THE PROCESS (IVF)

Wednesday June 3rd
DR. FERTILITY FOLLOW UP
HOLY SHIT THIS IS FINALLY HAPPENING! (sort of)

Despite the eternity that it seems to have taken us to get to this point, I almost can’t believe what the doctor is finally saying. In a few days – at the beginning of my next cycle – we can begin the process to ‘harvest’ my eggs. (I will refer to this as egg laying, I find the word ‘harvest’ best left to farming and agriculture and not my lady bits.)

We have finally entered the intersection with a green light – after almost 2 years of back-forth, tests-torments. We are finally ready to start the process.

Oh my…

We thank our fertility doctor, and head out to the receptionist who will give us the follow up instructions. I am apparently making a face that Claudine hasn’t quite seen before.

“What is wrong with your face?”
“I don’t know” I say terror-smiling with wide eyes.

The song Memories is playing quietly on the radio and I momentarily wonder if I have slipped into some alternate reality. I never really noticed the music in this office before. In this well decorated 18^th floor clinic, with soft furnishings and stencilled calligraphy on the walls repeating words like “Sun” “Touch” “Thoughts” “Believe” “Light” in soft pastel colours against walls tastefully painted in neutral shades of calming beige. Beige, for the most part, is not calming. It is dumb.

I am frantically looking for the stencil for “terror-smiles”, but can’t seem to find it anywhere. Odd.

“Memories all alooooone in the moooooon liiiight” has time stopped moving?
Why is such a shitty song still playing?

Panic and excitement sometimes feel exactly the same. We fill out our prescriptions and leave.

My face apparently fixes itself once we are outside and I have started to soak everything in. A short time later I am all excitement and no more panic.

Friday June 10
BLOOD TESTS & SUNDRY 
My iCal entry reads “EGG LAYING: 7am” I snicker to myself for having such a clever official name for the entire process. Blood tests and internal ultrasounds are always scheduled between 7:00 – 8:30am, because fertility clinics like to prepare you for parenthood by making everything at an unholy hour of the morning. We head to the clinic for tests to make sure I am not suddenly festering any communicable diseases and that my lady bits look nice and sparkly.

I hope my ovaries are camera ready this early in the morning.

As the lovely vampire tech tries to find a vein, it occurs to me that I am going to have to give blood very regularly throughout this process. Basically daily. My veins and I are pretty displeased. I hate giving blood. This is going to be a long few weeks.

Friday June 12
BIRTH CONTROL PILL
Science certainly can seem counterintuitive at times. It is hilarious to take such a descriptively named medication in hopes of achieving the absolute opposite. Claudine and I are both put on the birth control pill so they can ‘control’ and sync our cycles. I pop the tiny pill out of its clever date stamped packet of neat little numbered rows. What a true marvel of science this packaging is. Someone call NASA!

I took the birth control pill for one month ab­out 15 years ago. It made me really full of ALL OF THE RAGE. I had an ovarian cyst that my doctor at the time was trying to shrink. I was a total savage for the entire time I was on the pill. The cyst shrank, but so did people trying to get away from my unchecked angriness. The pill made me into a rabid animal, if that particular strain of rabies involved being excessively bitchy, sarcastic and rotund. I also sweated a lot which didn’t do much for my overall vibe.

A few years prior another doctor had found a similar cyst and recommended surgery. The surgery to remove my “grapefruit sized” ovarian cyst was made through a banana shaped incision 3 inches below my navel. Apparently reproductive surgery descriptions and fruit salads have much in common.

Anyway, in the post surgery review the doctor said that the cyst turned out to be very small in reality – I’m guessing more grape than grapefruit – I suppose to make me feel better about my magically shrunken internal fruit she then said that she had considered going ahead and removing my appendix “as she was in there already” but decided not to bother.

Umm, thanks for not randomly removing my inner organs just because you were in the neighbourhood.

In hindsight the whole procedure seemed totally unnecessary. Like, did the cyst really need to be removed or did she just want to buy a new Mercedes Benz with the money I paid her?

I guess i’ll never know, and I promptly found another lady-bits doctor anyway.

