For the last couple of days I have felt very excited. Why? Well, because Jason and I are heading to Denver this weekend to go have our one day workup (ODWU) at CCRM. My emotions are all over the place. Flights are booked, hotel is booked, car is booked, and our puppy Rupert is taken care of. I'm saddest about leaving my puppy but happiest that we're getting started again.
So yes, my honey and I are leaving for CCRM tomorrow around 5:30pm. I'm excited, nervous, anxious, and surprisingly feeling very optimistic. Say what?! Yes, optimistic. First time in a while I really feel good about my fertility treatments. When my first IVF failed I felt so horrible. You hear all of these stories about first time IVF success stories and when I wasn't one of them (especially given my age) I was devastated. After the second one failed it was even worse. The sadness I felt was indescribable. That's when I started trying to imagine a life with my husband and no kids. Not fun! During the 3rd round I just went along with whatever and was just really going through the motions. I'm not even sure now that I look back, that I should have been doing an IVF cycle during that time. My heart wasn't in it. I was grieving the loss of my 4 embryos that didn't implant. It was a sad time. Now though, I'm healed. Although I'm not really sure you can be fully healed even after having a child when you struggled with infertility, I'm healed as much as I can manage for now. So healed that I've now accepted the idea of adoption when years ago I said I would never adopt.
In lieu of being positive I wanted to write down 3 things that infertility has taught me.
1. Patience. Before infertility, I was the least patient person in the world and although I still have moments of weakness I am a lot better than how I used to be!
2. My relationship/marriage is strong. Many couples have a hard time navigating through infertility together. However, my husband and I are as in love as we were before we found out we were going to struggle to build a family.
3. About my body. I am always complaining about how sex education classes never taught me the truth about how difficult it can be to get pregnant. I always had the understanding that having a child would be so easy. They used to say in sex ed "don't just pull out, it's not effective birth control" and they are right. However, how come nobody said, although some women get pregnant easily, others have a more difficult time. I was set up for failure! I was made to believe that I didn't have to worry about my egg quality or my hostile uterus, and that I could even hold off until I was in my late 30s. Do you know how much worse my situation would be if I were in my late 30s trying to have a baby?! I just feel like I was lied to and made to believe I would have a family so easily. And I am not grateful for my infertility but I am glad it showed me that what they tell you in sex ed isn't all true. When I finally have my daughter/son I will let them know the truth about pregnancy and how 25% of pregnancies result in a miscarriage. They will not be blind-sighted when they get older and try to have a family of their own. I will not promote them to have unprotected sex, let me be clear, but I will not tell them that pregnancy is easy to obtain for everyone. I am grateful and eager to explain to my kids the knowledge I've gained through my struggle with infertility.
I started acupuncture last week and yesterday was my 2nd session, I'm so emotional I went into the session crying! I felt so stupid but of course my acupuncturist was amazing and didn't make me feel embarrassed or weird. I loved my session, it really allowed me to calm down. She also gave me some aromatherapy and by the time I left I was at ease for once this week which was nice! I've never done acupuncture with any of my previous cycles so I'm hoping maybe this is the thing I needed to get pregnant.
We're also doing a ton of testing at CCRM on my hubby's sperm, my uterus, and our genetics so I'm really hoping to get some answers. I will feel more devastated if everything comes back normal so I'm hoping there is something going on. I just hate the whole unexplained infertility diagnosis. Here's to hoping they can find what's wrong and fix it.
xo Ashli
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