Heartbreak and Hope

I’ve been a bit quiet the past 3 weeks with what has been going on in my journey. To be honest, I wasn’t sure this aspect of it was something I was going to share as it is the part that is most dear to my heart. But I’ve come to realize that for me, this is one of the most important parts to share as I know there are many other women who have gone through this in different capacities.

After a lot of painful decision making, three weeks ago I decided to move forward with having my eggs frozen. It was not an easy decision. Some people have argued that it is not worth putting my body through more medications and procedures and delaying my treatment, which is a very valid point and something I thought about a lot. But when it came down to it, for me it was about Hope.

While I know that this sounds crazy, the most devastating part of my diagnosis was the idea of not being able to have more children. I could come to grips with having a big surgery, losing my lung, and even going through chemo, but this just pushed me over the edge emotionally. I am so grateful to have Audrey and if she was my only child, I would feel blessed for the rest of my life, but the idea of being able to have another child at some point gives me great hope for the future (something I really need right now).

It has been a relatively quick process. I met with the fertility doctor and less than three weeks later they retrieved my eggs. It is a very delicate process, something that I didn’t realize as I’ve really never spent any time looking into in vitro. My body was very sensitive to the hormone shots they gave me and as a result I have been going back and forth to the doctors every day for the past 2 weeks (including Saturdays and Sundays) for monitoring. Toward the end they had to take me off the shots completely for a few days because my levels were getting so high.

The doctor had told me before I started this that we needed about 20 frozen eggs for the odds of having two more children. This past Thursday they retrieved my eggs through a small procedure and got 20 eggs! I was thrilled and relieved. Today I received a phone call from the fertility clinic telling me that only 5 of those eggs have made it to be frozen, with only one of those being what they call a good quality. Heartbroken doesn’t begin to explain how saddened I feel about this. I guess I was just hoping for one part of this journey to go smoothly.

So this is where I am now. My fertility doctor recommends doing another round of this over the next few weeks which means more time, money, and trauma to my body. Those who have been through this know that egg retrieval/ in vitro is not something that is covered by insurance and costs thousands of dollars each time you do it, but when all is said and done, I need to do it because of that hope.

I have been so blessed through this journey and I have seen miracles of which I will be eternally grateful, so I hope this doesn’t come across as a big complaint entry. But the emotional side of this journey is very real as well and something I want to remember when I’m older. So while my heart is broken tonight, I am still hanging on to hope that those five little possibilities give me.