In any event I hope this new round of Birth Control doesn’t make me feel like a raging lunatic again.

UPDATE: 
So far so good. Almost a week in and I have not morphed into a creature from the temper depths. I do find it difficult to remember to take the stupid pill. If I actually had to depend on myself to take this for real birth control I would have many, many unplanned children. I could probably start some sort of sporting team or staff a small factory.

Claudine seems to be fine with taking her dose and diligently reminds me about mine. But she was always far cleverer than I am.

Thursday June 18
CLINIC NURSE CONSULT
With a firm, brisk motion the clinic nurse is demonstrating how we will inject ourselves by puncturing a saline filled syringe into a blue foam shaped disk; the type of squishy thing that people keep on their desks to squeeze for stress relief.

The shiny needle penetrates the blue material for the fourth time and I feel like my insides are getting squishy. I wish I could grab that stress ball and stop her from jamming needles into it. The array of skin piercing paraphernalia on the demonstration desk in front of us is making my knees powdery. I hate needles and the idea that we have to do this to ourselves at home is utterly horrifying.

The fertility drugs in these filled syringes are expectantly going to make my body turn into a Grade A egg layer. Claudine will also have to take a daily shot too in order for her body to get ready.

This is a list of the drugs we will have to take over the course of this process:

• Lupron 0.1ml – Both Claudine and I will have to inject this to allow the doctors to ‘control and shut down our systems’. I think they could find a nicer way of saying that.
• GONAL F 225iU – This drug will mark Day 1 of fertility treatment. This is to make my eggs “cook nicely” (nobody actually told us those words, I just made it up). I start this on July 3^rd. Gonal F – which I have decided is the worst name for anything in the world- comes in one of those pre filled pen dispensers. It is pretty much directly from the future and has a price tag to match. Leaving me with the certainty that the future is expensive and total rubbish when it attempts to name things.
• Luveris 75iU – This is a sneaky one, because it comes in two tiny bottles – one with liquid and one with powder. This whole thing is getting very Alice in Wonderland – if Alice was into injecting shit. This shot is to make “my eggs juicy”. (again I just made that up, feel free to Google these drugs if you really want the truth of what they do. All this science bores my overactive mind… Squirrel pants!)
• HCG 10,000iU – This is the real meat n’ taters This apparently makes my eggs get ready to leave their sweet little follicle homes and gets them ready to be harvested, you know, like corn in a field or a pasture filled with sweet succulent berries.

This is a lot of information to take in, but Claudine seems very confident that she is going to be able to administer the shots. I am very confident that I will cold dead faint if I have to do any of them.

The nurse jabs another demonstration dose into the squishy stress ball-thing. Soft rock music of the 60’s and 70’s plays on radio. I never noticed how long the song American Pie went on for.
I mean is that song honestly 34 minutes long?
I cross my legs tightly and fold my body a little more in half.
I am making the face again.

After a torturous hour of injection demonstrations we then pay for the cost* of the IVF cycle. I comment to the receptionist that this is not a figure I am accustomed to seeing on the credit card display screen. She jokes that it’s almost like buying a car, I point out that at least in that transaction we would actually be assured to be getting a car. We all smile politely because spending that much money early in the morning isn’t really all that funny.

(I will discuss all the costs in a future post when I get over the shock of it all)

Saturday June 20th 
DAY 1 OF INJECTIONS
Started the Lupron 0.1ml tonight. It turns out Claudine is not quite as confident about the needle jabbing as she made out during the demonstration on that unsuspecting stress ball. All the syringes and apparatus are laid out on our dining table. She has systematically backed herself up and down the hall away from her own needle holding hand three times already. I feel faint and we are both starting to sweat.

What have we done?

I suggest she does my shot first. To see how it feels going in. She is shockingly swift at delivering the injection into my skin; apparently jabbing a needle into my belly fat is no misery for her. The shot feels like any other subcutaneous injection that I have had before. It is not totally painless and I don’t love it, but overall it’s not that bad. Like an annoying insect sting with a residual tingle and burn sensation. When it is her turn to be injected the hallway escape starts again.

