Before I go any further, lemme just say that this is one of the most emotional blog posts I’ve ever written.
It took me three days to write it because my emotions were all over the place.
I recently watched a video on YouTube that got me whipping out the waterworks and it was silly but great. Something her husband said gave me the title of this post and it’s amazing because women really are strong people. Going through something this sensitive, watching it fail every single time can be tormenting. Don’t get me wrong, the men get really emotional too but you need to understand that the bulk of this process falls on the woman.
So it hurts a thousand times when it fails because you think of all that stress and you tell yourself that it’s for a greater good. That holding your baby/babies will be worth it. You see a lot of mothers on the streets and you feel this tingly sensation because you know it’s going to be you soon. During the process it feels like every woman you see is ready to pop and it’s exciting because it’s going to happen for you. Then it doesn’t.
Ever since we met, Liebhaber and I have always wanted to be parents. The dream of having our legacy live after us, little human beings we created walking the earth and doing great things. We even picked out names already for our twin boy and girl.
So you can imagine how crazy sad it was for us when the first ivf treatment was unsuccessful.
Then we tried a second time and well, that didn’t go so well. I was mad, I was angry, I was sad and I was totally upset but with good reasons.
So we decided to wait a while before trying again and the timing seemed perfect. We both got the same vacation dates and we could easily make appointments without worrying about giving excuses at work. The new clinic was amazing(even though the doc started out seeming not very friendly) and so professional it was really perfect.
For anyone who has done ivf, you know that the two weeks wait is even more stressful than all that injecting and pills popping adventures. I prayed harder than I ever had, I held on strong to the little faith, I even borrowed faith from both my sis and Liebhaber and I was OK.
So you can imagine how distraught I was when we got the result and it was negative. I was heartbroken and had the worst headache for hours. Plus that short panic attack before I was able to fall asleep.
I was so sure this was it. I felt all the symptoms of being pregnant (hey Google!) heavy boobies, constant urge to pee, nausea, heavy urge to eat every minute. Plus my period was late by six days so what else is a woman to think but buns baking nicely.
I obsessed about this third treatment. I stopped drinking anything cold, I stopped drinking soda and I stayed clear of smokers as much as I could. I obsessed about foods and I would booze ijebu garri then get scared that it may not be good for the baby. But then I remember all the women in villages who have nothing but garri to eat and they go on to have healthy babies. I stalked Google, I visited ivf blogs and read old posts hundred times. It was crazy.
I mean I kept asking myself why this happened to us. I hear stories about people who had to go through the process six to ten times before it worked and that scared me shitless.
I don’t want to be having my first baby at 40. That scares me to even think like that. The Youtube Video I watched got me feeling so guilty and ungrateful.
The lady had ten eggs retrieved and in the end only one was transferred and I remember how excited she was at the one that survived. She got pregnant just incase you need some good news!
But anyways back to my guilt. We had eight eggs retrieved and I was devastated when the doc said four died a few days later and on transfer day, we got the news that just the two survived so no freezing was going to happen.
Watching that video and comparing our different reactions made me realize how ungrateful I was and that got me thinking about all the people who went through this process so many times before it worked.
I was yelling and screaming about how much money we would have to save. Lemme digress a bit. The Krankenversicherung in Deutschland pays 75% of the ivf cost and you get three trials. When all three fail, you have to start paying everything on your own.
So I imagined the people who had to do this so many times and pay on their own and I figured my ungrateful self needed to get my act together and stop feeling sorry for myself.
Now to save for the next trial, we would have to give up a load of stuff. Well I would have to give up a load of stuff more than Liebhaber and that may be hard but we need our miracles so we will be fine.
So our vacation is over and it’s back to work and starting on our hard core saving so we can begin our self paying ivf treatments.
It’s going to be hard I know and I’m counting on our feelings for each other to help us with this.
There is nothing I want more than to be a mother and I know how much being a dad will mean to Liebhaber, but we have a lot of obligations and I hope they don’t get in the way of our plans for a family.
Writing this post made me understand that I truly need to look at things on the bright side. People are losing their mums to cancer or strange deaths and I’m here grumbling about failed ivfs and having to self pay for the next trial.
Yes this is my sad and I am allowed to wallow in it. But at the same time, we get to wake up every day, we get to do regular things and we have love, we have family. We have each other and I’m crazy in love with the man I always dreamed about since I began reading romance novels. What could be better right? OK a kid or three will fit in nicely but until then, ‘we gon save our butts off’.
Any one of you ever tried ivf or know someone who did?
