9 Days to go - The dichotomy of confidence and fear

Generally I feel confident that this cycle will work, we have good embryos and I am in much better shape both mentally and physically than I was in the previous cycles, so really how can it not work right?  I have been catching myself talking about ‘when’ I am pregnant rather ‘if’, I am making plans that include my being pregnant (ie. Our family holiday at Christmas) and I imagine how I am going to share the news with everyone.  I think about how much I am going to try to enjoy the pregnancy more than I did with JBB (mostly I white knuckled it right through that pregnancy).

But then, a feeling of fear splashes over me like a bucket of ice water.  ‘What if it doesn’t work’?  These embryo’s are from the same batch in which 3 were unsuccessful – does that mean that they are a bad batch?  What if I have to send out that dreaded text message again ‘it’s negative, I don’t want to talk about it’.  What about if I have to feel that enormous feeling of hurt and failure again?  

This is the quintessential roller coaster that is IF.  There are never any solid answers because they don’t know everything and whilst the science has come along leaps and bounds, there is SOOOOO much that they don’t know.  Why do some embryos implant and some don’t?  Why does an embryo from a 41 year old woman implant naturally and an embryo from a 24 year old donor not?  What is the best protocol to use?  What are the best medications to get the best results?  What natural therapies work and what don’t?  The answer to all of these questions is, ‘we don’t really know’.  So, I pray, I get my good luck charms,, I do my yoga, I listen to my hypnosis mp3’s. I try to influence the outcome in any way possible.  At the end of the day though, what influence do I have?  I suspect very little.

I guess I have become a bit of a fatalist because now I think ‘if it’s meant to be, it will happen’.  This is extraordinarily ironic because amongst the things that fertiles have said to me that pisses me off mightily, it is this – ‘if it’s meant to be, it will happen’.  Gaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!  Honestly, it drives me crazy because then the thoughts come into my mind like ‘so a 15 year old is MEANT to get pregnant, and how about the baby that is born addicted to heroin, is that MEANT to happen’.  It is hard to reconcile these thoughts and the only way that I have been able to is to try to accept that life is really bloody unfair.

Don’t get me wrong, I will still do everything in my power to influence the outcome – I am still taking my herbs every day and having acupuncture every week, downing handfuls of pills and supplements each day and generally doing the myriad of things that I do before and during a cycle.  I think I am just coming to accept that I can’t control everything – probably a good lesson to learn considering I am 41!!

Anyway, most of the time I am confident but I am well and truly on the roller coaster.