"Edited to Add"....

This started as a pregnancy blog when I fell pregnant in May 2009 after four years of finding a donor, doing all the counselling / paperwork / tests and trying.

And now, thanks to a 4WD which skidded onto our side of the road, killing our baby daughter at 34w and injuring me, my partner and two of my stepdaughters on 27 December 2009, it has turned into something else. We didn't want this something else, but apparently it is all we've got to go on with.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Hard Swallow

**thank you so much for all your good wishes and encouragement for our imminent rumpusing! It was a good reminder of why I shouldn't hide away too long from this lovely place and you lovely people.**

This is a new sensation I've discovered in the past few months - "the hard swallow". It happens when I'm driving, and see a 4WD coming towards me, or when I see a baby and try to estimate - 11 or 12 months old? Or when the IVF administrator tells me the dollar amount we have to pay to start IVF. A ball of fear or sadness, or something of a similar texture, rises in my throat and I have the urge to run / scream / hide. But I know I can't, so instead I swallow it down, "suck it up" and get on with the business of moving through the world.

I'm not pregnant this time. I didn't really think I was, but when I got to the 27 day mark, I just started entertaining little thoughts, "maybe Christmas would feel good after all" etc. But no. And while IVF felt like a relatively positive Plan B when I went to visit Dr Lovely last week, it doesn't feel like such a fun path now.

I'm a big hippy, you see. I don't like the idea of doctors taking control of my cycle, forcing my ovaries to blister with artifically stimulated ova, vacuuming out my eggs, and coercing them to germinate with a selected sperm. It all feels a bit too much like high school dancing classes where we were made to dance so closely pressed to the boys that a record put between us couldn't fall to the floor*. As though the doctors were telling my body, "Oh, just get out of the way and let us do this properly!" I know what it feels like to have medical experts take over my most basic bodily functions - I'm lucky they did, otherwise I would be dead, but that doesn't mean I like it.

We don't *have* to do IVF. As a dear friend has pointed out, our lack of luck so far is probably more about timing than anything else. But given our issues with frozen insems, and the difficulty and stress involved in interstate fresh insems, and "advancing maternal age"**, it is making sense. What I don't like most about IVF is that I feel corralled into it by fear - fear that maybe Z will be the only baby I have, that it is all too late, that if Christmas 2011 were to roll around without a pregnancy in sight, I'd lose what scrap of sanity I've got left. So it is a pragmatic choice, but a very reluctant, sulky one. And it makes me even sulkier to know how much we have to pay for procedures which I don't want anyway (or wish I didn't need).

But this is where the hard swallow comes in. *Gulp*




* Yes - a record! Remember them? Round, flat, black things with grooves on them. Told you I was old.

**I'm 34 - I know that is not so old in the scheme of things, but I'd like to have more than one, and I'm very conscious that it only gets harder and more risky after 35).

14 comments:

  1. I'm sorry that this month has not proven to be successful. It seems like life is hardly ever straightforward and simple. There always have to be obstacles and hurdles to overcome and concessions to make. Ugh.

    I hope that your friend is right and that it is really about timing. My fingers are crossed that Plan B will always just stay as a Plan B and that Plan A will workout.

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  2. Ick for the high school dancing classes. Really? And I am old enough to know what records are too!

    As Brianna says, I'm just hoping that Plan B remains just that, Plan B. x

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  3. Sorry about this cycle not working out. xo

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  4. Oh bum I'm so sorry this cycle didn't work. There is no doubt that IVF totally sucks - I resented it every step of the way, and I really hoped that you would be able to avoid it. Happy to share war stories at any time.

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  5. it will work out, whatever path you end up having to follow. IVF isn't all that bad, really...

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  6. i know that gulp....mine turns out more like a GRRRRRR though. one day at a time darlin. im sending kisess and hugs. xxx

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  7. I have the same 'hard swallow'. Some days I almost choke on it.
    I also had the same thing with our last IVF cycle. My stinkin period was late for the first time ever meaning I was on a hope rollercoaster thinking "maybe this is it!!" then POAS and "no, of course it isn't" then a few days later hope springs up, only to be squashed again.

    It is a cruel ride. I hope you are off it soon, and pregnant with another lovely baby like Z.

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  8. So sorry that things didn't work out with this cycle. It certainly is a hard swallow to take, all that comes with IVF. Thinking of you guys as you remember Z this next week and hoping you hold tight to each other during this difficult time ((hugs))

    ~LFCA

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  9. Thinking of you and wishing you peace as you remember your sweet Z this month. Hoping your holiday is just what your family needs. Sending hugs your way. xx

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  10. Here from LCFA...I'm also thinking of you and your sweet Z as the year of her loss approaches. I'm also so sorry that your cycle didn't work this month. I lost my son a year ago this January and also plan to write his name in the sand next week on our holiday trip to see family. I will make a butterfly for Z and all the other lost babies so that she will be remembered across the oceans.

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  11. Here from LFCA - I'm so sorry to hear about your loss, and wishing you the best with the upcoming IVF.

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  12. I was just stopping by to say that I'm remembering Z with you today.
    Hugs to you and El Prima and the kids.
    Much love.

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  13. Thinking of you, Z, and all of your family on this day.

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  14. Thinking of you on this day.

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