"What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger"
That’s the cliche, isn’t it?
(as immortalised by Kelly Clarkson and then brilliantly ripped off by the awesome Frisky and Mannish).
So yup, if you hadn't already guessed, second round of IVF treatment – an “excellent response” according to the doctors – but still no second little line, still not pregnant, still no baby.
I guess that makes me even stronger than before, right?
In reality though...
Do I feel like a failure sometimes? Of course.
Are we going to give up? I don’t effing think so! Not just yet anyway.
(in case anyone wondered about adoption, it is something we’ve talked about (and might still do) and I thoroughly admire anyone who’s taken that road. It’s a difficult decision, there’s a helluva lot of investigations, problems, red tape and paperwork involved quite apart from the things you have to come to terms with personally – I just don’t think me or Andrew are ready to take that path yet).
Our second round of treatment left us with one positive thing though – in our little sanctuary of a fertility clinic, we have a teensy tiny microscopic little embryo that’s been cryogenically preserved at -196°C. Once you’ve had one embryo transferred back into you, if there’s any leftover that are absolutely tip-top quality, the clinic will freeze them so you can use them at a later date. The procedure for a ‘frozen embryo transfer’ is a lot less hassle, still with medication (but no needles, yay!) and about £4000 cheaper than a complete cycle starting from scratch.
So we’ve decided to give that route a go after the summer – we can both have a bit of a break, we’ve got a lot of things on over the next few months and I expect my hormones are probably shot to pieces after all the drugs anyway.
Of course, there’s always a chance that won’t work either and at some point you have to face reality. That takes some getting used to, the idea that you might be elderly and sat round the dinner table at Christmas just staring at each other. We haven’t got (or have any chance of) any nieces or nephews so it really would be just the two of us. Even if we went down the adoption route, there’s no guarantee we’d be approved or even have a child matched to us so a life without any little feet is something we may well have to think about.
You know the Disney film Up? (Of course you do, you’re all bloggers or blog-readers). We can’t watch the first 30 minutes without shedding a tear and there’s been many a time I’ve felt like Ellie in that scene with the doctor at the hospital. The one thing they do have though, is their 'Adventure Book' with all the wild and wonderful things they’d like to do.
We thought we’d put together something similar. I have a notebook I’ve been hoarding since the age of 15, just waiting to do something magical with and if we were going to let our imagination run wild, there’s a load of things we could include.
I need to sit down and take some time to cut and paste and colour in all our ideas but we’ve made a start gathering some things from magazines, leaflets and various places.
Maybe I won’t even need to finish it.
It’s just a silly harmless idea really - but it kinda helps.
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