It has taken me way too long to update here. I like to write
while emotions are fresh and raw in an effort capture the memory in its purest
form…in case I want to visit it again someday, but I’ve been in a writers
slump. I‘m feeling a bit stale now and not particularly inspired to divulge,
but maintaining this space is so important to me. And the Beethoven playing
through my ear buds is helping a little.
Where to begin…
On March 27th, after 2 weeks of daily injections
through my bruised abdomen, several monitoring appointments, and a few hormone
induced meltdowns, I had my egg retrieval procedure. Day’s prior, a vaginal
ultrasound and a good look at my ovaries revealed I was not responding to the
medication as we had all hoped. There were 3 follicles, only one of which
looked big enough to harvest at the time. Ryan had to work, so I braved that
appointment alone, and when my less that optimistic doctor and nurse left the
room so I could get dressed. I wept. I knew that about 70% of eggs retrieved would actually fertilize and from there, only 50% of fertilized eggs would survive to
the blastocyst stage-which is the stage of development necessary for proper
implantation. I’m no mathematician…but when I held up those statistics to the
ONE egg I was carrying, it was clear,
the odds were against us.
I pulled myself together and walked out into the icy air,
and as I approached my car I heard three words in my spirit, loud and clear: Against all odds…
That is all I heard, but that was all I needed. I knew then
that we would have a child.
When I surveyed my life and the events that had brought me to
this place- the parking lot where I stood, how I had fought tooth and nail to
get there with the deep deep conviction that we were meant to bring fourth a
child, I knew that it was not by chance that I was standing there, in God knows
where New Jersey, bearing the burden of the news I had just received. I knew
that against all odds, Gods promises would be made true. A child would be born
from this ONE.
Throughout that week, there were moments where my confidence
faded, and in those times I grieved at a depth that was unknown to me. It was
so intense it scared me. I didn’t allow myself to fully give into it because I
wasn’t sure I could find my way back…so in the safety of my husbands arms I
travailed for an allotted time, then did my best to gather up the pieces of
myself that had fallen apart.
Friends spoke words that I clung to that week and that brought me great comfort. One of my dearest said " We don't serve a God of excess or a God of want, He gives us EXACTLY what we need." If ONE is all we get, I have to believe one is all we need-no room for error or mistake, nothing to fall back on-just faith in a perfect plan.
Friends spoke words that I clung to that week and that brought me great comfort. One of my dearest said " We don't serve a God of excess or a God of want, He gives us EXACTLY what we need." If ONE is all we get, I have to believe one is all we need-no room for error or mistake, nothing to fall back on-just faith in a perfect plan.
The night before the retrieval I got the sweetest vision. I
saw both myself and a friend who would be going through a similar procedure the
same day in our hospital beds, but the room we were in looked like a
tabernacle, a Holy place. It felt like
something was being consecrated, and there was such a feeling of reverence in
the room-like something sacred was taking place.
I woke up a few hours before my appointment riddled with
anxiety, I paced around the house praying and listening to the song that had
carried me though that week over and over. My anxiety was so bad it was putting
my stomach in painful knots that could have doubled me over if I had let it. I
realized then the overwhelming amount pressure I had put on myself to
succeed at this- at making embryos. I can’t get pregnant so this was my job;
this was the part I was supposed to be great at. But I wasn’t, not according to
the statistics. I felt like if this failed, I failed, and that I would disappoint
everyone. My friends, family, my HUSBAND. Oh my sweet husband… the thought of
it crucified me. The reality is, it wasn’t true. No one was putting pressure on
me, especially not him, but the pounding in my chest was real and I made an
intension to release myself from the silly expectation to “succeed” at something I
had no control over.
The moment I woke up from the procedure I looked around. The room looked nothing like a tabernacle and it didn't feel like anything sacred had just taken place. I summonsed my nurse and anxiously asked, “How did it go??” She touched my knee and said, “we only got one
egg…but it only takes ONE.”
The waiting was gruesome. We would get our first call the
next day to find out if the egg fertilized, the first big hurdle, and then a
second call 5 days later to find out if the embryo survived to blastocyst
stage.
Call one: "Your egg has been fertilized."
Call two: "Your embryo looks good and has made it to
blastocyst!"
The odds were against
us…
but we made it here, the three of us.
We have high hopes for you little embryo.
We have high hopes for you little embryo.
The song of my season
