Preparing the house before the procedure

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Today, I had the day off because my company gave us a Wellness Day today. And even better news is that I have the day off on Monday, as well, for Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, so all in all, this weekend will be a four-day weekend, with tomorrow’s procedure and my birthday on Sunday. And on my day off, what did I do? I went down to Chinatown to stock up on ingredients, produce, and baked goods, and also get the apartment ready for my bedrest day tomorrow post procedure. I cleaned the bathroom (because honestly, Chris’s bathroom cleaning methods are just never up to par) even though I’ve read that most women don’t do any housework before the procedure and instead rest until the day of for their entire period of stimulations. I even made Instant Pot chicken pho because I read that some women cannot eat solids after the procedure, so they subsist on soup and light foods for up to a week after the procedure. I even prepped a bunch of vegetables to make sure we had greens to eat for at least 4-5 days after. I think we’re all ready.

I’ve been relatively calm during this period of “stims” as they call it. I’ve been fairly positive and optimistic. All my appointments seemed to go well. I’ve been consistent with my daily meditations and exercise, although the exercise, as advised, as gotten lighter as we’ve gotten closer to retrieval day. I’m lucky in that I have not had any bad side effects from the medications. Common side effects include nausea, vomiting, headaches, migraines, stomach protrusion/swelling, and especially mood swings. Many women have reported crying frequently or having excessive arguments or tantrums with family/friends/their partners, including friends who have gone through this. I’ve encountered none of these symptoms. The worst symptoms I’ve had, which I cannot complain about at all, are slight soreness at the site of injection immediately afterwards, plus some slight bruising. I feel decent. I think I will be okay. I can do this. I’m going to do this.

I’m ready for tomorrow morning.

Fertility evaluations

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I don’t really know why, but despite the thousands of years that human beings have been in existence, there seems to have been so little progress made specifically in understanding fertility from both the man’s side and the woman’s. For a long time in society, people only expected to live until their thirties, and then, well, they’d die. Therefore, their prime time to have a child was in their teens. In modern day society, even in more conservative societies, teens giving birth is… no longer really a thing. The earliest you tend to hear of people giving birth is in their early 20s. But when you live in western society where the goal is for men and women to at minimum finish high school, perhaps college or even graduate school, the age to have a first child gets pushed off further and further. I think a few years ago, I read a stat that said that in Silicon Valley, the average woman has her first child at age 37. Wow.

I guess what I am struggling the most with is… why would a process like IVF pretty much be exactly the same today as it was in the 90s and early 2000s, when Michelle Obama conceived both her daughters via this process? That means 20-30 years have passed, and the process is exactly the same. Why is it like this? Have people just stopped prioritizing research on infertility/subfertility… because of the fact that the main onus is on the woman, with endless hormonal injections, transvaginal ultrasounds, and bloodwork, not to mention surgery at the end, plus progesterone supplementation via butt shots, vaginal suppositories, and oral pills? Men don’t have to be inconvenienced (well, financially, but not physically or emotionally) as much as woman do, so let’s just stop research on this…?

The scariest thing to me about all of the lack of progress in this area is not even the above, but rather the complete inability to evaluate oocyte (egg) quality until after an egg retrieval. Science has long made it possible to evaluate sperm count, motility, and morphology (and thus overall sperm quality), a woman’s estrogen, luteinizing hormone, AMH (ovarian reserve) level… but NOT the actual quality of the eggs. Why is this? …You just have to go through a $15-20K IVF procedure to then find out that your egg quality just sucks? Then, what are you supposed to do with this information — Go home and cry your eyes out?

I was researching the interactions of eggs and sperm earlier today, and read a likely bullshit but nevertheless devastating article that puts even more pressure on women (because, as you can tell, ALL the pressure is on women when there are fertility problems, and even without fertility problems, women have the sole responsibility of carrying a baby to full term!): some random study was done that was trying to evaluate how male factor infertility can be solved for during IVF via “healthy eggs.” The study somehow came to the conclusion that if you have a very healthy, high quality egg, and you inject it with a single sub-par sperm (that’s the ICSI process, minus the sub par status), the healthy egg will be able to “heal” the subpar sperm and develop into a healthy embryo that would be ripe for future implantation.

