When you read this, I hope and pray that you don’t say to yourself, “Oh that explains why Betsy was so obnoxious to be around while preparing for her sister’s wedding.” To the bridesmaids that came to my house the morning of, it was my goal to keep you from having a clue that there were some pretty terrible hormones coursing through my veins, muscles, joints, marrow…; hormones that did their utmost to make me feel completely out of control, sick, and crabby all at the same time. You see, while going through all of the stress and excitement of being involved in my sweet sister’s wedding, having our house on the market and ready to show at a moment’s notice, planning a church Christmas party, and doing all of the normal work for Christmas, I was also prepping for a frozen embryo thaw (FET).
Now, if you’re not familiar with the confusing world of infertility, allow me to expound on what a frozen embryo thaw is and what that entails for us. When we did IVF two years ago, we transferred two embryos to my womb, one survived, and we have our sweet Austin. There were two more embryos that were frozen and needed the same chance at life that we gave Austin and his twin.
When we first planned to go through the six month process of the FET, it seemed like a piece of cake. After all, we had been through IVF; how bad could thawing out and transferring a couple of embryos be? Doctor appointments, tests, oral medications, daily injections, vitamins, supplements, all at specific times on specific days for more than two months leading up to the embryo transfer. With the transfer being at the end of January, appointments and medications were in full swing during the days leading up to Holly’s December 22nd wedding.
I won’t bore you with the details of my mood swings and discomfort because that is not the purpose of this post. While we kept this transfer quiet at my request because I couldn’t handle answering a lot of questions or giving a lot of explanations about the process, I did discretely ask a few people to pray. It was stated by one or two people that this time should be easy because I know what to expect and have done it before. Indeed, I shared some of their assumptions before we started this process. This time should be easy, I thought. I know what to expect, I thought. I’ve done this before so it won’t be hard with everything else going on, I thought. I was wrong. It’s always hard to stab yourself in the abdomen several times in the morning and before you go to bed with a needle that will inject you with the necessary hormones to give your child or children a chance at life but will make you crazy and uncomfortable. It’s never easy to keep track of all the oral medications that need to be taken in the morning and at night. It’s never easy to know that I spend six months, thousands of dollars, days of injections and medications, numerous doctor’s appointments and uncomfortable procedures just to get the same results that many couples get accidentally from a night of passion. And it’s never easy to muster the courage to try one more time because I have a daily reminder of what is at stake. I see a precious little boy running around and smiling at me, chattering and giggling, showing me the incredible joy that is this sweet gift from God. And I want another gift from God just like him.
So, while I did know what to expect and I’m doing my best to still handle it, if you have encountered a crazy person that looks like me, please bear with me. We are blessed that our transfer resulted in a pregnancy of one healthy baby, and so I continue on my hormonal rampage for another six months or so after you’re reading this. Thanks for understanding. Thanks for praying for me. It is worth it in the end because I gave my babies their very best chance at life.