I haven't shared too much on this, because I've honestly been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I haven't felt joy like this since being pregnant with Ellie. I wanted to protect myself, because that's what mode I have been in these last 4 years. But after watching the Brené Brown special on Netflix, I felt like it was time to acknowledge everything that has happened over the last month.
We won the BabyQuest grant a little over a month ago now, and it's just not setting in. It took a month for that to happen. We spent the first two weeks in shock that we even won. There are hundreds of applicants each round, and it's a very involved application (13 pages actually). We tried to apply for this grant at the end of last year, but when I found out about the grant, it was really close to the deadline. I immediately messaged my doctor and told her about the grant, told her what day the deadline was, and asked if she would be able to complete the medical portion of the application on time. Her initial response was "more IVF grants are just scams." So then I contacted the woman I learned of the grant from to verify. I went back to my doctor and told her it was legit, and her next response was "with how many people apply for these types of grants, you probably won't win and will just lose out of the money you pay to apply." At this point I'm really frustrated, and have waisted a week of trying to get these papers to her. I email her back and say we still want to apply. Can you please fill out these papers and get them back to me in time? She finally agrees and I even print them out for her and hand deliver them. Another week goes by and I haven't heard from her and the application has to be mailed in. I call the doctors office and explain this all the the receptionist for my doctor doesn't know what I'm talking about so I ask her to leave a message for the doctor. A few days later, I read that there is an extension in the application deadline due to the fires going on in California. It's not a terribly long extension but I'm holding out hope that she'll get it back to me in time and I can overnight it. Well the extension deadline comes and goes, and the very next day I finally receive the papers back from my doctor. Talk about being angry. And to top it off, she filled it out wrong. All her part asked what why procedures I have done, what the results were, and if IVF was necessary. She said I hadn't done a specific procedure that has to be done before IVF, yet she's the one that performed it on me. I could have filled out most of the application just based on my medical records. I was angry to say the least. And I cried a whole bunch. When I was filling out our portion of the grant, there was a part that asks if we got a second opinion, and at that point we hadn't. Until this point, we loved out doctor. It was when we told her we couldn't afford IVF, she changed her attitude. That's when we called RGI in Akron.
When we met with our new doctor, Dr. Nash, it was a little overwhelming. He's a fast mover, fast talker - not what we were used to. We go over our history with him and he starts ordering blood work and a hysteroscopy (something we had been putting off because of how expensive it was at Cleveland Clinic). One of my blood tests was for my thyroid. I had been on thyroid medication for almost two years at this point. It's within "normal" range, but for pregnancy, they prefer it to be much lower. Turns out, because the old doctor hadn't been doing regular blood tests to see if it was actually working, my dose needed to be increased. Another blood test (that my old doctor didn't do) showed my body produces more androgen hormones than it should. And finally, another blood test shows I have insulin resistance. All this to say, Dr. Nash diagnosed me with PCOS. Our old doctor left my diagnosis as unexplained rather than doing these extra tests. He also ran tests on Joel and between his results and mine, told us we had a 9% chance of getting pregnant on our own. That 9% isn't just this year, it isn't within 5 years, that's ever. Never mind the fact that egg quality and numbers go down every year. Dr. Nash even questioned WHY our old doctor even bothered having us doing 4 IUI's when they wouldn't increase our chances by much. Nothing like hearing that after you've spent $8500! We told Dr. Nash that it would be awhile before we could do IVF, if ever. He was understand, and also gave us places we would apply for financing. After having started on our Dave Ramsey debt pay off program, we did not want to finance anything else. We just couldn't handle any more debt.
A few months later I get a notification from the BabyQuest Instagram (I turned their notifications on so I would find out right away!) and immediately contacted Dr. Nash's office. They got them back to me right away, and off that application went. I was really nervous sending it in, trying to remember that yes there are a TON of applicants that are all very worthy of this grant. When you've been grieving your daughter for 3.5 years, with very little joy in there, it's hard to think positive thoughts that you just might win it. But holy fuck we did. Some days its still hard to believe.
These last 5 weeks have been overwhelming to say the least. We waited to announce that we won the grant because I was scared that for some reason, it would be taken away from me. We haven't told many people what our IVF schedule is, because I'm afraid it won't work and I will disappoint everyone. I'm afraid that if I feel too much joy, something bad will happen. Because that's just what my body knows. 2015 went from so much joy, to so much heartbreak and trauma. It's fucked with my ability to feel happiness. The ability to balance both joy and grief is so challenging for me, and a completely new experience. Joel has told me repeatedly on my many bad days, that I am worthy of a living baby. That it's okay to feel joyful about this.
Today I took another big step in this IVF process... I bought some of my meds! It felt so surreal. Again, I truly need thought we'd be here. We've also got a network of other BabyQuest winners, and one of them has been able to donate one of her leftover medications to us! So amazing!
And finally, while I don't have an exact start yet, from my own calculations we will be doing our egg retrieval mid to late June, with a frozen embryo transfer in mid to late July! We are not doing a fresh transfer because we will be doing genetic testing (assuming we get enough embryos to test!).
So there you go. IVF is around the corner, and I'm a bag of emotions.
