Nothing can prepare you for those words

I have been trying to decide if I want to blog about this week just gone. It has been a hard week with a lot of emotions. I started this blog wanting to be open and honest about our journey. My hope was to give you a glimpse of what it is like to struggle with infertility issues, and for anyone who has found themselves on this rollercoaster, to let them know that they are not alone. And so I have decided to press ‘publish’ I share the rawness, sadness and fear that I have experienced this week.

On Monday I went to work. I have found it’s best to keep busy to keep my mind from coming up with an array of worst case scenarios. I waited patiently for a call to update me on my embryos, hoping that my phone would ring at a time I would be able to answer it.

Around 10am the silence was broken. I spoke with both our nurse and embryologist. As expected our embryos showed no further development. All 4 of them had only developed to around the day 3 mark and one of them had some abnormalities in the way it had divided. I them heard words start to surface that I had been dreading hearing. 

‘Poor egg quality.’

‘Donor eggs.’

My heart sunk. There is nothing that can prepare you for those words. ‘Donor eggs.’ Those two small words that instantly cause your hopes and dreams to come crashing down around you.

Our review with our doctor has been booked in for Monday 13^th and we will be able to go over our options and discuss were we are at with the public funding. The comments about donor eggs was only in passing, not, so this is what has to happen next, so until then, I am trying to steady my mind and not jump to conclusions. I need to wait for the facts. There is so much waiting. It feels like every time we take one step forward we are greeted with another wait. 

It’s hard.

I am hoping, praying, that we will be able to have another go with my eggs under the public funding. 

After the phone call, I was in the bathroom and I looked up at my reflection in the mirror, looked at my large eyes and thought ‘I won’t be able to look at my baby and say that she has my eyes’ and then I started to cry.

Shouldn’t have worn mascara to work today!

I managed to hold it together and put on a brave face for most of the day and was relieved to make it home where I could just sit quietly in my room with all my emotions. 

There were a lot of tears that evening.

There is actually quite a lot of things you can do to improve egg quality. There is an amazing book called ‘It starts with the egg’ and it has all sorts of changes you can make to diet and lifestyle. The only trouble is that I have made a lot of significant changes this year, most of them early this year, in preparation for our first round of IVF. So I feel like I have already exhausted a lot of those options without success.

Tuesday I was in much better spirits. I messaged my prayer partner about what had been going on. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before, but I joined a faith based fertility support group on face book called ‘moms in the making’ one of the things you can do is sign up for a prayer partner. You are matched with someone who is at a similar stage as you so you can offer each other hope, support, encouragement and friendship. I have been matched with a sweetie named Katie, who lives in San Diego. When we signed up we both selected the ‘taking a break from treatment' option, and now, within just 2 weeks, we have both heard the words ‘donor eggs ‘ being spoken. God knew and he paired us up. I am so thankful for Katie. She always has such encouraging, truthful words to share but also affirms me in how I am feeling. Hope is so important, but so is being given the time and space to grieve.

I was reminded today of a dream I had many years ago. I seldom remember my dreams, but this one has stuck. I was sitting in a hospital bed, holding a new born baby boy. I remember looking down at him and thinking to myself, I didn’t know I was capable of loving someone this much. At the time, I thought it was telling me that I would do alright as a mother. There was a few years where I was convinced that all babies didn’t like me. Every time I went near a happy, smiling baby, as soon as it was handed to me, it would start to cry. EVERY SINGLE TIME!! No Lie! But now I wonder if this dream was actually speaking to my future. To a time where I would love a baby so much that was not genetically mine.

Tonight I asked Flex Thunderstache what his gut feeling was about donor eggs. 

He replied

‘You have such distinctive eyes, we would never have a child that had your eyes’. 

My eyes. I would never be able to look at my child and see that they had my eyes.

Sadness overwhelms me.

I am not ready to start discussing donor eggs. I am just trying to push it out of my mind, carry on as best I can and wait to hear what our doctor has to say. 

This has been a hard week.