My 3rd donor egg transfer didn’t take and it scares me to death

Play Again.

It’s also the 3rd Christmas in a row that I’m not pregnant since we’ve been trying. Yay, numbers.

We planned an unmedicated cycle this month since I was on SO many drugs since July; my body and brain needed a break. And we wanted to try a natural cycle since 3 medicated ones in a row failed. My endometrial lining was actually good naturally and the embryo transfer would have been last week, but we decided not to - for many reasons:

1. It wasn’t the ideal day. Although they don’t really know the ideal transfer day, Saturday was the perceived ideal day and our clinic is closed on weekends.

2. They told us we could do the transfer on Friday too late and we had already made plans for Alex’s dad to come visit.

3. We have to be prepared for it to not work and that we will feel more and more devastated each time, so we decided we don’t want to deal with those feelings during the holidays while being around family.

This is another way that infertility isolates you. We’ve learned that it’s better to be at home to “deal with the bad news” on our own rather than have to fake a smile and carry on visiting family or friends.

Because no matter how many times you try to explain to people how much pain you’re in, they just don’t understand. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told someone I’m close to that a transfer failed and they just stare at me or act like it’s totally normal news. It feels like I’ve just told them I failed my driver’s exam. Except that that would probably get a bigger reaction. I don’t even talk about it with most people anymore.

Deciding not to transfer was a very very hard decision, but a week out, I’m glad we made this decision. We did need a break, as shocked as the clinic seemed to be that we were taking one. The pain of infertility doesn’t go away, but at least a break takes you off the rollercoaster for a bit. But it was something to grieve; having no chance of becoming pregnant before Christmas or the end of the year. I’m trying to squash these milestones, though, they’re dumb.

Anyway, happiest holidays to my readers! Thank you for supporting my journey by reading this. We hope for better luck next year.