flipflop_diva

It’s been only nine months, but it feels like a lifetime.

We — David and I —sit in the waiting room, anxiously scrolling Twitter on our phones just to be able to do something. My heart is in my throat, and I feel like I could possibly throw up.

It’s been only nine months, but it feels like we’ve been waiting forever.

Maybe I have. Didn’t I use to dream about having a daughter? Didn’t I decide on her name decades ago? Didn’t I seriously contemplate having a baby on my own in those years before I met David and I was worried I’d be single forever? Didn’t we start trying a year and a half ago?

It’s been only nine months since the miscarriage, since all the dreams that for a few short weeks felt like they were finally coming true were horribly snatched away, but it feels like it’s been centuries.

All the articles on the Internet talked about getting pregnant after a miscarriage — story after story after story of it happening within one to three months. Easy peasy. Just like that.

But it hasn’t been easy and it hasn’t happened just like that. It hasn’t happened at all. Nine months of pregnancy tests giving me one single line, as if to mock me. Nine months of tears and heartbreak and wondering if it was just never meant to be. Nine months of trying and trying and trying and never giving up.

By now we’ve done all the tests. Blood tests and ultrasounds and having someone inject dye in my fallopian tubes to check for blockages. Everything has come back normal. David’s given more samples in more cups that he has probably ever thought was possible. Those have all been normal too.

So here we are. The last chance.

A nurse calls our name. We get up, glancing nervously at each other, and follow her back to an office that has a polished mahogany desk and a blue comfortable looking couch across from a high-back chair. We sit on the couch and wait some more.

The man’s name is Dr. Propst. He’s nice and understanding and he listens as we tell him about the baby we’ll never meet and the struggles that came after. We go to an exam room once we’ve finished our story so there can be yet another ultrasound.

Dr. Propst produces a piece of paper once he’s finished the exam. We go over the options, the chances of success.

We decide to go for the most expensive one. It’s going to mean draining our savings and skipping that vacation we had wanted to go on. It’s going to mean cutting back on dinners out and watching every penny.

But it’s also the one with the highest odds — fifty percent — and that makes it worth it. One more chance at a dream that so far is eluding us.

We go in a week later to learn how to inject all the shots. There will be two of them every night for two weeks, right in my belly. After the first week, there will also be another one in the morning, in the same spot.

A couple days after we’re trained on injections, I go to the specialty pharmacy to pick up all the medications. I come home and set them out on the kitchen table and for the first time in a while I feel hope.

The process starts on November 2. I get up early and am at the lab at seven a.m. sharp. They draw a vial of blood. A few hours later I head to the fertility clinic. Dr. Propst does another ultrasound. This time he counts how many follicles are there and measures them all.

Once he’s done, I get the okay. That night, we do the first set of injections. The meds sting going in, and the needle is a lot longer than I’d like, but I know I would do anything it takes.

Two days later, I again wake up early and am at the lab at seven a.m. sharp. They draw another vial of blood. A few hours after that I am back at the fertility clinic for Dr. Propst to do another ultrasound and count and measure all the follicles.

This goes on, for two weeks. Every other day a blood test and an ultrasound. After the third trip to the lab and the fertility clinic, we get the okay to start the third medication.

After the seventh trip, we get better news. It’s time for the trigger shot — the one that will fool my body into thinking it’s time to ovulate.

The next day, during halftime at the University of Texas football game, I stand in a cramped stall in the bathroom and inject myself with hopefully my very last shot. The next morning, I head to the lab for one last blood test to make sure it worked. A call that afternoon confirms it did.

Monday morning, before the sun has even started coming up, David and I head to the surgery center, which is attached to the fertility clinic. We go in and are led to the back. I change into a hospital gown and fill out paperwork. We answer what seems like a million questions from the nurses and the anesthesiologist, and I let them take my blood pressure and listen to my heart.

Finally, I say goodbye to David. I get taken to the operating room, and David is shown to the bathroom where he is to leave his most important sample ever.

I get wheeled into the operating room and moved to the operating table. The anesthesiologist positions my arms and inserts an IV. He places a mask over my face. I try to focus but the next thing I remember is waking up back in the exam room, David sitting next to me.

“We got thirteen eggs,” Dr. Propst tells us a little while later. “That’s really good.”

We smile at that news as the doctor leaves and I get dressed and we head home.

The lab technician calls two days later. Of the thirteen eggs, nine were viable, she tells us, all of which were inseminated. Six of them are showing signs that the insemination worked.

The next day, the lab technician calls back again. It turns out a seventh egg is now showing signs of insemination, and all seven embryos are developing on schedule. The goal is to get them to day five and the blastocyst stage, where they will be little balls of a few hundred cells each — enough for them to be genetically tested.

On day five, the lab technician calls again. Two of our embryos have stalled out, but two of them have made it to the blastocyst stage and are being tested and frozen.

On day six, she calls back. Two more embryos have made it to the blastocyst stage and are being tested and frozen.

On day seven, she calls for the last time. The seventh embryo stalled out, but they will send out the four to be tested. Results will be back in a week. She says four is a great number. Dr. Propst says it’s very promising. I am confident in a few weeks, I will be pregnant.

I get a call from the lab eight days later. My heart is once again in my throat and I think I might throw up.

“I’m sorry,” the lab technician says, and my heart drops through the floor. “All four embryos came back abnormal. None of them are compatible with life.”

My eyes fill with tears. I struggle to choke back a sob.

“Thank you,” I say, and I’m amazed I don’t sound as heartbroken as I feel.

“I’m sorry,” the lab technician says.

“Yeah,” I say and hang up. I head to the bathroom to let myself cry before calling David to tell him the awful news.

An hour later, the phone rings.

“We can try again if you want,” Dr. Propst says. “I have some ideas for changes to the medication to hopefully garner more success.”

David and I have talked about this situation. About the money it will cost, about the sacrifices it will mean.

I don’t hesitate when I answer.

“We want to try again,” I say, and once more, we move steadfastly toward our dream.

In happily ever after news, Ellie Michele was born two weeks ago, on Nov. 13. She is a healthy, happy baby, currently asleep in my arms. It was a long, long process to get here. This entry details one part of it.

I thank you for reading! This was written for Week 6 of the