Last I left you on our chronological journey with infertility, Eric and I had our fingers and toes crossed (blog post:
Fingers and Toes crossed!) as we were about to start with our first hormone-induced IVF cycle. This was the course of action recommended by our dear doctor partly because our natural-cycle IVF was a failed attempt. My egg did not fertilize at all with Eric’s sperm, thus we did not even get to implantation day, which was quite disappointing to put it mildly. This “full steam ahead” IVF cycle was our only hope essentially mainly due to the cost. But also, the emotional toll that couples go through during reproductive assistance can be staggering. The level of sorrow and disappointment can make you wonder how you will get through each day, how you can keep trying to have hope that the next procedure will have better results. But we knew if had no hope, what was the point of trying at all? So after the tears were shed, we strapped our bootstraps on, did some more of our “Breathe to Conceive” yoga, as I continued to go to my acupuncturist for regular treatments, and eat my “preparing for baby” diet which included lots of “fertility tea” that I had discovered. Why not, right? If this was our one shot (pardon the pun), I was going to do EVERYTHING in my power to try to make it a success.
We did tell our close family and friends, as well as my band that we were going all out with the hormone-induced cycle. They were as supportive as they were able to be, but it was pretty obvious that generally speaking, people did not quite know what to say or how to support us – but we knew that they were trying, and that was helpful in and of itself. I elected not to tell my mother as she was elderly and just starting to have the effects of dementia show, and she was also dealing with her own health issues of diabetes. Also, we were not that close, and I feared what she might say, and I didn’t want anything derailing me from being hopeful and as upbeat as I was able to muster up.