I read this and immediately closed out the tab. You’ve got to be ****ing kidding me, I thought. The woman even has the responsibility of having healthier eggs than her partner’s sperm and has to HEAL ITS DEFICIENCIES….??!!

Well, if that’s the case, why don’t we all just kill ourselves now and be done with it because we, as women, will always have to do all the work in society, and then some, just to make up for men’s laziness, idiocies, and complete deficiencies. This is just a great analogy.

IV sedation or local anesthesia?

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So after endless doctor visits for bloodwork and ultrasounds, and nearly three weeks of self-administered injections, I finally get told today that the doctor thinks I’m ready for the procedure to extract my eggs this Saturday. This is called, in doctor speak, oocyte retrieval, or in everyday speak, egg retrieval. The nurse calls me today to ask me if I’d just like local anesthesia or IV sedation. In my head, I’m thinking they serve pretty much the same purpose. Well, guess what? I’m wrong since I know very little about this stuff.

The nurse explains that the local anesthesia would be an injection in my vagina (!!!!!). This would numb the area, but because the procedure goes so quickly, the actual numbness would not go into effect until about 10-15 minutes in, and this procedure, depending on how many oocytes there are, is only between 20-30 minutes. So in other words, I’d actually feel the doctor sticking aspirating needles into EACH of my follicles. Ummmmmm, NO.

The second option is IV sedation. This is when an anesthesiologist would stick an IV into my arm, and when the doctor was ready to begin, he’d have the IV activated, I’d initially taste a bit of metallic in my mouth, and within ten seconds, I’d be sleeping. So I’d have no recollection or feeling of anything that happened during this procedure.

This is a very easy decision to make. I absolutely want IV sedation!

But get this: the nurse explains the reason they have to ask this is that because most women who go through this procedure have zero insurance coverage, so having IV sedation would be yet another line item on your bill. I confirmed with her that my insurance does cover these benefits, and when I gave her the name of the provider, she then said, “Oh, then they will definitely cover IV sedation then!” (And because I’m paranoid, I contacted the insurance provider to confirm in writing that they’d cover this).

This really doesn’t have to be this complicated. But because we’re in the U.S. navigating healthcare, it has to be this insane.

“Barely speaks English”

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I always marvel at how and why Americans and Canadians seem to think they speak proper English, or “English without an accent.” First of all, in case anyone needs a history lesson…. English, surprise surprise, comes from… ENGLAND. And second of all, American accented English still has an accent, as does Canadian accented English (let’s stay away from the regional accents for this conversation). We ALL have accents. It’s just that some may be easier or harder for you to understand given your own accent.

I was sitting on a Zoom 1:1 call with one of my Canadian colleagues, who I’ve gotten along with quite well. He’s a White male and is stereotypically Canadian in his accents (his “abouts” sound just as you’d imagine) and his politeness/friendliness. And out of nowhere, he started venting to me about how a new colleague on my team started, and he cannot believe my boss made the decision to assign her to one of his large accounts. “I mean, she’s new and she barely speaks English!” he complained to me. “Her written English is fine, but it’s so, so difficult to understand what she is saying during calls. Customers barely understand her. You know I’m a nice guy, but this is just ridiculous. You and Sabrina have been great at your jobs; you are so eloquent, you present so well. I need someone like you on this account.”

What he really means when he says “someone like you” is someone who speaks English with a Canadian/British/American accent. What he really means to say is that he doesn’t like the new colleague on my team, who was born and raised in Mexico up until she was 13 and who speaks English with a Mexican accent. What he means is that unless you speak Canadian/British/American accented English, your English is unacceptable and you “barely” even speak the English language. What he means to say is that he’s unaccepting of people who come from non-Western cultures who learn to speak English as a second language with the accent of whatever their first learned language was, and that if you speak with said accent that you no longer sound professional in front of enterprise customers who are spending a large sum of money with our company.

