Baby Deux, Part 6 :: Sperm Banks and Night Sweats–Oh My!

Well, Sona is deep in the midst of night sweats. You know what that means: Cloooooooomiiiiiiiiiiiid! (In my head, I said that in Oprah’s voice.)

(photos from when we had our last getaway–to NOLA–before Finn was born)

She went in for a water ultrasound last Thursday. That was the one where they checked to ensure that there weren’t any physiological anomalies preventing pregnancy: scar tissue, polyps, etc. Luckily, everything looked good! So, the doc called in prescriptions for Clomid and Progesterone (Sona’s was a bit lower than they’d like to see).

We were a little stressed about the timing, per usual, because after asking around, it seemed like a lot of women had started Clomid much sooner. The general consensus was that most started between CD3 (cycle day)-CD5. Sona was on CD8. However, her cycles are irregular and generally longer than 28 days. Therefore, we’re hoping that her CD8 is kind of like other folk’s CD5. And the doc was still insistent that the timing is good, as Sona usually ovulates between CD 15-19.

Anyway, I went to Walgreens to pick up the prescriptions having NO idea what they would cost without insurance. I think we were both expecting a bill of around $200, but it was only $30. That may be the only time in this whole process when we’re surprised by how cheap something is.

Enter, our sperm bank order history:

That doesn’t even include our most recent order, which was placed on Sunday night. Two vials. $1900. I would total it up for you all, but then I might have to throw my laptop against the wall. So, you do the math.

I don’t know what our donor’s name is–and, of course, I feel like we owe him our lives–but I sure hope he’s out there somewhere, driving a Tesla, living his best life.

(If you are new to us and haven’t read about how we chose our donor, you can catch up on that story here.)

While we’re talking money, we also got our first bill from our fertility clinic. They waste NO time. I mean, I think they stamped that shit as we walked out the door. Ah, well. Can’t blame them. The hustle is real.

This is all to say that we are hopefully set for a couple of inseminations before the week ends. Tomorrow morning, Sona goes in for the ultrasound to see how her follicles are maturing and how large they are. Depending on what they find, she will do the HCG trigger shot tomorrow night, which should prompt ovulation.

(Remember, the doc wants to see at least one follicle that is 18mm. The bigger it is, the closer Sona is to ovulating. If it’s so big that it looks like she’s ready to go, they may have her trigger Wednesday morning, instead. If she has a few that are large, which happens with Clomid, they will let us know that there is a high risk for multiples and ask us whether, knowing that info, we want to move forward with insemination this month. After that, I’ll begin drinking. Like A LOT.)

The next question is: how soon after the trigger shot do we do insemination #1? Since we’ve basically been crowd sourcing this whole pregnancy, I asked that question on Instagram, trying to get a sense of what others did. We got lots of responses that generally ranged from 24-36 hours, but 36 hours seemed to be the more popular answer–and the one that resulted in a lot of pregnancies. That timing is our biggest source of stress, just as it was before we were working with the fertility clinic. What if Sona ovulates right away and we miss the window, essentially wasting $1200 worth of IUIs and $1900 worth of sperm? Sona is going to grill the doc about this at tomorrow’s ultrasound, and they will make the decision about when to trigger based on the status of the follicles.

So, we’ll do the first IUI within that 24-36 hour window and the other around 12 -24 hours later. I’m unclear about whether or not they do another ultrasound in that time period, but I don’t think they plan to. It just seems like it’d make sense to check to see whether ovulation has actually occurred before moving forward with the second IUI, but I’ll try to trust that the experts know what they are doing.

Everyone keeps reminding us that this isn’t an exact science and that, even with thousands of dollars worth of fertility clinic bills and ultrasounds galore and hormone-altering medications, it is still just a guessing game. That’s pretty infuriating. Nature: 1; Science: 0.

The truth is this: we are going all in on this month. We’re spending around $4,000 (after having already spent thousands more). We’re committing to numerous trips to the fertility clinic, making Sona late to work several days throughout the process. We’re doing two inseminations to increase our chances. We chose to jump straight to meds, even though we had the option not to. We are playing every single card.

Of course, what that also means is that we are 100x more invested in this month’s IUIs resulting in a successful pregnancy. We are terrified of it not working and of having to go through this indefinitely. We are well aware that, while our fertility clinic could afford to have us go through this process for months and months, our bank account and our hearts could not. There are some things that have definite boundaries and breaking points, and we are hoping that we won’t have to experience a breach.

The amount of stress and anxiety–most of which is internalized–can’t be quantified.  There some debts that haunt you in ways that financial troubles can’t. We are doing everything in our power to make our family of three a family of four. But only so much is in our power.