back room and away from R. My brain is submerged in anxiety and loneliness. Why does every part of this have to be something I do alone, alone, alone. The anesthesiologist leads me to a small room with a thin chair. He asks me questions about my allergies, verifying I haven’t eaten or had any water since the night before, and my medical history. He writes everything down on a paper form. My anxiety dances around him. Why don’t they have a medical iPad or something, an electronic record for him to review. Nausea creeps around in my throat and I hold my coat tight and balled against my stomach. Finally he tells me to get undressed from the waist down, put on a gown, and crack the door when ready.
I close the door as he leaves and will myself not to cry. Anxiety and fear pull on my clothes and when I take my clothes off, at the soft skin of my arms and legs. I feel dizzy at how fast things are happening. I know they time everything just so, but what if I did something wrong. What if this isn’t right. Are we moving too fast. Will it work. Will it work. I change into the gown and leave my socks on. I crack the door. Within a moment, a scrubs-clad nurse comes in, grabs a blanket and wraps it around my waist, holding it in the back. She tells me to leave my things in the room, they will be moved to the recovery room after. She walks with me, holding the blanket around my waist, down the hall and into the operating room. It’s very small and busy with people. I am told to sit back in the chair and relax. My body stays stiff.
The anesthesiologist sit on a stool to my left and starts asking me innocuous questions, Where did you go to school? What does your husband do? What kind of car do you drive? It’s like I am answering those questions they have on websites to verify your identity. I try to be friendly and answer, but another nurse starts talking to me, Can you verify your name, birthday? I can and do. And do you know what procedure you’re having today? Can you tell us what it is? Egg retrieval, I say the fear warbling my voice. The anesthesiologist is holding my left hand and says, here come’s a pinch. He puts the needle into a vein in my hand and I feel dizzy. I want water. I want to go back to sleep in my bed. More nurses come in and start moving my legs around, wrapping them in towels and securing them to a kind of leg stirrup. The doctor comes in with her hands in the air, glistening from being cleaned. Two more nurses glove her up. It’s just like in the movies. Say goodnight, the anesthesiologist says. Goodnight, I say to no one and try not to think about what comes next. For a moment, I feel nothing and fear dances on my forehead, what if the anesthesia doesn’t work and they think I am asleep but I feel everything. Then the room moves sideways and wobbles. Oh no, gets stuck in my mouth as I disappear into darkness.
The egg retrieval procedure only takes about ten to twenty minutes. The doctor inserts a very large needle into the vaginal canal and through the wall. The needle then punctures the ovary and each egg larger than 14mm is removed. They do this for both ovaries, then remove the needle and cauterize the holes made by the needle. Once the patient is beginning to come out of the anesthesia fog, they move them via wheelchair to the recovery room, where they are again moved into a chair.
I begin to see the room around me and recognize it’s different than where I last was. A woman, a nurse, moves in front of me. Water? I ask the air, my voice far away from me, like it’s being thrown down a tunnel. The nurse hands me a bottle and says, Here you go. You’re all done and in the recovery room. I can’t focus on her. My vision is hazy and it’s hard to keep my eyes open. The lids keep drooping back down. The tiredness is overwhelming, but she is talking to me and asking questions and I don’t want to be rude. I feel myself talking about the appendectomy I had around this time last year. The fog moves around my brain. The anxiety is nowhere to be seen and it feels nice to be apart from it. I put my hands on my stomach. It’s done.
My brain grows clearer and clearer, and I ask her if she knows how many eggs I got. I am hoping for eight. Lucky eight. You got five! she exclaims happily. My heart sinks and sinks and sinks. The anxiety and a huge weight flank me as she pulls the curtain around my chair and tells me I can get up and put my pants back on. Tears flee my eyes once I am alone and my head swims in sadness. My legs are unsteady beneath me, but I refuse help from the nurse. She disappears behind me and I am again in the lobby. I spot R sitting against the far wall, writing in a notebook. I am ready to go, I say loudly without walking toward him. He looks up and smiles seeing me, and gathers his things. I leave the building without waiting for him. In the car, it hurts to sit so I take some of the pain medication they had me pick up beforehand. We only got five eggs, I say as he starts the car. Five is good, he says. No it’s not, I say, we needed more. We need a lot more. If we had ten, probably only five would be mature, of those five only like three would fertilize successfully, and of those maybe only one becomes an embryo, and what if it’s abnormal. Five is awful. He puts his hand on my leg and we drive home.
At home, I slip further into my sadness and sleep. My body and brain remain disoriented from the anesthesia. The story I tell myself is not a good one.
Day 11 - The Day After Egg Retrieval
R and I walk the dogs in the morning to their favorite field. We watch them run around and roll in the grass. I tell him how my brain is still swimming in the leftover anesthesia soup. I tell him what I’ve read about how long it takes people to recovery from the fog that medication leaves behind. I am getting more accustomed to it. Twice in the last two years. How many more times going forward. Our dogs are so happy to be on this walk. R and I talk about expectation and hope. He tells me how this experience has made him understand me more as a person. He tells me how it’s helped him have more empathy and be more kind and gentle. I feel the breeze against my cheeks and the sun in my eyes and decide this is a good conversation. We talk about trying not to hope, to just accept whatever comes.
A few hours later I get a message in the portal from the embryology team letting me know that all five of my eggs were mature enough to be used and four were successfully fertilized. I am stunned. Everything I’ve read online has told me how unlikely a success like this is, especially for someone older than thirty-five. My heart knows better than to hope, but I can’t help it. Maybe this is a good sign. Maybe finally things actually will work out. The embryology team tells me they will send us a message in our portal about the embryos, if we end up having any, in a few more days. The anxiety hovers nearby, but for once, I decide to hope. I decide to get my hopes up. I decide to feel everything. Even if it hurts. How else can I live.
