A Heartbreaking and Painful Step Back...

This week has been an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least, and the outcome was far from what we had wished for. Let’s rewind to 8 days ago…

October 13, 2011- This was the day we had been waiting for. I had cleared all my estrogen tests, had taken my trigger shot and I was ready to be put under and have our little eggies retrieved. We went in that morning as happy as could be and thought, “this is it, this is the next step towards Baby Ricci.” They put me under and an hour later then wheeled me back into a recovery room and told me everything had gone well and they were able to collect 12 eggies. We were both very excited with the results, but I was in a TON of pain and it just continued to get worse. They finally gave me something to help with the pain and an hour later sent me on my way. On the way home from the retrieval I was starving but all I wanted was frozen yogurt so we headed to Menchie’s, a new frozen yogurt shop I had never been to. I waddled in hunched over and made myself a yogurt but after two bites I got the “I am going to vomit” feeling and ran to their brand new stainless steel trash can and lost it. It was just the beginning of my week from hell…

After we arrived home and my pain pills began to wear off, the pain continued to get worse and worse. I was unable to move and the gas pains were so intense that every inch of my body ached. I figured it was just a result of my surgery and this is how every woman feels after an egg retrieval, so I just continued to take the pain pills they had prescribed along with drinking a lot of water, downing gas-x and doing everything possible to become comfortable. That first day was miserable and poor Mike had to do everything for me because I was unable to walk or put any pressure on either of my shoulders due to the severe gas pains. I finally was able to fall asleep that evening after building a fort of pillows both around and under me and I thought the next day would be better.

October 14, 2011- The next morning I began to feel a little better, but I was still in quite a bit of pain and my stomach had become extremely bloated and distended. I honestly had gained about 6 pounds overnight and it was all showing in my belly. I once again attributed it to the retrieval and just continued taking gas-x and pain pills to help with the pain, but nothing seemed to help. I finally went into my acupuncture appointment and she was able to help relieve some of the pain, but I still was not myself. I went home to rest some more and as much as I wanted to go, I ended up having to miss The Colors of Life fundraiser for The Sharing Place, which I have attended every year for 10 years. Although I was still in severe pain, I once again just chalked it up to "this is how all girls feel after a retrieval".

October 15, 2011- Saturday I began to feel a bit better, although I was still in a lot of pain and fatigued. I perked up quite a bit though when I received the call from the andrology department telling us that they had actually extracted 14 eggs and 9 of them were mature, 8 were fertilized and 8 were growing perfectly. I was in such a state of bliss that it made all the pain, both emotional and physical, feel like it was finally worth it. We scheduled the transfer for day 5 and began talking about how different life was going to be when this baby was finally in our lives.

October 16, 2011- Sunday morning I was finally able to shower, take a trip to Costco and cook a few things. I was feeling pretty good throughout the day and although I wasn’t 100%, I thought I was on the mend. I went to bed early that evening in order to get ready for a long day of work on Monday so that I could be completely stress-free while I began to grow Baby Ricci.

October 17, 2011- I went in to work at 6:30 am because I had so much to do. I wasn’t feeling great but I wanted to make sure I got everything done before I took the next three days off for bed rest after my transfer. I knew things weren’t 100% right with me when I lugged my monthly Costco trip in and it took me an hour to distribute everything rather than my normal 20 minutes, but I just kept going on with my day. After working extremely hard all day to complete my tasks, I began experiencing some chest pains around 2:00 pm. I have never had heart burn so I just chalked it up to that, took some TUMS and continued working my little tail off until 7:30 pm.

When I finally left my chest pains were getting worse and I thought I had overdone it a little bit and needed to go home and just rest. The chest pains never let up though and they began radiating to my back and making it hard to breathe.  Being the stubborn person I am though I just thought they would go away when I went to sleep and went about my evening. At 11:30 pm when I attempted to lie down and go to sleep, my chest and back pains became so bad I started begging Mike to take me to the ER. We arrived at around 12:00 am and I was admitted around 12:45 am. By this point my chest pains were pretty severe and they came and drew blood, put an IV in and finally gave me some pain medication around 1:30 am. At about 2:30 am the Dr. came in and told me that one of the blood tests had revealed that I may have a blood clot in my lung and they needed to do a CT scan. About an hour after that, the radiologist finally came to get me and I underwent my first ever CT scan. For those of you who have never had one, it’s a very strange feeling. They inject your body with iodine through your IV and when it’s inserted, your entire body goes warm for about 2 minutes and you get the taste of metal on your tongue.

