Transfer day, aka crying in the elevator

Today was transfer day.  Unlike most of my prior transfers, which generally happened pretty early in the morning, this one was after 6pm.  At my clinic, they do fresh retrievals first, then fresh transfers, and then frozen transfers.  Apparently they had a jam-packed schedule today, so their last frozen transfers were happening after 7pm at night.  They said it was one of their busiest days ever!

Anyway, what this means is that unlike every other one of my last SIX transfers and THREE retrievals (I am definitely battle-tested), I was able to basically do a full day of work.  My day was going pretty well… until it wasn’t. 

Recently, I have been under a fair bit of stress both personally (hmm, I wonder why) and professionally.  And, I have to confess, I have been one hell of a bitch the last few weeks.  Like my last cycle, this time I decided not to tell anyone about it.  (See my prior post on feeling isolated and having no one to talk to: http://3yearwait.blogspot.com/2015/10/losing-your-soul-to-ivf.html)  So, in response to a particularly cranky email today, a very good friend at work decided (fairly) to call me out—along the lines of, "I know you have a lot of stuff going on [referring to the anencephaly pregnancy], but you’ve been a real shrew lately [specific examples given] and it’s unacceptable.”  She was right.  And I admitted it, apologized, and then told her that I was particularly on edge because I’m going in today for ANOTHER fucking transfer.  Then I obsessively checked my email to see if she was going to respond and forgive me or tell me I’m still a shit and that’s no excuse.  She did not email me back for a long time, but eventually said something in between.  I guess that’s as good as I can do for now.  

Anyway, when I was leaving work (to go to my transfer), I was in the elevator with someone I work with.  I started to make small talk and then just broke down and started crying so hard I couldn’t really say much more than, “sorry, going through personal stuff.”  Yes, fertility treatments are definitely the path to emotional stability and career success.  I was crying so hard on my drive home I called my husband and couldn’t even talk.  He was like, “what, did the lab call??  None of the embryos thawed??”  No, just personal drama.  Sigh.

Anyway, that was my particularly fragile emotional state before transfer.  Not ideal.  I was so distraught I almost forgot to drink the 24-32oz of water required the hour before transfer.  (I ended up having to seriously chug it.)  But I did it, then took my valium, and was at the office in time for a quick de-brief and transfer.  

We decided to go with one of our two poor-quality female embryos instead of our slightly-better quality male embryo.  Not sure if it’s the right choice, but whatever.  Anyway, the embryo successfully thawed and remained with a poor-quality rating.  Un-tested embryos with this rating have about a 18% chance of success to pregnancy, but the doctor said genetically tested ones have about a 40% change of resulting in a live birth.  (Using our better-quality male may have increased those odds to 55%.)  I seriously suspect that number is exaggerated, but I’ll accept that the average person have at least a 40% chance of pregnancy with that quality level.  Soooo, not amazing odds, but not terrible either.  Of course those odds are for the average patient and we’ve already established I am more fertile-ly challenged than the average fertility patient.

Anyway, so begins the two week wait.  Part seven.