Well, I made it through my birthday without a complete and total meltdown. I did, however, share a glass of wine and some pie with a friend, while her daughter and LG ran amuck in the living room. A gathering without calling it a celebration, which seemed to be exactly right. I did not return calls to anyone who called to wish me well, including my mother. That, too, seemed exactly right.
38 means I have worked my way through an entire category on those fertility charts (35-37) and still not gotten knocked up. 38 means I'm officially in the bad category. 38 is when, at 36, I told Dr. Gorgeous I'd be willing to do donor egg. So here we are.
I've spent the morning alternatively working on an essay and reading some of my old blog posts. See, A. made the observation that I make a declaration like "I'm definitely doing DE" and then take it back. And it's certainly true over the course of a given day--sometimes an hour!--I feel very differently about my future ttc. But over the long haul, it becomes really clear that I've never really changed any of my plans. I said I was doing low tech cycles Sept-Nov (and I did), with something big in December (hopefully I am). I said I'd do DE after I turned 38, but only in the spring/summer. That's still the plan. So even as I waver, I always seem to go back to those initial declarations/plans. The only thing that's changed, I suppose, is that DE seems now like a real possibility and not just a thing that was a year or more away.
In a couple hours, I'll go back to Dr. G's office for the first of probably 8-9 appointments in the next two weeks. I've got a repeat hysteroscopy. I take the last of the birth control pills tonight, which will probably mean baseline monitoring on Saturday (please let it be Saturday, I'd like to go to yoga!). And then it's back to the every 2-3 days of monitoring. Not having to do that since early August has been really nice. But I need to see what my old ovaries can do, at least one more time. The only real question is, if this cycle doesn't work (and let's face it, it won't work), will I do either medicated IUI, IVF, or DE in March?
I keep thinking 38 has to be better than 37. Because the alternative is really unthinkable.
Sounds like your birthday was a good one, even if non-traditional. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat about doing an IVF cycle once with your own eggs before going to a donor cycle? A lot of that may well depend on finances, but if you can swing it that might give you more of a sense of "I tried everything I could with my own eggs first."
InB, it's a possibility, but probably not. I've already done IVF , with pretty abysmal results (2 cancelled, 1 retrieval [only 2 embryos]), and Dr. G doesn't believe it gives me a real advantage over stimulated IUI.
ReplyDeleteNow that it's over, I'm wishing you a happy birthday, and am pleased that it did not live down to your expectations.
ReplyDeleteI hope that, whatever is next for you, whether it is consistent with current and past declarations of intent, is a path forward that leads you to feeling at peace with your decisions. There are no wrong answers here, so just do what makes you feel the best.