What a Difference a Year Makes

My herculean efforts to occupy my time whilst "resting" for 72 hours following transfer led me back a year to some journal entries (pre blog) I wrote during my first IVF. In them, I analyzed each and every "symptom", waned on about how "perfect" my cycle went and concluded, wistfully and between the lines of course, that I just knew it would work. I love the smell of naivete in the morning. I say this not with bitterness or irony, but, wow, what a difference a year makes.

This cycle ended up pretty well for being such a shitty touch and go cycle. But still, it's out of my hands. No "Dr. Google" for me on this one. I know, for example, that there are no symptoms during the 2ww, regardless of what anyone says or thinks or hopes. Any symptoms you have are a direct result of the HCG, progesterone and estrogen shots (not to mention the other substances you've been pumping in your body for weeks). Your breasts are sore not because you are a world class incubator of embryos or blasts but because of the aforementioned. Though I admit to drinking raspberry leaf tea, submitting myself to acutorture and eating copious amounts of pineapple (No hardship...I love the stuff), I'm not convinced it makes a hill of beans difference. (Couple that for this 72 hour resting nonsense I'm too paranoid not to follow...well as much as I can follow any kind of advice.) Nope, regardless of whether you do or do not believe in a higher power, make no doubt about it, this one's out of your hands.

I've also found that my support needs have changed dramatically since my relationship with the dildo cam blossomed into a long term affair. Three friends total know. I told these women because, well obviously, they're good friends but really because they asked. In a supportive, but refreshingly noncloying, genuinely interested way. Though the discussions have been brief, the support has been felt. I didn't tell my mother until after my first week of stims, not because I didn't want her to know, but because I knew her support was there, gentle and nurturing, and I didn't even have to say a word to get it. No tears this cycle, despite the ups and downs, and the very real possibility that it may not be in the cards for me. (Seriously, 38 doesn't seem old, but it's ancient in egg years.)

The last time, too too many people knew. Certainly, those who knew were interested and supportive, but when it came time for the fat lady to sing, the song was too much. For me, at least. I've absorbed a lifetime of I'm sorries. I find the sympathy clings to me like a wool coat in summer, the tag on the collar reads "you are to be pitied."

Not to say that the tears won't come if this cycle goes belly up. If so, I will surely exhibit a good bit of private wound licking, why me's, life's unfairs. I will probably lose my temper at someone who asks me if I know on which aisle the radishes are sold. But I've also found that with life's greatest disappointments, acceptance comes in time and hopefully grace enters the picture too. In time. Oh, in time and if you let it.