Woohoo!!!

I’ve talked in the past about my BFF. She’s the one who declared me an IF mentor in April 2010, after she had been TTC for almost a year and finally went to the RE. Since April 2010, she did Clomid for a few months, had two IVF’s and an FET. She skipped IUI’s because her doctor doesn’t recommend them for anyone over 40. During her first IVF, which was around the same time as mine, she had a chemical pregnancy – very low numbers, not doubling, took a long time for her numbers to go to zero so she could try again. Her second IVF didn’t work at all, but she had two frozen embryos from that cycle. This was going to be her last try – she felt like she had to use her frozen embryos before she gave up. But she wasn’t hopeful. When they thawed her two embryos, one of them didn’t make it – it didn’t start growing. So her doctor who normally recommends transferring three embryos for women over 40 gave her a choice: go through with the transfer of the one not-so-good looking embryo, or save the money and try again. She knew that she was done with fertility treatments – she hated the whole process – so she figured that even though the doc wasn’t very hopeful, he may as well transfer the one embryo so she could be done.

Everything was against her – she’s 41, her sole embryo didn’t look good, she had no symptoms, she was done with treatments. I talked with her on Sunday, the day before the results came back from her 2nd blood test (her clinic doesn’t tell patients anything after the first blood test, only after the second blood test shows that it’s increasing appropriately) and she wasn’t hopeful. I asked her to text me the results on Monday, and she said she would, in between beers and cigarettes…

I didn’t hear from her on Monday, and I didn’t call her either. I figured I would give her some time to grieve – I really didn’t think it would work! On Tuesday, I emailed her, but no response. I was trying to be respectful of her grieving process… But Tuesday night, I got a phone call, and she said, “Does Alex want a cousin?” Holy shit! It worked! Just goes to show all you ladies – you never know. All signs could be pointing to things not working, and it can turn out positive!

She’s over the moon excited, and I am too. Not only so that she can have her baby after everything she has gone through, but I’m also very excited for our friendship. There were times in the last few months that I knew that it was hard for her to talk to me. We would go weeks without her returning my calls, which would never happen in the years that we’ve known each other and been friends. She would apologize, claiming that she’s busy, but I know that it was sometimes hard to talk to me. In our conversations, I would never bring up my pregnancy, and only talk about it if she asked me questions, which she did quite a bit. I always tried to steer the conversation back to her, to work, to something else, but it was hard. After her last failed IVF, she said, “I really hope we can continue to be friends even if IVF never works for me.” And I told her I hoped so. I don’t think it ever would have come to that, but it still was concerning, as things between us were harder.

On Tuesday after she told me she was pregnant, it was just like it used to be. Both of us couldn’t stop talking, and it was fabulous. She asked me lots of questions about early pregnancy, and dates and such, and then told me that she was going to be high-maintenance. She would need me for all kinds of support during her pregnancy. This couldn’t have made me happier!

And yet… I can’t stop thinking that she’s too excited, that she’s naively assuming there’s going to be a baby at the end. I just want her to get to the second trimester so the risk of miscarriage is lower. She knows that there’s a chance – she saw what I’ve gone through, her sister has had two miscarriages in between her successful pregnancies, and her doctor told her that the risk of miscarriage is higher for older women, but she’s not thinking of this. All she can think about is that in May, she’s going to have a baby! Which is what she should do – I’m certainly not going to bring this up (thank goodness for not telling anyone my blog address!), and I’m going to try to be as positive as possible when I speak with her. But I’m scared. Because I don’t want anything to ruin this happiness for her.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to be happy for her, and talk about raising our babies together (long-distance, of course – we haven’t lived in the same state since 1997!). I have been hoping for a pregnancy for her for so long, and now it finally happened. Like she said, we both will have our babies from frozen embryos – how perfect is that!