Our Last Frozen Embryo Transfer

Sifting through old childhood boxes led me to a reflection on who I was and who I have become as I head into our last Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET).

I cracked open my senior high school yearbook a couple weeks ago. I loved high school, but looking through the pages flooded me with momentary grief. As I looked at picture after picture of braces-clad Kristen, I felt sad for my de-evolution…the loss of everything I was…frustration with the nothingness I had become as an adult.

(Hear me out…I’m an incredibly high-achieving person with stupid standards for myself…and I promise I didn’t sit in this wallowing self-pity for that long…but that’s how I felt. Spoiler alert: I eventually get over myself and gain a new perspective.)

In high school, I did everything…and I did it well. First chair flute. Varsity tennis. International Baccalaureate (IB) graduating with over a 4.0 (nerd alert). Watercolor artist. National Honor Society secretary. Spanish club. Hispanic mentors club. Interact Club. Played flute and clarinet in the pit orchestra for Footloose and Les Mis. Principal’s Advisory Committee. Marching band.

I took trips. Drooled over Andy Roddick at the Indian Wells tennis tournament in Palm Springs, CA during the tennis team spring break trip my sophomore year. Played a concert at Pearl Harbor during a Hawaii trip with the band my senior year.

I had boyfriends and a first love and went to dances (with lots of awkwardly cute prom-pose photos to prove it).

I spent time with my family…played with my (much) younger chubby-baby siblings…bonded with my teenage sister, Karli. Watched a lot of Friends and Seinfeld. Ate Subway weekly. Drank a lot of Diet Pepsi. Discovered Starbucks. Mastered Minesweeper on the family desktop and Snake on my Nokia flip phone.

I took joyrides in my 1989 Nissan 240sx with John Mayer blasting in the summer and Ella Fitzgerald in the winter.

I journaled and doodled in notebooks and pondered the meaning of life and dreamed about my future.

Fast forward to the unshowered woman who sat on the couch in pajamas with the yearbook open on her lap in her messy living room. New Christmas toys and old scraps of wrapping paper littering the floor. “Blaze and the Monster Machines” theme song playing way too loud from the TV. Brain foggy and dazed, trying to remember the vibrant, energetic 18-year-old she used to be.

A very real photo from BeReal.

Where did she go?

That evening, after my nostalgia-deep-dive, I sat at the dining room table and told my husband, Cory, that I felt super monochromatic as an adult. One-sided. Boring. Tired. How did I have energy and time and motivation to do it all as a teenager? Where did that Renaissance woman go? How did I end up as a 36-year-old mom who has barely enough energy to go to work, do a load of laundry, and maybe maybe muster the energy to submit a grocery order online.

Cory, being the amazing husband and counselor he is, gently held up a metaphorical mirror to my un-makeuped face and helped me see all that I am now. He asked me if little 18-year-old Kristen would have been able to take on all of the adult challenges I took on that day?

Would she have been able to sit with her patient with aphasia at work and validate his struggle and see his grief?
Would she have been resilient as she gave herself yet another shot in her stomach as she prepared for another infertility procedure?
Would she have been able to navigate her complex emotional experience with such grace, holding space both the sadness that floods her throughout the day following the deaths of two close family members this month AND the joy that overflows when snuggling her 3-year-old on the couch after a long day?

Answering his questions was easy. No, no way. Teenage me, while charismatic and driven, didn’t have the wisdom and confidence that comes from living through life’s everchanging seasons. She hadn’t experienced the selflessness that comes with caring for a newborn at 2 AM, night-after-night-after-night-after-night. She didn’t know the deep ache of heartbreak or the healing that eventually comes only through the passing of time (and lots and lots of therapy). She didn’t know the beauty of the mundane. She hadn’t experienced love at first sight on 16th St Mall in Denver…or Machu Picchu’s wonder…or the mystery of growing a human inside her body.

I have become a woman who made it through so much in just this past year. A miscarriage in March. Two bouts of COVID. An inpatient hospital stay because of a severe allergic reaction to a medication (and COVID…and strep throat). The death of two beloved family members. A cancelled frozen embryo transfer biopsy round in September because of COVID, even after going through the entire medication protocol (so many shots). A cancelled frozen embryo transfer in December because of COVID, even after going through the entire medication protocol yet again.

Puffy-faced at the peak of my DRESS syndrome allergic reaction.

18-year-old Kristen had a really good tennis serve and could slide up the chromatic scale on the flute in her sleep…but she wasn’t yet equipped to take on all that was 2022.

I am grateful that I took a trip down memory lane…if only to better appreciate the beauty of this stage of my life.

And on that note, I look forward to the future and the ways in which I will continue to evolve in 2023. Our last frozen embryo transfer is scheduled for mid-January 2023. Please keep us in your thoughts…send positivity…and hope for no more COVID and no more cancellations. I don’t think I could handle another cancelled cycle.

I’m ready for whatever comes next. Life with a second child or life with our one perfect son. I accept whatever the outcome…I’m just ready to do it and move forward.