One good egg

For anyone who thought the "Naming Hope" entry was an indirect pregnancy announcement, I'm sorry to say it wasn't. Just to clear that up...

But we are taking steps...steps that I've been hesitant to write about. But now I'm thinking, hey, what the heck. I'm a writer, after all, and aren't writers supposed to bare their souls?

After a month of shots in the gut and butt, I have bruises on my stomach, have gained 10 lbs, and have ridden the rollercoaster between being hopeful and not-so-hopeful. Today was the day we went to the clinic to have the egg retrieved. Not eggs. Just one egg. That's all that came of my month of painful shots. If you know anything about IVF, the more eggs the better. But "at my age" (that's the phrase I hear often at the clinic), the chance of getting lots and lots of eggs was small. But I was hoping for maybe 4 or 5. The "follical stimulation" drugs were supposed to force lots of eggs to pop up in my geriatric ovaries. But apparently my ovaries are too old and tired to get excited about anything, even when pumped full of stimulants. I guess they got tired of waiting...all those years waiting for Prince Charming to sweep us off our feet. Faithfully pumping out an egg a month, just in case. All those good eggs that went to waste.

The truth is, all those years I didn't think much about my aging eggs. I felt pretty ambivalent about babies. Of course, I loved babies, but mostly other people's babies. Looking back, I realize my ambivalence had more to do with my fear of not being a good mother and of never having the time to read a book again with toddlers hanging on my shins, than of not wanting to be a mother. Not that I really had a choice. Prince charming hadn't arrived yet. By the time I reached 40 and celebrated my birthday as a single woman, I had come to terms with the fact that I may never have children.

But then Prince Charming did arrive, and I starting thinking, "well...maybe." So here we are. And after having been pregnant twice and finding the courage to be a bit reckless, I'm realizing how sad I'll be if our one little egg doesn't fertilize, or doesn't attach. I'm also realizing that will all of the technical, scientific, medical advances, how little control we have over our lives.

Friends who have been through this remind me that "if God wants you to get pregnant, you'll get pregnant." And they tell me stories of the friend who only had one embryo implanted, got pregnant, and just gave birth. Or of the woman who had 8 perfect embryos, and didn't get pregnant. Just goes to show you, we're not in control.

I've learned to accept that. And sometimes Plan B and Plan C turn out just as exciting as Plan A. But right now I'm pulling for that one little egg.