Pondering in The ugly truth about making babies

We had our meeting with the fertility specialist nurse yesterday. Basically a million questions about our health, a lot of invasive questions about our sex life, and lining up a load of tests. I think joeys particular favourite was when she asked him if he had any problems with ejaculation - I was sat side on to him but could feel him physically cringing!

He had his blood tests yesterday, to check hormones and things. I have to line mine up with my cycle so some on Saturday, some about 10 days later. I also have to arrange to have a hystersalpingogram, which is a lovely invasive procedure where they thread a catheter through your cervix (I know, tmi) and inject dye to check there are no blockages. She did say I didn’t have to have it right now but they’ll probably ask for it at some point, so I said we might as well just do it now and get it over and done with, at least it’s another box ticked and something that won’t hold us up further down the line.

We don’t get to see the consultant til 6th June so it’s plenty of time to get these tests done and all the results back, then when we see him he should be able to give us a plan for going forward. If it’s something so simple as joeys hormones then they may be able to treat it with medication, although he thinks he had them checked previously and they were ok. If that’s the case we will need ivf/icsi, which he seems to think he’s been told previously.

To be honest I can see how people are put off when they think frankly about what they’ll have to go through. I think you have to be really committed and really want to have a family, and to want that with the person you’re with. Especially from my point of view where I know I could have a child with someone else without going through all this. I think for me, of course I want a family with joey, or we wouldn’t be pursuing this, but also I know that in doing this, I don’t just fulfil my own desire to be a mother, I give him a chance to be a dad, and I know how
much that means to him.

It’s kind of a lot to think about, even though we’re right at the beginning of this. I feel like I’ve had to be a bit light hearted about it up til now to keep myself sane, but when I think about it seriously I know obviously I can rationalise it as a means to an end, and it will all be worth it to have our family. But there are many moments where I’m gripped with absolute terror about all the things I’m going to have to go through. What will the meds do to me, will I have terrible side effects, will the procedures be painful, the egg retrieval and so forth, what if they find something wrong with me too, and mostly, what if we go through all that, and we don’t get a baby at the end of it. What if, despite everything, it doesn’t work. Or what if one takes and we lose it? I know these are completely normal things to be considering. And in fact every pregnant mother worries about keeping her baby safely inside her until it’s fully cooked.

I guess it’s just hard. We always knew it would be. There are so many things to worry about. I know I can talk to my mum, and I can talk to joey, but he’s very much a let’s focus on one day at a time kinda person, whereas I’m a control freak who likes to have thought of every eventuality from the sublime to the ridiculous so I’ll be prepared whatever arises.

Xx