The end of the road?

Kiki Green - 31 Jan 18

So, I’m writing this with a whirlwind of emotions swirling around my physically exhausted body.

I’m currently 7dp5dt which to those unfamiliar with infertility jargon, means a week ago today I had two five day old embryos transferred into my uterus.

I’m in the IVF version of the two week wait. The kind of limbo that is at first thrilling and exhilarating but for someone in my position it’s dangerously precarious.

It’s my seventh two week wait – we’ve paid, including drugs, upwards of £12,000 for this single chance to get pregnant. I’ve waited more than 12 months for this donor – I need donor eggs because of my early menopause.

So more than three months of my life in 2ww limbo. Third time round when I tested two lines made me cry tears of joy, the resulting pregnancy I refused to believe my body would allow me to carry the baby to term, not believing it truly until my wonderful daughter was in my arms.

Today she is three – funny, feisty, clever, beautiful and flourishing as her own person at nursery school.

She’s my joy, my sunshine and I’m full of gratitude for her existence.

I’m luckier than many on the infertility journey.

I’d so love her to have a sibling. But today that’s looking increasingly less likely.

That breaks my heart.

The official date I’ve been given to test by my infertility clinic is six days away.

However after doing all I can to stay calm, hopeful and happy, googling got the better of me.

I’d been getting so many symptoms from my drugs, pulling, twinges, nausea, swollen veiny boobs, dizziness. Disclaimer: I knew these COULD all be from the progesterone suppositories that make you feel pregnant.

YouTube showed me women in America also at the same point in their two week wait after IVF getting faint positives just five days after a day five transfer. Seduced by the possibility of seizing some control and the chance of surprising my husband with a faint second line I caved and tested.

Negative. I felt like crap. I’d see just one line on pregnancy tests after IVF so many times it hurt, and reminded me of that pain. I felt stupid for testing early and causing myself unnecessary stress.

That night, I woke at 1.30am, (a delightful side effect of the steroids I take to suppress my raised natural killer cells, which, given the chance would end any pregnancy I’d ever manage to achieve) and I had horrendous reflux. Part of me was giddy, in my pregnancy albeit later on in my pregnancy this was my main symptom.

I went to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet, leaned over the bath and had explosive and violent sickness and diarrhoea. Repeatedly through the night, three times.

Physically exhausted it was perhaps my body telling me it’s had enough of the assault I keep putting it through with cycle after cycle of gruelling IVF in my determination for a second child.

Yesterday, 6dp5dt, was a write off I was bedridden, exhausted, paranoid both that the illness would mean I wouldn’t absorb my much needed IVF medication and that my motionless state meant that blood was not being pumped to my uterus, I inject myself daily with clexane to thin my blood after expensive immune tests showed I had ‘sticky blood’ and I needed to improve blood flow to my broken baby making bits.

Today, the upset stomach is settling, I’ve not had sickness or the runs since yesterday. I feel nauseous and my tummy is queasy.

But this morning I tested again, a glimmer of hope there might be a faint line. There wasn’t. Negative.

So there you have it. I have a duty to still be hopeful – I’m not meant to test for six more days. In fact, it’s not for another two days, according to lists I found on Dr. Google, that HCG is released into your bloodstream.

So while I’m aware that my tests could be false negatives, a bigger part of me is preparing for the end of the road.

My body is done. The timing of this illness told me that. I knew that already.

But it’s crushing my dreams. Before I discovered I was infertile, I always believed I’d one day be a mother of two. Chances are, I won’t be.

I feel numb and I’m hurting wondering what to do with the grief I’m so familiar with and where to go from here.

I love my husband and daughter with all my heart, but my heart breaks for them too as well as myself.

My husband is devastated and believes it’s all over, but only two nights ago said it didn’t have to be it, there were enough savings to go again.

Right now, I know I’ve had enough of the IVF gravy train. I’m so over it.

I long to be free and happy with my lot.

I’ve got six days to wait, wallow feel sick and pump my body full of a toxic cocktail of drugs.

If it’s negative at the end of the two week wait I’ll have to wean myself off the steroids for another fortnight.

I’ve got such a headache. I’m not drinking enough water. I’ve had enough.

But the tiny glimmer of hope leaves me in this torturous limbo for now.

Kiki Green

36 - mum of one post premature menopause thanks to a lovely donor! Currently a full time mummy to my daughter - would love a sibling for her, formerly in TV, radio and comms. Future??? Loves chocolate a g&t and to laugh!

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