Our Anniversary and Final Fertility Update

I have thought about writing this post countless times in the past 6 months (yes, it’s been 6 months since my last update), but to be honest, I have dreaded writing it. Hell, it’s taken me 10 minutes to even write the first sentence.  I keep writing and deleting because I don’t know how deep I want to go, so I am going to keep this short and to the point.

After my last update, we went in for our transfer on September 18th, which was considered Day 3.  Fertility specialist typically look for a 6 to 10 cell embryo on Day 3 and I had two 6 cell, one 8 cell and one 9 cell (4 total)…all the others weren’t strong enough to consider for transfer.  The embryos weren’t great, so our doctor recommended transferring all 4 and we agreed.  This was our last shot so we were literally putting all of our eggs in one basket.

It was then time for the dreaded two week wait, but we just knew in our hearts that one of the 4 embryos would attach, so we were very optimistic.  On September 29th, we went in for bloodwork and anxiously waited for the call from the doctor. We were babysitting our nephew, so once we left the doctor, we went to the mall to walk around.  I will never forget anxiously waiting for the phone call and checking my phone every other minute.  We were just walking into Urban Outfitters and my phone rang.  I literally stopped walking, looked at the phone and then looked at Rudy.  I was so nervous.  We turned around to walk back out into the mall, so we could put the nurse on speaker.  Gunner was in the stroller playing with a truck; Rudy and I stood next to the stroller, holding one another.  Then in the following seconds, our hearts broke.  The test of negative.  We stood in the middle of the mall crying on each others shoulder for a few minutes.  Then we pulled ourselves together as much as possible and made our way back to the car.  We sat there several minutes processing and not believing what we just heard.

Even reliving it in this moment, I can’t believe it. I don’t know that I have fully accepted this as our reality.   I don’t know that I ever will.

A few days later, Rudy and I talked to the doctor.  He basically told us that it would be silly for us to go through another cycle and expect different results.  He suggested that we consider an egg donor or a sperm donor if we did decide to do another round. By eliminating either my egg or his sperm, we may see different results.  We obviously had a lot to think about.

During the following months, we had good days, great days, bad days and absolute miserable days.  It hasn’t been easy and we’ve cried many tears.  We don’t know what our next step is, but we’ll know when it’s time for us to know.

Through of all of the uncertainty. Through all of the challenges, one thing has remained constant…our love.  This process has been emotionally and physically draining, but the respect and love that we have for one another has prevailed.   I can’t believe today marks our 4 year wedding anniversary, but I can honestly say that we are stronger as a couple…as a team…than we were 4 years ago.

Rudy – your love. your patience. your smile. your thoughtfulness. your loyalty. your faith. your devotion.  Those are just a few of the things that I love about you.  I have no idea what I did to deserve you, but I am so honored to be your wife.

Happy Anniversary Babe!