Friday, October 5, 2012
After last year’s miscarriage, we had used all of our frozen embryos and decided that we wanted to go with a new doctor, if we even chose to continue on in this pursuit. There was one doctor whose name kept coming up, so we decided to pay him a visit for a consult.
We met with Dr. Goldfarb in May or June of 2011. I had gotten all my records from my previous doctor and shared those with Dr. Goldfarb. One of the first things he did was order bloodwork. The results showed that I had elevated blood sugar, or the beginning of Type 2 Diabetes. He told me that before he felt comfortable moving forward I would need to bring down my blood sugar and lose some weight.
I was discouraged because right after the miscarriage, all I wanted to do was get pregnant again right away. I mean, my body had done it once, surely this was a good sign. I felt like if we didn’t build on that momentum right away, we’d be screwed.
Also, I was at this point, already 34. That may not sound old, but I remember when we first started down the IVF path and went to a mandatory information session, we were told over and over, AD NAUSEUM, that 35 is the fertility drop off date. Basically if a woman doesn’t have children, or at least her eggs harvested and frozen, by the age of 35, well it became a pretty hopeless situation. When we started this I was 27. Everyone told me how young I was and how much time I had as reasons why I shouldn’t worry.
Well the miscarriage happened 3 days after my 34th birthday. Suddenly time was really not on my side any more. Hence the desperation to move forward as quickly as possible.
In hindsight it was probably a good thing that we were forced to wait. There is no way that I was mentally and emotionally prepared to go through the whole experience again. I hadn’t even finished properly mourning the child (and yes, I thought of it as my child) yet.
I set about working on reducing my sugar levels. I had some early success and then some setbacks.
Aside from the sugar situation, we needed to come up with $12,000 to do a fresh cycle. The husband and I work hard, but can’t exactly come up with $12k overnight.
In June of 2012 I called Dr. Goldfarb and informed him that my A1C Haemoglobin had come down from 7.4 to 6.8 (he wanted it at a 6.5). I told him that although it wasn’t quite as low as he wanted it, I was committed to continuing my efforts but that I still wanted to start the IVF process ASAP.
He made me go see a maternal fetal medicine specialist. On July 12, she told me that she was recommending not moving forward until my A1C came down to 6.0. I left her office feeling like I had been punched in the gut. Here was someone else, telling me I had to wait.
I was angry and lamented my bad luck. And then I got serious. I became super strict with my diet and started exercising. By mid-September, I had lowered my sugar to 6.1 and had lost 26 pounds.
So, my sugar was finally where it needed to be. I was feeling better physically. But there was still the pesky little problem of needing that $12k.
I knew that by the end of October we would have $7k but that still left us $5k short. So I swallowed my pride and last Wednesday, October 3, called my mother and asked her if she could loan us the $5k for a little while so we could go ahead and get started and not have to wait any more She very chalantly told me that that was fine. My mother is not typically nonchalant about money, never mind that kind of sum. I thanked her and got off the phone feeling grateful.
That afternoon when I fetched our mail, there was an envelope addressed to us, from my grandmother. My grandmother does not speak English and so she certainly does not send us mail. Curious, I opened the envelope and found a certified check for $5k.
I was overwhelmed. My family has always been generous and giving but this was the exact amount we needed and getting it meant that there was nothing standing in our way.
On Thursday I called Dr. Goldfarb to let him know I was ready to officially begin a cycle.
1 Shot at a Time 