As anyone on the infertility roller coaster knows, there are a lot of ups and downs and it’s a craaaazy ride!
I’ve been hesitant to start this blog because I’ve been so sure that with each next step, we’d see that beautiful double line and this whole thing would be over. And who wants to read a fertility blog by someone who is blissfully pregnant and just wants to take a painful stroll down bitter memory lane? With every new little trick we tried and each new medical procedure we went through, there was this renewed sense of optimism that we would finally find the magic formula. But for us and many of you, sometimes nothing seems to work.
After two and a half years of TTC (trying to conceive), we’ve just finished our first cycle of IVF, the golden standard for infertility treatment. After countless shots (it had to be at least 35 or something), vaginal ultrasounds, blood tests, procedures, late mornings getting to work, sacrificed social events so we could be home for that 9pm needle, and oh yeah, roughly $20K(!) in medical expenses, we found out this week that I am not pregnant. At this point, we’ve run out of new internet tricks and escalated medical procedures to try to give us that renewed hope that we are on the right track.
That’s not to say we’re out of options, though. We do have two beautiful, frozen 5-day blastocysts (AKA fertilized embryos) waiting for us, so we can keep trying without having to go through the entire grueling process again right away. However, I’ve decided to finally embrace my urge to start documenting the process, my experiences, and my thoughts and feelings—no matter how dark and desperate they may get.
The name I chose for this blog is Infertility is Funny. Don’t get me wrong, infertility SUCKS A BIG ONE! But if we couldn’t laugh at it sometimes, it would be entirely unbearable. Laughter is the best medicine. It eases tension and lets us pretend we’re just observers of this whole shenanigan and not victims of a horrible, mysterious disease affecting the one thing most of us want more than anything. Plus, I have a dark and twisted sense of humor, so this is right up my alley.
Writing is therapeutic for me and my hope is that I can take some of the very real and very sad parts of this thing and put a humorous spin on them to make us all feel just a little more human. And hey, if I get a book deal and said book deal pays for another round of IVF, cool.
Here we go!