Categories: to-be-categorised
Tags: explanations, Marmite, IVF, injections, hope, two week wait, God
Date: 15 November 2009 09:00:02
*Disclaimer - this post was not written this morning, I am deliberately posting these entries on different dates so that I can be fully open about this IVF stuff without people knowing exactly what is happening when. It's a self preservation thing, with all of the injected hormones I become a bit of an emotional wreck, and am saving myself the pressure of people curious to know outcomes before I'm ready to tell.
You might think that the two week wait is a bit of a misnomer, surely there are better things to do than wait, even metaphorically, for a whole fortnight. Except it has gained it's name because that's exactly what it is. There is very little I can do to help things happen. I can keep up with my pills and injections, not drink alcohol or caffeine, not lift anything heavy, and a million other bits, but the main thing I have to do is wait. And try not to obsess.
The likelihood of any symptom of pregnancy hitting in before the day of the test is low, and even lower is the chance of me correctly recognising it. The amount of extra hormones I've been taking means that my body is all over the place in those terms anyway. I had morning sickness well before the embryos were transferred, and have felt bloated all the way through, and as for food cravings, anything salty especially Marmite and anchovies has been for the win for a few weeks now.
But all we can do is wait. I was never good at waiting. It's so so frustrating, trying not to get our hopes up too high, but not being so cynical about our chances that negative thinking gets in the way. And it's like all those many many times before, hoping that my period won't come, knowing that it probably will, and trying not to think about it, but with something this big, that takes over this much of your life, what else is there to think about?
It always strikes me at this point that even with all the advances to modern science, most of this process is left to God. Yes I took injections to control my hormones and release the eggs at the right time, but God made the eggs, and the hormones that reacted at the right time. Yes the embryos were made in a petri-dish (no, it was never a test tube, test tube babies are a misnomer), but God alone knows how to fuse the eggs and sperm and make those potential bundles of life. Yes, the embryos were treated with lasers, but hatched by God, and finally transferred back into my womb where God, if he so chooses can help them to implant (about a couple of days ago if it happened), and grow. The medications I am taking might help to support it, but God alone can make life.
This was made even clearer last night when the injection went a bit wrong and we reckon between a quarter and half of the fluid leaked straight back out of the injection site. We called the out of hours hotline to the consultant in a complete panic, his response was that we should do whatever we were comfortable with, another injection of a whole or half an ampoule, or leave it and do tomorrow's injection as normal, basically we could do the injection every other day and it would still have the same effect. A lot of this 'hard science' is just guesswork, and we just have to trust that the clinic are working towards a common good, after all they have their statistics to think of as well as our happiness. Needless to say we took the option of leaving it until tonight for the next injection, one buttock stabbing per night is quite enough for me thanks. :)