Wow, I'm experiencing a second shock at how many lurkers I appear to have and what it takes to lure you out of hiding. I love the lovely lurkers- please come out to play more often.
I haven't meant to keep you all in suspense as to the details but truth be told, it has been a wee bit hectic around here; Christmas (must shop for presents! tomorrow!), organising moving house, the puppy, sorting out the car repairs saga. Oh, and for added chaos, I was transferred, at short notice, to a new department at work. As I will explain, all of this mayhem contributed to my totally missing the boat about getting a ferry ticket, as it were. And now I have pregnancy symptoms resembling a permanent queasy hangover. I'm certainly not complaining, although it does mean that it takes me that little bit longer to get anything done.
OK, enough with the excuses. It happened like this: we arrived at the shiny new clinic early and sat in the waiting room filling out the forms. Because it was a Saturday morning, and the clinic has only been up and running for two months, we were the only ones there. The place had a sort of odd, sterile feel- not unpleasant at all, but with the sense that the emotional footprints of infertility- hope, pain, despair and joy- hadn't yet had time to really permeate the fabric of the building.
The chat with the doctor went well- he seemed pretty clued up and he possessed the sort of pleasing frankness I value in medical personnel. We went over the history: unexplained infertility, failed IVF during the summer of 2005, the long break since then. We discussed timing for trying another round of IVF (February was looking likely) and those optional extras, like bringing acupuncturist to the clinic on transfer day (yes please). And so forth. Of course, he was unable to resist whipping out the diagrams. Laminated, no less. In particular, he started waving around a illustration of the way fertility and ovarian response to medication plummets like stone after a certain age.
"Given your age of 36," the doctor said, "'and your last treatment cycle, I'd guess you'll fall somewhere around here," and he pointed to the area of the chart heading "Grim to dire".
He went on to explain that prior to treatment, the clinic encouraged an ovarian assessment, used to evaluate the the likelihood of the response to the treatment and as a helpful tool in order to tailor the medication appropriately. This involved a blood test to check AMH (oooh, a hormone I hadn't even heard of! Nifty!) and a ride in the stirrups for a wanding to check the number of antral follicles. Forget FSH, he said, with a dismissive wave- AMH is the thing to check.
Since my last experience of fertility drugs was to pretty much choose my own, I thought all of this sounded like a dandy idea. Because if it turned out my ovaries were all washed up, we could just skip the whole thing! Wheee! And they could do it all today! Saddle up, cowgirl!
As this discussion was going on, I began to have the curious sensation in the back of my mind that there was something I had overlooked; specifically, it was troubling me a little that I couldn't remember the exact start date of my last period. The doctor had asked, of course, and I was vague- middle of November? Toward end of cycle? Certainly about to get period any second now, I think? He accepted this without too much questioning, but the tiny gears in my head began a- whirling-whirling. When was my last period, goddamnit? And what kind of eejit goes to the IVF clinic without that exact data? Er, that would be me, apparently. All I can do is shrug and refer you to the aforesaid: Christmas, moving house, puppy, new job, car.
"I suppose I could actually be pregnant," I said as he finished up taking the AMH blood, "but you know, I hate those stories of women who find out they are pregnant in the IVF clinic. It's just so damn apocryphl."
Yes, I actually used the word "apocryphl". Because that's how much of an ass I am.
Bladder emptied as per instructions, we proceeded directly to the wanding room. I hopped into the chair and assumed the position. E. decided to wait outside and read the newspaper for a bit, which was fine by me since I figured there wasn't going to be anything much exciting going on anyway; a couple of antral follicles maybe. Yawn.
Which is exactly how it all started off. The wanding nurse started poking around, look there's your here's your right ovary. Mmmm, only a couple of antrals, rummage rummage. The doctor came into the room, and I had that weird sensation you get when you find yourself naked from the waist down and spread-eagled in front of a relative stranger with whom you were having a perfectly civilized conversation just two minutes ago. The prodding continued. They spotted the corpus luteum, and the doctor mumbled something about that confirming it was indeed, toward the end of my cycle, blah blah blah.
Then we all saw something else. It resembled a black blob the size of a kidney bean and it was just sort of floating there, in what I thought looked like toward the right side of my uterus. The nurse stopped suddenly. I don't remember exactly what she said. I remember hearing her point it out to the doctor, who came over for a closer look. I remember he sounded non-committal- saying something like "it could be nothing or it could be something."
But at that second, I knew. I knew. And I started having a little quiet weep.
It's sort of a shame I was so preoccupied with crying, because I totally missed the rest of the conversation between them, which went on for a minute or so. They actually turned the screen away and had a good look. Then the nurse asked if she should go ahead and assess the other ovary, and the doctor said yes, but the rest of it is just a big blank. The next thing I knew I was sitting up, getting out of the chair, getting dressed, and she was handing me a jar to pee in for the pregnancy test.
"I know you've just been to the loo, but if you can squeeze out a few more drops, we'll just do a quick test. Put ourselves out of our misery, so you don't have to wonder all the way home."
And then because she said "put ourselves out of our misery", I thought I had perhaps misunderstood what just happened there. Of course I was not pregnant. It was some fluke, some anomaly, some mystery to be answered by reference to a negative test. But I duly squeezed out those drops and handed it over. Then I went back out to the waiting room where E. was reading the paper, blissfully unaware. He asked if I was ready to go.
"Um," I said, "not exactly." I muttered something under my breath about weirdness on the ultrasound and pregnancy test, and he looked at me like I had lost my mind because, duh! Infertile! IVF! And calmly went back to reading his paper.
Until the doctor and the nurse came up behind me. I heard him say something like. "How's this for apocryphal, then?" Whereupon he handed me the test with the two blue lines.
E. and I later agreed that if we hadn't both been sitting down, we might really have fallen over with the shock. There was hugging and crying and searching the floor for missing jaws. We paid up the outstanding balance in a daze, and they waved us off with much handshaking and congratulations.
E. got lost three times on the way home.
Before we left, I did have the presence of mind to grill the doctor just a little bit further about exactly what he saw; the upshot was he thought I was less than six weeks- he had noted a gestational sac with a yolk sac. No fetal pole, but he thought it was still too early. I was a little annoyed that I didn't get a chance to take a better look at it myself, or get a jazzy little printout to pore over later, but that's because they were being so coy about what was going on.
On Monday, I discovered I had actually written the date of my last period in my desk diary- 10 November. Which would make me five weeks during the scan, and six weeks pregnant now. I can't tell you how weird it feels to type that.
So, that's the story thus far. I'll tell you next time about my growing horror about the state of antenal care in this country; but first, there's a holiday to get through and nothing much will be able to happen until life resumes normal service in January. In the meantime, I'll keep you posted about any "interesting" developments.
Thank you all so much for your comments, your emails, your support. It means the world to me, especially since I know so many have you have suffered sadnesses and losses, and believe me, I know so well the mixed feelings it can bring reading about someone else's happy news. I am so touched by your good wishes.
Have a happy, safe, and peaceful holidays.