What I would like to know is: if HE were to speak another language, what accent would HE have, and how accepted would HE be by said country’s people? The complete lack of empathy for those who learn English as a second language infuriates me all the time, especially when I know English is the only language I am fully literate and fluent in. I really feel for those who learn English as second language because there is really nothing consistent or constant about it (no four tones like in Mandarin Chinese; not everything rhymes with a/i/u/e/o/n like in Japanese), and there are so many slangs and colloquialisms that even if you have studied English for 20+ years, you still won’t know it all.

Fertility medication in the US

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So as I’ve been reading about fertility treatments and medication and also undergoing some of these myself, I was curious to understand… what the heck are you supposed to do with your meds if you do not need all of them? Are you supposed to donate them, give them to your clinic for patients who cannot easily afford… sell them on a black market….?! For your FYI in case you have never learned anything about American healthcare or infertility…. but this is actually a BUSINESS. Insurance companies, hospitals, doctors are profiting off of your diseases, every 15-min appointment, your inability to conceive naturally. Once you’ve been trying to conceive for over a year and have failed, you’re basically deemed “infertile” regardless of your age, and the ‘ka-ching!’ goes off at every single nearby fertility clinic around you. Billions of dollars are spent on healthcare here in the US every single year with pretty terrible outcomes, and I’m sure millions and millions are spent on allowing families to expand. For a basic IVF medication package, assuming you have zero coverage through your health insurance, the approximate sticker price for one IVF stimulation cycle is $8,900 USD. This number is assuming you don’t require extra meds because your follicles take longer on average to mature. If that number is not terrifying and absolutely absurd to you, you need to leave right now and stop reading this post because frankly, you are out of your mind, and I want nothing to do with you.

So I did look up what you’re supposed to do if you have leftover meds (and, inevitably, you WILL have leftover medications). It is illegal (yes, illegal) to give your meds to someone whose name is NOT on the prescription. It is illegal to try to sell these drugs to a friend or via Craiglist or some black market. It is illegal for pretty much anyone else to use your drugs that is not you. When I think about that, I realize… wow, this system is so unbelievably fucked up. You spend tens of thousands of dollars on trying to conceive, and you cannot even legally give your drugs to someone else who may be in financial need (or need, because some of these drugs have actually had a shortage, or try to recoup some of the insane dollars that were spent on this entire effort? And when someone else may run out of their drugs, be given last minute notice by their doctor that they need to continue medication for a drug they no longer have enough of that has also run OUT at their local pharmacy, they’re technically breaking the LAW if they accept it from someone who wants to give it to them nearby?????

The only people winning in these situations… are the doctors, the clinics, and the health insurance providers. It’s such a sad and infuriating process.

Self administering injections

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Before starting fertility treatment, the idea of injecting myself with a needle was completely horrifying. I can barely look at the nurse when I have to get blood drawn at annual physicals or during gynecologist appointments. I’ve always turned away when they insert the needle into my vein and only look down when the needle has been taken out. Once I realized I was actually going to go through this journey, I realized I had to suck it up and deal with it. You have it so good, I thought to myself. I am a relatively young, healthy woman with no known illnesses, diseases, or conditions that would make me a bad candidate for this. I have generous health insurance coverage that actually covers the vast majority of these costs (and sadly, am also painfully cognizant of how few people have this luxury. I’ve read in many fertility support groups that some women, even those in the medical professions, have such poor coverage that they have taken up a part-time job at Starbucks once or twice a week *just* to get fertility coverage). I have a good AMH level (that’s the test that determines whether you have diminished ovarian reserve or not. In plain speak, that means I have a good quantity of eggs remaining in my ovaries). I also have normal hormone levels across the board. I should feel lucky, I told myself. So if the worst thing I have to do is self-administer injections, I got this! So many other women do this with zero medical background, so if they can do it, so can I, right?

I watched the videos for each medication at least 5 times. I read through the illustrated instructions a few times, also going through all the potential side effects I could experience so that I was well aware of what I could feel or experience. I mentally prepared myself for this. And oddly enough, it really wasn’t so bad. The first time, the second time, the 10th time… it all became relatively normal after the first prick. Occasionally I’d bruise a little. But this was all nowhere as awful as I imagined in my head. And lucky for me (again, I am counting my blessings here), the worst side effect I’ve felt was a little bruising as well as some tiny bloating post injection.

