The dreaded TWW.
In normal situations, this is the 2 weeks in between ovulation and when your period is due. It can be a long wait to see if this was the month that you are actually pregnant!
But for those of us infertiles, the TWW means a whole lot more. It means we have been in this place what feels like a thousand times before. You POAS (pee on a stick) to find out when you’re ovulating, you baby dance just at the right time (totally un-romantic), you get your hopes up and think that this is the month you have done it, then reality hits and you think that of course it will not be happening, you begin to remind yourself that it could actually happen this month, then you get your pre-period symptoms – the irrational-but-feels-rational emotions, the horrible cramps, the spotting, the everything-else-that-comes-with-being-female – and you realise yet again that it probably hasn’t happened. Then you either take a pregnancy test or Mother Nature arrives and you realise that, once again, you were a fool to believe that this was the month.
But then even more, for those of us going through IVF, the TWW has even more meaning. You have worked SO hard to get to this point; injected yourself daily, had procedures galore, lots of scans and blood tests, eaten different foods, paid out more money for different supplements and therapies like acupuncture and counselling, and for those who are not on a funded cycle, spent thousands of pounds to be here.
You go to have your precious little embryo put back inside you and that’s it. Off you go to wait, yet again, for between 10-14 days to see if this little baby has stuck around. This is the most painfully excruciating period of waiting I have ever had to endure.
Waking up everyday and praying and hoping that baby is snuggling into my uterus but knowing that the reality means he/she probably isn’t. Trying to feel for every symptom that could mean I might be pregnant but trying to stay aware that early pregnancy, the hormones I am on and my pre-period symptoms are all the same. Keeping positive when everything in me is telling me that it has failed already. Desperately trying to hold in the concoction of emotions that are whirling around my body but allowing myself the time and space to express myself and cry.
The thing that I have found the hardest about this waiting time is that there is so much expectation on this. We have put absolutely everything into this. We have worked so hard to do everything the way it should be done for it to work. We have even both had to have 4 weeks in isolation (Stupid Covid!). I have had to inject myself and completely change the person I thought I was with crazy amounts of hormones. It has been the toughest 2 weeks.
And it could all be for absolutely nothing.
We don’t even have a frozen embryo as a ‘back up’.
Back to square one.
It is currently the night before our Official Test Day and it is safe to say that I have been feeling anxious and sick the the past few days. I am terrified. What if tomorrow there is only 1 pink line? What if I have to go back to normality with nothing to show for the past 2 and a half months? What if I have to accept that this heartache is only to get bigger and deeper? And the longing for a family of our own is going to consume even more of me?
Where are we going to get the money to pay for more IVF? Will we be required to take even more time off work?
But on the other hand, what if it works? What if tomorrow we find out that there is a little baby making itself at home in my womb? What if my womb is suddenly responsible for growing the life of our very own creation? What if we are actually going to parents?
Throughout our journey, we have been really trying to remind ourselves about who we believe our God is. And we believe He is good. Whatever the result tomorrow, it might be painful, it might take us to new depths of pain we haven’t experienced before, but we will still know that God is good.
Journeying to Family 