Happy Birthday, Boys: “Infertility Unplugged” by the Numbers

When I delivered the boys, my belly measured 46 centimeters, the same size as a six-weeks overdue single baby. This picture was taken about four weeks before with my looking plenty ready to pop.

At this time 11 years ago, I was crying into my shoes…literally.  Bloated as a waterbed, I tried desperately over my pregnant tummy to reach my shoes and shove my swollen feet into them.  Time was of the essence; I needed to commute an hour away to sit for my recertification exam and shoes were a necessity in the frigid Wisconsin winter (and probably in the exam center, too).  Fortunately my husband came to my rescue, armed with a shoe horn and sheer determination.

It’s hard for me to believe my twin boys will turn 11 in a matter of weeks.  It seems like only yesterday I could hold them both on my lap.  Now, my younger son can pick me up.  And speaking of shoes…my feet in my shoes fit into their shoes.  It’s also hard to believe these boys, five-pounds-give-or-take at birth are now off the high end of pediatric growth charts.

It’s hard not to use numbers when describing our kids.  We do it more often than we realize.  We talk about how much they sleep at night, what grade they are in, and of course, how much they weighed when they were born.

The number 7 is considered lucky, 13 unlucky.  But 11 can fit into the latter category, too.  11 percent.  11 out of 100.  That is the number of women of child-bearing age who have difficulty conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term.  That’s a lot of us, making infertility a relatively common occurrence.  And no matter what path our infertility journey takes us, from clomid to in vitro fertilization or to adoption or perhaps the decision to not become parents, we all share the same feelings of frustration, hopelessness and even isolation.  And varying degrees of relief, stress and elation when that journey comes to its end.

In Too Much Information:  a Conception Story I described an essay I wrote about my husband’s and my four-year experience with infertility and how I needed to tone down the misery, focus on the relatable experiences and uncover the humor and irony.  With that in mind I reread those loooong six pages and first off I noticed a ton of absurdity.  Then I noticed something else:  a bunch of numbers.  Since I like absurdity and numbers (and absurd numbers like “i”… I mean, what the h?  Love.  It.), I’ve revised our conception story with both the mathematical and the insane in mind.  And as our sons’ 11th birthday approaches, I want to honor the journey that brought them to us.  (It looks like 11 can be a lucky number, too).

So this week, our story in numbers:

“i” – the imaginary number “i” actually figures into our whole infertility experience.  In mathematics, this number helps solve negative square roots. For example, the square root of (-)81 is 9″i.”  The “i” equals the negative (-).  Exactly.  I was in such a negative place during the infertility process there were times I could barely function.  (Wow, how nerdy.  I can’t believe I put the imaginary number “i” into a blog post.  My dad would be proud.)  But onto the real numbers:

0 – number of sedatives I took before the MRI to rule out a brain tumor. (That was not brave, that was a mistake.)

1 – the miscarriage that rang in 2002.

2 – number of months we waited to see the best (we think!) reproductive endocrinologist in Milwaukee and the length in hours to commute back and forth for our appointments with him.

3 – the number of babies our friends had in the time we struggled to conceive and the number of deer (a doe and her two fawns) that crossed the road in front of my car just days before I learned I was carrying twins.

4 – years we tried to conceive before becoming pregnant.

5 – number of different medications I took before the assisted hatching procedure.***

6 – maximum number of IVF cycles a couple could do in a year’s time (done only if you have nerves of steel and tons of cash).

7 – July, 2004, was the month we got the good news we were pregnant.

8 – about how many professionals made up the “roundtable” that sat to discuss our weird infertility case.

9 – number of mature eggs our first egg retrieval procedure produced.

10 – years a co-worker, and confidante, went through infertility treatments before adopting her beautiful daughter.

12 – number of days we had to wait between an embryo transfer and a pregnancy test.

15 – minutes of rest (practically on my head) after an embryo transfer.  Our doctor admitted this was a bit of voodoo.  In reality, anything short of contact sports and jumping on a trampoline was mostly OK in the physical activity department.

17 – total number of pills I took in preparation for the assisted hatching.  Again, voodoo…a non-experimental drug protocol but more precautionary than proven.  Actually, hearing the truth was a relief because there was no possibly way to take everything “as directed.”

50 – the bottom limit to a beta-hcg pregnancy test (at our laboratory);  anything above this means “You’re pregnant!”

391 – My beta-hcg result.

1012 – My second beta-hcg result.  If it doubles, that’s a good sign.  When it nearly triples…well, for my husband and me, that was two good signs!

4,005 – as of today, February 16, 2016, the number of days our boys have been in our lives.

We love you guys!

***A small slit is made in the surface of Mom’s egg (I know, right?…Small doesn’t begin to describe it.), which in theory helps sperm penetrate and fertilize the egg.