Wow, I'm so sad for me.... ;P

I just read my last 2 posts in 2009 and thought, wow, that's like a book or movie. I couldn't believe how sad it was or that it was actually me that went through all of this. I've been watching that Giulana & Bill reality show and I usually cry during it because I totally relate to what they are going through. It was strange tonight reading my own blog post and totally relating to myself. It's almost like "How did that couple ever handle that?" Then, oh right...that's me. So.....back to the story.

I was going to cut the story short because I wanted to say we are OK. The last part is really sad and honestly, that's not all my husband and I are through this whole journey. We've tried really hard to keep our lives fun and (even though we have no money anymore) keep a good perspective.

However, I guess you really can't have an idea how hard that has been unless you know where we've been. Let's start with the numbers and the details. IVF coverage in Pennsylvania sucks! My coverage was for $10k, 1/2 of which was spent on initial testing. Basically, an fresh IVF cycle costs about $12K, a frozen IVF cycle costs $3K and meds are a different story alltogether. We did 3 fresh IVFs and 1 frozen before we moved onto donor egg. The cost of a donor cycle is about $25K. When I found out I was being laid off from my job, I stockpiled as many meds as I could in the 8 weeks I had left....so luckily, this tookabout $3k off the price. My mom helped us out with this cycle from $$ she had from my grandmother so that was a huge help.

When the donor cycle didn't work, I was really blown away. Not only for us, but I really wanted it to work b/c my mom wanted to help us so much. It was really hard. We had 9 embryos left from this same cycle. We did a 2nd cycle that was frozen and that was negative. We did a 3rd cycle and that was disastrous. On 3rd cycle, I could almost predict how bad it was going to be. It was strange how catastrophic became amusing....because it had to be or else it would be devastating.

I knew from the very first donor cycle that something was wrong. I just knew that my response versus this donor's response were not dissimilar enough....and they should have been. My doctor's office kept acting like I was over-reacting (which I was not) and that I was a total bitch (which I was).

So, we had 4 embryos. 2 didn't make it through the thaw. (None of my embryos ever arrested during a thaw.) Then, the other 2 didn't continue to divide. I laughed when the embryologist told me this because that's all i could do. I KNEW IT! I predicted it! I KNEW something was wrong. I knew we would wind up using the 6 embryos of our own that we had frozen....and that's what we did.

The doctor came into the waiting room that day and (after denying any problem in the 2 previous cycles) starting talking about humidity and lab temp and how they checked everything. I (who just wanted to do this lousy embryo transfer and get the hell out of there) realized that this was finally an admission that something was wrong...really wrong. I was trying to hold it together with humor until he started saying that no matter what happened they didn't want us to walk away empty handed. I started to cry. And....I couldn't stop. I had never done this in my drs. office before. And, as I walked passed the receptionist's desk on the way to the transfer room, I could see there were nurses and office people all huddled there. They all knew that this was a bad day for us....and they all didn't know what to do.

As I had the 5 embryos I had left transferred, I knew these we unlikely to work. I commented to the doctor how this used to be such a fun, exciting day for my husband and I. We used to be so excited and hopeful during the embryo transfer.....and now I can't stop crying. Afterward, the doctor held my hand and wished us luck....I told him to go kill a chicken or do whatever he had to do. (The sarcasm just turned on....that's what I do) I was still crying until the moment we left.

And....the pregnancy test was negative.

Now, that's a really, really bad day for us. This could be a make or break day. 7 IVfs and nothing to show for it. It's a hard thing to take for sure.

But....we are ok. WE ARE OK!