Enter Label: My Obsession with Someone’s IVF Journey on Reddit
& my working definition of a chronically online person
Dear Companions,
I may have put the breaks on obsessive podcast listening, but I’m absolutely still 100% in the Healingvrse beating my pollyanna drum.
I’ve been hyper-online for four years, ever since a vaccine injury pulled me into this world—a place where strangers can shape your health choices as profoundly as family or a therapist.
In the age of Discord assassinations, it’s easy to nod along to the dominant story: that the internet is mostly corrosive, mostly bad. But I find it so irritating. Regurgitating that analysis is just as dystopian as 4chaners.
Most online activity is neutral or cooperative. I’d apportion 80% to that, 20% to sarcasm, discord, and trolling. Perhaps 3% are edgelords. I get it, the experience is different for our youth, of course, but that’s like comparing a single glass of Chablis to a college keg party with whippets.
And after these four hard years online, here’s what I know: the single most definable trait of a “chronically online” (real) person is their willingness to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining, sharing, and directing resources to strangers—daily, habitually, and without reward.
Consider SouthYak, a woman I know only by her Reddit handle in the r/IVF40 forum: two months older than me, cycling simultaneously, nearly the same protocol, posting results in real time.
This is such a simple story. SouthYak might not even remember me at all, and yet…and yet it’s one atom in the vast multiverse of daily conversations that keep people tethered, less alone, forming a new kind of humanity in the face of machine overlords…well, ok, rebooting…you get my point.
I. Kindred Spirit
We achieved identical results in our first round of IVF cycle. She posted exactly the same numbers of eggs retrieved, matured, fertilized, frozen for testing.
We both made 1 euploid embryo.
This compelled me to leave a note: YOU AND I HAVE THE SAME RESULTS. She liked my comment.
We both began preparation for round two. Three normal embryos are recommended for each live birth. SouthYak was in the trenches with me.
II. First Divergence
When I returned to the Reddit board, SouthYak had posted about her second cycle. We both had nearly identical numbers again, but I ended up with one normal embryo and she ended up with none. She wrote:
I'm tired....I feel like the clock is running out... feeling a little hopeless... I know theres many steps to the process, but today was a blow, feels like a setback...feels like the odds are dwindling...
My heart went out to her. She sounded sad, yet determined. I wondered how I would handle a failed round. We both launched into round three.
III. The Reversal
On round three our paths diverged dramatically. She ended up with 2 normal embryos. TWO!
My news was worse. I ended up with zero normal embryos.
My brain crossed wires to comfort me. I thought: She had a failed round and now she had her best round. So this could happen to me too! I went back for round four with optimism.
IV. A Separation
Round four widened the gap even more. She ended up with 3 normal embryos. THREE! That was practically unheard of at our age.
Yet despite also having higher egg counts, round four was another bust for me. I felt uneasy about our paths diverging.
Curious, I even asked if she’d tried Omnitrope, the controversial growth hormone my doctor would prescribe if I wanted. She hadn’t. So I too passed.
And so with an incredible six normal embryos banked, she was done with retrievals. She would now move to transfer (pregnancy), and I would continue IVF.
V. The Big News
While I was waiting to begin another round, she posted something devastating. Her first transfer failed. Her HCG showed she was pregnant, but it would end as a chemical pregnancy. That was a kick to my gut. It bolstered my decision that I should undergo another round of IVF to build my reserve.
I took an extra month off this time to recover. So I forgot about Reddit for a while. One day I suddenly had the urge to see what she was up to. I needed some good news.
And there it was! She had posted that she was PREGNANT.
Strangely, she had posted just an hour before. It’s as though I received the news through a notification system in the Healingvrse.
VI. Into the Void
Pregnancy is a long process. I'm hoping she at least posts when she reaches the heartbeat milestone, that crucial marker of viability.
Yet I'm aware she may simply disappear from the forum now—happily pregnant and moving beyond this chapter of struggle. If she does, she'll become a dream-like memory for me.
SouthYak did this. SouthYak did that…
VII. Reflection
Who knows how many of my decisions were actually influenced by hers. Perhaps my decisions are foregone conclusions, for which in retrospect I seek validations. Or maybe she really did shape my course.
We are connected by shared experience and an innate desire to find supportive systems not some quest for revolution.
With much love from the Healingvrse,
Rebecca
P.S. Sometimes it’s just funny—like all the comments in this thread on the outlandish price of coffee.
P.P.S.
if you ever want to learn more about the intense/supportive online community of IVF, hit me up!Enter the Healingvrse!
