One step in front of the other

Round 17

I think i may have lost count as to what round this actually is.  The last few rounds I have started and then shortly after starting stimulation i have had to cancel the round because it hasn’t been working so i’m not sure if they count as rounds or not.  When i started this process i never in a million years thought i’d get to this number of rounds.  Mind you i never though i’d get into double digits of eggs being frozen either so i guess i should be looking at that positive rather than the number of rounds i have started.

Today is Wednesday and i am 4 days into stimulation of this round.  I am having my second scan tomorrow to see if anything has started to happening.  I am so hoping that this round is going to be a good one.  I really do just want this to be my last round of this hard and emotionally draining process.  I have time when i don’t think about it and realise that it has actually just become a part of my life, the injecting, the visiting Dr Greg, the booking a last minute flight back to the UK and the being put out while a handful of doctors and nurses pass a needle through the top of the vagina under ultrasound guidance to get to the ovary and follicles in the hope to find an egg that they can detach from the follicle wall and suck out of the ovary.  Thinking about it like this makes the whole thing slightly overwhelming and depressing, so i try not to think about it too much and focus on the ‘when i am done’ part of the process or the ‘when i reach 20’ part of the process.  Will this ever come?  As each round goes by and i get one moth old i start to wonder if i am being unrealistic about the possibility that i will ever becoming a mother to a biological child.  I have been so positive for so long and I guess i am becoming drained and reality is starting to set in.

The other thing that i am seriously thinking about is the reality of using these eggs and trying to get pregnant alone.  This is something I never wanted to do but as the biological clock ticks on I think it is something that is becoming more of a reality and something I need to get my head around in the next few months.

I am trying to take one step at a time, focus just on this round and getting through it and then maybe regrouping for a few months, getting my spirits back up, my weight back down and my head screwed back on without these horrid hormones in my body so that i am brave enough to think about next steps for me and come to terms with the possibility and probability of being a single mum.

At work today someone told me about a colleague of ours who is pregnant with her third child and was having a hard pregnancy and had to inject herself during her pregnancy as she has developed gestational diabetes.  As awful as that is, i couldn’t help but think about my last round where i had 38 injections in 6 days and i had done that all by myself, with no one to tell, no one to talk to and no one to care.  It is when you stop and think about it that it becomes a little too overwhelming.  I would do anything to have someone by my side during this, someone to be ‘my person’ and pick me up when i am a little down, which isn’t often but there are times that being strong and being alone just gets a little too much and right now seems to be one of those times.

I’m even being so irrational that i actually think i am mad at the father of a possible future child and/or husband that i haven’t even met yet for not having met me and for letting me do this alone.  I realise that is a totally ridiculous irrational thought and anyone NOT being pumped with hormones would know this but these thoughts still go through my head on days like today when i feel defeated and alone on this journey.

I just need to keep telling myself not to think too much, to keep putting one step in front of the other, so as i tell myself this i just keep breathing and know that everything will work out just as it is supposed to.  With this thought i hope and pray that the end of at least the first part of my journey, the egg freezing part is soon coming to an end.

 

That Happy, Sad, Guilt Feeling

Yesterday my older sister told me she was pregnant with her third child. Those of you who have read my blog and followed my journey will know and hopefully understand that this news wasn’t easy for me to hear, and I feel exceptionally selfish admitting that.

It goes without saying that I am thrilled for my sister and her family about this exciting news, but at the same time it just further shines a spotlight on my personal situation. I know how difficult it must have been for her to tell me her exciting news, news that to be honest….. I had already figured out. Last time I was home she hadn’t been drinking, was a little bit moody which is very out of character and was exceptionally sick in a way I have only ever seen her been before and that was when she was pregnant the first time around, so I knew that it was likely she was pregnant. maybe that’s why I called her to have a chat, to give her the opportunity to tell me what I had already figured out. I didn’t want it to be difficult for her to tell me something she was obviously so happy about and I didn’t want to find out another way. How would I be a good sister to her if I didn’t share in her joy and be there for her like she has been there for me particularly over the past few years as I have been on this egg freezing journey?

I think today as I think about her news what I feel most sad about is that she didn’t feel she could tell me, that she had to protect me from the hurt. She told me over the past 18 months she had had two miscarriages and she had to experience the pain of that without the support of me, her sister and her friend. That breaks my heart. I haven’t been a good sister or friend to her and feel exceptionally selfish for that.  There will always be news from friends and family all around that relates to preganancy or having a child and if I never end up having children this topic will likely always be hard for me personally to digest, not because I am not thrilled for them but because it just shines a light on my own personal sorrow. I hope over time It will have less of an impact of sadness on me and be more of a joyous occasion and one that I personally come to terms with. One thing I do know however is that I never don’t want to be a good friend of hear about this exciting news from anyone I care about, even if it is painful for me to personally digest.

Maybe the journey I am on was sent to humble me, to show me I’m not invinceable and that sometimes we can’t always have what we want.