The Delay

I haven't posted in a few months, but boy, do I have updates!!

First of all, I decided last fall to delay my transfer. There was a bit of a "miscommunication" [cough cough] with my clinic and the transfer would have ended up being at a bad time because the baby would be born right before work starts getting too busy. As a business owner, that just wouldn't do. I want to be able to actually take time off when my baby arrives.

You may be thinking "well, you can't control when you get pregnant." True, but I CAN control when I don't get pregnant. :)

So, I decided to push it out until May/June 2026 (which is now!!! See my next post for more on that!) This would put the due date in late February (that's when my birthday is too). And even if the first one doesn't stick, I'd still have a few more months to try before I go into another blackout period.

Since I decided to wait, that also meant that I could take advantage of doing another egg retrieval while I'm still younger and before my hormones change from giving birth and breastfeeding (my clinic said it's ideal to do all retrievals before having babies, if possible, and definitely the younger, the better).

As you remember from prior posts, my first retrieval was 8/13/25 which resulted in 20 eggs, 9 of which were mature, 7 of which fertilized, 4 of which made it to day-7 embryos, and 2.5 PGT-A normal! (2 euploid, 1 segmental aneuploid, and 1 aneuploid.) I'm keeping the genders of the euploid embryos secret for now. :)

In December 2025, I decided to change my OCD meds. Prozac had always worked wonders for me; however, after my gastric sleeve surgery in January 2023, my stomach could no longer tolerate the Prozac and I was having excruciating stomach pain, so I switched to Lexapro in 2023 or 2024. It was working okay, but not great. My therapist and I decided to try Luvox (Fluvoxamine) which happens to be the gold standard for OCD, so I was excited.

I would have never expected what happened next.

When transitioning from Lexapro to Luvox, you cannot cross-taper, so I had to wean completely off the Lexapro first and then taper up the Luvox, which is a process that takes several weeks since I take the highest doses. I noticed my OCD, depression, and anxiety worsening pretty soon after I started weaning off the Lexapro, but, of course, I was expecting that.

But as I started the Luvox, I was only getting worse, not better. At first, I thought I was just adjusting and that I needed to give it more time.

Wrong.

As I continued to increase the Luvox, my depression became debilitating. I had never felt this way in my entire life. I lost 20 pounds in about 5 weeks because I couldn't eat. I could barely get out of bed or off the couch.  I had absolutely no interest in doing anything. I didn't want to eat, shower, go out, get dressed, or spend time with anyone. I almost called 911 a handful of times because it started to feel like an emergency. I didn't know how much longer I'd be able to handle this feeling.

Even during Christmas, I was surrounded by family and gifts and incredible food. My brother made a 7-course meal of all my favorite foods, complete with a pink printed menu for his made-up restaurant called "Wink" (the nickname everyone in my family calls me). He made feta cheese from scratch, my favorite thing, just for me. I could barely eat any of it. I had less than five bites of the whole meal. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep and never wake up.

I took two weeks off from work for the holidays, largely because I was not functioning.

My therapist and I finally realized that Luvox was having a reverse effect. This is a potential side effect of all SSRIs, but when it does happen, it's usually in teenagers and young adults.

We decided to try liquid Prozac. Prozac always worked magically for me, and the hope was that maybe my stomach would be able to tolerate the liquid version. And it did! I slowly crawled out of my depression and am now back to my normal, happy self. Altogether, it was about 3 months of hell, which let up right around my 35th birthday on 2/28/26, just in time for my second egg retrieval.

My second retrieval was 3/8/26. I was a pro at this point, including for all the injections leading up to it. They had me on a different medication protocol this time because they were hoping to synchronize my egg follicles better because with the first retrieval, we got 20 eggs but only 9 were mature, which is less than 50%. With the second retrieval, we got 15 eggs and 11 were mature! I'm keeping these ones on ice, unfertilized, so I can decide how to fertilize them in the future. :)