Anyone else feeling down

[GreyGoose1980]

Hi all
Sorry in advance this post is a ‘poor me’ post. I took a career break to focus on ivf which sadly hasn’t worked (we have one last embryo left we couldn’t transfer due to Covid19). It feels so strange to be going back during this lock down. I feel completely out of it at work due to various changes whilst I’ve been away and know I’ve damaged my career and have nothing to show for it. My Dr keeps prescribing me more and more meds for when we do our last transfer -prednesolone, Clexene, aspirin, prontogest and after six failed attempts I’ve just had enough of it all and have no faith left. I’m now 41 and feel I’ve wasted so much time when I could have been enjoying life. I have lovely friends but I feel I don’t fit in with anyone anymore as ivf has been so isolating. Sorry for the winge especially when people have so much more to deal with and technically I still have a job - it just all feels so tough. I worry the delays relating to the C19 virus will mean the end of any further ivf as not sure if I can cope with this all hanging over me much longer. Thanks for listening to my rant x

Yes, I’m finding it hard not to be in my own head all the time. All the WhatsApp groups and Facebook posts are full of pictures of children. I don’t even have a plan for what’s next.

I’m just trying to go with pause and survive until things are more normal again, then think about it.

Sorry, there’s nothing else or helpful I’ve got really. Just solidarity.

@PurpleDaisies
Thanks. Just knowing someone else gets it means a lot right now. I feel the same about the WhatsApp groups / Facebook. I have no helpful Words but sending

@GreyGoose1980 I hear you - feeling the same and offering a hand hold it's so tough not knowing when treatment will be allowed to resume again xx

Thanks @Wesstywoo
to you.

It would be good to hear if people have / have not benefited from counselling. I’ve never taken it up as always felt I’d get more support through forums and other people in RL with some experience of infertility and am also cynical if I’d relate to it, but not sure now. I feel I may have swept my feelings under the carpet as was so busy coping with the medical process and now we’ve temporarily been forced to stop ivf the emotional side has hit me more. TIA for anything people are able to share x

I'm feeling really really down. My third round of IVF was cancelled due to the virus and after the last round was such a disaster where only 1 out of 10 eggs fertilised (and never made it to a blastocyst) I wanted this to be the last go so I could move on with my life. This past year I put everything on hold for the fertility treatment and became completely isolated from my friends. This isolation in isolation just feels so much worse. But also my mind is stuck on IVF and I cannot concentrate on anything else.
I have spoken a couple of times with the counsellor at the fertility clinic who was absolutely amazing. I have had counselling quite a bit in the past and half the counsellors were great and the others terrible. I'm always a bit wary of mindfulness and 'being in the moment' as this moment is absolutely awful and I feel mindfulness encourages me to bury my feelings even deeper. It was really nice that the fertility counsellor wasn't a fan of mindfulness either. I can't say that the two sessions made a huge difference but it definitely helped to talk through everything that was happening.
Clinics in the UK have to give you access to counselling so you can perhaps try if it works for you.
Hang in there and take care! x

I feel I may have swept my feelings under the carpet as was so busy coping with the medical process

I can relate! I haven't had any counselling yet, up until my last failed cycle I had always been optimistic and found these boards with so many women going through the same as a great source of support. However after the last failure I've started to face reality that this might not work. My AMH is now 1.0 (well it was in January) so this delay is very bad news for me. I would be open to give counselling a go

@GreyGoose1980
Counselling has been amazing. Me and my partner are in couples IVF therapy. We've been doing this for over a year now. If you both agree to be open, you can get a lot from it. Things are teased out by the therapist and you end up sharing things, and learning things you didn't know about your partner: good and bad, without fear of it descending into an argument. I'm lucky that my partner is a talker and isn't afraid to cry !! I

After my 2nd MC in December I sought therapy on my own. Only 6 sessions, which have now finished. I really needed this one on one therapy. I felt 'freer' to discuss my feelings.

I'm 40 (41 next month) and my 5th cycle (first FET) was cancelled mid cycle due to the Coronavirus. It was awful.

Somehow, I'm still hopeful. We were lucky enough to have an embryo good enough to freeze after cycle 4, so that is my hope. If I had to go through a complete cycle again, I really don't think I could face it.

I'm slowly going mad at home, but thankfully I have a garden.

