Philosophical Monday: Me, You, and In Vitro We Know
Sep29

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Philosophical Monday: Me, You, and In Vitro We Know

So I’ve been going back and forth with myself about whether to talk about the fact that I went through the first part of in vitro this weekend.That is, I had my eggs extracted. CH gave the doctor his jimmies in a nice sterile cup, and now we have 9 fertilized eggs, doing whatever they do, before they get put back into my body on either Tuesday or Thursday.

On one hand, in vitro doesn’t exactly fall under the theme of “fierce and nerdy.”

On the other hand, there are so few blogs about it, that I wonder if by not talking about it, I’m helping to advance the taboo nature of needing help to conceive.

So I weighed the pros and cons of it, and came up with, “Well, I’m a fierce nerd, and it’s happening to me, so yes, I can and should get away with talking about going through in vitro on this blog.”

Also, it’s something that I’m afraid to talk about in a public arena. And since I recently made the decision to make “fear” by “true north”* — that is, I’ve decided that if I think about doing something, and then I think, “No, that’s too scary.” Then I should just go ahead and do it anyway. “Courage is only fear that’s taken a deep breath” and all of that.

But then decision made, and big breath taken — it occurred to me that I really don’t have much to say about in vitro at this point, except these 7 things after the jump:

1. It’s REALLY expensive, and it’s not covered by most insurance plans. But Viagra is and so is about every other surgery designed specifically for men, including vasectomies. This of course makes me very angry.

2. It’s super-inconvenient. Once you commit to in vitro, you pretty much have to arrange your life around it. Starting from when your cycle begins, you have appointments every other day. Then if you’re like me, your egg extraction has to happen on the day when you were supposed to be at a writer’s conference for scheduled meetings with agents and editors, who you then have to reschedule.

3. Fertility drugs are interesting, they make you feel more of a woman, carrying around more eggs than you know what to do with. But they also make you feel like a big bloated mess. Plus, you have to stick yourself with needles in order to inject them, so fun times.

4. I don’t know why people keep on doing this, but a few times when I’ve told someone that I’m going through in vitro, they’ll tell me a story about their friend or relative who was having trouble conceiving, gave up, decided to adopt and then got pregnant naturally. So you see the point is that if you just stop thinking and stressing about it, everything works itself out. Though these are very heartwarming stories, the fact is that couples who choose to undergo in vitro, usually do so because of medical reasons or because it is their last option. So insinuating that simply “not stressing about it” will produce the results we want not only drives us crazy, but it also makes us sort of want to punch you. In fact, even if the person you are talking to hasn’t made it to the in vitro point yet, and you suspect that she isn’t getting pregnant because she’s too stressed out, don’t tell the “my friend/relative conception by-not-being-stressed-out” story. I know you think it helps, but it doesn’t. Like at all.

5. That all complained, I’m sure the results will be worth it.

6. I really, really hope it works. I mean I really hope it works. I’m full of hope right now. And all my dependable cynicism seems to have abandoned me for the moment. We’ll see how I am tomorrow.

7. I suspect that this blog just helped me way more than it illuminated in vitro for you. So thanks for reading.

I’ll keep you posted. :)

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*This concept was cribbed from The War of Art, which can be found in our recommendations in side bar 2