It’s the big reveal, y’all, the reason 2020 was so painfully wretched for Jake and me: two rounds of pandemic IVF.

Jake and I stopped trying to avoid pregnancy in December of 2018, when I had my IUD removed. We’d purchased our own home, were doing well in our respective careers, with Jake anticipating a promotion soon, and were well on our way to having our finances under control. I was 31 and Jake was 34, with our two year wedding anniversary coming up in May. Considering the average time to get pregnant is three to six months, we were right on track with the plan we’d outlined before we got married, the plan my OBGYN had approved, the plan that would allow us to have up to four children before we turned forty, if we so chose. Most importantly, I finally felt like an adult who could consistently care for herself and could realistically consider the possibility of caring for another human.

… more or less…

It wasn’t until April or so that we decided to begin trying in earnest, not having been too disappointed about having a few extra months of childfree existence as we waited to see what happened. We felt we were ready (or as ready as anyone can be) for our lives to become about children and family and all the craziness and exhaustion that entailed, so we began timing things in hopes of a more deliberate pregnancy. By June, I’d bought some dollar store ovulation tests, not wanting to waste the money on a giant box of strips from Amazon, when surely things would happen naturally soon enough. It was September, the month of my birthday, when I began to truly worry and asked Jake to get tested, even if we had to pay out of pocket. My doctors had all reassured me that there was likely nothing wrong, based on bloodwork and annual exams, and that it was just a matter of time… as long as there was nothing wrong with Jake. I’d been encouraged to just “stop trying” and that it would happen when I “least expect it,” advice I still find moronic for a woman in her 30’s. I thought I’d heard the last of that terrible adage while dating.

No. I wanted real answers, even if those answers were that I just needed to be patient, backed up by medical proof. So, off Jake went to our family doctor, with strict instructions from me to tell him that we’d been trying for over a year, despite it having been just shy. You see, for some reason, doctors are still insisting on the stipulation that a couple must be trying for at least a year to get tested for infertility issues, despite the rising instances of infertility and increased possibility of difficulties in one’s thirties, coupled with the more rapidly dropping chances of achieving a successful pregnancy, once they do figure out something is wrong. Regardless, the doctor scoffed and insisted that there was no need to test Jake, although he was ready and willing to pay out of pocket because “90% of the time, it’s the woman.”

That’s not even the statistic! The correct numbers cite that men are the sole cause of infertility in 20%-30% of all cases and a contributing factor in 50%. Not only that, but testing a man for infertility is far simpler and less invasive than testing a woman. We were willing to private pay for something as simple as Jake having an awkward moment in a clinical room and the doctor scoffed and blamed me, without any evidence to back it up!

By October, I was crying hysterical tears, certain that something was wrong. I begged Jake to see another doctor and he scheduled a seminalis for January. The holidays were a little bittersweet, as I watched other people’s children enjoy the magic, wondering if I’d always be on the outside of that scene. I tried to keep my spirits up, telling myself that everything was fine, but the day before Valentine’s Day, Jake came home to tell me that he had around 1.5 million sperm… and that 40 million was average. Our only hope of having children was IVF, my literal worst fear since I came to understand what it entailed in my teens. We didn’t know if Jake was the only factor or if IVF would even work, just that the average couple spends just shy of $20,000 per cycle and they’re advised to plan for three cycles, for the greatest odds of success. You can bet I called the office and got us a new doctor.

I won’t get too statistics heavy on you, but the summary of IVF research is that there just are no guarantees. Each cycle has a 20% – 30% success rate, overall, and that varies based on the type of infertility, the age and health of the woman and even the man, and the clinic. There are online calculators that will tell you your overall chances, but they’re hardly conclusive and backup the idea that a couple should plan for three cycles for the best chances. My stats were quoted as having a 56% chance of success after the first cycle, 75% on the second, and 85% on the third. Some research suggests moving on after three cycles, as the odds begin to decrease, while others suggest pursuing up to six. Some recommend transferring two embryos, while others warn against it. What it comes down to, however, is that there are really too many individual factors to provide anyone with accurate predictions. Every couple going into IVF is looking at a gamble of tens of thousands of dollars.

