Well so the lyrics from the song by Tom Petty & the Heart breakers goes....
While I'm not currently doing an IVF cycle, I want to use my blog to be honest about how I'm feeling & what I'm thinking. Maybe the posts should start "Dear Diary"! Seriously though maybe someone well read these posts and relate & not feel alone. A problem shared is a problem halved so the saying goes.
Once we made the decision earlier this year to try donor sperm, well it was easy. After counselling etc.. you are given a list of donors and you make your pick, simple.
Now we have taken the Dr J's advice to look for an egg donor its not that simple. First we have to go through counselling all over again. 2 sessions, 2 weeks apart then a 2 week cooling off period. It's a little silly as we did counselling for donor sperm and this is exactly the same - its just role reversal, this time instead of sperm its an egg so the child will only biologically be 50% ours, a decision which had already been made. Also there is the cost as last time it was about $600 for these sessions and non of it was able to be claimed back.
As soon as Dr J told us to find an egg donor we got right on to it. Unlike donor sperm, there is no egg bank where you can go & choose some from. You have to advertise for someone to be a donor for you. The same day we saw Dr J, that night I had posted two adverts on line seeking a donor. I did further research and found some other sites to post on as well.
H & I aren't controlling people but we are both very organised & are planners. Finding a donor is totally out of our hands. We have to wait until someone responds to our advert & as you can imagine there are many people advertising, just as we are. I didn't think I would get a response straight away but nearly 2 weeks on I have not had one enquiry about our advert.
I start to worry "what if we can't find a donor?" This is all up to fate & is I guess, in gods hand's. I'm trying to relax and not think about it and try to use this time I have given myself away from IVF till March as a break from stress. But of course there is no guarantee we can do IVF in March, a no donor by then, no go.
Christmas this year is difficult, I hoped last year that this Christmas we would have our longed for child or at least be pregnant. H & I love Christmas, I never had a Christmas tree growing up so when we first moved in together we went & got one & over the years have collected so many beautiful ornaments & decorations. We normally play some of our favourite Christmas music and decorate in November. Of course in November I was doing IVF & felt quite unwell, even more so than usual with the steroids they had put me on. By the time December came around I had to cope with the heart diagnosis & the fact cycle 9 had been a failure.
H & I both didn't feel in the Christmas spirit & as the family aren't coming to our house this year, we just didn't have out hearts in decorating like we normally do. This is the first Christmas in 14 years in this house together it has not been decorated. We've put out a Santa sack to put our gifts in & strung up the cards we've received and that's it. Last Friday night H & I decided that it might be nice to do one of our usual traditions, which is drive around and have a look at the houses who have won the Christmas lights contest. We got to the first house & I started to feel a bit sad seeing all the little happy smiling faces, when we got to the second house every other person had a babe in arms or was pregnant or both. I started to feel dizzy & anxious and for the first time in a very long time I had a panic attack. I just made it back to the car before bursting into tears.
I was not jealous, nor did I begrudge all those people with their beautiful families. I think I just was overwhelmed with the fear of 'what if we never get to experience that'. I had cried when I found out cycle 9 had failed & had shed some tears on & off, but that night I really let it all out & sobbed for quiet some time whilst apologising to H for being so weak (which he assured me I'm not). I woke up the next morning and felt no better, it was a similar feeling to how I've felt when someone has passed away.
As luck would have it, I happened to already have an appointment with my therapist for first thing Monday morning and I had started crying again in the waiting room. When Dr K came out to get me I joked "you can see this is off to a good start, I'm already crying in the waiting room". I had not seen Dr K since October so I explained everything that had happened and how I felt I was coping very badly.
I then got an email Tuesday from a friend who is also battling infertility, but is on a different path than I am (she's only done 1 IVF cycle) & I think her way of coping is joking about it. A few months ago she was the one I blocked from twitter when she responded to a tweet of mine that I had use of my arms & legs, a great husband, the cats & life would be fine if I didn't have a child. Maybe that's what she tells herself. But H & I both have an overwhelming, strong desire to be parents. So knowing all this I get an email from her that is a joke about being infertile at Christmas. It was set to the 12 days of Christmas but all the lines were about being infertile & not having children etc... at this time of year. I have a fantastic sense of humour, even Dr J tells me how funny I am & how much charisma I had (what a nice compliment!) but I didn't find this funny, I found it offensive & upsetting, especially coming from someone who knows what this year has been like.
Think before you email or tweet people, just because you deal with something a certain way doesn't mean other people do (& she knows we don't have the same view on this). When I mentioned a few weeks back I felt bad for Guilianna Rancic having to have a double mastectomy, her reply was "she has a great husband and plenty of money, she'll be fine". All the money & the greatest husband in the world would not take away the pain, stress & grief that dealing with something like that would cause. I responded to the 12 days of infertile Christmas email saying I know you didn't mean to upset me and you were trying to be funny, but I'm not coping very well & it made me cry. I asked her to please not send me anything like that again & she agreed & apologised.
I know it takes all sorts to make this world go round but I would not send an email like that, it was inappropriate & not really something to make a joke out of, especially knowing the year H & I have had. When I showed H & he saw the heading, he didn't even want to read it. I try to always be sensitive & in tune with others & would only send something like that if I knew the person was constantly joking about the situation & making light of it. This is were I find that IVF & infertility is quite isolating as people (even ones that are going through something similar) don't seem to understand that everyone handles things differently & that's why I have spoken to fewer & fewer people about my feelings beside H, now this blog & several of my friends I have made on twitter & some forums.
I'm not looking forward to Christmas day but I am grateful that H has some time off till mid January and we can look forward to spending some time together and maybe go out & do some fun things. I can't wait for New Years ever as I am looking forward to saying good bye to 2011 & too welcome in 2012 with lots of hope & positivity.
Good to have all that out of my head.
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