The Impatient Patient in The ugly truth about making babies

Our frozen embryo transfer will be next week. I’m just waiting on ovulation, and awaiting it impatiently. I’ve never peed on so many sticks in all my life as I have done over the last 9 months. Once I’ve ovulated we get booked in for transfer 5 or 6 days later.

I always thought if I had a baby it would be by accident, however old I was. Or at least that we’d decide to have one and would just have fun, have sex, and it would happen. All I’ve learnt over the last 9 months is that it seems to happen that easily for some, and then be ridiculously hard for others, and there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.

When I was told I needed to lose weight so that we could have NHS funded treatment, I set up an instagram account for inspiration, support, and to keep myself accountable. It’s turned into an IVF account and I now have over 1000 followers. The support is unwavering, and it fills me with hope to see other ladies go on to have successful treatment and have their babies, but it does make me sad at the same time that so many women are going through what I am, so many couples are struggling and having to turn to science to have their families.

It’s hard to keep sight of how lucky we are that a) this is even possible, and b) we’re receiving this treatment for free. I’ve paid £30 out of pocket for a three month medical exemption certificate that allowed me to get all of our ivf drugs plus two lots of antibiotics for my lovely summer chest infection. I don’t even know where we’d begin if we had to pay for treatment. I did ask our doctor also how many embryo transfers we get paid for, and he said we transfer as many embryos as we have, all paid for. So we have three frozen embryos, all being stored and able to transfer for no fee at all. I can’t imagine how it must feel to desperately want your family and to know you can’t have treatment because of the cost. Especially when so much about it is age sensitive and can’t wait 5/10 years so you can save.

I’m also paying for acupuncture which I love. I’ve been lucky enough to find a multiroom clinic so I only pay £15 per session. Usually it doesn’t bother me that someone else is in the room, I close my eyes, listen to the music, and chill to the point of dozing off. This week however the lady in the next bed (behind a screen), chatted and chatted to my acupuncturist for about 10 minutes and totally threw me off. She always asks if I want an extra 5 minutes and I normally take her up on the offer but the lady was ruining my vibe so I declined this time. I will do a pre and post transfer session, thankfully in the room by myself. She plays Zita West’s guided meditation alongside the acupuncture and it’s lovely. Whether it’s doing anything to balance and restore me I have no idea however I find it wonderfully relaxing.

I also need to start doing my guided meditations again, I have the ‘calm’ app and it’s nice to just spend 10 minutes breathing and listening to that. I was doing it nightly when Joey was out with the dog and need to get back to it as I do think it definitely helped.

And now I’m off to continue the waiting game......

xx