Friday arrived and I went to the clinic for my tests. The dildocam showed that the stupid cyst was still there. It was smaller, but again, not by much. I went for my blood draw feeling pretty defeated, but trying to cling to the hope that since my estrogen had gone down so much already, they might just ignore the cyst and get on with my cycle.
All afternoon I felt antsy. I checked my phone about a million times, waiting for the call to come. Finally, as I was about to board the shuttle to the train station, it rang. It was one of the IVF nurse coordinators. I could tell by her tone that it wasn't good news. She said that while the cyst had continued to shrink, it was still large (over 25 mm). And the worst part was that my estrogen had skyrocketed and was now actually higher than my initial baseline. In light of this, she said they felt it was best to cancel the cycle. I was crushed. I had, of course, imagined this scenario. But the difference between me and a traditional pessimist is that I had still hoped it wouldn't come true.
She could tell I was upset and tried to explain that it was in my best interest to not move forward at this time since the cyst could negatively impact the outcome of the cycle. I asked again if this was normal and she assured me that yes, it was, although they don't really know why the cyst formed. I wanted to know what would happen next and she said to stop the Lupron and call back when AF arrived. At that point, they would re-evaluate. I asked if this meant we had to start all over and she said yes, although they might decide to change the treatment protocol. It would all depend on my next baseline. I pointed out that since they didn't know why the cyst had formed this time, it was possible it might happen again. She said yes, that was a possibility, they would just have to wait and see how my body responded. I felt like we were going in circles. I asked what could be done to prevent it from happening again and she said there wasn't anything.
When I had run out of questions to ask, I said nothing and she eventually told me to have a nice weekend and that was the end of it. I am not a crier and I definitely don't cry in public ever, which made for a rough shuttle and train ride. I usually drive, but had planned it so I could take a train out by the airport where Paul was picking Mom up from her flight. I texted him the bad news, saying I would give more details later. By the time I got off the train, I thought I had myself mostly under control. I knew I would need to tell Mom sooner rather than later, so after I'd gotten in the car with them I blurted it out. And then I cried. Not a lot, not for very long, but just enough to ease the internal pressure from holding it all in on the train.
The most frustrating thing about this particular roller coaster ride was that I'd been through almost a month of feeling crappy on the pill and then another 2 weeks of hell on Lupron and it had all been for nothing. I realized that it was better to have canceled the cycle before starting stims as opposed to on the day of retrieval, but I was still frustrated. And I found it extremely obnoxious that after months of apparently not ovulating, my ovary finally decided to kick it into gear the one month that it was supposed to be sleeping.
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