Meltdown in The ugly truth about making babies

I’m in Norwich, visiting my bestie. She’s had to work this morning so I’ve taken myself off into Norwich to do the touristy thing, have a wander round the shops and city centre.

I visited the cathedral. I don’t know what it is with me and cathedrals/churches. I’m not in the least bit religious. In fact I find the whole thing a little hypocritical. But I find the architecture absolutely stunning. I love stained glass, I love the way it casts colour over brickwork. And I find them fabulous places to take photographs, so much detail.

Today was different. It was quiet in there - no big surprise, and calm. I sat for a while looking at the altar and organ, reading my little leaflet explaining what everything was and where it was located. And promptly burst into tears.

It just hit me, all the ivf stuff and the complete lack of control. I hesitate to say I’m a control freak, but, well, I am a bit. I’ve always had the mentality that you can get anything you want if you work hard enough and this is a situation in which no amount of hard work will make any difference at all.

To be fair I think this little outburst has been coming since they gave us the date to start. Since the fear and anxiety set in. It’s crunch time, it’s real. It’s hard work that got us to this point, the dieting, the exercise, the 2 stone weight loss. And now, the next step, the biggest one of them all, is completely out of our hands.

The drugs, the side effects, how i’ll react to them, whether they’ll do what they’re supposed to do, the scans and check ups, then the hoping for a good number of eggs and enough decent sperm. Hoping that they fertilise ok. Hoping that they grow ok. Hoping we get enough embryos for transfer and to freeze some. Hoping that we get a positive test. Hoping that if we do, things carry on progressing healthily.

That’s really all we have, hope and blind optimism. The not knowing, the not being able to influence the outcome, is giving me sleepless nights. Because for all the old wives tales about pineapple core, and pomegranate juice, and acupuncture, and all the other things on the endless list that desperate, infertiles cling to, it doesn’t make a bit of difference other than maybe psychologically.

Women get pregnant all the time. They drink, they smoke, they take drugs, they’re overweight. All of the things we’re told we shouldn’t be/do. None of these things are factors in conception/implantation. It really is as simple as nature deciding the outcome. That little embryo takes or it doesn’t, it’s as simple as that I think. As frustrating as that. If I genuinely thought any of these old wives tales held any stock I’d be all for it, I’d do every single one of those things to improve our chances.

But realistically our embryo, although it will be conceived in a lab, is no different to any other. My egg, his sperm. Just had a helping hand to get to where it needs to be. Once the fertilisation has happened it’s down to biology. The conditions they’re grown in are the same as inside the human body. They’re not even removed from the incubator, they can be observed via the wonders of modern technology without being taken out to maintain stable conditions. Once that embryo is put back in it has the same chance of embedding as any other embryo that’s conceived naturally.

Actually, that’s not strictly true. With a natural conception, there’s a 20% chance of conception each month. With an ivf pregnancy it’s a 33% chance of conception for my age so the odds are actually higher of achieving a pregnancy with ivf than a natural pregnancy.

I think out of everything that’s the thing I keep telling myself. I’m healthy. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work first time. Then I wonder if that’s naive and I’d be better placed to err on the side of caution. I do genuinely believe in the power of positive vibes though, and although it’s not scientifically proven, anecdotally we’ve noticed with our chemo patients that the more positive patients do better, regardless of condition.

I think that’s the one thing I can take control of. I am in no way unrealistic, I know all the things that could go wrong, the long long list of them. But I don’t think there’s any benefit to focusing on them. I will of course have to bear them in mind and be observant for them as they can affect the cycle but as a primary focus I need to choose positivity and optimism.

Xx