Brace, brace, brace...

Disclaimer... this is the post I wrote yesterday and couldn't post. Update on results coming later when we're back from the clinic... keep everything crossed for us!

Thanks everyone for your supportive comments and advice on my last post. I’ve been finding the last few days pretty tough to be honest (when am I ever anything else in this blog!). I know that this is not unusual.. Zita West has a survey of 2ww diaries in her book, where women rate their level of positivity on a 1-10 scale over the 2 weeks and the vast majority of women feel less and less positive as the days go by.  But it’s hard to cope with because, although I know nothing is different now compared to 1 week ago, that there is no less chance of me being pregnant now than then, my emotions don’t follow logic!

I’ve also been feeling off physically which hasn’t helped in a number of ways. Warning -TMI approaching…  I’ve had pretty horrible diarrhea for about 3 days which makes me not keen on eating, although I still feel hungry, when I’m not feeling a bit queasy.  Of course, I am analyzing every twinge and unusual bowel movement (not literally, in case you were wondering how far my crazy has gone…) in the hope that they are early pregnancy signs. I still rationally know it is unlikely I’d be feeling so bad, so early. I also have a nervous stomach in general and these kinds of symptoms are the first thing that happen when I’m stressed out.  And this bout did start around the time that I started mentally flipping out. So, in all likelihood, nerves are the cause and those are not going away until tomorrow at least.  But, of course, this hasn’t stopped me Googling the hell out of every possible symptom combination! And, of course, there are plenty of women who have these as early symptoms, but they are also side-effects of progesterone so, what d’ya know? Nothing means anything, as always!

As you know, my Bloke has been away nearly all week. When he went, I was pretty sane. In the days that he’s been gone, I’ve traveled into crazytown. Hence his surprise when I started crying down the phone to him last night. He hates it when I do this (we did 2 years long distance, so it’s happened before!). He hates that he’s not there to comfort me. He never knows what to say and knows that only a hug will stand any chance of making me feel better. He doesn’t understand how I’ve gone from so positive to so negative in a matter of days. He thinks that being positive and saying it will all be OK, will make it so. Failing that, he offered to buy me something nice… in this case, that’s just not going to cut it! He’s back tonight and is probably currently bracing himself for the emotional onslaught awaiting him.

Meanwhile, I am bracing myself for tomorrow. I will probably go with my original plan and POAS before getting my blood test results. At that point, whatever the outcome, I need to start calming down because my heart (in more ways than one) can’t cope with this constant feeling of panic for much longer…

RESOLVE's Infertility Myth Challenge... 'Fantastic, you're doing IVF, so you're 100% to get a baby!'

 

Myth to be busted: People think IVF always works. Everyone who uses it is successful and has a baby.

Now I realise that this is National Infertility Awareness Week and I'm not in the correct nation, but I couldn't let this week go by without participating. This might seem a weird myth to choose to bust given that I'm in the midst of my first IVF cycle and, of course, hoping that it works for us, so we can finally start our much-wanted family. I'm also feeling pretty positive (though realistic) so there's no pessimism behind the choosing of this particular myth.

The reason I have chosen it is because I was really surprised to come up against this belief amongst some of the few friends and family members who know about our infertility struggles. Maybe it's because, by the time we embarked upon IVF, I'd done so much research that I was well aware of the odds of success. I forgot that the average woman on the street is not aware of these statistics and probably thinks IVF is a surefire way of getting pregnant. Which seems to be what my Mum, my brother and my best friend thought.

My brother's response took me by surprise but, at the time, was the positivity I needed. I told him by email and he replied saying 'Fantastic news! It's about time our family got a new addition'. Although I am the 3rd of 4 siblings, I'm the only one in a serious relationship and considered likely to produce a grandchild/niece/nephew in the near future. Maybe my brother thought long and hard about his response and opted for positivity over commiseration or sympathy.. knowing my brother, that seems unlikely! It seems more likely that he was convinced that I would soon be pregnant and the pressure to reproduce would be off his shoulders for a while! Of course, I'm still hoping this is the case... :)

My Mum and my best friend were both just really surprised when I told them the odds of success - my Mum went quiet, her typical response to something she's not happy hearing, whereas my friend was more vocal... 'Really?!' After the shock died down, they are both determined to stay upbeat and only talk about a positive outcome.. 

'So the baby will be due in Jan/Feb?.. not the best time but at least you won't be huge during summer' 

'You'll be pregnant over Christmas.. how lovely!'

'We'll start looking at flights to come and visit...'

Sometimes this approach is great.. sometimes I want to share their positivity and daydream about that BFP and a happy, healthy pregnancy and birth (can you have a happy birth?!). Sometimes I want to scream at them... 'Don't you know there's a high probability that this won't work?!!'

I reckon that to anyone reading this who is struggling with infertility, this is old news and they are well aware of the stats. So this post is more to people reading this who have friends and family on this journey... positivity is good and we need it much of the time. But remember that realism also has it's place and this journey is a marathon and not a sprint :)

Click here to learn more about infertility: http://www.resolve.org/infertility101 

Click here to learn more about National Infertility Awareness Week: http://www.resolve.org/takecharge.

Waiting...

You start trying to get pregnant and wait, excited, hopeful... maybe it'll happen the 1st month! Oh well, it'll happen soon, you're sure...
Depending on your situation, maybe you wait a year, maybe 2...
You decide it's time to act and arrange to go for tests. Depending on which country and area you live in, your health authority, your insurance cover or lack of it, you wait for an appointment and wait for the results... surely there's nothing wrong with us? We just need to have more sex! Wait a bit longer!...
You decide to pursue fertility treatment and, again, you wait for that appointment...

And then the treatment starts.
You wait for your period to come (all the while, hoping that it won't - that this month will bring that magical, natural BFP that means YOU won't be one of those women, one of those couples who have to go through the stress, inconvenience, expense and emotional rollercoaster that is fertility treatment)...
You start treatment - maybe IUI or IVF.. waiting each day to give yourself injections, waiting for scans to see whether those follicles are the right size, whether your endometrium is thick enough, whether you have any cysts that will stop treatment.
You get to that 'final' step - maybe embryo transfer or insemination.. if in China, you wait in the clinic, for hours maybe, for that 10 minute procedure that could change your life.
And then the 'real' wait begins.. the 2 week wait until you can test or nature tells you 'not this time'...

And that's when your mind goes into overdrive, your imagination runs wild, asking yourself endless questions, examining every physical and emotional 'difference' to spot that sign that will point to a BFP..
'Don't your nipples look a little bigger?' 'Don't they feel a little more sensitive?' 'Aren't you feeling more tired than usual?' 'Aren't you more emotional?' Couldn't that be pregnancy hormones?'  'Maybe those cold symptoms aren't really a cold?.. even though it's zero degrees outside and everyone you know has a cold'. 'Is that discharge implantation bleeding?.. It isn't necessarily your period.. even though your period has always started like that in the past...'

And then your period comes or you test, just to be sure, and that BFN appears.

And you start all over again...