Unhinged in The ugly truth about making babies

Since our fresh embryo transfer failed, I’ve been angry and upset a lot of the time. It’s not even just about that, it’s about everything.

Our doctor was surprised that I didn’t have a better response to the drugs, and isn’t sure why, as all of my investigations were fine. Our plan is to do a frozen embryo transfer this month or next using just my own hormones - I basically track ovulation and they whack the embryo back in at the right time.

Given that the hormones they gave me barely touched me, it’s totally shocking to me that I don’t feel back on more of an even keel by now at least in terms of my anger/short fuse. I’m actually notoriously laid back usually so it’s been hard living with this level of negative emotion, for me and Joey. I think maybe I just didn’t take enough time to grieve after our first try hadn’t worked. In fact I know I didn’t, I didn’t take any time, I just came back to work on my next shift and got on with it. I cried in the car on the way to work, and on the way home, and I cried on my days off, and still do some days. In hindsight I should have got my doctor to sign me off sick, and following our upcoming transfer it’s something I won’t hesitate to do.

Our clinic has offered counselling and I’m still deciding what to do about it. I’m sure I’d absolutely love it and have no problem sitting and talking to anyone about things, even deeply personal things. Which is why I wonder if I’d actually benefit from it versus just enjoying it.

Part of my anger is towards Joey, the way he behaved and detached himself from our first cycle. Coming to appointments because he had to, and to present a united front, compared to how he behaved at home, hanging around in the doorway to the kitchen when I was injecting MYSELF, playing with the dog and essentially ignoring me, and providing no emotional support to me during the whole time, making no allowance for my mood or inability for rational thought. I’m resentful that he didn’t bend over backwards with gratitude given that I was doing this to give him the child he so desperately wants, I’m resentful at his entitlement that he didn’t need to do anything to earn this, when I had spent the whole year worrying about my weightloss and then worrying about the whole IVF process, and I was the one who had to work through the side effects and I still am the one dealing with the whole emotional fall out of it failing.

We did eventually manage to have a good chat about all this when I basically said we either talked at home without distraction, or we went to counselling, but I wouldn’t go ahead with another transfer until we had talked. I felt better for getting some of these resentments off my chest and he has been better. I would still like him to be more thoughtful and considerate, but things are better than they were.

Looking forward, I’m anxious about our next transfer, although I’m glad we’re able to do a completely natural transfer and I won’t have to take any drugs. I’m struggling enough with the crazy as it is without them adding to it. More specifically, I’m really worried about how things will go if this one fails. I don’t know how people keep going back for more and more. If one fail has left me heartbroken and unhinged then god only knows what I’ll feel like if I have to endure more. I suppose it’s one of those things. Even though I’m dreading it, and I’m sure I’ll live in fear every day for the two weeks afterwards until we do that pregnancy test, I know I won’t be able to stop until we have a baby. Isn’t that the very definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Except at some point the outcome just has to be different right?

There is absolutely no reason why this won’t work, why one of our three frozen embryos won’t be our baby. I feel like the next sentence should be ‘I don’t know what to do’, except I’m not conflicted at all, I absolutely know what I’ll do because it’s the only thing I can do - just keep going and keep hoping.

xx