Sometimes I wonder if IVF could happen in isolation of all the other things that make up life, whether it would be easier to deal with or harder. Would being able to throw 100% of yourself into the journey mean you would have the strength and the energy to cope with the ups and downs? Or would it mean without the distractions, every heartbreak would be more keenly felt?
I have been trying to write this post for a few weeks now - various drafts have sat in my email and on my computer but I just haven't been able to and I haven't known why.
I realised the other day, that just typing out another experience, another cycle, another chemical pregnancy, doesn't feel right. Because those bland words on a screen, talking about each stage of the cycle just doesn't do the the pain justice. It's strange how the details of the cycle itself - the length, the processes, the unknowns and the worries are all the same as the details from our last cycle so it almost seems boring writing it all again.
But none of it FEELS the same. The grief of another very early miscarriage, whilst familiar, is not the same because it is THIS time, THIS moment, THIS hope shattered. The pain is not any less because we've felt it before, the fears if anything, have grown, as failure after failure builds upon each other.
The emotions came in different circumstances... A cycle squeezed in to the gap between jobs as we watch the days tick by and get nervous about timing... feelings of guilt if this cycle works and I can't even give 9 months to my new job... A lower dose aimed at fewer eggs but better quality and no hyperstimulation bringing it's own worries... A transfer on the same day as the funeral of a man younger than my husband - a white coffin decorated with children's messages and drawings bringing sadness and tears on the same day that one minuscule thing of a few cells brought so much hope... Faint pink lines on a test - Easter this time instead of Christmas... cautious excitement after last time and then the knowing...
How can I explain how holding my husband against my belly as he cries, how his ability and willingness to hold me up when I sob and lose the strength in my legs to stand, the disappointment, the fears, the shame is all the same but all so very, very different and so unique to this moment in time.
I nod and smile as people tell me 'it WILL happen' but I just don't know. I shrug as I say 'what can you do' and rabbit on about how we'll foster or adopt if it doesn't happen - a genuine option but something that will never be the same as feeling my own child grow inside me, as holding that baby in my arms, as watching a child grow and seeing glimpses of myself and my husband ripple across their features.
Sometimes I pretend to be strong, to be healed, to be ok - sometimes I think I really am. I do it for my husband because his hurt is unbearable and if I can take any of it away by being strong then I will. I do it for others in those awkward pauses when they search for words of comfort that they haven't already said before. I do it for myself because if I can't pretend to be strong then how will I ever survive this?
I wish I knew when there would be an end, even if I didn't know what it was. I wish we could say we will do this many cycles, or spend this much money, or try for this many years. But for every moment where I can feel my heart shattered into a million pieces and my body is exhausted and I think I can't do it any more, or for every moment that I believe that I'll be ok if this doesn't happen, there are moments when every inch of me yearns to be a mother and I know that I'll always have a little piece of me that feels like it's missing if we can't make this work.
I just wish I knew...
I have been trying to write this post for a few weeks now - various drafts have sat in my email and on my computer but I just haven't been able to and I haven't known why.
I realised the other day, that just typing out another experience, another cycle, another chemical pregnancy, doesn't feel right. Because those bland words on a screen, talking about each stage of the cycle just doesn't do the the pain justice. It's strange how the details of the cycle itself - the length, the processes, the unknowns and the worries are all the same as the details from our last cycle so it almost seems boring writing it all again.
But none of it FEELS the same. The grief of another very early miscarriage, whilst familiar, is not the same because it is THIS time, THIS moment, THIS hope shattered. The pain is not any less because we've felt it before, the fears if anything, have grown, as failure after failure builds upon each other.
The emotions came in different circumstances... A cycle squeezed in to the gap between jobs as we watch the days tick by and get nervous about timing... feelings of guilt if this cycle works and I can't even give 9 months to my new job... A lower dose aimed at fewer eggs but better quality and no hyperstimulation bringing it's own worries... A transfer on the same day as the funeral of a man younger than my husband - a white coffin decorated with children's messages and drawings bringing sadness and tears on the same day that one minuscule thing of a few cells brought so much hope... Faint pink lines on a test - Easter this time instead of Christmas... cautious excitement after last time and then the knowing...
How can I explain how holding my husband against my belly as he cries, how his ability and willingness to hold me up when I sob and lose the strength in my legs to stand, the disappointment, the fears, the shame is all the same but all so very, very different and so unique to this moment in time.
I nod and smile as people tell me 'it WILL happen' but I just don't know. I shrug as I say 'what can you do' and rabbit on about how we'll foster or adopt if it doesn't happen - a genuine option but something that will never be the same as feeling my own child grow inside me, as holding that baby in my arms, as watching a child grow and seeing glimpses of myself and my husband ripple across their features.
Sometimes I pretend to be strong, to be healed, to be ok - sometimes I think I really am. I do it for my husband because his hurt is unbearable and if I can take any of it away by being strong then I will. I do it for others in those awkward pauses when they search for words of comfort that they haven't already said before. I do it for myself because if I can't pretend to be strong then how will I ever survive this?
I wish I knew when there would be an end, even if I didn't know what it was. I wish we could say we will do this many cycles, or spend this much money, or try for this many years. But for every moment where I can feel my heart shattered into a million pieces and my body is exhausted and I think I can't do it any more, or for every moment that I believe that I'll be ok if this doesn't happen, there are moments when every inch of me yearns to be a mother and I know that I'll always have a little piece of me that feels like it's missing if we can't make this work.
I just wish I knew...