Day 16 - Embryo Notification Day
Around mid-morning, my computer dings a notification at me. It is from my portal with an update and I race to log in so fast, I type everything in wrong and almost get locked out. The message is from the embryology team with an update.
We have two embryos. Two. I cry and call R. He answers and I cry happy, joyful tears into the phone. I let myself go. I cry and cry and smile. Finally. I can hear the tears welling up in his eyes too. Happiness shines out of my brain and through my skin.
Day 17-19 - The In Between Days
Joy never lasts for me. It never sits still long enough for me to hold it, to be with it. By the time the alarm goes off in the morning, I am online researching Day 6 5BB embryos. Are they good. Has anyone had success with them. What do they look like. I find a forum with people’s Day 6 5BB embryo pictures and success stories. “At 36wks with my 5BB boy!” one person writes. “16WKS with my 5BB, still early but hopeful” someone else posts. Another says, “my D6 5BB is now two years old.”
I reach out to the embryology team and ask for pictures of our embryos. I want to see them. I want to see the beginning and dream. But I also want to see if they look like the others I am seeing. I want to compare my fears against their success.
When they send the images, I cry. Is this the beginning of my children. The first few cells of their existence. I send them to R. He tells me his heart is swelling.
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Over the next few days, R and I try not to talk about it. We do our best to busy ourselves and keep our minds clear. We try not to be swayed too far one way or another. We watch mindless movies and bury ourselves in random obsessions. We wait for the genetic test results because there is nothing else to do.
I try not to go on the Reddit threads and stare at the images of other’s embryos, holding my phone up to the images on my computer. Mine do not look like the others. Does that mean there’s something wrong with mine. I try not to think about it. I try not to Google healthy embryo Day 6 images. I try not to hope. I try to be pragmatic. I try to take joy in what is, what has already happened. Regardless of the result, we created two little life forms. Love and anxiety take turns holding my hands.
R and I hold one another as we go to sleep. This is the beginning of everything, I say as we fall away from the world, I can feel it. I want to believe, so I do.
I want to be transparent, in that I want to share my experience of this with y’all. I want to tell you the whole truth and fully let you in. To do this is scary for me, because writing something and posting here is essentially terribly impersonal. I do not get to say it to your face. I do not get to watch your expression change. You do not get to see my face either. I put myself into a void and live with it. Writing is so lonely in this way. But part of embracing softness is being willing so share the story even when it is hard or scary, even when the emotions burst through our veins. So let’s continue.
Day 20 - Embryo PGT Results
In the afternoon, a call comes in while I am in a work meeting. I see that it’s from the fertility clinic and since I know the only thing we are waiting on are the PGT results, I excuse myself and take the call.
Do you have a moment to talk about the PGT results? the embryologist asks.
Yes, I eke out. Can I hear resistance or sadness in her voice. Am I making it up. Am I being too negative. Am I-
I am sorry to say that I don’t have good news. The tests on both of your embryos came back with genetic abnormalities and are not viable, she says. Her words get sucked into a vacuum in my brain.
I don’t respond fast enough and she says, I have a note here that you wanted to know the sex of the embryos. One was a girl and one was a boy.
Okay, is all that comes out. I disconnect from the call. Everything stops. The gold threads of the pillow shimmer in the sunlight. Dust particles float across the air, day time fireflies. My breathing is loud and echoey, the sound of it bounces around my brain. A chamomile breeze flows in the open window. The hope inside me shatters. Everything is numb. Everything is numb. Everything is numb.
When I see R a few hours later, he hugs me tighter than he ever has before. I have been crying for hours and yet still my eyes well up again. I am broken inside in a way I never knew I could be. All of that hope, that was there only a day before, vacuumed out of my being. My deflated body moves through the motions of being alive. I tell myself I’ll be okay. I tell R I will be okay. He just holds me every chance he gets.
Before bed, R lights three candles. One for us, one for our lost girl and one for our lost boy. We hold each other and sit on our couch. Days before, we were watching some movie and talking about how fun it would be to have our kid sitting with us on this couch, watching movies, watching them grow, thinking back to the beginning. That dream feels impossibly far away now. The tears pour out of me, slow and cold, temporarily staining R’s sweater. I don’t try to wipe them away. Neither does he. I do not hold back. I let myself live in this grief.
R and I hold each other tight before we blow the candles out. I visualize our embryos in my mind. I tell them they were so loved. I tell them I am sorry we didn’t get to meet them. I tell them I hope their souls are at peace. The tears do not stop flowing.
I say goodbye.
I say goodbye.
I say goodbye.
We blow the candles out.
Thank you for being with me through this. This story is on-going and I will continue to share the next steps and the next cycle for our second attempt. But for now, I just want to thank those of you reading. I know how hard it’s been to live through this. I imagine that reading it isn’t much easier. It’s a hard thing to hope alongside someone, to want them to have success. It’s hard to watch their experience unfold when it doesn’t go the way everyone hopes it will. Thank you being here for it all.
The West Wing was, and remains, one of my favorite shows. I love the characters. I love the hope. I love the way people try, how they love and evolve. There is this line that one character says and it’s stuck with me since the first time I heard it. In the scene where it’s said, this character has gathered everyone that he works with, with the inital intention of berating them for something that was done wrong and caused the President and the team all sorts of issues. He gathers them to yell at them, but a variety of things happen and he is reminded of the power of softness. He is reminded that without being vulnerable and gentle with others, we have nothing.
So I feel that it’s fitting that I end this final letter of our first attempt of IVF egg retrieval with this quote and sentiment.
We win together, we lose together. We celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories sweeter because we did them together... You're my guys and I'm yours.