Be scared. Be very a-scared.

I am scared to death of my upcoming IVF cycle in New York. In no particular order, here's what I'm up against:

• Even 28 days of birth control pills and 10 days of Lupron will not suffice to bully my ovaries into submission. My baseline scan will reveal a giant and malevolent cyst working quietly but relentlessly to foil my plans.

• 10 units of Lupron won't be enough. It will quickly become obvious that I should not have second-guessed the original prescription of 20 units. The cycle will be cancelled and it will be all my fault for getting uppity.

• I will make a joke, sotto voce, to a companion about the other desperate-looking women in the waiting room. Someone unsympathetic will overhear and either burst into loud sobs, streaking from the room, or fly at me in a burst of hormone-stoked fury, talons flashing. Once again my big mouth will get me into terrible trouble.

• My hotel room will have an unpleasant odor that will give me strange and upsetting dreams.

• When I present my credit card for payment for this cycle, I will be told the charge was declined. The card will be seized and snipped into small plastic shards — the better to injure myself with. With no ready credit, I will have to hitchhike home. When I offer a grimy trucker the use of my bloated body in exchange for passage, he will scoff in distaste, bringing his big rig to a squealing stop and depositing me unceremoniously by the side of the road.

• I will ovulate before retrieval.

• I will eat something weird in Chinatown — weirder than usual.

• The hotel will have cable, but only the stupid kind (CNN, the Weather Channel, and ESPN).

• All my shoes will prove unsuitable for city walking. I will develop enormous and aggressive blisters that quickly begin to fester, turn gangrenous, and require swift amputation of both legs below the knee. (At least I won't develop edema during pregnancy.)

• I will undergo days and days of expensive medication, physical discomfort, and daily prodding, only to have the cycle cancelled at the last minute. The subsequent IUI will be painful. Although I should know better, I will remain hopeful, because an IUI has worked for us in the past. Therefore I will be devastated and inconsolable when it fails.

• I will run into someone I used to know but didn't like.

• I will run into someone I used to know and did like. There will be great awkwardness as I try to explain why I didn't say I'd be in town, why I didn't make plans to meet, why I'm staying in a hotel instead of with friends. It will all go very badly. Through the diabolically efficient grapevine, all my friends will quickly hear how strangely I'm behaving. I will feel even lonelier and more isolated.

• The doctors will dislike me, and their antipathy will be unmistakable. I will hear them in the hallway making sardonic comments about my naked need for reassurance and my haphazard pubic grooming.

• I will rendezvous with friends I've known only via the Internet. Their smiles will freeze on their faces as they frantically think, "I didn't imagine she'd be like this." They will make unconvincing would you look at the time?! gestures and beat a hasty exit. A volley of e-mail will ensue in which they tell each other incredulously, "You wouldn't believe how flabby she is / the dumbass thing she said / the way she accidentally spit on me while she was talking / her clothes, my God, her clothes." I will be blissfully and moronically unaware — the better to feel the bitter sting of shame when I finally and inevitably figure it out.

• During retrieval I will be alert enough to feel intense pain, but not alert enough to complain about it.

• During retrieval I will look like Resusci-Annie. I will drool copious strings of ropy, adhesive saliva. My face will stick to the pillow of the gurney. It will make an unnerving Velcro sound as I pull it away.

• Only a small number of eggs will be retrieved. Only a small number of those will fertilize. An even smaller number of embryos will divide. Those will be unspeakably ugly. They will all arrest before transfer.

• This cycle won't work. There will be no easy explanation, as "everything looked good." No new information will come out of this cycle — just the theory that maybe it will work next time.

• We'll have to decide whether there will be a next time.

• This cycle will work. Initial blood tests will be positive, but my hCG level will be very low, and will begin falling almost immediately.

• Initial blood tests will be positive, but my hCG level will fail to double properly. After a harrowing period of uncertainty, the pregnancy will fail before a heartbeat is detected.

• My hCG will double appropriately. There will be a heartbeat. And then, next time we check, there won't.

There. I think that about covers it — unless you can think of something I'm missing...?

Posted by Julie at 11:54:25 AM in I've learned a lot...but I'm not sure it's worth it.

