Yesterday I had one of the best scan’s I have ever had. It was a day 6 scan, to monitor when to start my Orgalutran (the medication that stops me ovulating all my beautiful eggs before the doctors can get to them). I’ve only had a day 6 scan once before and it was not a great experience. I had one 6mm follicle. 3 days later I had a few more and my cycle went ahead. Despite getting 5 follicles in range, my body managed to give up 3 eggs and 2 were mature. Both of those 2 became embryos – one failed to implant and the other is now a frozen mosaic. Yesterday however I had 14 follicles! I think that’s the most I’ve ever had on a scan. I think that about 6 of them were between 7-11mm. I know my lead was 11mm and the rest were ‘under 10’.
While I’m so, so happy with that scan, I’m happy with it in the context and compared to my other bad scans. I still ended my sentences yesterday with ‘we know that not all of those follicles will get big enough to give me an egg and my issue has been ‘empty follicle syndrome’. While I’m on a different trigger to help that I still might only get a couple of eggs’. I still shared my joy through the lens of disappointment. Which is so natural, it’s a completely normal thing to do. It is how our brains work… we learn through repetition and repeatedly my body has told my brain, through experience, that I won’t have many follicles and not all of those follicles will give me eggs.
I have an IVF playlist. It’s mostly worship songs that give me hope and help me to keep my faith and belief that what God has promised he will provide. I believe with all my heart that I am meant to be a mother. Listening to this playlist helps me. Over my IVF break I heard a new song by Kari Jobe and thought it would be perfect and added to the list, without really taking it in. This morning (ok maybe afternoon) I was having a shower listening to my IVF playlist and this song came on. I ended up playing it several times. I ended up arm raised, tears streaming down my face, singing, declaring, letting the words wash over me and wash away my disappointments of the past.
This cycle has been different. Honestly, I haven’t had this much energy in years. My menstrual cycles through my few months break have been the healthiest they have been in years, probably since before my miscarriages 3 years ago. And despite seven out of eight negative experiences through my previous IVF cycles I have been filled with so much hope. I’ve felt ‘really good’ about this cycle. Hope, of course tinged with what we call ‘being realistic’. We, in this IVF world, we do everything we can not to ‘get our hopes up’… even though that’s impossible… we just kind of supress our hope and pretend it’s not there. Wishing that it will make it hurt less if it all does come crashing down at any one of the multiple points that IVF dishes up pain.
Walking around my lounge room, allowing this song to speak to my heart I knew that I needed to throw off that old disappointment. That’s old, that’s gone, that’s done. This cycle is new hope. I am so thankful for these little eggs growing inside me, my half babies I like to call them. I’m so thankful that I am in the privileged position to be able to do IVF 9 times. Noting for anyone overseas in Australia IVF is subsidised by the government so each round is about $6000-7000 out of pocket, not $25,000 – for that I am also so very grateful.
Today, I break off the patterns of disappointment – I choose not to let that disappointment and heartbreak define the moment I am living in today. Today, I have 14 follicles growing inside my body (the side effects are letting me know that they’re growing away). Today, I choose to believe that I have not missed my chance, that my time is coming. That my ‘appointment’ is still to come.
Your Nature – Kari Jobe
You bring life to the barren places
Light to the darkest spaces
God, it’s Your nature
You bring joy to the broken hearted
Hope to the ones who’ve lost it
God, it’s Your nature
There is no desert that Your streams can’t run to
There are no ruins that Your love won’t make new
You tell the wasteland
That it will bloom again
‘Cause it’s Your nature
You will restore the years that shame has stolen
You keep the promises that You have spoken
I know this wasteland will be whole again
‘Cause it’s Your nature
You bring peace
To the war inside us
Speak and all fear is silenced
God, it’s Your nature
You bring joy to the broken hearted
Hope to the ones who’ve lost it
God, it’s Your nature
Sing out oh barren woman
Sing out oh broken man
Stretch out your hands believing this is your promised land
Break out of disappointment
Break out of hopelessness
Stretch out your hands believing this is your promised land
Oh, oh do not strain your disappointment
But stand up and worship and praise Him
Before the breakthrough comes
Do not strain your disappointment
Oh He’ll meet you there
Oh He’ll meet you there
Wherever you find yourself
He’ll meet you there
He knows you, He sees you, He loves you
Oh He’s the God of promises
He’s the God of promises
And He keeps them, He keeps them
Sing out oh barren woman
Sing out oh broken man
Stretch out your hands believing this is your promised land
Break out of disappointment
Break out of hopelessness
Stretch out your hands believing this is your promised land
Heart is your promise
He is a God of promise
He’s a God of breakthrough
He’s a God of the impossible
He is full of you, yeah
He is a God of promise
He’s a God of breakthrough
He keeps His promises
We just prayer every disappointment will fall away
You didn’t miss an appointment
You didn’t miss His appointment
‘Cause He’s here
And He’s for real
And He keeps every promise
Just a little JoJo 
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