A Recap of Our IUI Experience
Plus a favorite IVF memoir and an old show I'm finally watching
Hey team! I turned 34 on Monday. I had to pause for a moment to confirm, but I remembered Taylor Swift is 33, so I am indeed 34. Travis Kelce1 turns 34 on Thursday. I hope I can do something big and fun next year for 35. What do people do for their birthdays?! I always resort to Oktoberfest since my and Grant’s birthdays coincide with Oktoberfest season, which is perfect because we love beer.
We also threw my sister’s bridal shower this weekend, which was themed…The Sarahs Tour of course.
No new IVF treatment updates since last time, since we are waiting to do a Frozen Embryo Transfer later this year. I promised an IUI (intrauterine insemination) update, and the further I get from those cycles the more I forget. IUI is less intensive than IVF, so it’s usually the first option in fertility treatments (unless other reasons demand going straight to IVF).
We did four cycles of IUI: March, May, June, and July of this year. For the first two, maybe three, IUI cycles I was on a low dose of Clomid2 which I responded well to. I didn’t have any bad side effects, and always had a least one dominant follicle. I just don’t think the timing ever lined up. IUI was treated a little more casually than an egg retrieval when it came to the timing of the trigger shot. For a cycle of IUI, the instructions were “trigger tonight between 6 and 9 p.m.”, while for an egg retrieval, it was very specific to the timing of my procedure and had to be done in a five-minute window. We triggered with the hCG injection Ovidrel, which again I tolerated fairly well but would make me a bit achy the day of the insemination.
Our first IUI day was on March 16, Henry’s third birthday. I felt so good, so hopeful about it because of that date. How could it not work? After the IUI, I was looking for any signs of pregnancy. With all three of my pregnancies, a strange, specific right-side rib pain has been my first sign. I went in for a blood test 10 days after the IUI, and got a phone call that afternoon from one of my nurses that my hCG test was negative.
We did our second IUI in May, which doesn’t stand out as much in my mind. I got my period before I could even go in for a blood test, which thankfully eliminated those stressful hours between the bloodwork and a phone call.
For our third IUI, I asked if there was anything we could do differently, whether it was a different medication or increasing the dosage. My doctor doubled my Clomid prescription, and I do remember the day of this one because it was the day my nephew Calvin was born. Again, I thought, how can it not work? And again, the IUI failed.
At this point, Grant and I discussed doing one more IUI, taking a break, or going ahead with IVF. We decided to do a fourth IUI, and while waiting to test we had a follow-up with our doctor about the next steps. We could have tried an injection-only IUI cycle, but I decided if it was going to be lots of shots, why not move onto IVF? I also saw the benefit of genetic testing the embryos as a way to decrease the chances of another pregnancy loss. After our fourth IUI was unsuccessful, we moved on to IVF, and I decided to start a newsletter about it. :)
In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation by Isabel Zapata, translated by Robin Myers
This little book of essays is absolute poetry. My psychiatrist actually recommended it(?!) but I’m so glad she did. It’s written by Mexico City-based author Isabel Zapata and translated by Robin Myers. She details the ups and downs of IVF, and then her subsequent pregnancy. I loved passages like this, written after her successful embryo transfer:
I’m going to tell you what I saw at the Monterey Bay Aquarium: an enormous tank filled with Aurelia aurita jellyfish, floating like shoals of cotton, of parasols, of nothing. A spectacle of flowers reconfiguring themselves. Underwater mushrooms. Beating hearts. Diminutive universes in constant expansion. Water is water but it isn’t water; it’s a longing to change form.
Did you dream that your heart pumped blood from one end of the city to the other? Has your room turned to liquid? Does the sun have a translucent shell?
If you say it, you break, but if you don’t say it, you break.
I’m the aquarium now. You’re the jellyfish.
What the egg-freezing process feels like: One woman’s fertility journey (Washington Post, gift link)
Other random tidbits: Ahead of a FET, I started drinking Athletic Greens (AG1) which is pretty tasty, but too expensive to maintain for very long. I’m watching Broadchurch, and subsequently will be watching Deadloch which is a Broadchurch parody. I have acupuncture at a new place on Friday, so will probably write more about that soon. October is also Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, so next week’s issue will have resources for parents going through a loss and suggestions for how friends and family can be supportive.
Hummingbirds can remember every flower and feeder they’ve visited, as well as how long it takes for a certain flower to refill.3
We love a Libra man for our girl!!
Here’s a good resource about different fertility medications: https://extendfertility.com/egg-embryo-freezing-ivf-fertility-medication/
The Sarahs tour. I am beside myself