I would absolutely recommend counselling. If you don't release your feelings in some way, they will consume you. Equally, if you bury your feelings, they will come to the fore for you to deal with when you least expect it.

Big hug to you. You can do this!

Hey Grey,

What you posted really connected with me. I quit working also for a time. It was in order to focus on fertility as well as some bigger issues going on in my family at the time. That break got extremely extended as the fertility treatment got more invasive and I experienced a late pregnancy loss that really put work on the back burner for me for a long time. I’m now back in work but not doing my original job as in all honesty, I am a changed person now and didn’t feel like I wanted to go back to that level of stress at this stage of my life. I also didn’t feel like I could just jump back in to the role after the break. So there has been a lot of angst, anger and upset about the damage to my career that this fertility struggle has inflicted! I have recently had two rounds of ivf, both unsuccessful. I had gone on holiday after the last failure a couple of months ago and decided that I needed a short break before starting the process for another embryo transfer. But then corona happened and now I guess that break will be extended for quite a while. I’m glad that I had decided to take a break on my own terms or I would have been devastated at the further delay. But as each day goes on with this I’m realising that it could be a good while before clinics feel that it’s safe enough to open and that’s a very hard thought to deal with as I’ve been trying for a baby for years now and could really not do with the delay.

Oh, and there have been like two huge pregnancy announcements in my family in the last month. Which I did not take well at all.

Oh and as for counselling I would say definitely give it a try! I’ve most recently used the counselling service at my nhs fertility clinic and found it helpful to have someone to hear all the stuff that I struggle to speak to people in my life about or even fully admit to myself. I’ve also in the past had counselling provided via a separate charity that helped me with the losses I’ve experienced. I’ve found this fertility/pregnancy loss struggle to be lonely and isolating but counselling has always helped me to get a little out of my own head and share a little of what I’m feeling with those I’m closest to as well as helping me to get a lot of the negative and sad feelings out without worrying about judgement and consequence. So I would definitely recommend it to help go through all that you’re feeling atm.

Hi all
@Matilda128
Sorry to hear about your last cycle - it must be very hard to go through so much and not be able to transfer. It was helpful to hear about experiences of counselling. I don’t feel mindfulness would work for me either - I tried mindful meditation a couple of times but my brain won’t switch off enough! Thanks also for the updates you posted on the other thread. I’m not on twitter so found it useful.

@Wesstywoo
Thanks for your post. It sounds like we are both coming to the conclusion counselling may help us at this stage. I can relate to your comments about previously being more optimistic. I think I need to use counselling to discuss the possibility that ivf with my OE wont work before I do this last transfer and work out if DE is really for us taking into account these future delays.

@NRW39
Thanks for sharing your experiences of counselling. I really connected with your comments about the benefits of both couples and individual therapy. Sorry to hear about your losses. We have also had two losses and I feel we may benefit from discussing these in individual counselling.

@AvaMercy
I really connected to your comments. I am sorry for your loss.
Reading about your experience helped me understand some of the feelings I currently have. I feel so resentful that not only have I failed to become a mother but the one thing I was doing relatively successfully for all these years has finally taken a hit. I am going back to the same job but am unsure how it will all work out as I feel like I am not the same person. Also I think that I’m actually a lot less tolerant of the office politics of it all now ( albeit my work is no better or worse than anywhere else) so won’t connect with the work culture. In one sense I feel like if I can’t have children I want to do something more meaningful with my life career wise but not at all sure what that is. In another sense I feel like I just want a job with less stress as infertility / stressing over the next steps takes up my mental energies. There are no easy answers. This has also made me realise that there is really so little support for women going through infertility in the workplace. So many people are unable to let their employer know and handle a lot of complex medical issues in isolation.

I wish you all the best of luck and hope to keep in touch to see how we are all coping x

Hi grey! Hope you’re feeling a bit better and had a nice Easter weekend. Glad my post helped a little. Though I’ve not returned to my chosen profession, I remember how nerve wracking it was for me once I started working again but it’s all come back to me quite quickly so I think you’ll be ok after a brief period of catch up and refreshing your memory!

