The Next Steps
After the holidays, we should have taken a break. But the devastation of the almost pregnancy made us want to succeed doubly. I wasn't ready to get back on the merry-go-round of horror, but we made the decision to proceed.
I'd already been started on an initial drug cocktail of Metformin (which if you've ever been on, you know tears your stomach and intestines up like you've chugged a bottle of magnesium citrate) - it took me almost a month to find the right iteration of the meds, to fight with the insurance company to cover it, and to work myself up to the dosage that the doc wanted me at. I had also already been on pre-natal vitamins for six months, and off a lot of my other meds which help me control my fibromyalgia. Because those are drugs you cannot be on if you're pregnant. There are loads of things that for almost a decade I've used to help me keep my fibro in check that I was suddenly not supposed to do if I was potentially pregnant - heating pads on the lower back, hip, or other mid-section areas where it was too close to the uterus, causing over-heating, and the potential for pregnancy loss. If your womb overheats, it can trick the body into thinking there's a fever, and thus an infection or something else wrong with you, which can trigger a miscarriage. Also no hot tubs, or even hot baths. Nothing over 99 degrees, and even then, only for fifteen minutes at a time. So, in addition to the entire invasive process being at its core stupid and awful, I've also now spent six months playing the "what if I'm pregnant game" - not drinking, not taking muscle relaxants, or using topical analgesics with aspirin in them (because of the potential bleeding risk), not managing my symptoms of a disease which even on good days effing sucks, and doing my damnedest not to over-caffeinate or even take much by way of over-the-counter pain meds, because What if I'm pregnant????!!! Do you really want to do anything that could jeopardize a pregnancy? Of fucking course I didn't.
So I suffered.
We're supposed to sacrifice for our kids, right? So, there I was, sacrificing for the possibility of kids. Killing myself, literally causing myself physical pain (not to mention the emotional pain), because of the slight chance there might be a fetus brewing in there. Every month, it was the same. For the few days of my period, I let myself have some relief: baths, extra meds if I needed them, more sleep, an occasional glass of wine. Because every month when that bitch Aunt Flo came, I was depressed. I was angry. I was bitter. And in PAIN. And then the cycle would start all over again. Three out of four weeks of the month, it was I might be pregnant, I might get pregnant in a day or two.
Not to mention, the roller-coaster of tracking every day of the cycle, of peeing on sticks to try and predict if I had ovulated, of having timed intercourse. Don't even get me started on the amount of money spent on the OTC stuff - the ovulation predictors, the pre-natal vitamins, the extra folic acid, the other types of gels, sprays, or creams I could use during a potential pregnancy even though they weren't half as effective as the other stuff.
But what was my alternative? Living in constant fear and with constant guilt that I did something to harm my baby? Or stop me from getting pregnant in the first place? I'm not even a mother yet, and my God the Mom Guilt is real, y'all. It is real.
After our first loss, which the doctors called a "chemical pregnancy" - as if it's not real. As if because I was only pregnant for a day, the pain of the loss didn't matter - we forged ahead. It was time to add some other drugs to the cocktail. We started with Letrozole. 3 months, the doc said, 3 months was the max they would let me be on the Letrozole at the regular gyn's office. Then it was off to the fertility clinic.
Hello TICKING CLOCK. As if this process wasn't hard and stressful and fraught enough! Now, I knew - three months - if I'm not pregnant in 3 months, we move on to the next steps. To even more invasions, to more doctors, to new tests. That winter was hard, folks. Hard. It was like the pressure cooker we'd already been in for 6 months had had the heat doubled, the seal tightened even more. There was no release valve.
We tried not to stress. God, we really did. Being intimate was not something I wanted to become a chore. We got creative. We found new ways to make our sessions about us an not about baby-making. It helped, but it didn't take away all the stress. I was constantly thinking about it. Constantly wondering, is this it? Have we done it? Are we finally there?
Even the Letrozole didn't lead to positive ovulation predictor results. I either got all positive or all negative results, even though I was testing from Day 10 - 22.
In February, I spotted. Then it was like a full-blown period, sort of. I only bled for a day and a half. Then it was gone. That was unusual. I was supposed to start back on the Letrozole, which you can't do if you're pregnant, because birth defects, and other horrible things. So, I tested. I had to be sure. That damned faint, not even sure you can believe your own eyes second line was there. Was I pregnant? Or not? I'd had a period, hadn't I?
