In late March we began our second IVF. Protocol stayed the same. I responded exactly the same way. 8 eggs retrieved, 7 fertilized with ICSI.

This time I had little patience. My mind had been spinning for weeks with horrible thoughts of never having my own child. My head hurt from the lupron, my ovaries became heavy and enlarged…and the money flew right out of our bank account. All of these things made me a downright miserable person to be around….

My mood improved when I received the results …there were three normals. I was happy…and relieved. I could produce normal embryos after all! There was still hope! Two boys and one girl were waiting in a dish and two days later they all went back to mama. I was hopeful but one extremely bad experience seemed to weigh over me. I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom.

A few days later…my in laws arrived. Don’t get me wrong, I love my in-laws. C and I have spent much time with them before we were engaged traveling to all manner of sunny spots, drinking margaritas and having wonderful chats over dinner. My mother in law is the kind of mother that most of us wish we had. She loves her children in a way that is so different than any American mother – she is kind and accepting and even when she doesn’t approve she holds her tongue and manages to keep a smile on her face. My father in law…well….he is the king of inappropriate comments. I normally don’t mind his biting comments – because, as many of you know, I can give it right back…. but this was too fragile of a time for me. There was too much at stake. If he said the wrong thing with me on lupron – all hell would break loose. They were there with us when I received the news – I was pregnant…but my beta HCG level was 4. Basically anything under 5 is negative but, as my doctor said, embryos have to start somewhere. Two days later it had disappeared and I was devastated. I quickly booked another IVF to start straight away and scheduled an appointment at Cornell (the mother of all infertility clinics) in case the cycle failed. By this time I had lost faith in my RE and in my own body. I remember planting sunflower seeds at our new house upstate and when they failed to grow, I sobbed. My father in law – he tried to console me, I suppose by saying “you have a new home, you have C as your husband – look around you at this beautiful home – why do you want to be miserable?”. That made me so angry – I stormed out of the house, skidded the truck out of the driveway and sped off to buy a book entitled, “how to deal with difficult people”. We got over it and he apologized but I’m fairly sure that he still doesn’t understand why I was so offended and upset at his comment. I can deal with him telling me I have a fat ass (which he does!) but telling me to be happy at the most unhappy time of my life? That I couldn’t do.