Oh May Oh My

How is it only May 7th?? I sincerely feel like I've lived a whole life in the last 7 days. I don't even know where to begin!

On May 1st we met with Dr. Conway and officially agreed to IVF. We started birth control that night after hearing that my blood levels looked good. We scheduled our Plan of Care visit as well as the saline ultrasound before we left that day.

For us, these appointments were a huge deal. We would learn all the medical details of our IVF protocol. When to stop the birth control, when we could potentially be having our retrevial and when we could expect our transfer to be. We would also learn if my uterus was happy or sad (my words of choosing).

The exciting day came yesterday.

We started with our Plan of Care meeting. Mallory, the IVF coordinator, printed out the entire IVF schedule for us. Everything down to the time frame injections are to be administered is listed on this calendar. It was exciting to see that June 20th is our potential egg retrieval day and 5 days later will be our transfer! Plans could change by a day or two but for now, the last week of June is where my heart is choosing to focus.

Right after we met with Mallory, I was taken back for my water ultrasound. It was not painful but I did feel like I was gutted for a bit after words... I guess that is just what happens when you have something up in your business for 20 minutes.

The ultrasound showed us a sad uterus in the form of a polyp. Of course, it could have been keeping me from getting pregnant with previous cycles and with IVF in our very near future, we want to have it removed. A hysteroscopy will be performed some time this month while I am still on birth control but the surgery has yet to be scheduled. My uterus is pretty sad and so am I. It won't postpone our plans and it probably won't be a big deal. Just a couple days at home and I'll be back to normal, but the idea that it's been there the whole time really gets to me.

Before we started treatment a minor abnormality was found during my first water ultrasound. A couple nurses and our Doctor reassured us that what they saw was so minor, that there was no need to be concerned. Even though I brought up this "abnormality" on more than one occasion, treatment continued and I never did get pregnant. It's too late now, but I'll always wonder if our eggs were being fertilized but struggled to implant.

Only a few minutes after I got home, with little time to digest the details of our appointment, I received news of my grandmother's passing. Immediately my mind shifted to grief and sorrow rather than fear and panic. When we first started trying for a baby, we didn't tell anyone. We knew we would struggle but didn't know how much or for how long. It wasn't until recently that I talked to my grandma about the details of our infertility. I had honestly hoped the conversation could have been avoided all together by announcing a pregnancy after a little medical intervention. There was no pregnancy announced or a baby for her to meet before she passed and that has been tough for me to swallow.

The Month of May looks rather stressful and somber right about now. To say I am worried about the timing of it all would be an understatement. I am trying to have a little bit of faith that I won't be spread paper thin trying to show up in all the places I am needed.

When it rains it pours, right? One could only hope that after the sheets of rain fall from the sky, a beautiful rainbow will appear in it's place.