It was the weekend. I couldn't call the doctors. I couldn't go for a blood test to be sure. Could I trust the stupid pee-sticks any longer? I didn't take my Letrozole.
When the office opened on Monday, I called. "You're not pregnant, you had a period."
"Yeah, but it wasn't a normal period. And I had a positive test."
"Before you started bleeding?"
"No. After."
"Oh, go get a blood test."
It was negative.
But the window to take the Letrozole was closed to us at that point. It was too late in the cycle. I was... relieved. Maybe we could just take this month off. Be ourselves again. Set the worry and the constant tracking hell to the side. Just for one month.
We did. It didn't help. I still worried. I still panicked. I was still consumed with the idea of getting pregnant. Of reaching our goal.
Did we consider this a second chemical pregnancy? Why couldn't my body just stop being so difficult. Mixed signals much? Like, Bitch, decide WTF is going on in there, would you, please? I was sick of the confusion, of the constant waiting, wondering, hoping, and the inevitable devastation when I wasn't actually pregnant. It was like the Universe was playing tricks on us. Like one big horrible April Fool's Joke: You're pregnant!..... hahahaha, JK, here's your period.
March came, and we went back to our regularly scheduled program. It was month 2 of our 3-month time-clock. It was time to call the insurance company, to figure out what would happen when I was referred to the fertility clinic. Because I was starting to lose hope. That three-month window was like a weight on my chest. If we didn't get it done, and soon, I wasn't sure I wanted to go on to the next steps.
Don't stress, everyone told me. It only makes it worse.
Yeah, thanks, you think I didn't get the Memo? I'm aware that my stressing out does terrible things to my body. If I had a switch labeled Stress in my body, I'd be sure to switch it off, but I don't, thanks, so if you could just STFU, that'd be great, thanks!
I shouldn't have called the insurance company. I knew it was a mistake. I should have stayed blissfully ignorant.
"So... you don't cover any treatment related to infertility? None?"
"No, Ma'am. The employer doesn't participate in that. Anything coded for infertility will be denied."
FUCK.
I'd already been started on an initial drug cocktail of Metformin (which if you've ever been on, you know tears your stomach and intestines up like you've chugged a bottle of magnesium citrate) - it took me almost a month to find the right iteration of the meds, to fight with the insurance company to cover it, and to work myself up to the dosage that the doc wanted me at. I had also already been on pre-natal vitamins for six months, and off a lot of my other meds which help me control my fibromyalgia. Because those are drugs you cannot be on if you're pregnant. There are loads of things that for almost a decade I've used to help me keep my fibro in check that I was suddenly not supposed to do if I was potentially pregnant - heating pads on the lower back, hip, or other mid-section areas where it was too close to the uterus, causing over-heating, and the potential for pregnancy loss. If your womb overheats, it can trick the body into thinking there's a fever, and thus an infection or something else wrong with you, which can trigger a miscarriage. Also no hot tubs, or even hot baths. Nothing over 99 degrees, and even then, only for fifteen minutes at a time. So, in addition to the entire invasive process being at its core stupid and awful, I've also now spent six months playing the "what if I'm pregnant game" - not drinking, not taking muscle relaxants, or using topical analgesics with aspirin in them (because of the potential bleeding risk), not managing my symptoms of a disease which even on good days effing sucks, and doing my damnedest not to over-caffeinate or even take much by way of over-the-counter pain meds, because What if I'm pregnant????!!! Do you really want to do anything that could jeopardize a pregnancy? Of fucking course I didn't.
So I suffered.
We're supposed to sacrifice for our kids, right? So, there I was, sacrificing for the possibility of kids. Killing myself, literally causing myself physical pain (not to mention the emotional pain), because of the slight chance there might be a fetus brewing in there. Every month, it was the same. For the few days of my period, I let myself have some relief: baths, extra meds if I needed them, more sleep, an occasional glass of wine. Because every month when that bitch Aunt Flo came, I was depressed. I was angry. I was bitter. And in PAIN. And then the cycle would start all over again. Three out of four weeks of the month, it was I might be pregnant, I might get pregnant in a day or two.
