IVF - chin up needed!

[InOtherNews]

Not sure if this is the right place to post, really, but here goes. I'm feeling a bit fed up and sorry for myself. I've just started the hormones for IVF - which I know I'm lucky to have the chance to do - and although it is nice that all of a sudden everyone has become very attractive I'm just sick of all the 'what ifs' and things being so up in the air at the moment.

I don't want to go into too much detail as I'm scared of outing myself in RL. We're lucky in a lot of ways but we've had our fair share of shit too along the way and I suppose I'm just a bit tired and overwhelmed. I think I just wanted a good old fashioned vent and a bit of understanding/chin up.

IVF is hard emotionally. Be kind to yourself. Let yourself rant, even if it's only to us.

I was one of the lucky ones. 3 hard years of trying including 2 IUI and finally the wonderful 1st IVF that resulted in our gorgeous little man.

I had such mixed feelings during the cycle. Every step was a triumph but the drugs, particularly the progesterone, made me feel rubbish - emotional, unreasonable, headachy. I felt like I couldn't moan, we were so lucky that things were going well. That extended into pregnancy - I couldn't moan about morning sickness etc, because I was so lucky.

Something that helped me was deciding on a holiday for after the cycle, if it wasn't successful. I know that might seem odd and wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it helped me knowing there would be something nice to look forward to on the horizon. In the end we never went.

Thanks forties - kind words mean a lot right now. I totally know what you mean about having a moan - I feel like I am being quite self-indulgent and wallowing, because I am lucky in a lot of ways. But I suppose it doesn't necessarily always follow that it's going to be easy.

Glad to hear your treatment was successful, and worth it all! I like the idea of a treat if it doesn't work, it would mean a plan to focus on and take my mind off things maybe.

It is hard. I had an easy time of it in terms of having no side effects to the drugs, but still just the endless waiting for the next scan, the next step, the 2WW, was bad enough. It feels like it's going to go on forever and you just can't see beyond it. I don't have much advice, other than it will slowly pass and you will eventually get to the end of it. I agree with forty that thinking about what to do afterwards is a good way of getting through it. I allowed myself a little daydreaming about a positive outcome but mainly tried to distract myself with other things. Once we found out we had good embryos to freeze it took some of the pressure off the 2ww as we then knew we wouldn't have to do a fresh cycle for a while, if at all; but it was still pretty awful! As it happened we did get a bfp, we couldn't believe it worked first time (I'm 8wks now so this is all v recent). I look back now and marvel that we got out the other side relatively intact. We feel like we're coming out of hibernation now after 6 weeks of hiding from the world.

Good luck with it, all I can say is to keep on plugging through. If you're into that kind of thing I have an IVF relaxation cd that I'd be happy to send you? I used it a couple of times but found I wasn't very susceptible to it and stayed wide awake throughout. PM me your address if you would like it.

Try and keep positive and look forward to the future in the short term ad well. Maybe plan a few nice things to do over the coming months to preoccupy you a little and give you something else to look forward to? A weekend away/ fancy meal. Sometimes keeping busy and trying to have a few distractions can work wonders if you are feeling down :) you'll get there :)