When Hope is Replaced by Reality

We returned home the day of our first donor embryo transfer. My doctor had written a note allowing me to be off work until my pregnancy test. The plan was to be at home, relaxing. In hindsight, being at home alone with no one to talk to was not very relaxing. I spent every day wondering if I could feel symptoms; I googled embryo donor success stories; I looked up what I should and shouldn’t be eating and what skincare is safe for pregnancy. Anyone who has endured the two-week wait, especially after a fertility treatment, knows that the internet is not your friend during that time. As I mentioned in my last post, we did not tell any of our family members that we were doing the transfer. For those 10 days, I pretended I had been at work each time I spoke with my dad and sister. I wanted to tell them about what we were going through so badly but being able to surprise them with our pregnancy would make it all worth it. 

My bloodwork was scheduled for Monday, May 3^rd, 2021. I stopped at the lab before work, nervously waiting all day for the phone call. When my mom was dying, I began to see a counsellor through the cancer clinic. Not only did she help me grieve the loss of my mom, she also had experience with infertility. She had gone through IVF herself and had been a counsellor at an infertility clinic. I had kept in touch with her after my mom’s death and made a phone appointment with her that afternoon. I was still at work at the time of my appointment.  I shared with her what I was going through and that I was expecting the results that day. I was so anxious about the results I could hardly stand it. She recommended I log on to my online health records rather than waiting for the phone call from the clinic. When I got home that evening, I logged on. There it was… my HCG-Beta was 0. I was not pregnant. Not even a little bit. 

Dustin came home from work to find me absolutely devastated. Embryo donation was supposed to be the answer to our infertility. And it had failed. The rest of that night was a blur. I don’t remember what I did or what we talked about. The following week was one of the most emotionally and mentally taxing times I had had since my mom died. I knew I needed support, and the only way to let my friends and family know that I needed that was to tell them what happened. My dream of sharing our news that we were going to be parents was stolen from us once again. 

Here is the thing about fertility treatments, they are not a guarantee. Medicated cycles, IUI, IVF, egg donors, sperm donors, embryo donors, surrogates, are all there to provide hope. Hope that one day, you will have a healthy baby. When that hope is replaced by reality (the reality that treatments may or may not be the solution to your infertility), it crushes you. It feels like your life crumbles around you… it turns to dust… and slips through your fingers.