things
This IVF thing is actually happening. There's a scan booked for 8.35 on Sunday morning whichis a seriously dumbass time. Why not book it for 8.32 and really bring out the anal retentive in me? I'm also feeling a little nervous about the lack of monitoring throughout the last three weeks because by the time they do check the state of my ovaries, they might have exploded or something else equally as a) lethal and b) unlikely. In the event I survive the next few days, an egg retrieval will be scheduled for sometime next week, with the embryos being transfered two or three days after that.
And I said "embryoS", which is freaking my shit out as much as it's making you shake your head in disbelief.
Thing is, my age is a factor, as is the fact that there's a marginally higher chance of conceiving with more than one embryo being transferred. The numbers given to me, accompanied with a dismissive handwave and the over-my-head glance to see if anyone more interesting was standing behind me, were that there is an increase in pregnancy rates of around 5% to 10% with a double embryo transfer. Or these pregnancies, around 25% will be with twins. Obviously, I'm still undecided as to what the best option is. In thinking about the family I want, the chance of a twins is something to be excited about, but because I'm also a practical mofo, the chance of twins is an odd I'd want to dodge, which, what? What I mean is, in an ideal world, I'd love twins because it means I'd get at least partway to the five kids I always wanted. Of course, in an ideal world I'd have had those children already and wouldn't be here writing about my dreams, I'd be outside playing with them. And in the unideal world I'm living in, the one where I'm not an idiot, I know that raising twins and a toddler alone would amount a crapinksi deal for the kids, never mind that it would probably send me nuts.
So yes. Dilemma.
Not surprisingly, the unit has been about as useful as wet kleenex in helping me sort through this particular dilemma, so I'm really on my own in deciding which way to go. The best advice I've received to date - and I use that term loosely - is a shrug and the statement that my doctor thinks it's okay to transfer two, which it might well be if he meant "It's okay to transfer two because if you have twins, I'll give you a million dollars to help raise them".
I'm not sure it's worth the 25% increase in the chance of twins. And then I'm not sure if the risk is worth it because what if that extra embryo is the difference between having one new baby or none at all?
Most of all, I totally can't believe I'm doing this, probably because I don't feel like I'm doing this. It's nothing like I expected as it's way too easy to be the same thing so many other women literally battle through. I'm not feeling superior or like some kind of super hero though. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, like maybe I'm not inhaling deeply enough when I snort my Synarel, or I'm not injecting the Gonal F properly, or maybe I am but my body simply isn't responding to any of it. I was like that when I was pregnant with Daniel too. Rather than be proud of how I both emotionally and phycially accept a challenge, I worried that something was wrong, that maybe the heartbeat we'd all seen was gas, and that maybe the bump was a physical manifestation of my crazy mad mind, and despite ending up as big as a house, I didn't really feel pregnant because I thought pregnancy was supposed to be a whole lot more difficult than mine was.
Yesterday I had the brilliant thought of filming myself shooting up the Gonal F because how freaky would it be to watch myself doing that? Daniel was playing in another room, so I sat the camera on the desk, primed the pen, and was adequately distracted by the camera (Footage! Of me!) to be blissfully unaware of him emerging from out of nowhere to leap at me, hand fully prepped and ready for the ultimately successful slam dunk. He hit the pen pretty damn hard and slammed it right past my fatty midsection overlay, so I yelled at him to back off and then pushed him away. He ran away crying and stood sobbing on the other side of the room as I collected my freaked out shit and actually went ahead with the whole injection thing without passing out from the sheer awesomeness of the OMG factor involved.
Parenting tip: if you EVER want to feel like shit about the suckage that is your parenting skills, scream at your kid on video then watch it a thousand times.
Parental survival tip: delete the fucking video because it's not like you need any more reasons to feel like a shit parent.
Gonal F survival tip: tie the kid to a chair and lock him outside before you even think about shooting up.
Being unreasonable like that with Daniel pains me now more than ever because my main concern about having another child is that the Us we now are will no longer be. I hate feeling like I'm not valuing every single moment with my son. Being the sole parent of a single child affords a unique and very special bond, and while I don't like that he has no one but me, if I'm also honest about it, I'll admitto treasuring the very same thing. I'm all he has and he's all I have, and I'm insecure enough to not want that balance challenged, and I project enough of my insecurities to worry about how Daniel will feel to have his balance challenged. Will he feel at least as loved, or with another child in the mix, will he feel he's lost at least half of me? So it's important to me that I do treasure this time, which is why I feel that much like shit when I don't treasure even a minute slice of the present.