After the CT scan they brought me back to my room and about an hour later the Dr. once again came in and told me I didn’t have any clots and that I most likely was having a back spasm and I could be discharged. We finally made it home around 5:00 am and although I was still in quite a bit of pain, Mike and I both took a two hour nap before we were supposed to head up to the infertility clinic for my transfer.

October 18, 2011- After a long night in the ER and hardly any sleep, I was ready to get the transfer over with and head back home for three days of bed rest. I was worried that they may not do the transfer due to my hospital stay but tried to assure myself that because they had not found a clot and thought it was my back, they would most likely continue. After being brought back to the transfer room Dr. Hammoud came in and asked how I was feeling. I told him I had been to the ER for chest pains but that they thought it was my back and I was feeling ok now. Dr. Hammoud excused himself and came back a bit later with an ultrasound machine. He explained that I looked incredibly sick and I was most likely suffering from Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome or *OHSS and they needed to do an ultrasound. Following the ultrasound Dr. Hammoud stated that I was indeed suffering from *OHSS, which is why I was having chest pains, and we shouldn’t go through with the transfer due to my current state of health. Although in his opinion we should not continue, he would leave the choice to us, although if we chose to go ahead and do one and I were to become pregnant, I would most likely end up in the hospital and lose the pregnancy because I would be so ill. On top of this news, he told me that only 2 of our 8 fertilized eggies had survived until day 5 and the two remaining embryos were fair in quality and probably wouldn’t be able to be frozen. He gave us a few minutes to discuss it amongst ourselves and the minute he walked out of the room, I lost it. Here I was on the day that I thought our lives were going to change for the better and I was sobbing uncontrollably and in excruciating pain. As much as my heart told me to do the transfer, my head knew better and we chose to terminate this IVF cycle.

After I was finally able to collect myself, they sent me on my way with two prescriptions to stop the IVF process, strict orders to drink 64 oz of Gatorade a day and at minimum, three days of bed rest. I was also sent home with a “hat” to monitor my urine output, a tape measure to keep track of my abdominal girth and the nurses phone number I was to call every day to report my stats. I left what was supposed to be my transfer appointment feeling completely destroyed mentally and physically and as though I was a failure of a woman. I couldn’t and still can’t believe that our baby is still so far away and that we went through the entire arduous process only to have to start from scratch again in a few months. My heart is truly broken and I feel so helpless and out of control. I know this isn’t my fault and this is a known complication of IVF, but I am so angry that it had to happen to me. I just wanted one thing in this whole process to go right.

As of right now I am still on bed rest and feeling sorry for myself that our little family won’t be complete until at least 2012. I am devastated that this happened but I am attempting to move forward and find peace and acceptance about this situation within myself. I am very fortunate that I am surrounded by such amazing friends and family and I have had the most amazing support throughout all of this. I know Baby Ricci will get here one way or another, it’s just hard to accept that it may not be the way we want, or in our timing, but they will get here. Our current plan is to begin the IVF process again in January and hopefully do retrieval and transfer in February. In the mean time Mike and I plan to enjoy my work trip to Napa where we will drink too much and spend time with one another, spoil ourselves for Christmas with things we don’t need, finish up some projects around the house, celebrate Mike’s 30th birthday on 11.11.11, take a much needed tropical vacation to Trinidad and Tobago for some much needed together time and R and R and splurge on a dinner at our favorite restaurant Cucina Toscana. While I know none of these things will heal the large hole in my heart, they at least give me something to look forward to as we begin yet another long wait in this fertility journey.

* click here to learn all about OHSS and what symptoms to look for.