What to expect when you’re not expecting XIV: Not such a happy birthday
Well that’s a bit shit. We had our first scan of this IVF round this morning. And now it’s our only scan of this round. The round has been called off. Happy birthday Dave!
During the scan they found an ovarian cyst which does a few things; firstly it masks whether or not there are even any follicles growing in the ovary affected, and secondly they counteract the IVF drugs anyway so on the other side, where they could see, there was only one follicle growing. It was about as bad as you could get I think.
Only 10% of people doing IVF don’t get to egg collection. We’ve now managed it twice. That’s a 1% chance. They keep finding new reasons for us to fail. If it was the same reason over and over I could probably deal with it a bit better. But it’s not. So it means you can’t predict it. You can’t prepare for it. You can’t try and prevent it.
Of course the dark jokes have been flowing between Kim and me. We do that. But I’m also pretty fucking bummed out. It just seems like a never-ending run of shit events. One after the other. When’s it our turn? When do we get some joy? We won $75 on Lotto last night. That’s the best piece of news we’ve managed to get in a long time.
If I was a religious man I’d probably take this is as a sign from God that we’re not supposed to have kids and to give up. Thankfully I’m not, so we’ll persevere . Because this round got called off at the earliest stage possible I think we’ve only burned through maybe $4k? I mean we don’t have that, but we can sure as hell find that a lot easier than the near $20k that it’s costing.
Fuck this noise. Honestly.
Kim is busy trying to make sure I have a nice birthday today anyway. She’s the fucking best. She must be hurting too but she just wants me to feel better. I haven’t even been having to inject myself. I haven’t had to go through the physical difficulties. But there she is comforting me. She’s making me a cup of tea as I write this.
I wish I could be stronger. I wish I could dust this off and be ok. And I will be ok. We’ll bounce back. I dunno how quickly. But we will.
I never thought I’d be writing so many goddamn negative posts. I’m sorry for all this, but now I’ve started down this path I have to keep going. The cat killed a fantail yesterday and brought it inside. That’s the second time a fantail has died inside our house at the same time as an IVF round failing. That’s pretty much in keeping with Maori folklore. They are the harbinger of death. But is it even death if we never got to life?
I’m sad. And I’m angry. And I’m confused. I know there isn’t some world plan to gang up against us, but holy shit this is so fucking unfair.
There’s not really any ‘right’ words to say here, but thanks for sharing your story, not so many men share their side of this story and I think it’s important for both sides to be told,, I hear your pain, have been in a very similar place and it fucking sucks. I’m sorry you’re going through this, look after each other xo
I am so impressed by your ability to not only articulate your journey, but your ability to KEEP articulating; when most men would be reduced to grunting and swearing. That the two of you pull together; AND with this daunting day approaching last week, you reached out and helped me as I was (comparatively, so inconsequential) struggling with aspects of my world. You are amazing, selfless and very funny. You both are. I am so sorry that you are in so much pain. It sucks like Captain Super Sucker, King of Planet Sucker.