I’d read of some pretty awful side effects, from intense nausea, massive bloating, constant headaches, vomiting, and noticeable mood swings. I was really preparing myself for the worst. A few people who posted in groups I am in said they were crying nearly every single day during their shots. Some people truly had the worst experiences of their life using these medications. I was also concerned about medication mixing, but these pharmaceutical companies have dummy proofed these pretty well to the point that pretty much anyone could self-administer these shots after reading through the instructions. They have so many checks in place to make sure you DO NOT overdose and that you do NOT mess up.

When I called with a question for a nurse on one of the injection pens and she gave me the answer, I exclaimed immediately, “Wow! These things are incredible! They really are mistake-proofed, aren’t they?!” She laughed in response. “Well, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone say that about these meds, but I’m happy you feel that way!”

This isn’t so awful, I kept telling myself. This isn’t so awful. I can do this. I’m getting through this, and I’m nearly done. And this will all be worth it in the end. I just need to keep meditating, keep calm, and keep positive thoughts. I’m going to get through this, and I’m going to have the successful outcome I want. I have the grit to get through this. I am mentally and physically tough enough for this.

Pleaaaaase. Please, be true.

When things do not work out the way you hope they will

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I really do not think any woman ever looks at their life path, at any point of their life, and thinks, “Yay! One day, I’m gonna do fertility treatments/IUI/IVF! I CAN’T WAIT!” It’s not a decision that any woman would make with a light heart, and it’s one that requires a massive emotional, mental, and in almost all cases, some financial burden and stress. Unfortunately, I’m currently in that boat right now, and it… is disheartening, to say the very least.

Over the years, I’ve met and am friends with many women who have had many types of fertility treatments, whether it was surgeries with their Fallopian tubes or uterus, IUI, IVF, and everything in between. I follow bloggers who openly talk about their fertility struggles and journeys. I also have a good friend who recently went through IVF and gave birth via the IVF process. But I guess what I never really thought much about before I was actually in this situation was how lonely it can feel. You have to go to all these appointments on your own. You have to keep track of schedules and medications and insurance and pharmacies. You have to do all these things all by yourself even when multiple doctors have told you after many (costly) tests that nothing is “wrong” with you, and that you’re in “optimal health.” In their eyes, I am “young and healthy.” It is infuriating, lonely, terrifying, and deeply unnerving.

I’m not really the kind of person who gets jealous easily. When I see other women with babies or hear of other people getting pregnant, I don’t really feel anything. For my own friends and colleagues, I am genuinely happy for them because I logically know that their situation has zero to do with mine. Everyone should have all the happiness in their life that they deserve. But what bothers me is when I try to share my own experiences with some close friends, particularly ones who have gone through their own fertility struggles, with the hope of seeking empathy and support, and instead, I am turned away, reminded of my privileges from a health insurance standpoint or that I “am so lucky” to be in the situation that I am in now.

I told this to one of my friends recently who gave birth last year to her first and only child, and she said to me, “Geez, Yvonne, this isn’t the privilege Olympics. You’re allowed to be scared and confused and upset and stressed.” For some people, she said, it doesn’t matter how much hardship they go through, even if it’s the same kind of hardship you are currently going through, but they just “lack an empathy chip.”

Joining infertility support groups was supposed to help, but that, while it has given me some more insight into issues like side effects and emotions, has also possibly increased the level of worry because a lot of the people posting have “worst case scenarios” that I do not necessarily want to be bombarded by. I am aware of all these worst case scenarios, as nothing in life is guaranteed, but I do not want to read these stories over and over in my feed because then, on some subconscious level, I may think that may end up happening to ME.

It’s unfair and infuriating to me that women and women alone have to go through this burden, that the most men will never have to do in this journey, even when male factor fertility is the supposed cause, is masturbate into a cup and make sure their semen sample doesn’t miss the cup. The world of infertility is only a further reminder to me how much more women have to bear the brunt of in this sexist world, and how we will continue to do so until there actually is some real, tangible change in society… and SCIENCE.

