Letting Go | Part Two
Photo by Daria Shevtsova | Pexels
In my post last week, I shared the intimate details about my difficult decision to freeze my eggs prior to my 35th birthday. A milestone in my life, which according to recent visits to my fertility specialist, would be the first of three significant declines in my fertility. The second would come at 37 and third as I hit 41. My chances of a natural pregnancy at this stage in my life were already only 20%.
It was facts like these, and my desire to have the choice to hopefully have a biological child that I made this decision to finally put down a $6,400 deposit and order more than $3,000 in medication to set things in motion. After which, life would quickly become a rigorous rotation of clinic visits and morning blood draws to test my estradiol levels.
On May 15th, four days before I would start my injections to increase my fertility for my egg retrieval, my medicine arrived. My milk and Imperial margarine were moved around to make room for the ones that had to be refrigerated.
When first tested my natural estradiol levels on May 16th they were at eight. At the time, this meant nothing to me. I had no idea that in less than two weeks this number would increase 67,713%.
“Your strength is found
At the end of my road
Your grace it reaches to the hurting
Still through the tears and the questioning why
I will stand my ground where hope can be found.”
Two days before my injections, I told my boyfriend we should break up until this was over with. In my mind, I could get through this easier on my own. He had been supportive with my decision, but he would be gone the weekend I had to start my injections. He had been honest about the conflict as soon as my doctor outlined my schedule that he couldn’t be there.
Can’t you just move it back a weekend?
He was oblivious, to no fault of his own, of the severity of what I was enduring. The strict calendar I had to keep, the two months of monitoring my cycle it had taken to begin the process on a certain date determined by my doctor. I’m not even sure if I had processed how difficult it was for me at the time.
What I did know was if I couldn’t have him there when the scary part began, I wasn’t sure I wanted him there at all. Perhaps it was self-preservation, or maybe it was just me wanting to feel in control of some small part of this process that felt like it was happening to me.
If memory serves me correctly, he insisted this was silly, pulling me close to him and wrapping his arms around me. Against his chest I closed my eyes, numb with fear and longing and didn’t mention breaking up again.
My schedule and directions for taking my first injections.
On that Saturday, May 19th, I experienced the hardest moment of the entire seven-month ordeal. From the time my back hit the table at my annual exam when I asked my doctor for a referral, to the moment it would hit a similar cold table the day I had my procedure, one moment sticks out more clearly than any other as when I truly felt broken.
It was the day I had to start my injections.
It wasn’t the first shot in the morning. A quick dial, the small needle piercing my skin like a warm knife on butter. No, that had been simple.
It was the hours leading up to my second shot.
Each day, for nearly two weeks, I’d need to start my day with one quick injection, followed by two more 12 hours later. On that first morning, the first time I’d experience piercing my own skin with the sharp, delicate needle, I felt like a champ. I spent the rest of the day on a long bike ride with friends in the sunshine.
But upon returning home after my ride, my partner off with friends and out of pocket for the weekend, anxiety overtook me as I tried to pass the hours until my second round of injections. Another easy shot followed by a more complicated mixing of vials and changing of the needle to inject myself.
It was then that I found myself heading to Target seeking a distraction, only to break down in the parking lot. I didn’t know who I could call. I felt like I couldn’t call my boyfriend out of hurt, or pride, or a mixture of the two. I questioned who could possibly understand what was happening as my mind spiraled out of control, and finally called the two people I loved most who always showed up for me. My parents. And I broke openly as I sobbed into my phone.
I remember saying, “I can’t live here anymore. I’m so alone. I’ve never felt so alone in my entire life. I want to move home.” I repeated the words over and over, nearly impossible to understand through my sobs.
In my life, no moment stands out as dark as that one. I realize how fortunate that makes me, on the other side of this ordeal, to see this frightening experience as my darkest day. Not the loss or a parent or child as some of my peers have experienced. But in that moment, I had never been more defeated, terrified or alone in my entire life. Not when I moved alone to Seattle, or to Columbus three years later. Not on any airplane as I traveled to another country solo.
It was this moment.
My final day of injections before my final shot - the trigger shot - to prepare my body for the retrieval.
What if I can’t pierce my skin with the larger needle? How much will it hurt? What if I mix it incorrectly? How much damage could I do to my body if I misstep? What if this was a mistake and it doesn’t work, and this pain and anxiety was all for nothing?
The fear made it hard. The overwhelming cost to a single income with no insurance benefits. And then there was the small voice I kept hearing that seemed louder as I sat there alone in my car.
Why couldn’t it all have happened differently for me?
After I got through the first day, time passed more quickly. I had four different ultrasounds throughout the process. Not in the way I wanted, but it was my experience to own, so I asked for photos each step of the way. My doctor started at me blankly, but ultimately printed a sheet of black photos which looked like nothing but would soon show my egg sacs quickly growing in a matter of days.
My estradiol levels that began at eight naturally would rise to 643 in the course of five days. And would soar to 5,425 less than a week after that as I prepared for my trigger shot and retrieval.
A girl I had met a handful of times through a mutual friend came to my apartment 36 hours before my procedure and administered my trigger shot. This acquaintance will never understand how much it meant that she showed up for me that night.
My nurse circled the spot on my body for my trigger shot. The next morning, I’d take a pregnancy test that would show positive.
The surreal morning when I experienced my first positive pregnancy test and knew the trigger shot had been a success.
On May 31st at 9:30 in the morning, I would lay down on a cold table covered in thin white medical paper in a blue tank top while my doctor retrieved 15 viable eggs. I was awake but numbed for the procedure, one of the most physically painful experiences of my life. I’d later learn most are in the OR and under sedation for the procedure while I laid fully awake, tears rolling silently down my cheek toward the end.
My significant other sat through the procedure with me, holding my hand toward the end as the pain became nearly unbearable, listening as they slowly counted eggs one by one. I was grateful for him being there, though I’d never fully shake that night in the Target parking lot when I’d so fully felt the impact of his absence.
It has taken me two full years to process that experience and be able to share it more fully. My fear was driven mostly by two things – the unknown and feeling alone. I didn’t know many who had been on this journey, but by sharing my story, I was able to find others who had done it. We were able to seek comfort in sharing our trauma and our pain.
2018 is a year that will stand out in my mind as one that changed me, shaped me and had lasting impact on my life. Falling in love, freezing my eggs … and eventually ending my relationship, despite how much love I still carried for him in my heart. It was a time in my life that brought the highest of highs replaced by the lowest of lows.
But on the other side of all this, after time, healing, therapy, and daily yoga this experience made me stronger. Tougher. More vocal about what I want, and less tolerant about what doesn’t fit me. Or, after years of yoga, what no longer serves me.
If egg preservation is something you or someone you know have considered, please let me be your support person. I can be reached at minusaplusone@gmail.com.
The day of my egg retrieval, were I would successfully harvest 15 viable eggs.