The blergh pursuit of the golden egg

There's something that sets my teeth off about the phrase "golden egg."  It's a phrase you see fair bit on boards of women over 40 who are trying to conceive.

Let me start by saying, I honestly believe that for some women, sure, it's quite possibly in there.  There's a genetically normal egg in this woman's hypothetical ovaries and she just needs a fuck ton of luck and timing to ovulate it.

The problem is, I hit on one, at 40, after three consecutive miscarriages.  She was Celine.  She was genetically *perfect* and yet she still isn't with me on this earthly plane.

You know, since the age of 38, I started a regimen of Co-Q10 (Ubiquinol, of course), Vitamin D, interspersed with DHEA, myoinistol, vitex, you name it.

There was still something inexplicably and incredibly fucked up going on.

I truly believe that whether or not I pulled the trigger on taking my own eggs out of the equation I would still be getting regularly knocked up and losing them to this day, at 43.  Doctors couldn't explain it ("Superfertility" maybe?  A uterus that welcomes ANYTHING?)  The last genetic counselor we saw was the first to suggest that something was terribly wrong, beyond the usual aging of eggs that cause them to fail.  Maybe I am a genetic carrier, of something in addition to my gnarly version of MTHFR, something unnamed and unknown and truly fucked up.

But I also recognized at age 42 that honestly, this quest for a golden egg was entirely meaningless for me.  Plugging away at pregnancy since my thirties and Not. Ever. Holding. A. Baby. Rinse and repeat EIGHT times.  This required action.  What the fuck good would a boatload of supplements do me if virtually all of my eggs were bad? And it doesn't actually matter why they came to be this way, they just are.

We were entirely fortunate and unusual in having our kick-ass IVF-covering insurance policy from Viking's latest job.  And the ability to squeeze a little cash outta a home equity line that was being taken to fix a creaky old roof and finish a basement.  This was what afforded me the ability to pull out of this endless cycle of misery.  Our fortunate financial situation allowed me to end this vicious cycle of loss after loss after loss that would SURELY continue.

My heart breaks when I see the over 40 boards and women with histories like mine, or women enduring loss after loss, with the hope that they will buck the statistics, they will hit on that golden egg.  They totally might, hell, I pray they do.  Because I know that each loss, no matter how early, slowly eats away at you, chips away at your ability to function.  The drive to continue, it's inexplicable.  I know from too much personal experience what it means to pick yourself up after a miscarriage.  How you pop your vitamins and soon wake your sleepy husband up from that early bedtime after your living child is tucked into bed, and you've both had an exhausting day at work because you feel your left ovary twinging, and you Can't. Miss. That. Egg.  You just can't.

Every woman's breaking point will be different.  Lurking those boards is an exercise in sadness, with an occasional burst of good news and hope.  And that's why I don't post on them.  Despite the fact that I am approaching 23 weeks at age 43, I am definitely not a success story to many of these women, and I don't offer  them hope.  I "gave up."

I understand.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I immediately attempted IVF with Dr. Cuddles back when I just turned 40, after my third miscarriages.  Before I went to Babies Guaranteed, who could kick me and my high-FSH to the curb.  Viking was working in a really low-wage state job.  I was worried that I needed the "support system" of a big clinic.  Dr. Cuddles stressed me out.  But I do wonder had I cycled with her, whether I even would have had any PGS-normals from that cycle?

Deep down, I know the answer.  And that the baby I am carrying - who may like Nibble look like Viking, or may by the great genetic crap-shoot in the sky pop out with big brown eyes and brown hair and resemble me - is the baby I am supposed to carry.