When I look back at some of my older posts from this year, I realize that around the middle of the year, I was very angsty. That was in part because we had pent-up hopes for our FET and it failed. But, the other reason was that, the year was passing so fast.
It is now August, soon to be September. We began the stim round that led to our FET in March, so it wouldn't be a stretch to say that we've spent the whole of this year, trying to get pregnant. (Which is how we spent the last two years, as well). But our failure to do so horrified me in June. I think I was just not able to handle that we wouldn't get pregnant this year. That depressed me, to be honest.
It especially bothered me around my birthday in May and all the way up to July. I couldn't believe I'd be marking another year of trying so hard with nothing to show for it. It was additionally frustrating to just feel closer but so far, whilst everyone else around me seems to have conceived and given birth in the same year. That's what it felt like.
At this point, I have to say, I seemed to have let that go. I don't mean that I've become less hypersensitive about time, age and babies. I don't think that's possible. It doesn't mean that I am ready to embrace adoption, if we could get a baby now I know I'd be unprepared. But I have let go of the idea of us having a baby this year. Or for that matter, next year. Not soon doesn't mean never. I believe we will be parents eventually, some way. I will try my darndest to get there, but it doesn't feel like a pain in my side.
I'm not sure if this is just part of responding differently to the tangible process of IVF and the whole state of infertility. Maybe with enough time, you just stop asking yourself those questions that have no reasons (like, why did she get Twins from two embryos put back, why were hers good enough and mine not). With more space from having to care about the timelines and deadlines of IVF, you stop thinking about challenges you can't handle and can't seem to find any progress in.
Right now, maybe I feel like I'm not giving anything to the fight, and it's not taking anything away from me, so I can be a healthy, happy, ambitious person. I can acknowledge what is happening, painfully, privately and sincerely, and then I enjoy the rest of my life — cook a huge meal, go out running, finish my work that's been lying around. I can feel productive, exhaust myself flat-out, choose my company and it all feels great.
Today my dad asked me, a bit out of the blue, what if this doesn't work, had I thought about that. "This" means IVF, here, overseas, with or without donor etc. I replied that I had, I guess I would take a long break to disassociate from being tired, from caring, from cycles, from chasing this for so many years, before approaching adoption maybe 1 month, 6 months or 2 years later.
When I thought about it later, I wanted to say that I would love to move away, that maybe it'd help to be anywhere but here, to face anything but the sameness that has been our situation for so long. And that was my reflective still-in-trenches-of-IF thought for today.
I know this state is temporary, fleeting and precious. I know this will change, if and when we are in a new cycle. The self-doubts, the worry, the compromises and heartbreaks over deadlines and outcomes and risks, the stresses that other people and the process create for you, when you are trying to maintain your emotional balance, they have a wonderful and depressive way of making you feel 42 instead of 22. But right now, I'm feeling ok and on an even keel.
I've stopped updating most people about what we've been up to or where we are in cycles, in part because I myself have been feeling free of those concerns and in part because I no longer feel like sharing and burdening other people. One of my best friends, for example, has just delivered her third, a beautiful perfect little boy. She is, half the time, delirious with lack of sleep from her three children, trying to pump milk and discipline the older ones — what point would there be to telling her the minutiae of my life, especially right now when really, what would I expect her to think or to say?
Most of my posts of late therefore, as you would have noticed, have gravitated toward information gathering and resources that I objectively think would help other women or myself think through different issues and options. We're also working hard on a Singaporean support network resource and community for women experiencing difficulties with fertility, more on that to come as we get our act together!