I try to say soothing, calming things, but she is becoming redder in the face and seems almost on the brink of tears. Eventually I realise that this is going to escalate. After another 10 minutes of this avoidance jig I suggest that I give it a try, and with squinting eyes and a gelatinous disposition I deliver the shot just in time for her to catch me on my way to the ground in a mini near faint.

This is day one of many. I am not sure how we are going to do this. I mentally list friends that we can trick into injecting us every night. I can make a reasonably substantive list. We must have weird friends.

What have we gotten ourselves into?

Sunday June 21st 
DAY 2 OF INJECTIONS
Claudine injects me and then the dance of getting her shot ready begins. We have devised that if she sits in a chair with her back to a wall (so she can’t move away or swat at me as easily) then it goes significantly faster. A watery feeling fills my brain again but I don’t faint. Progress.

We are getting better at this. Sort of.

Tuesday June 23rd 
DAY 4 OF INJECTIONS/LAST (BCP)
We are slowly getting the hang of this injection stuff. (Kidding, it is still total rubbish) Claudine did manage to inject me twice yesterday because she wasn’t sure if the needle went in properly the first time.

The needle was totally in.

But all in all there are worst things than being a pincushion to reasonably small needles and this whole process is giving us both a huge appreciation for the fact that we are otherwise healthy and will only have to do this for a very short time. We stop taking the Birth Control Pill today. See you never again you tiny, stupid pill.

Friday June 26th
DAY 7 OF INJECTIONS
Somehow we managed to survive a full week of injections, remarkable what you can learn to get used to. We have company over for dinner and our friend Sara is apparently totally happy to jab us with needles between courses.
It is becoming tricky to find spots that haven’t already been poked. A rainbow of tiny bruises is starting to appear on my overly injected skin. Claudine thankfully doesn’t bruise as easily.

We clean up and serve dessert after throwing away all the biohazard sharps into the provided container. If anyone had suggested to me in the past that a nice dinner on the

patio would include the use of hypodermic needles between courses I would have called them crazy. It is truly astonishing what you can get accustomed to over time when life throws challenges your way.

‘Normal’ can have so many varying definitions.

Thursday July 2nd 
DAY 13 OF INJECTIONS/ASSESSMENT DAY
Early morning blood tests and ultrasounds scheduled at the clinic to see how things are progressing on the medications.

Before we started the fertility meds I had 9 follicles on the left side and 12 on the right. Follicles, I am learning, are basically the place where human eggs grow and develop. They hang out in there until they are ‘ripe’ and are ready to be released. I imagine the follicles to be like a cosy little place for the egg to live. An egg tent! I have a good number of egg tents to begin with.

Today I had 12 on the left side and 15 on the right. Apparently my body is totally jazzed about these drugs. They will let us know what exact dose of the fertility drugs I am to start tomorrow.

Also diagrams like this are supposed to be helpful somehow… mostly I just wonder why that lady has so much custard under her skin. Weird.

Friday July 3rd 
DAY 14 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 1
Today marks the start of two injections for me. Claudine continues on the Lupron while I add 225iU of Gonal F or Gonads as I have re-named it to my nightly regime.

Gonal F (Gonads) comes in a pre-loaded space age ‘pen’. Oh science, you have really outdone yourself this time.

Our friend and neighbour, Jeffrey, administers all the shots for us tonight. He is very swift and good at it. We question if he has some secret, sordid history of randomly injecting other people. He says no, but I think he is probably lying.

Monday July 6^th
DAY 17 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 4
In the clinic waiting room this morning it seems that over the weekend someone has changed the satellite music radio station from the usual classic oldies station to 90’s Rock Alternative.

The angst-ridden tunes of my angst-ridden teenage years resonate out of the speakers. Pearl Jam is oozing out Jeremy as people try to read magazines and not make eye contact in the ever-awkward waiting area.

We are all basically here because some part of our sex organs either don’t work or need assistance. Trust me, this makes for potentially awkward ‘casual’ banter. So people tend not to make polite chitchat here.

