Hello! I realized I'm overdue for an update when all of my friends started to ask me about the next steps in the process. It's been a while because until about 6 weeks post-surgery (about 2 weeks ago), there wasn't much to write about. I was improving each day, but most definitely still felt limited by the long recovery process. Then, sometime around the 6 week mark, I realized that I could bend over to tie my shoes or pick something up without feeling uncomfortable. I could suddenly scoot down in bed without pain, and, even better, I was finally able to push my dog aside in bed instead of getting up to get a cookie to bribe her to move over. Most importantly, at 7 weeks post-surgery, I was given the all-clear to start exercising again. Yay!
On one hand, having such a long recovery period means that my doctor is making sure that everything heals as it should before starting another round of IVF. On the other hand, having such a long recovery period leaves plenty of time for the negative thoughts to set back in: this is impossible, it's never going to happen, there's such a statistically low chance of success that it seems fruitless to even try again.
Interestingly (or maybe not, but I needed a transition), when we started the whole IVF process, I was warned that being around pregnant women, children, or babies would be incredibly hard emotionally, and I could protect myself by avoiding them as much as possible. That made sense to me, but as I've always been fairly good at compartmentalizing, I've been able to be happy when I learned someone was pregnant or to coo and cuddle babies without pain or jealousy. Until recently. A few weeks ago, my husband and I flew home to attend a Passover sedar at my aunt's house. It was a full house, mostly because the majority of the people in my generation (and there are a lot of us) all have at least one kid, and it was a loud dinner because most of the kids there were under three years old. Even though us cousins live all over the country, I like to think that we remain close. Through the years, we've always reached out to each other to provide support, encouragement, or congratulations when warranted (my cousins are awesome, by the way). As the oldest cousin, I remember having to eat my vegetables and drink my milk because several of my younger cousins would mimic whatever I did (hence the veggie eating). But, back to the sedar. Toward the end of the evening, almost all of the family in my generation were sitting around trading stories about potty training, sleep routines, and other child-rearing related stories. I could not be part of this conversation because they were all talking about something with which I have no experience and with which I do not think I will have experience, even though we're trying very hard to make it happen. I was not expecting to feel as bad as I did, but when we finally got back to my parents' house that evening, I cried myself to sleep. My super awesome husband was with me, and he knew there was nothing he could do to comfort me except to just be there. (For those cousins reading this, please don't change your behavior around me -- I try to keep this blog as honest as possible and I would never change a thing about spending time with you all except wishing that it was able to happen more frequently.) And since then, it's been hard. It's hard to not feel a twinge of jealously when I hear that someone is pregnant, and it's hard to look at babies and children without feeling wistful. I think the long recovery from surgery combined with two failed IVF cycles made my brain switch from "this might be possible" to "this is never going to work."
I don't want my mom (who I'm sure is reading this) to think that I've been secretly sad every time I've talked to her in the past few weeks, because that wouldn't be true. Do I get sad when I think about how unlikely it is that I'll ever be able to contribute to conversations about kids during family gatherings? Sure. But I don't dwell on that. Since coming back home from the sedar, I've been the happiest I've been since starting IVF -- hanging out with friends, attending various fun and professional events, spending time with my husband and puppy, exercising, and working my butt off as my business grows. So mom, don't worry. I'm okay.
And, I was finally able to set the IVF start date for the third and last pre-paid cycle, so in about 4 weeks, assuming the post-surgery scans look good (I find out at my IVF start appointment), I'll be back to injecting myself with multiple hormones twice a day for 14ish days and intermittently driving to Tallahassee and Jacksonville for scans. Fun fact: I delayed the start date by a week so the egg retrieval wouldn't interfere with our tickets to see Hamilton in Atlanta at the end of May. Everyone has their priorities, right?