Saturday, March 23rd (4th day after egg retrieval) was the worst day of the whole experience so far. I was still in pain (taking Extra Strength Tylenol) but had no clean clothes. I couldn't lift over 10 pounds, but I knew the housework needed to get done. I did a lot of bending and twisting and picking up and sorting the clothes one by one, not lifting too much weight at any one time. Then something terrible happened. It was like a lightning bolt.
I started sobbing a little bit. I asked my husband to start doing the laundry, and he didn't do it right away. I was so mad that I couldn't do it myself and I was so mad at him for not responding to my request immediately, I started spiraling out of control. The tiny sobs gave way to bigger ones. Soon I was howling, and I couldn't catch my breath. Tears were streaming down my face.
My husband said, why don't you go upstairs and do some grading? Let me take care of the laundry, and you go do something that you can do. Instead of taking this advice as a comforting thought, I felt like it was an attempt to placate me and get me to stop wallowing in self-pity. But then the self-pity really sank in. To the core of my body.
I went to lay in my bed and had a full-blown meltdown. I started thinking that I'm not a good person and that's why we haven't had any luck conceiving naturally. I thought I'm too mean and not a nice person and that's why we couldn't make a baby. I had all the fears about what if (IVF) doesn't work. I felt like I wanted to die.
Luckily, dear husband came upstairs and comforted me by saying things like, that's not true. It will be fine. You are a nice person. We'll get through this. This is your body's reaction to the hormones. You're detoxing from the first half of your cycle (which was extreme) so you're having an extreme second half of your cycle now. This is all part of the process.
I thought by Friday, March 22nd we would be done with the worst of it because that was the 5th day after the trigger shot. I thought after that, we'd be in the clear for OHSS. However, I did feel some bloating on Monday, March 25th, which was 8 days after the trigger shot. By Tuesday, March 26th though, I felt good enough to wear jeans. On Wednesday, I even felt downright slim. I haven't taken any pain medication all week.
What's got me down today is that we know we only have 4 frozen embryos. Out of the 14 harvested eggs, 12 were mature, 11 fertilized, 7 arrested. I'm terrified that we'll have zero "normal" embryos. We've already decided NOT to go through another round of egg retrieval. Of the two of us, dear husband is the optimist. I've never been optimistic about this. Knowing the odds are about 2/3 successful and 1/3 unsuccessful, I have been cautious about how much I can emotionally invest in believing that we will be successful. There's a part of my heart that is broken for the arrested embryos. I feel like they died.
On that depressing note, I'm starting to see why there are so many t-shirts and mugs with the phrase "Positive Vibes Only" when you start looking for "fertility gifts." I've been trying to stay positive and stick to the 25% protein and less than 40% carb diet. I have really enjoyed "light walking" instead of the high-intensity interval training (HIIT) I was doing before this process. And now I'm just waiting for Day 28, for a normal period of menstruation to begin.
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