“Oh hey, what’s your reproductive anomaly?”

Later on when I am fully spread eagled in the stirrups, on the table waiting to have an ‘internal’ ultrasound, Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine started playing. If you are not familiar with this particular ditty have a listen here.

You haven’t really lived until you have had your ovaries scanned to the belting sound of furious 90’s rock music.

The technician performed the ultrasound; with what felt like the most sparing application of lubricant – but then I wondered if it was just the music that made it all the more raw and abrasive. By the end of it Karma Police by RadioHead warbled away over the crinkling sound of my paper blanket and my sense of reality slipped completely.

When your day is so eventful all before 8am you just know things are going to improve.

Wednesday July 8^th
DAY 19 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 6
I rode my bike to the appointment this morning, which made the extraction of the blood sample from my Houdini type veins somewhat easier. The technicians are getting to know us now and they smile compassionately at my reluctant veins. I always tell the tech who happens to be doing the blood test that morning that she is the best at the injection.

“I didn’t feel a thing” I lie through gripped teeth as they sometimes have to ‘fish around’ for the correct spot.
I think it is good to play favorites in these sorts of scenarios.
I got the more gentle of the ultrasound techs today, which coupled with the fact that they had changed the station from ’90’s alternative’ to ‘Commercial easy listening Pop’ made this scan significantly less abrasive.

Tonight in addition to the taking Gonal F (Gonads) and the Lupron, I am to add 75 Ui of Luveris; which inconveniently comes in 2 tiny bottles – one with liquid and one with a white power. You suction the fluid out with a stomach flipping-ly large needle and inject it into the bottle of suspect looking white powder. Our kitchen counter is starting to look like a nightly version of a scene from Train Spotting. (But thankfully not the toilet scene)

We have moved from my stomach to injecting my inner thigh. That inside part of your upper leg that wobbles with a mind of its own, particularly in the over enthusiastic execution of a 1960’s dance sequence like “The Twist”.

The 75Ui of Luveris needs to be injected with a slightly larger gauge of needle. Claudine can’t seem to deal with the pressure she needs to apply to insert this needle and we are now back to some panicked sweating. I think some things are best-done fast but she puts the needle in with the greased lightening pace of drying paint. This is not the best strategy.

Except now, after nearly 3 weeks of having to deal with injections, I have somehow become immune. I mentally decide that tomorrow night I will do my own shots.

Fuck this noise.
These hormones are making me crotchety.

Thursday July 9th 
DAY 20 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 7
I expect it is the tsunami of hormones surging through my body right now but I am finding the daily morning attendance to the clinic as boring as dry toast and equally as palatable. I feel unrealistically edgy towards the gentle mood lighting and the curling script of the word Breathe stenciled on the wall makes me want to yell “No wall, YOU breathe, bitch!!

There seems to be an influx of people here today with babies and small children in tow. Perhaps the clinic hires actors to show up flaunting tiny humans to make us keep focused and coming back to spend more money.

These hormones might be warping perceptions a bit today, either way I think people who come to the fertility clinic with babies are probably just showing off.

“Look what I can do, you barren lot!”

I am going to hire a kindergarten class and bring them in with me next time.

Because of the near fainting and multiple jabbing debacle of last nights injection episode, and despite my puffy appearance and edgy mood I found a strength I didn’t know existed and managed to inject myself with 2 of the 3 injections. Apparently now I am totally immune to this shit and just go for it like I am skewering a zucchini to throw on the grill. Except the zucchini is my skin and the skewer is a bunch of drug filled syringes. Whatever, science, I got this. Eat shit.

Friday July 10th
DAY 21 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 8
Sarah MacLachlan exhales through the speakers this morning as I have my ultrasound. They seem to have stuck with the commercial pop station this week. This is helping to calm my increasingly frayed nerves. All of these drugs can really make you feel a lot of feelings. So very many feelings!

I met a new nurse today to review our file. I smile politely as the nurses try to explain all the results, I am not sure exactly what all these stats mean other than the fact that I am feeling grumpy and puffy like I accidentally swallowed most of the earths oceans.

