7, 8, 5

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Each moment I sit down to write about infertility, my mind tells me to pause.

Pause and keep things private. If you place too much hope in the process, it will hurt even more when things don’t work out.

I push myself through these thoughts, put the words down, and just sit with the anxious thoughts. It isn’t getting easier, but maybe it will soon. What has gotten easier for me is the permission to actually believe that things will work out. There will be a positive outcome. There will be.

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I started opening up about our struggles to start a family, when feelings of isolation and detachment started to settle into my bones. I couldn’t keep smiling. I couldn’t keep pretending. I couldn’t blink the tears away anymore. There is strength in sharing your story, and for me, I’ve gained strength through the words others have shared with me about their own experiences, through the love that friends and family extend to my partner and me, the phone calls, and the notes people send to remind me that we’re not alone, we are, in fact, surrounded by so much love. Thank you! I am grateful for every encouragement, every time you share your story with me, every word. The love and support, physical and virtual, soaks into my skin and you are all with us as we rush to appointments, choose unbruised sections of my stomach to take shots in, or when we hear encouraging news.

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On Wednesday morning, we went to the clinic for our egg retrieval. So much of this process has felt fuzzy, like it’s not really happening. Most of the time it feels like we will never be done with this. It feels like there will always be another shot, another diagnosis, another setback, another medicine. The egg retrieval felt different. It felt like we were doing something tangible.

After the procedure, the doctor told my partner that there were seven follicles, and of those seven, they were able to extract eight eggs. Eight chances. Eight possibilities. We were hopeful.

I slept for most of the day and rested. In the afternoon, the nurse called to tell us that of the eight eggs, five were mature and fertilized. “This is really good news,” she said. We felt it. We felt a strange feeling in our hearts, one we had tried to ignore for sake of being practical.

Don’t get your hopes up.

So many things can happen between now and transfer.

Don’t drift too far from your logical mindset.

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Right now, our five embryos are chilling at the fertility clinic. They are doing what they need to do to grow. I think of them every day.

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Today, my body is trying to get back to normal. Trying to find an equilibrium after the hormones. Today, I am hopeful.

Today.