Chapter 3: Growth and Maturation (Me, Not The Embryos!)
God is insane. Insanely GOOD that is. After all of that, and no mature embryos, I questioned EVERYTHING about myself. My schedule, my diet, my doctor, the embryo lab, the fact that I had a coffee here and there during stimulation….basically anything you can think of. I SAID I trusted God, yet here I was second guessing everything He just led me through. I did not question him, BUT I did question the results, which now I see was also questioning Him.
I heard a song on the radio today. It was called “Eye of the Storm.” It blew my mind because it summed up EVERYTHING I experience and am now able to reflect on.
The lyrics are:
In the eye of the storm, You remain in control
And in the middle of the war, You guard my soul
You alone are the anchor, When my sails are torn
Your love surrounds me , In the eye of the storm
God was ALWAYS in control during my first journey with IVF. He knew things I didn’t. He knew lessons I needed to learn, ways my heart needed to grow, and ways my relationship with Joe needed to grow.
I rushed into it and tried to cram it in my schedule because we had talked about it for so long that I thought it was time. I thought about the fact that if Joe does have HD, his kids would only have ten years with him before he started getting symptoms. That is IF they were born right THEN. So I told myself it was what I needed to do. I really do want to have kids with Joe. He will be the worlds GREATEST dad. No question about it. But I thought we were close enough to have a child then. The thing is, we weren’t even close to our potential. Through the first round of IVF, we had a camera filming it, a feature in the NY Post, went on the Today Show, he was reporting to Spring Training and I was in the heart of the NBA season. A lot was going on. And a lot of people were watching. I wouldn’t have it any other way…because I don’t want people to ever feel alone…or ever think we are “perfect.” When people are watching though, it can be even more emotional when you fail. Joe…was a CHAMPION.
He moved our entire house to Florida on his own, drove the dog down in the car, and on two hours of sleep took a red eye basically to make my retrieval on time. Never complained. Never made me feel like something was wrong with me when it didn’t work out. Never questioned God.
We grew closer than we have EVER been. We felt a love for each other that was so much deeper than the love we had before. I felt like I gave him my whole soul, and he gave me his. And for the first time in our relationship, I felt like we were finally connected enough to give our whole selves to someone else now…a baby. I am thankful for the failure for this reason alone. And there were SO many other blessings.
At the time we were trying to figure out how to fund families. Would they use a clinic close to them? How would we get a clinic in every state? If not, would they fly to our preferred clinics? If so, would they do ultra sound and blood work from home and email the results to the clinics (outside monitoring)?
My first journey with IVF helped answer all of these questions. It help me relate emotionally to what families are feeling, how easy/difficult it is to travel with shots, what outside monitoring is like, what sharing your story publicly is like, what the financial burden is like, and what they will feel if their first round is not successful. I now believe that information is imperative to running this foundation with Joe.
I also learned that my body just needed more time off of birth control the first round. My numbers were so suppressed I wasn’t in a position to succeed in the first place. One year later, my numbers were 3-4 times as high and I didn’t need all the medication I needed the first round. The results were MUCH better.
Next post I will tell you how round two is going!