I also recognise those feeling of not being sure what to do for the best and feeling massively changed by your experiences. I think I spent a lot of time pondering rather than doing because I wasn’t sure what to do for the best. Stick with career, get something low key that fits around ivf, choose happiness over making more cash. Stay in a stress free state in case I were lucky enough to get pregnant in the hope that I could stay pregnant. All big questions that I really struggled with. In the end I realised that I was thinking more than doing and I really just needed to do something.

As for support in the workplace. In my experience the support you receive from you employer is dependent on the type of manager/superior that you have. Unfortunately, I’ve not had the best.

But onwards and hopefully upwards once this damn virus has run its course!

Wishing you lots of luck too!

Thanks @AvaMercy
It’s going okay work-wise. You are right in that I feel better for just making a decision to go back to work. Am sure I will find it stressful once I do begin ivf again but crossing that bridge when I come to it! Still finding this wait stressful as am sure others are. How are you?

Hey Grey!(and everyone else on this thread!) Well there’s been another bloody pregnancy announcement in my damn ridiculously fertile family. Happy for everyone obviously but do sort of feel like I’m getting it from all sides atm.

Starting to feel that restless, it’s never going to happen feeling but I know that that’s coming from panic and prob too much time on my hands. We had just finished our nhs funded cycles and was looking into visiting private clinics before this all kicked off so am starting to worry about how busy private clinics will be once things start up again. IVF is a waiting game at the best of times so thinking this’ll make things even worse. Especially if the private sector restarts before the NHS!

So I think the vibe of the minute is anxious with sprinklings of impatience!

Glad work is going well for you btw!

Sorry to hear about all the pregnancy announcements @AvaMercy. My best friend and a close family member announced they are pregnant this week. I feel sad that I can’t be happy about it.
I’m at the point where I don’t believe further ivf will work but will do our last transfer after lockdown though. Can’t work out if I’m being overly negative or just realistic now. Work is busy so taking my mind off it. Hope you and others on this thread are okay.

Hi I was wondering if and looking for advice I started the pill about July 2018 - April/may 2019 I have had the first “fake period” that u get when u finish the pill then I went a while without the had one in June my prom. then I spotted in August and September I think and November I had brown discharge for 2/3 days then I had the same discharge 21-24th April but the first day it was pink then got a little red in it then went brown when I checked my knickers and have had nothing since then, is this normal? and any advice how to regulate/get my period back? I’m not pregnant as I took a test I just don’t fancy going to the doctor I have bad anxiety and don’t want to be getting needles and tested unless I really need to ! I was just seeing if you know anything to bring it back? Before I do end up having to book an appointment many thanks.

There is a mumsnet chat at 9pm with two psychiatrists, I expect it will be general coping mechanisms rather than related to infertility but just in case it can help anyone

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_live_events/3892437-Webchat-with-Dr-Carine-Minne-and-Juliet-Rosenfeld-on-coping-during-lockdown-Tuesday-28-April-at-9pm

Grey- Best friend being preggers is tough. Less chance of avoidance when it’s someone so close. I don’t know how you’re affected but for me it takes a good couple of months to adjust and wallow in my feelings about it whilst obvs presenting the “I’m fine and massively thrilled for you!” persona and then I’m generally ok by the time the person is ready to have their baby. Also found that I find the pregnancies hard but am fine once babies are born and the people in my life are living their lives as parents. But I too feel guilty and sad that someone else’s happy news brings out such intense and conflicting emotions. I guess the one bonus of lockdown is we don’t have to actually be with other people and so aren’t exposed to the pregnancy talk and excitement. That said I think that the announcements are hitting me even harder because everything is on pause atm so I’m feeling more and more out of sorts about the delay. Also my birthday is coming up so feeling very time is of the essence about it all because of that as well I think.

Had a weird day with my Mr yesterday. What started with complaining about tidying up or something ended up with me crying about us never having a baby and how hard I’m finding all the other pregnancies. Obviously the worry had been bubbling and building! Was good to get it out really.

What you were saying about not being sure if you’re being overly negative or realistic. I feel like that a lot. And as my oh is the complete opposite, when he reassures me, I can never work out if he’s right or just impossibly positive.

Glad work is providing a distraction. I work part time but thinking I could do with a few days of distraction so looking forward to it even if it is stressful.

Anyways, that’s my lengthy update of how things are this end. Hope you (and everyone going through similar things reading this) are well.