Thanks, Jenni, I have my strong days and my not so strong days.
When I say that my pregnancy was ruined, it?s hard to explain, but I?ll try ? apologies for the excess verbiage, but I?m still trying to work this through in my head myself.
When we were trying for 3 years, we went from being excited to finally be trying, to hopeful next month would be the one. We even had fun trying! After about a year, we got a little concerned, went to the doctor and got tested. I was ovulating fine, but my husband?s results weren?t so good (between about 75-90% immotile). That immediately brought us down with a bump, and I went into a bit of panic mode. We were referred for treatment on the NHS, and spent the rest of the year waiting for appointments (a slow drip, drip drip ? months between appointments, and then all they did was take your blood and send you away without telling you anything). I found the attitude of the consultants particularly hard to deal with ? so dismissive.
During that time, I was diagnosed with a massive ovarian cyst. The funny part? I thought I might have been pregnant, because I had all the symptoms ? bloating, peeing all the time, pelvic pressure, hard mass in my stomach?.I was even comparing my symptoms with my knocked-up-in-one-go best friend, who was pregnant then.
Hilariously (yeah, right), they kept referring to its size in terms of how big a fetus it would be (7mths, when they took it out). I lost an ovary in the process, and had to take 6 months to recover before they would even think of doing any treatment on me. Because of only having one ovary, they said I?d be better going straight to IVF, and that was a longer wait than some of the other interventions ? 24 months, I think.
By this time I was well and truly fed up, so went privately. We went to a lovely clinic, and started the process again. Thing was, with all the disruptions because of the operation (and other personal stuff going on), it was a while before we started treatment, and I sort of feel we fell into the whole process. By the time I was injecting myself, I kind of separated myself off from the whole thing, so when I got the positive result, I just couldn?t be happy. It just felt like another hurdle to overcome, and I felt I couldn?t get my hopes up. Surely it couldn?t be that ?easy??
Thing was, this feeling never went away through the whole pregnancy. I don?t think I got excited even once when I was pregnant, and after all we?d been through, it just made me so sad. I ended up going almost 2 weeks overdue and was induced. The birth wasn?t too bad as these things go, and suddenly I had a baby.
I think the first few months with your first baby is hard on anyone. Certainly, from the friends I spoke to, many of my feelings were just the same as theirs. Your life changes completely, your sore from giving birth and the recovery can take a while, and you have this needy little creature that only you can satisfy (esp if you are breastfeeding). I don?t know if I was actually depressed during this time, but by gods, I wasn?t going to let on. I felt that no one would have real sympathy after I had so obviously gone to great lengths to have a baby.
I really struggled to bond with my son, and even now, still can?t believe I?m a ?mother?. It?s what other people are, not people like me that can?t even get pregnant.
As you can see, I have a massive chip on my shoulder from the whole infertility thing. I know not everyone does, but I wished I?d had some idea that going through IVF successfully has its own downsides (far preferable to a negative ivf cycle, of course).
So, that?s the long winded answer to your question. I don?t know if it makes any sense, or if you?ve felt any of it. I personally didn?t know anyone who?d gone through what we?d gone through to get pregnant, so there was no one in real life I could relate to. I don?t know if that would have made a difference, but I can?t help thinking it would have.