Single Mother by Choice(ish)
I’m ba-aack. I did my first egg retrieval in 2022. At the time I thought I was ready to move forward with building a family on my own and I started to document my journey, like I’m doing right now, because I think there’s never too many SMBC stories, the more we share the more likely someone who comes after us is going to find a story they can relate to, take comfort in, feel a little more confident because well if she did it, I can do it… So I posted a bunch of weird shit on IG, started a podcast (we all had a podcast in 2022, right?) and blogged a bit about my first egg retrieval. Then I realized… I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to give up the dream of building a family with a partner.
Which brings me to the whole ‘single mother by choice(ish)’ thing. I don’t feel like ‘single mother by choice’ rings fully true for me. I guess it is a choice to move forward on this path, but I didn’t really choose to do this alone. That was just… life. I paused in 2022 and figured I’d hold out for a few more years and I dated some very nice people in that time period, even a few people that made me think, ‘You know, we’re good for each other. We’re kind to each other. We could have a nice life together.’ But I didn’t fall madly in love with any of those people. And I know some people think that’s all malarkey - my dad says I’m holding out for a ‘fairy tale’ - but I can’t stand the idea of not loving someone the way they deserve to be loved. I’d rather be lonely alone than lonely sitting on the couch next to a perfectly lovely person who deserves someone who’s madly in love with them.
Fast forward to 2025 and I’m 37 now, so I feel like I’m really out of time and if I want to have children (yes, plural, I feel strongly about giving my child at least one sibling as I do not want to be their only family in the whole, wide world) then I need to move forward. Back in 2022, I froze my eggs. Sadly, a lot of those eggs didn’t survive thawing, a bunch didn’t fertilize, and from 23 eggs we got… three embryos. So despite the fact that the first egg retrieval was a truly unpleasant experience, I decided to do it again. And this time…
It was worse.
I ended up in the ER the night of the retrieval with hyponatremia because I’d been drinking water all day (and Gatorade, but apparently not enough Gatorade) and not peeing so my sodium levels were way, way off. I ended up in the ER the first time I did an egg retrieval too, so I was really resistant to going back, but I gave in when my whole body started to shake uncontrollably. That seemed… not great. Shoutout to my nervous bladder though. When the lady came in with a bag and a needle to give me a catheter, my bladder really stepped up, and all of a sudden… I felt the urge to go to the ladies room. Just in the nick of time! Of course, since I live in the US, this will no doubt end up being a $900 pee, but I did avoid a catheter.
I spent the next week pretty much confined to my living room fighting cramps, chills and nausea with a heating pad, over the counter pain meds, and lots and lots of documentaries. (Ask me what frequency honey bees buzz their wings at to shake pollen loose from flowers! Ask me about modern theories on shark attacks!) We got four more embryos from this round though, so that leaves me with enough that I’m statistically lookin’ at really good odds for two babies and pretty dang good odds for three (which is my ideal scenario). So… worth it.
I’m going to document things a bit less relentlessly this time, but sharing my journey makes me feel less alone and hopefully will make someone else feel less alone too.
Here goes IVF Adventures Round 2.