I realise too - and am grateful - that our aloneness is only a short term thing. Life will invariably add people to love and be loved by, and time will invariably lessen Daniel's single minded reliance on me. I fear the changes I'm forcing upon him, yes, but I also realise that nothing I do will change the inevitable, because even if I could preserve the bond of being each other's only, I wouldn't.
And I said "embryoS", which is freaking my shit out as much as it's making you shake your head in disbelief.
Thing is, my age is a factor, as is the fact that there's a marginally higher chance of conceiving with more than one embryo being transferred. The numbers given to me, accompanied with a dismissive handwave and the over-my-head glance to see if anyone more interesting was standing behind me, were that there is an increase in pregnancy rates of around 5% to 10% with a double embryo transfer. Or these pregnancies, around 25% will be with twins. Obviously, I'm still undecided as to what the best option is. In thinking about the family I want, the chance of a twins is something to be excited about, but because I'm also a practical mofo, the chance of twins is an odd I'd want to dodge, which, what? What I mean is, in an ideal world, I'd love twins because it means I'd get at least partway to the five kids I always wanted. Of course, in an ideal world I'd have had those children already and wouldn't be here writing about my dreams, I'd be outside playing with them. And in the unideal world I'm living in, the one where I'm not an idiot, I know that raising twins and a toddler alone would amount a crapinksi deal for the kids, never mind that it would probably send me nuts.
So yes. Dilemma.
Not surprisingly, the unit has been about as useful as wet kleenex in helping me sort through this particular dilemma, so I'm really on my own in deciding which way to go. The best advice I've received to date - and I use that term loosely - is a shrug and the statement that my doctor thinks it's okay to transfer two, which it might well be if he meant "It's okay to transfer two because if you have twins, I'll give you a million dollars to help raise them".
I'm not sure it's worth the 25% increase in the chance of twins. And then I'm not sure if the risk is worth it because what if that extra embryo is the difference between having one new baby or none at all?
Most of all, I totally can't believe I'm doing this, probably because I don't feel like I'm doing this. It's nothing like I expected as it's way too easy to be the same thing so many other women literally battle through. I'm not feeling superior or like some kind of super hero though. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, like maybe I'm not inhaling deeply enough when I snort my Synarel, or I'm not injecting the Gonal F properly, or maybe I am but my body simply isn't responding to any of it. I was like that when I was pregnant with Daniel too. Rather than be proud of how I both emotionally and phycially accept a challenge, I worried that something was wrong, that maybe the heartbeat we'd all seen was gas, and that maybe the bump was a physical manifestation of my crazy mad mind, and despite ending up as big as a house, I didn't really feel pregnant because I thought pregnancy was supposed to be a whole lot more difficult than mine was.
Yesterday I had the brilliant thought of filming myself shooting up the Gonal F because how freaky would it be to watch myself doing that? Daniel was playing in another room, so I sat the camera on the desk, primed the pen, and was adequately distracted by the camera (Footage! Of me!) to be blissfully unaware of him emerging from out of nowhere to leap at me, hand fully prepped and ready for the ultimately successful slam dunk. He hit the pen pretty damn hard and slammed it right past my fatty midsection overlay, so I yelled at him to back off and then pushed him away. He ran away crying and stood sobbing on the other side of the room as I collected my freaked out shit and actually went ahead with the whole injection thing without passing out from the sheer awesomeness of the OMG factor involved.
Parenting tip: if you EVER want to feel like shit about the suckage that is your parenting skills, scream at your kid on video then watch it a thousand times.
Parental survival tip: delete the fucking video because it's not like you need any more reasons to feel like a shit parent.
Gonal F survival tip: tie the kid to a chair and lock him outside before you even think about shooting up.
Being unreasonable like that with Daniel pains me now more than ever because my main concern about having another child is that the Us we now are will no longer be. I hate feeling like I'm not valuing every single moment with my son. Being the sole parent of a single child affords a unique and very special bond, and while I don't like that he has no one but me, if I'm also honest about it, I'll admitto treasuring the very same thing. I'm all he has and he's all I have, and I'm insecure enough to not want that balance challenged, and I project enough of my insecurities to worry about how Daniel will feel to have his balance challenged. Will he feel at least as loved, or with another child in the mix, will he feel he's lost at least half of me? So it's important to me that I do treasure this time, which is why I feel that much like shit when I don't treasure even a minute slice of the present.
I realise too - and am grateful - that our aloneness is only a short term thing. Life will invariably add people to love and be loved by, and time will invariably lessen Daniel's single minded reliance on me. I fear the changes I'm forcing upon him, yes, but I also realise that nothing I do will change the inevitable, because even if I could preserve the bond of being each other's only, I wouldn't.
posted by aibee at 23:52
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home