How do you focus on anything else?

[GreatEggSpectations]

I know people often say you need a hobby during IVF but how do I get one if nothing seems to compare in importance? How can I possibly care about how fast I can run a mile / whether the colours in my painting complement each other or clash, when I'm waiting to hear how many eggs were retrieved / how many made it to day 3 or 5 / how many are euploid?

Even things like a job - "we've got an important client we need to pitch to, do you want to lead the presentation?". I feel like telling my boss he needs a reality check, no client is "important", I don't care about anything in comparison to IVF. Obviously I can't 😄

Catching up with friends or visiting my parents doesn't seem like much fun either, they'll talk about an upcoming holiday, the new chicken recipe they made, politics, the new dress the want to buy... I'm fed up of pretending to care about these things as it's so unimportant compared to IVF.

How did everyone else manage? How do you do hobbies? How do you still turn up to jobs? How do you socialise?

I seem to be getting 1-2 euploids per cycle, currently have 4 saved up and my aim is 9 (to make 3 babies, so 3 euploid embryos per baby)

I don’t. I have lived in limbo for 6 years. I have lost friends, I haven’t progressed my career and I haven’t properly “hobbied” in that time. We did have a nice holiday to the Carribean but that lost us an egg donor because of the zika risk in that area, so we haven’t holidayed since. We haven’t started planning our wedding because we don’t want it to affect anything in the IVF process either.

I never entered into IVF hoping for any more than one healthy baby. Of course more would be incredible, but we would be so happy with one after everything IVF has put us through.

In a way I just want to know what’s happening with the current (and last) embryo I am pregnant with. Purely so we can move on, one way or another.

good luck on your journey.

@Coffeeandbannans that's how I feel - living in limbo. We do holiday but I spend the holiday counting down the days until next egg collection or next possible stims start date...

Given how long ivf can go on for (years) so far as I can I have tried to continue with the rest of my life as much as possible, take that new job, move house etc. I realise this might mean that I don’t have the perfect job or place to live for having a baby but I just figure that I have months to work that out and these are really tiny problems in comparison if finally managing to have a child. I spent my first year of treatment in absolute limbo with my life on hold before I reached this conclusion. When I’m in active treatment I’ve started doing jigsaws, it might give me an hour or so of distraction here and there in the intense 2ww for example. It’s not much, but better than nothing!

For what it’s worth having 4 euploid embryos in the bank and getting 1-2 per cycle is an extremely good position to be in vs many many others going through this journey. I appreciate you’d like 3 children but it might help to take the pressure off you if you think of it more as - 1 biological child would be amazing and anything else is a huge bonus. I appreciate this isn’t something you can just switch to overnight but I’ve found a lot of peace by starting to accept that my family might not be the exact shape and size I previously planned for it to be.

Life is seriously too short to give up on everything during this hellish rollercoaster.

Do I want a baby? Absolutely, yes! Otherwise I wouldn’t be putting myself through this. But do I have the most perfect life with my partner and our dogs already? Absolutely yes!

Wish I had this mindset!!

I would love to be like this, and I try! But the issue I find is that I have no motivation to try for a new job or put effort into my current role, a bit like you say you were in the first year

I have good periods and bad periods. I started to see a therapist once a week after the first year and that’s definitely helped. If you can, then speaking to someone might help. Wishing you well.

@Zypig maybe part of the issue is that I have told any friends, even in laws don't know. I'm quite a private person so don't want everyone to know, hate the feeling of being pitied, couldn't handle a million questions or people "waiting" with me ("how're they doing on day 5" " you must be nearing egg collection?" "Did they explain why you're still not pregnant?")

Yes that sounds hard, I massively share the feeling of not wanting pity from others (a frequent therapy conversation 😂). I’ve told a lot of people that we have fertility problems/have been going through IVF but generally don’t share the what and when so I don’t have to give live updates. It’s a long road but the mental part is the hardest but strangely it’s the one part we actually have some control over even if we don’t feel like we do always.

I think part of the issue is that when I was nearing my due date with my DC (I already have 1 baby conceived naturally) I had my best friend message me daily "how're you?" "Have your waters broken?" "Do you think you're giving birth soon?" and during the birth "how's it going?" "Is it close yet" "what are doctors saying" "any updates" so I couldn't deal with that again 😂