FET#1: CD2

I don't know what's wrong with me.

We were at a dinner party over the weekend, filled with strangers. I had my first inkling that there could be a problem when the hostess said to me "I hope you like children, because there will be plenty of them here tonight". I blink and suddenly the house is full of them, running and playing and babbling and crawling. Then one of the fathers comes over to me and says loudly "Are kids in your future? You can have our two if you want!".

I get a sudden sinking feeling when I realise that I am going to burst into tears, right in the middle of the party. I walk away from the father, leaving my husband to reply, and stumble into the first room that I find. Luckily it was the bathroom, and I let myself have a few big sobs before trying to pull myself together. I was so mortified that someone would see my swollen eyes and I would ruin the evening.

I manage to make it through the rest of the party with the help of a few glasses of wine, and just ignoring anyone who probed into our childlessness. I even offered mock sympathy to one woman who said to me "It's been so long since I could drink wine, unfortunately I got pregnant with our second child as soon as I stopped breastfeeding our first".

~~~

When we first went to our fertility clinic, they told us that they had psychologists on staff if we ever needed counselling. I smiled at them, thinking that I wasn't one of "those" women with the Baby Crazies. I knew how lucky I was already and I wasn't going to let a short delay in procreation ruin my day.

My life is wonderful. I have so much for which to be thankful.

Yet I just burst into tears in public.

Is there something wrong with me?

The Pregnancy Announcement that Broke the Camel's Back

I have a friend. We shall call her Emma. She is 36. She lives in a different country, but we visit each other occasionally.

For the past two years we have been talking getting pregnant. While we have been trying to conceive, she has been holding off, waiting for everything to be perfect. I warned her about waiting. I told her that at our age, it can take a very long time to get pregnant. "Or for some people it can happen straight away" Emma told me. I sighed, and figured that she would have to learn the hard way.

Last time I saw Emma was March, when she told me that they had just "sort of" started trying. I sent her an invitation to fertility friend. I told her that we were planning to start IVF this year. "What's IVF?" she asked me. I sighed again, and figured at her age there was a chance that she might soon have a very good understanding of what it was.

As it was nearing Emma's six month mark of trying to conceive mark , and I was about to send her an email suggesting that she see an infertility specialist without delay. I could pass on my advice on laparoscopies and blood tests and sperm counts. We could commiserate together on the difficulties of falling pregnant, and I would have a good friend with whom I could share stories and complaints.

Then, I get this email from her yesterday. Four paragraphs in, I read:

"I am 18 weeks pregnant, due in January 2011".

I realised that Emma and I fell pregnant around the same time in May, only two months since they started trying. While my pregnancy ended in miscarriage, hers ended up in a baby bump and pregnancy announcements and decorating a nursery. Which is wonderful. Which is the way that all desired pregnancies should progress.

So of course, I promptly burst into tears. At work. In front of my computer.

I felt so betrayed. She was supposed to be my infertility buddy. I know so much more about ovulation, conception, fertilization, blastocyst formation, and implantation than she does. And yet she just had sex with her partner for a few months, and now Emma is the one who gets to have a baby in January.

First infertility appointment

It's a good thing that am very happy about my life, because it turns out the infertility center works out of the gynecological department in the hospital. So we watched many pregnant bellies walk back and forth while we waited.

We were then interviewed by a younger woman about our medical histories. She did raise her eyes at my numerous graphs and statistics. She asked me for how long I had had a "baby wish", and my husband wryly noted that she did not ask him the same question when it was his turn. I thought I had prepared quite well, but when she asked me how often we had sex per month, that was not a ready figure that I had with me. I pulled out Fertility Friend's intercourse analyzer of my fertile periods over the past 12 months, and she asked "and outside of these times, you do not have sex?" I denied this statement, but now I am sure that she thinks we are celibate for 24 days out of the month.

Then suddenly she said to me, "and now we shall do an internal examination", and made some sort of gesture with her hands. Now? Did she want me to take off my skirt this moment? Yes, she did. She did not ask my husband to leave the room. She did not walk out of the room or give me a gown. She merely stood there, waiting for me to undress in front of her. I felt very shy, and removed my skirt without even thinking to remove my undies. It was only when I sat down on the paper that I realised my mistake. I removed my undies, hoisted my legs up on the stirrups, and in a few seconds she was in and out with a cervix spear.

This was all a little shocking for me. Why is it the act of undressing feels more weird than actually being naked? And what is wrong with draping a bit of fabric over the top to pretend otherwise?

Once I was dressed again, she called in the doctor came in. He looked at my temperature charts and told me that these were the best charts that he had ever seen, which was to be expected, he said, as I was a scientist. Usually, he said, they ask women to track two or three cycles, never... fourteen. I replied that you get a much better standard deviation with an increased N.

He said that the plan was to test my blood at CD21 and CD3 and do a basic internal ultrasound. In the meantime, my husband would be tested for "male factor" (he dislikes being reduced to that phrase) and if that came up normal, they would conduct further tests on me. They would also begin genetic tests immediately, as they take two months for the results to come through.

Today was my CD21 blood test, then I have my CD3 blood test, and then I come back for my ultrasound in a month. We meet with the doctor on August 12 to discuss our next strategy. I tried to ask my questions about donor gametes and embryos, but he said it was much too early for those sorts of questions. But now we are moving forward, and I feel accomplished. In 70 days we should have plenty to talk about.

Everwhere

I walk past these windows every day on my way to and from work. I don't know how, but these headless manikins always seem so smug to me.