Boys + Girls

A reminder - where we’re at: We have been waiting for genetic results from the 10 embryos we sent to be tested. 

After our last great call where we were told we had 15 (!) embryos, the embryologist told me that they would be calling back on Wednesday, 7/21 in the afternoon. So after waiting by the phone literally all day yesterday, CCRM didn’t call us with our results. I was livid. I had made dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant for us to hopefully celebrate (Elizabeth in Ravenswood - highly recommend.) And instead of celebrating we just talked shit on CCRM and how insensitive it was to not follow through. There are very few certainties in this process, so when someone tells you that something will be happening at a particular date and time - you latch onto it. 

So I woke up this morning, started aggressively cleaning the house to pass the time until CCRM opened and I could start to call every 15 minutes to harass them, when my doctor called. We have 8 genetically normal embryos. She said she is “absolutely thrilled” with this number, and Evan and I would agree. She could only talk for a second so that was all the info she gave me. She told me to schedule a follow up so we could talk through each embryo’s grading and which we’d want to transfer. 

Long story longer, my nurse called me later and we chatted a bit more. We had actually pre-scheduled my transfer so I’m starting meds (more shots - yay!) tomorrow. I would prefer to go into tomorrow having more of a gameplan about which lil embaby we’ll be betting all our chips on. It doesn’t change the protocol at all - I still have to do the same meds and all that. But emotionally, I just want to know which Petri dish baby we’re going with. A big part of that is the sex of the embryo. As I mentioned this all to my nurse she was just like, “well I have that information right here, let’s just go through it.” We’ve got 4 boys and 4 girls in the cooler ladies and gents! An even split! This means we’ve likely got our choice between boy or girl. Put your requests in now. JK - gender is a construct. 

We (I) have a slight preference of sex, but I think we’ll go with whichever embryo the doctor feels most confident in. Many people, including a psychic, have told me that I will have a boy. So that’s kind of been in my head a bit. We shall see... 

Next steps: As I mentioned, transfer is scheduled. We will be keeping the actual date under wraps to keep a little bit of the “real thing” alive in this experience. The meds this time around aren’t to make my ovaries blow up with eggs like last time, but they’ll be getting my uterine lining plumped up and ready for, hopefully, a successful implantation. Instead of just jabbing myself several times a day, I only have 1 belly shot for ~18 days and then I start estrogen patches and vaginal suppositories. Yum. Then about 10 days pre-transfer Evan is off the bench to do progesterone in oil shots in my butt every other day. These are the scariest needles yet. I don’t have a lot of junk in the trunk so imagining this very large needle going into my ass raises questions - but we’ll get it done. 

Transfer itself is not (medically) a big deal. It feels sort of like a Pap smear and only takes a minute or two. Who knew I’d be like, Pap smear pap schmear, but this is what infertility does to you. I’m fully awake and Evan can be in the room with me. After transfer, we head home to Chicago and begin the dreaded two-week wait, TWW. It’s technically 9 days but it’ll feel like 1000. On that 9th day, I’ll go in for a blood pregnancy test to confirm, or negate, that I am indeed pregnant. A lot of women will use at-home pregnancy tests and test early, but I’m going to try my best to just wait it out to be sure the result is accurate. 

 I haven’t asked my doctor what she thinks our chances are, but for someone my age, we’re looking at a 67-69% chance of live birth. I use live birth as a metric because about 30% of all IVF transfers end in a miscarriage. 

So - you know the drill - we are not out of the woods yet. Frankly, until I’m holding a healthy baby in my arms, anything could happen. BUT - we continue to celebrate the great news. We’re excited for the 8 beautiful possibilities we have and feel so grateful that this is the position we are in. We are so lucky. 

As many of you are probably wondering - no, we do not want 8 children. Should we have additional embryos that we will not be using, we’ve decided to donate them. Sitting in the waiting room at CCRM and seeing all the many different people who need help - I didn’t feel good just “donating to science.” This process has been difficult for us - but we have amazing insurance coverage, a loving partnership, and very supportive friends and family. Many people don’t have those things - and I hate thinking that just because of [fill in the blank: finances, sexual orientation, physical limitations, etc.] someone can’t have a baby. If we can help a family through this in some way - we’re happy to do so. 

I just finished watching the latest season of Master of None on Netflix. It’s extremely different than the previous 2 seasons, but was really powerful. If you have any interest in understanding what it feels like to go through this process (as a queer, single Black woman) - tune into episode 4. It resonated so deeply with my experience thus far (minus the - queer, single Black woman part) and I really commend Aziz for featuring a story on IVF - we don’t really see many representations of this “alternative” approach to family so I appreciate it.

Thank you all again for your kind messages and for keeping us in your thoughts. It’ll probably be pretty quiet on the blog for awhile, but fingers crossed my next post is a positive one :)