When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow,
Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit." ~ Unknown
I finally had the consult - I had had to reschedule it - with my fertility doctor in Chicago. It had been just over 8 years since I had last spoken with him during my egg retrieval on September 18, 2009. He sounded exactly the same.
During our conversation he curiously asked me why I put my age as 53 on the forms they had sent when I was really 54. I was like, hey, I filled those forms out on September 30th, I wasn't going to age myself up a whole year when my birthday wasn't until the next day ; )
He also told me about all the dreadful statistics regarding me having my frozen eggs result in having a baby. At one point he said, "I know this is just going in one ear and out the other with you." And I told him, "Yep, it is!" I reminded him of the horrible statistical probability he had given me when I was just two weeks shy of turning 46, "The costs of the procedure," he said then, "is $10,000 and at your age you'll be lucky if I can get one good egg." I had told him it would be worth it not to have regrets.
And when I had gone to Chicago and had the procedure done and there were 18 eggs at the last ultrasound testing before retrieval he told his nurse, "She is making eggs like a spring chicken!" Of course, I wrote in a post of how devastated I was when he ended up only being able to get the nine eggs, how I was crying uncontrollably in the recovery area and the anesthesiologist stopped to ask me what was wrong, and I told him about how few eggs were retrieved and he said, "It only takes one good egg to make a baby."
I don't want to pay attention to his statistics. Why should I? I either will have a baby or I won't have a baby. I don't need to know what the outcome for others is. I'm my own person; different from every other statistic out there. I see differently. I think differently. I act differently. I'm sure the realm I live in is not the realm he lives in. It's my goal to bring him into my realm, not be boxed in by his. Only God and I control my destiny; the doctor is just a catalyst on my journey to motherhood.
So, yes, the statistics did go in one ear and out the other (I honestly could not tell you what he spouted off!). But what did stay between my ears was him telling me the timeline I was up against. He said that in the United States a doctor can't do IVF on a woman past the age of 55. You might wonder why, if I just turned 54 and am ready to have my eggs fertilized and the embryo implanted in my uterus, would the cut-off age of 55 matter. It matters because of my Plan.
My Plan is to have a procedure having 5-6 eggs fertilized and go on to have a child and then to use the other 3-4 eggs to try for a second child! But that's only part of the "fly in the ointment." The real kicker was when he told me that because I wasn't using anonymous sperm - because my donor would be known to me (another small hurdle... I have candidates but don't know who to ask!) - the guy would have to go through psychological testing ($500), have a consult with the doctor ($600) have his sperm “washed” etc. so the total costs of the donor part is like, $3,000! That’s added to the $10,000 I would be paying for the insemination. Bottom line: a lot of money. But what’s the worst thing of all is that the sperm has to be quarantined for six months!!! That’s six months cutting into my Plan timeline!
I feel, per usual, that I take one step forward and two steps back. It’s frustrating. But every “Hero’s Journey” - the kind of journey I’m on - has dragons to slay (or some equally scary, near impossible conquest to overcome) before they can acquire the “boon.” I’m going to keep slaying dragons - however many come my way - until I get the boon I’ve always dreamed of. It’s as simple as that.