Comments

Be scared. Be very a-scared.

I am scared to death of my upcoming IVF cycle in New York. In no particular order, here's what I'm up against:

• Even 28 days of birth control pills and 10 days of Lupron will not suffice to bully my ovaries into submission. My baseline scan will reveal a giant and malevolent cyst working quietly but relentlessly to foil my plans.

• 10 units of Lupron won't be enough. It will quickly become obvious that I should not have second-guessed the original prescription of 20 units. The cycle will be cancelled and it will be all my fault for getting uppity.

• I will make a joke, sotto voce, to a companion about the other desperate-looking women in the waiting room. Someone unsympathetic will overhear and either burst into loud sobs, streaking from the room, or fly at me in a burst of hormone-stoked fury, talons flashing. Once again my big mouth will get me into terrible trouble.

• My hotel room will have an unpleasant odor that will give me strange and upsetting dreams.

• When I present my credit card for payment for this cycle, I will be told the charge was declined. The card will be seized and snipped into small plastic shards — the better to injure myself with. With no ready credit, I will have to hitchhike home. When I offer a grimy trucker the use of my bloated body in exchange for passage, he will scoff in distaste, bringing his big rig to a squealing stop and depositing me unceremoniously by the side of the road.

• I will ovulate before retrieval.

• I will eat something weird in Chinatown — weirder than usual.

• The hotel will have cable, but only the stupid kind (CNN, the Weather Channel, and ESPN).

• All my shoes will prove unsuitable for city walking. I will develop enormous and aggressive blisters that quickly begin to fester, turn gangrenous, and require swift amputation of both legs below the knee. (At least I won't develop edema during pregnancy.)

• I will undergo days and days of expensive medication, physical discomfort, and daily prodding, only to have the cycle cancelled at the last minute. The subsequent IUI will be painful. Although I should know better, I will remain hopeful, because an IUI has worked for us in the past. Therefore I will be devastated and inconsolable when it fails.

• I will run into someone I used to know but didn't like.

• I will run into someone I used to know and did like. There will be great awkwardness as I try to explain why I didn't say I'd be in town, why I didn't make plans to meet, why I'm staying in a hotel instead of with friends. It will all go very badly. Through the diabolically efficient grapevine, all my friends will quickly hear how strangely I'm behaving. I will feel even lonelier and more isolated.

• The doctors will dislike me, and their antipathy will be unmistakable. I will hear them in the hallway making sardonic comments about my naked need for reassurance and my haphazard pubic grooming.

• I will rendezvous with friends I've known only via the Internet. Their smiles will freeze on their faces as they frantically think, "I didn't imagine she'd be like this." They will make unconvincing would you look at the time?! gestures and beat a hasty exit. A volley of e-mail will ensue in which they tell each other incredulously, "You wouldn't believe how flabby she is / the dumbass thing she said / the way she accidentally spit on me while she was talking / her clothes, my God, her clothes." I will be blissfully and moronically unaware — the better to feel the bitter sting of shame when I finally and inevitably figure it out.

• During retrieval I will be alert enough to feel intense pain, but not alert enough to complain about it.

• During retrieval I will look like Resusci-Annie. I will drool copious strings of ropy, adhesive saliva. My face will stick to the pillow of the gurney. It will make an unnerving Velcro sound as I pull it away.

• Only a small number of eggs will be retrieved. Only a small number of those will fertilize. An even smaller number of embryos will divide. Those will be unspeakably ugly. They will all arrest before transfer.

• This cycle won't work. There will be no easy explanation, as "everything looked good." No new information will come out of this cycle — just the theory that maybe it will work next time.

• We'll have to decide whether there will be a next time.

• This cycle will work. Initial blood tests will be positive, but my hCG level will be very low, and will begin falling almost immediately.

• Initial blood tests will be positive, but my hCG level will fail to double properly. After a harrowing period of uncertainty, the pregnancy will fail before a heartbeat is detected.

• My hCG will double appropriately. There will be a heartbeat. And then, next time we check, there won't.

There. I think that about covers it — unless you can think of something I'm missing...?