Not to mention, the roller-coaster of tracking every day of the cycle, of peeing on sticks to try and predict if I had ovulated, of having timed intercourse. Don't even get me started on the amount of money spent on the OTC stuff - the ovulation predictors, the pre-natal vitamins, the extra folic acid, the other types of gels, sprays, or creams I could use during a potential pregnancy even though they weren't half as effective as the other stuff.
But what was my alternative? Living in constant fear and with constant guilt that I did something to harm my baby? Or stop me from getting pregnant in the first place? I'm not even a mother yet, and my God the Mom Guilt is real, y'all. It is real.
After our first loss, which the doctors called a "chemical pregnancy" - as if it's not real. As if because I was only pregnant for a day, the pain of the loss didn't matter - we forged ahead. It was time to add some other drugs to the cocktail. We started with Letrozole. 3 months, the doc said, 3 months was the max they would let me be on the Letrozole at the regular gyn's office. Then it was off to the fertility clinic.
Hello TICKING CLOCK. As if this process wasn't hard and stressful and fraught enough! Now, I knew - three months - if I'm not pregnant in 3 months, we move on to the next steps. To even more invasions, to more doctors, to new tests. That winter was hard, folks. Hard. It was like the pressure cooker we'd already been in for 6 months had had the heat doubled, the seal tightened even more. There was no release valve.
We tried not to stress. God, we really did. Being intimate was not something I wanted to become a chore. We got creative. We found new ways to make our sessions about us an not about baby-making. It helped, but it didn't take away all the stress. I was constantly thinking about it. Constantly wondering, is this it? Have we done it? Are we finally there?
Even the Letrozole didn't lead to positive ovulation predictor results. I either got all positive or all negative results, even though I was testing from Day 10 - 22.
In February, I spotted. Then it was like a full-blown period, sort of. I only bled for a day and a half. Then it was gone. That was unusual. I was supposed to start back on the Letrozole, which you can't do if you're pregnant, because birth defects, and other horrible things. So, I tested. I had to be sure. That damned faint, not even sure you can believe your own eyes second line was there. Was I pregnant? Or not? I'd had a period, hadn't I?
It was the weekend. I couldn't call the doctors. I couldn't go for a blood test to be sure. Could I trust the stupid pee-sticks any longer? I didn't take my Letrozole.
When the office opened on Monday, I called. "You're not pregnant, you had a period."
"Yeah, but it wasn't a normal period. And I had a positive test."
"Before you started bleeding?"
"No. After."
"Oh, go get a blood test."
It was negative.
But the window to take the Letrozole was closed to us at that point. It was too late in the cycle. I was... relieved. Maybe we could just take this month off. Be ourselves again. Set the worry and the constant tracking hell to the side. Just for one month.
We did. It didn't help. I still worried. I still panicked. I was still consumed with the idea of getting pregnant. Of reaching our goal.
Did we consider this a second chemical pregnancy? Why couldn't my body just stop being so difficult. Mixed signals much? Like, Bitch, decide WTF is going on in there, would you, please? I was sick of the confusion, of the constant waiting, wondering, hoping, and the inevitable devastation when I wasn't actually pregnant. It was like the Universe was playing tricks on us. Like one big horrible April Fool's Joke: You're pregnant!..... hahahaha, JK, here's your period.
March came, and we went back to our regularly scheduled program. It was month 2 of our 3-month time-clock. It was time to call the insurance company, to figure out what would happen when I was referred to the fertility clinic. Because I was starting to lose hope. That three-month window was like a weight on my chest. If we didn't get it done, and soon, I wasn't sure I wanted to go on to the next steps.
Don't stress, everyone told me. It only makes it worse.
Yeah, thanks, you think I didn't get the Memo? I'm aware that my stressing out does terrible things to my body. If I had a switch labeled Stress in my body, I'd be sure to switch it off, but I don't, thanks, so if you could just STFU, that'd be great, thanks!
I shouldn't have called the insurance company. I knew it was a mistake. I should have stayed blissfully ignorant.
"So... you don't cover any treatment related to infertility? None?"
"No, Ma'am. The employer doesn't participate in that. Anything coded for infertility will be denied."
FUCK.
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