Hello ladies, very nervous about posting this. I have lurked since Icy started this thread, it has been a source of sadness, strength and comfort to connect with women in the same (miserable) boat smeared with glittery dog shit. Many of you have been through so much more than me, and I truly empathise with you all.
My (long) story: I married aged 36, and we began efforts to reproduce early 2013. I was adamant I didn't want to medicalise our sexlife, and tried not to be obsessive (i.e. kept my obsessive behaviour to myself...). June 2014 I had a scan privately, fibroids but nothing that should impact getting pregnant. Worried about my age, I spoke to my very sympathetic GP who got me on the NHS waiting list for IVF, and after lots of test I was diagnosed with the dreaded X-File "unexplained". First IVF cycle was Aug 2015, during which sonographer found uterine polyps so cycle was freeze-all until I had another hysteroscopy. Date for hysteroscopy was end of November, so while waiting I did another freeze-all IVF cycle privately (££crazymoney). I have 4 blastocysts in the freezer (two from each cycle).
Had the hysteroscopy end of Nov 2015, and waited for period to come in order to pump myself with drugs again in anticipation of embryo transfer. But it didn't come. Just before Christmas, I peed on a stick and there were two lines. My husband and I couldn't believe it. I still can't, despite hideous maternity jeans at 17 weeks.
The point of my story is NO ONE understands how fertility problems affect you, except others who have been through it. It is mindnumbingly boring to put your life on hold (no proper holiday since March 2014, terrible work performance); feeling excluded from all your friends as they pop out babies left right and centre and stop inviting you round or returning your stalking phonecalls; putting up with other people's crass comments about relaxing and getting drunk to get pregnant and other people's anxieties (eg. my mum's) on my behalf; not punching my dearest and closest friends as they as they effortlessly impregnate one another and discuss optimal spacing of siblings; the anger, frustration and bitterness that your own body is defying you; the exhaustion of just keeping going and facing the world every infertile day; the sheer effort required to keep all those feelings to yourself.
And, I am sad to say, those feelings haven't gone away, and I fear they never will. Once you have been on the wrong side of statistics, there will always be (good) reason to focus on what can (and has in the past) gone wrong. During my first IVF cycle, I had 4 eggs retrieved, no OHSS, yet I had a bleed and fluid build up in my abdomen that put me in agony in hospital for 3 days. There is a 0.07% chance of this happening. That was me.
The only people I have told about the alien I am growing are my family and a handful of friends who see me all the time so I couldn't hide it from them. I don't want people to know as I am just waiting for something to go wrong - and being a "geriatric mother" there is plenty that can. I have no plans to buy anything for the alien until he materialises.
So in conclusion, I feel your pain every day infertile friends, and hope for all of you that this month is your last month of waiting for those two lines on a stick.
That was looooooong. Thank you for reading. x