This was, of course, a devastating blow. Jake and I had just gotten to a good financial place in life and had no idea how we’d fund potentially multiple rounds of IVF. We couldn’t fathom a life without children and, honestly, it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how very much I wanted them. I thought about the Easter and Halloweens, Christmases and birthdays we’d miss, the sleepless nights and tantrums we wouldn’t have, the first steps and first words, that first painful “I hate you”, the sports games I wouldn’t get to pretend to enjoy, those insufferable holiday pageants and “graduations” from the first half of second grade, the first broken arm and the first broken heart, the first wedding and grandchild… all of the bad and all of the good. I remembered that awful party in 2019, when all of Jake’s friends’ wives acted as though I were invisible the second they realized I didn’t have children. I pictured a lifetime of being excluded for something I couldn’t control.. and then Covid-19 hit.

They say that God never gives you more than you can handle… and I’ve linked the blog I kept during my infertility treatments to testify to that not being entirely true, as I received the news that all elective procedures had been suspended for an indeterminate amount of time, just a month after receiving our heartbreaking news. Then we found out that the financing company our clinic used had gone under, dealt with family disapproval of borrowing funds, and discovered that when we could move forward, we’d have to sign papers agreeing that one instance of fever or a directive from the CDC could forfeit the entire cycle with no refunds, because we weren’t just dealing with IVF, but Pandemic IVF.

I survived 2020, but it was in much the way I survived my early 20s. I am not stronger for it and I can’t even say I pulled myself through it, this time. Nope. Jake was the string to my kite, y’all. He is the only thing that got me through the breakdowns, the days of lying in bed staring at the wall, the shots and the horrible symptoms that came with them, the mood swings and outbursts, either stress or medication induced, I’ll never know. I was legitimately concerned I might have bipolar disorder after I got so angry at Jake for touching my donut, that I hurled a plate across the room, into the sink, went to the bedroom and completely broke down. That will chip a Corelle dinner plate, by the way.

… and everyone else gets to have kids the fun and free way.

It was not an easy year, especially after that first negative pregnancy test indicated an entirely failed cycle, having transferred two embryos with none left to freeze, after spending $16,000. Always having been the “go hard or go home” type, I told Jake that since I was turning 33 in a few weeks, I wanted to pursue another cycle… right now. So I found myself finishing one IVF cycle in August and starting a new one in October. This time, we’d told no one. It was during an historic ice storm that wiped out power across the state, that I sat at home praying we’d keep ours, with over $1000 worth of medication in the refrigerator, funded through a combination of credit card debt and liquidated investments. If we had to stay with family, we’d have to share that we were trying again and open the door to their hopeful expectations, once more. It was awful enough breaking the news to them the first time, while coping with it ourselves.

I spent election day in surgery, alone due to Covid-19. After our initial telehealth consult, I’d had every single appointment alone, in fact, with Jake often waiting in the car. I was by myself for the first egg retrieval and now the second, finally breaking down post-op and crying that I wanted Jake and I was never going to be a mom. Of the many low points in 2020, that could have been the lowest. It was miserable and going home to listen to my clueless Gramma rant about Russia taking over, while high on hydrocodone, didn’t help.

I’d once again transferred two embryos, with Jake in the car, but was able to freeze six this time. I prayed and cried through the pain of ovaries expanded to the size of clementines, still taking an intramuscular shot of progesterone in the hip every night, along with all of the symptoms that came with it, such as fatigue and shortness of breath (while wearing a mask), crippling headaches, and the spasms of pain from nerve damage that persist today, knowing it could all be for nothing again. For the first eight days, I took a prescription to keep me from getting OHSS, an even more painful and potentially life threatening condition that develops when the body over responds. It caused such severe dizziness that I couldn’t drive or work.

In many ways, 2020 was the most difficult year of my life and back-to-back rounds of pandemic IVF was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through… except that it worked the second time. That’s right, tomorrow I am 21 weeks pregnant with not one, but two babies, approximately $30,000 worth, due in July. I haven’t shared, because I was waiting for my 20 week anatomy scan, for fear of jinxing it, but all is well. I blogged a lot more than it seemed last year and for anyone suffering from similar struggles, I’ve linked Belle of Infertility. I can’t claim it’s always uplifting or that I always intended for it to be read, but thus far, it does have an HEA: twin girls!

One year ago today, I received the email that the library was closing its doors and all fertility treatments would be halted, for an indeterminate amount of time. Today I am fully vaccinated and tomorrow, 21 weeks pregnant with twins! For the purposes of this blog, their pseudonyms will be Violet and Scarlett, two names we strongly considered and ultimately vetoed for the color theme and the inevitable shortening to Vi and Scar.