Issue 46: A bump! (But not the good kind)
Saturday April 27 2019
Ahmagad it’s happening. I’m going to skim through this part because, basically, we are waiting for Lydia’s uterine lining to thicken, which is the biological equivalent of watching paint dry. If you need a recap on the actual science of it, she is on a course of IVF medication that will prime her womb and make it as embryo-inviting as possible. That means more than 7mm thick, ideally 9 or 10-ish, so they can transfer our little embryo and it can try its hardest to implant in said lining and then grow into our baby. Woah, making babies is nothing short of miraculous. Making them under as controlled conditions as possible makes the miracle of it all the more incredible. And tense, because we are hyper-aware of every little inflection that naturally fertile people usually don’t know is happening.
Sometimes I think that being a human is simply awe-inspiring. We are nothing more than bundles of cells, and look at what we can do! We can even train to be able to help bundles of cells make new bundles of cells in a lab that has evolved from a palaeolithic cave, kind of. It blows me away and I’m forever grateful to the people who have tried to help me and my infertility over the years. But I digress.
Lydia is about to go for her first scan. This has been scheduled along our Lydia embryo transfer timeline. We’re familiar with it because this will be our seventh timeline since we started trying to make a family. She starts the meds and the transfer procedure is scheduled for about 17 to 21 days later, when the lining should be at its optimum. In between she has monitoring visits to check it’s all progressing and looking good. It’s exactly the same as standard IVF (IVF and embryo transference are specialist subjects of mine; send your questions my way — and to think I only got a B in my biology GCSE).
So. The transfer is booked. Holy moly, we’re nervous. No one needs to dwell on how well the most recent attempt went. Already Mr B and I are in a bit of shock about the level of bad luck in our process thus far. I have not heard a single surrogacy taking this long or having this many bumps (argh, the pun that hurts and works in equal measure!) along the way. “Bumps” seems an understatement, so we’re understandably more anxious than most at this point.
And . . . it’s good news! Lydia’s baseline first scan is “perfect”. One point to Team 22, as we’re now collectively calling ourselves. Sigh of relief, ten-day stress hiatus while we build our hopes and temper our excitement before the next and penultimate scan before transfer. That was where it all went wrong with our previous surrogate, Melissa, so we can’t allow ourselves to get too hopeful. But the news feels good for now, and we bask in these tiny wins, as if our numbers have just come in. No stress, no stress-induced arguments, no anxious wait for results, until . . .
Penultimate scan a week before transfer. For us, it’s the scary one, although it really shouldn’t be. IVF is a relatively confident science, if not an exact one. It tells us that when a woman takes oestrogen, her uterus responds by thickening. Some more than others. And Lydia? The results are in! Drumroll, please . . .
Umm. Sigh. A text message from our agency co-ordinator Jane.
“I know this is difficult for you both. Lots of disappointments with your journeys, so it’s difficult to think positive at this time. I’m still feeling positive for you, though. You know me. Always looking for the good in things.”
Turns out Lydia is not responding to the medication. At 6.4mm, her lining is way too thin to attempt our scheduled transfer next week, the doctor isn’t sure why and it’s not what he expected, and I’m having a severe déjà vu and panic cocktail. It’s called F*** This Shit and it tastes gross. I wouldn’t recommend it.
So here we are, same place, same time, different complication, but it feels expected and that sucks big time. The only good news is that Lydia is an angel and immediately messages to try to make us feel better.
“OK, positive thinking from now on. No more negative Nancy. I’m disappointed that my lining is thin, but I just spoke to the doctor and he said it happens sometimes so I’m hopeful.”
She has to travel to Miami for another scan to confirm the not-so-great news and to work out where to go from there, but essentially the doctor can tweak the medication and see if she can get to a better thickness. He tells us on Skype: “If she can get to 7mm, we can transfer, but it’s not ideal. She is not going to get to 9mm, I can tell you that now, but if we can get her to 7 we can go ahead. It will have to take more time.”
But time is what we don’t seem to have enough of. Mr B is galloping towards a big birthday, but he’s loath to celebrate it because this is not where we thought we’d be.
It’s another blow and, yes, we are pretty devastated and seriously battered and bruised. The doctor signs off by telling us that some women’s lining never gets thick enough, but it’s rare. Rare seems to be our top trump infertility card, so needless to say we are beside ourselves.
In this moment I want to back out, to bury my head in the sand and forget about my future. It’s too exhausting. Too depressing. Emotionally and financially I know we can’t, and so we’re stuck.
Man this is hard. I’m struggling to find a silver lining — my automatic coping mechanism — and then Lydia texts again: “I don’t want to let you guys down. I will do everything in my power to make it work, and it’s going to work.”
And there it is. A silver lining studded with diamonds, because in this moment I appreciate that simple text more than she ever knows. We have stumbled across the right person to do this with and so we are lucky, even when it seems the opposite. And so, again, we wait and we hope and we struggle to sleep. Come on, Lydia, we can do this. We have to do this.