IVF 4: Hope?
I had a surprise phone call from our IVF specialist, the Wizard of Oz today
The immediate news is good. We can do an IVF cycle with a flare protocol next month and he will keep the drugs at a nice high level.
The rest is less good. He suspects the reason we are getting such a poor result is that I am running out of eggs. Although I am only 37 years old, my results indicate that I may be hurtling towards an early menopause. He added helpfully that the menopause may take 5 years or 1 month - sometimes it's all over incredibly fast.
Have I mentioned that, for the first time in my life, I seem to have skipped a period? Sometimes after an IVF cycle, its a week or so late, but now its almost two weeks and I'm wondering if it is going to turn up at all. A chill went through me when he said it could happen in just one month.
And I still just can't believe it. I look in the mirror and I look so young. My big age-related issue in my normal life is ensuring that people take me seriously - that they realize I am Dr Emily, Serious Career Woman and Scary Management Type, and not a 22 year old student.
But I am plunged into gloom. I still have the bruises on my belly from my last attempt, and now somehow after this chain of events and this conversation I am supposed to go into the next cycle with some kind of hope.
How am I supposed to summon up the hope?
posted by Emily at 6/25/2009 02:52:00 AM
2 Comments:
Oh Em, please don't plunge yourself into gloom. Your life in-and-of-itself is a worthwhile thing, whether you conceive another child, or not. Your own personal worth isn't really determined by the children you produce, much as it would bring you joy to produce them. . .
Over the past three years, Molly has 'skipped' maybe half-a-dozen periods, which we take as sort-of a harbinger of the end of all cycles. And just recently, her cycles have been completely unpredictable, and weird, both as to, um, 'quantity' and duration. Molly is nearly 53, which we're told is about the 'American average' age-of-menopause. But we have a close friend who had her last period when she was 37, so it's a pretty wide range.
Be that as it may, tho, please don't despair. Your life is worthwhile for its own sake, and you ARE an estimable woman. At least, such as I've known you to be. . .
{{Emily}} there are so many good qualities about you, I'm 34 years old going through premature menopause is not easy.
Sending you warm thoughts to you.
S.R.
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