The Fertility Odyssey; Part 9: "Meet Me Outside"

Where were we ?...Oh, yes...Picking up the pieces. Now, I realize there are people out there who have received far worse news than that their first round of IVF was not successful, but at the time, that did not matter much. It was pretty devastating news, in it's own way. After a few days, we were able to look on the slightly brighter side of things: We did have 3 more tries covered under our insurance. We were both still alive. the sun hadn't crashed into the earth. There weren't superintelligent cyborgs attempting to control the human race. Okay, I'm not sure about that last one, and I realize the other stuff is pretty melodramatic, but suffice to say, we were trying to get past it. And the Christmas visit of Mr. &Mrs.Feral and their twins was actually quite comforting, it was a good time to have dear friends around.

We decided it would be best to try again right away. In fact, it was kind of immediately. We ran through the shots in the belly again, though this time they had upped the dosage of the egg producing one. (I must admit, being very science challenged, I kept picturing My Special lady's ovaries filled with the cocoons that the evil creatures hatched out of in Gremlins- With the creepy smoke and everything. I'm an idiot, I know...AND I reproduced !!Who's the joke on now ?!?!?!?) The only problem was that the stuff was very specifically packaged, so sometimes she had to shoot herself twice to get the right dosage. Not fun.

Other than that unpleasantness, the regimen went about the same. I visited the porn room at the hospital again, made another "deposit". I once again successfully jabbed her in the butt cheek. The harvesting went well, and more sperm were introduced to more eggs. This time, they implanted three fertilized eggs into My Special Lady, and we went about our business.

Did I mention that in the middle of all this My Special lady was also interviewing for teaching positions ? Well, she was. And it was actually during a campus visit that My Special Lady's body appeared to tell her that the IVF had again failed. That was not a fun phone conversation. To our credit, I think we handled it pretty well. I think we went into the second round a little bit more prepared for bad news. No that it felt any better, but I don't think our hopes were quite as high, anyway. We spoke to the fertility folks, and they told us that we had to act as if we might still be pregnant(no drinking, lacrosse, etc.).

We had planned a trip to Oakland for a friend's wedding reception, and we went ahead with the trip. The pregnancy test was planned for when we returned. We managed to have a pretty good time in Oakland, thanks again to the proximity of some dear friends. We tried our best not to dwell on what was not happening in My Special Lady's belly. The impending bad news was also tempered by the fact that over the weekend My Special lady's phone rang, and she was offered a teaching position. One piece of our puzzle had fallen into place.

We said our goodbyes in Oakland and flew back to old Chi-Town, The Windy City, Sir Blusteratious. We got up REAL early on Monday morning, and they took some blood for the blood test. We then both returned to work. Did I mention that we both worked in the same place ? Well, we did. Anyway, we went back to work.

Sometime in the afternoon, my cell phone rang, and it was My Special Lady.
"where are you ?" she asked.
"I'm in So & So's office.(not a pseudonym, by the way, we had two people named So that worked there, and they shared an office, weird, huh ?)" I answered.
"Meet me outside."
I went outside into the February air, and waited. I saw her through the glass door. I honestly could not read her face, and I truly had no idea why she wanted to talk to me.(Smart, huh ?)
"I'm pregnant"
"huh ?"
"I'm pregnant."

Yikes !!! The Fertility Odyssey was over.

Coming soon: The Epilogue: September 10th, 2005.