Love is a Battlefield

For some reason, this song keeps popping into my head lately, and I think it is a very fitting title to everything going on in our lives right now, and especially our road to IVF.  

Since my last post, we have had 2 more doctor visits.  The first was a week ago to make sure that the first round of shots were doing their job.  The doctor said everything looked great, and I had plenty of tiny follicles, which translates to plenty of eggs!  After that visit I had to up my shots to 3 different ones a day, all intended to stimulate my follicles to grow so that when they do my egg retrieval they can get as many eggs as possible.  It's been a tough week, emotionally and physically.  Giving myself 1 shot a day was one thing, but now 3???  Some days aren't too bad, but then there are those days where I just want to cry because they do hurt...and I do cry! Luckily for me, I have a friend of mine going through this same thing at the same time, and I have been able to bombard her with all of my questions.  She assured me that it's totally normal to feel emotional, she said it was like "PMS x 10,000"!  She also had me look at things a little differently: in a normal cycle, a woman gets ready to release 1 egg.  Going through IVF you are getting your body ready to release 10X that, or more!  I feel better knowing that the emotions, pressure, and anxiety are all a normal thing and that I am not going through this alone.

We went back for another appointment today, where they did another ultrasound to see how things were going.  At this point, they like to see that the follicles are measuring between 15-18mm before they have us take the next step.  The doctor told us that usually they send women home to do about 2 more days of shots, before giving them an HCG shot, which triggers the eggs to be released.  While I had some follicles measuring at 16-19 mm, most were measuring around 13-15 mm.  The doctor seems to think that 1 more day of injections should do the trick and hopefully mature the smaller follicles just a bit more.  That way there is a higher chance of more eggs at retrieval time.  More eggs = higher success rate!  So we will go back in the morning to see what today's round of shots have done for my follicles.  At that point, 1 of 2 things will happen: 1. We will be sent home for 1 more day of injections, or 2. They will have me do an HCG injection at home which will trigger the eggs to be released.  From there, they would be doing the egg retrieval either the end of this week or beginning of next.  Eek!!

We have tried for so long to have a baby of our own, and now things seem to be happening in fast-forward.  Through the ups and downs of this process, I have had to keep reminding myself that love is a battlefield, and it's not always easy.  We have to fight, and fight hard for the things we want sometimes.  My stomach at this point looks like a battlefield; bruises, bleeding and needle marks.  But we are doing this for LOVE.  The love my husband and I have for each other, and the love we wish to pass on to a little one.  The love we have for our children now, and our love for family.  When it comes down to it, family is all we really have.  So at the end of the day, it all becomes clear and the reason we are going through this "battlefield" is worth all of it!  XOXO