My body is evidentially responding well to the drugs and I currently have several maturing follicles. The nurse seems impressed, I am enthused by her encouragement and feel quite pleased with my egg-filled self.

“Ohh I have so many eggs to lay!” I remark excitedly

My new Eastern European nurse/egg-laying coach thinks this is the most hilarious thing anyone can say, “Yas, you are like chicken, ya!”

We are having a good chuckle about this and our regular nurse pops her head in around the door.

“That sounds like Tracy” she says, looking in to see what all the early morning cackling is about. I am guessing other patients aren’t often hamming it up in the nurses’ office at 7:30 am

“Look how many eggs I am laying” I yell excitedly showing her the report.

We all but high five as I leave the room feeling competent in my egg producing prowess. All the chickens and leatherback turtles of the world best watch out!

I slop my newly purchased next set of drugs into my backpack and head to the elevators. This puffy faced, swollen belly human is on a mission.

Saturday July 11th
DAY 22 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 9

I thought it was my imagination that the ultrasound seemed to be taking longer with each visit. But the tech today confirmed that the scans get slightly longer with each day of the cycle because there is more “stuff” to measure and count. Err, gross!

Each follicle (egg tent) is measured with increasing detail to see how they are progressing. I figured out a few days ago that instead of amusing myself with the unexpected hilarity of the radio station, I could just play Spider Solitaire on my phone during the scan to pass the time. So while I am having my ovaries scanned I stack digital cards in descending order of hierarchy, K, Q, J, 10. Works like a charm. Except now I might always associate this particular card game with uncomfortable internal scoping.

I suppose there are worst things in life.

Claudine had to come in for her own scans and blood tests this morning. She was reasonably mortified when I told her that I was playing on my phone during the scan.

Meh, at this point I have permanently checked all shame in at the door.

Sunday July 12^th
DAY 23 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 10

Apparently it is Man Day in here today. The room is full of somewhat sleepy and slightly disgruntled looking men, playing on their mobile phones and drinking large cups of coffee.

One guy is eating something out of a package from MacDonald’s. It is 7am on a Sunday. I wonder if this is a routine dietary requirement of his. His belly suggests that it might be.

It’s the most crowded we have ever seen it in here. I guess Sunday is the day to bring someone with you.

Claudine is in today as we get closer to the actual transfer day they are ensuring that the progesterone and other drug cocktails she is on are successfully making her uterine lining thick and ready to receive the embryos. She is such a champ and is taking this all in stride.

Mike And The Mechanics sings in the Living years coolly over the speakers and I am beginning to wish I could throw the satellite radio box out of the fucking window. (wow, hormones really do make people extra angry!)

I will be happy to stop feeling like I am containing an oceanic tidal system in my womb and have this process finally complete.

Monday July 13^th
DAY 24 OF INJECTIONS/ FERTILITY TREATMENT: DAY 11

A tall lanky man has just emerged from a mystery, unmarked room around the corner. He is carrying a tray with something wrapped in a towel and hands it over to the nurse in the clinic area. His face is beet red and beads of sweat are glistening on his brow and upper lip. He takes a seat and awkwardly stares at the morning news on the muted waiting room TV.

How remarkably surreal to have to jerk off into a cup and then sit in a crowded waiting room trying to play it normal.

Everyone is onto you, pal.
I hope you washed your hands.

We got the big news that I am now sufficiently full of eggs and done producing – all my egg tents (follicles) are ready for the next stage of this camping trip. Luckily for me I don’t have to swim ashore and dig a nest in the sand like my leatherback turtle pals.

Claudine is now also in for daily scans and her doses of progesterone and other medications are carefully monitored.

I can stop all the other injections and the final shot is called HCG, which will start the chain of events to make my body release all the eggs so that they can be retrieved. This is the final magic jab to get everything moving.

Because it is so fancy it comes in this stately silver box. I expect this is probably just another clinic tactic to try to make you forget what a monstrous amount of money all these drugs cost.

Next step is the retrieval.

“Ohh look I must have bought some expensive jewelry. Nope just more boring drugs in a fancy box.”