Yvonne meets Food + parents

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When I first started my YouTube channel, my dad was encouraging of it because he saw that it could potentially be a future profession if I worked hard at it, and he embraces the entrepreneurial spirit. “You will never be fulfilled working for someone else,” he’s repeatedly said to me in many ways over the years. My mom thought it was cute but silly. “You already are at a computer all day long for work, and now you want to spend MORE time at a computer!” she exclaimed. She was worried for my health, that I might develop carpal tunnel and get further eye strain from more time in front of a screen. She said that I don’t know how to rest (takes one to know one, Mom). They watched some of my videos in the beginning, but I could tell my dad wasn’t too excited about the content, and my mom seemed to think I’d eventually give it up.

Then came the pandemic and the fact that they could no longer have me visiting as often as I used to. This means that they had no idea when they would see me next. So when my mom would see her friend, they’d watch my YouTube videos on the big TV screen and comment on my cooking or what I was saying. My mom was finally regularly watching ALL my videos. This was her way to “see” me.

Chris sent them Yvonne meets Food shirts, and they actually arrived today. My mom got super excited and called immediately when they arrived. “How did you DO this?” she asked, super curious and thrilled. “It has your NAME on it!”

“That’s my YouTube channel logo,” I explained to her. “Doesn’t it look familiar? And it has a mango in the middle of it!”

“WOW!” she exclaimed, looking over the logo. “I like this red color, too! Your Daddy says that I have to wear it now. We will both wear them! It feels soft, too.”

My parents will be wearing my Yvonne meets Food shirts. I smiled to myself, imagining them walking around San Francisco with matching shirts, advertising their daughter’s YouTube channel.

I wonder how many new subscribers they will get me.

Family and race

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There are people in my family who think that race no longer matters, that they “don’t see color” (unless it’s to attack Black and Brown people, that is), that Asian people are essentially of the same “social status” as White people.

My family is truly filled with a bunch of idiots.

Someone in my family sent a group text to a bunch of us today with a YouTube video randomly uploaded by someone with barely any subscribers (the video had about 50 views) that slanders Joe Biden and said, “after you watch this, you can be the judge of whether our mainstream media is pushing a communist country along and whether they are suppressing the REAL news that needs to be covered.”

I did not watch the video. I do not care to watch a bunch of random trash uploaded to YouTube. While I do maintain a YouTube channel and upload videos, I am very, VERY cognizant of the fact that anyone can upload pretty much any video to YouTube proclaiming something to be true, but that doesn’t necessarily mean IT IS TRUE. I’m sad that my own family members are not smart enough to separate reality from falsehoods. I’m even sadder that said family members are condescending to those of us who actually DO read The New York Times or the Washington Post and think WE are the stupid ones for believing this “fake news,” that they actually believe they are BETTER than us because they follow these conservative networks full of lies.

This country has truly regressed

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After the last two U.S. Senate seats were won by two Democrats, and while Biden was supposed to be declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election by the Senate, a bunch of deranged Trump supporters decided to rage into the Capitol building and stage an insurrection. Filled with delusional thoughts of fake news and a fradulent election simply because their side lost, they refused to accept the outcome of this election. And the worst part, aside from the fact that these idiots did this? The Capitol police did absolutely nothing to prevent them from coming in and storming through the entire building. If you have even a remote idea of how strictly security works at government buildings, you would know that the only way something this intense and big would’ve been allowed to happen would be if they were literally invited in with welcome, open arms. The number of photos I saw of police officers taking selfies with these morons was disgusting. I thought about the many protests around Black Lives Matter over the last 6+ years and thought… wait, so protesters peacefully protesting in honor of the rights of people of color were tear gassed and arrested, yet the White Trump supporters barely face any consequences for an actual insurrection? And don’t even get me started about how Trump has been encouraging and inciting violence since even before Biden officially won. It’s truly amazing to me exactly how much you can get away with in this country when you are white, and even moreso, a white male.

Anyone who doesn’t believe that this has anything to do with race — well, I want nothing to do with you and the delusional world you live in. If there is just one reason and one reason alone that the Republican Party of today is evil, it is that they are the one party of this country that is pro voter suppression, and that is ALL ABOUT RACE when you actually take a look at the data.