Small victories

I spent fifteen minutes on hold this morning with a customer service rep from one specialty pharmacy, while she waited on hold with a different specialty pharmacy so that she could track down a fax number for me. It is a weird, weird world out there, where your health insurance plan can partner with a different company to provide you a prescription plan, and said prescription company owns at least two specialty pharmacies through which they handle medications that your local pharmacy wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, and sometimes those pharmacies get their information crossed, and sit on hold with each other to find you a stupid fax number.

All this is to say that today's small (though unconfirmed) victory is that I found the right fax number for the right pharmacy so that the clinic can send in my order so that I can have meds in time to START OUR NEW ROUND OF IVF THIS FRIDAY!

Yes, the time has come. I've been writing about it for a while now, because it has involved a lot of steps to get going. Since we're starting over with a new clinic in a new state, everything has happened from the ground up. Initial consult, initial blood testing and ultrasounds, initial review of baseline blood/ultrasound results and plan-setting, orientation and consent-signing, ordering of meds and supplies.

So much is the same and so much is different, and in all of it, excitement trumps anxiety at this point. The stakes are different than they were when we were trying for baby #1. There's a comfort in knowing that, even if it takes a lot of effort, our bodies really can successfully produce a kiddo. Sam is proof of that. There's also comfort in having a beautiful, sweet toddler who keeps our hands and hearts very full, because even if nothing comes of this next venture into baby-making, we are not left empty-handed.

As we went through orientation last week, and flipped through the binder of information, I was trying to imagine how it would feel to be doing this for the first time. I was trying to remember how I felt when I heard about the process from top-to-bottom: all of the days of self-injections, sometimes three at a time, and the strict monitoring schedule; going under anesthesia (twilight, but still!) in order to do egg retrieval, which is considered minor surgery; the invasive and uncomfortable nature of embryo transfer; plus all of the waiting and wondering and opportunities at every moment to fail or bail on the process.

You stay sane because of the small victories. Thinking about the big victory - a pregnancy leading to a healthy baby - is way too much. So instead, you celebrate each night as you survive the injections. You celebrate surviving blood draws and ultrasounds. You celebrate watching your numbers move in the right direction. You celebrate follicle counts and measurements. You pamper yourself when you finish retrieval surgery and you celebrate having eggs, mature eggs, fertilized eggs, embryos that make it to day two, day three, day four, day five. You give yourself a day of relaxation and hopeful expectation after embryo transfer. You celebrate each day after transfer that your period doesn't come. Hopefully - HOPEFULLY - you get to celebrate a positive pregnancy test.

But you don't survive the process unless you find reasons to celebrate along the way. You mark each milestone with joy. You praise your body for what it is doing well. You cling to the small victories, because the might be all that you have.

It is more than a small victory - it is a small miracle - that we are poised for another round of IVF at all! We had expected the complications of living in a small town, across state lines from the nearest IVF clinics, would make this impossible for us. Or that finances wouldn't allow us to make this investment.

But by some manner of grace and luck, here we are.

Based on the standard practice at Mayo, for someone of my age and health, they prefer only to transfer one embryo (when the time comes). It is hard to shut up the voice in my head that says "it took us five rounds, transferring two embryos each time, to come up with one baby!" and instead to listen to the doctors at the clinic who say, "For your age and health, you have a better than fifty percent chance of pregnancy transferring only one; and a better than seventy percent chance after two rounds (should we need to do a second round)."

But everything about this process is a crazy exercise in trust and in playing the odds. The odds are in my favor, I must remember that. The small victories matter, I must remember that.

All being said, I am so excited to begin again. I'm far more focused on process and small victories than I am on the big picture, which is no surprise. The anxious days will certainly come. But for today, only excitement, and unabashed optimism (because why not?).

And keeping my fingers crossed that my prescriptions actually come through...