My IVF attempt was sacred to me. It was like the ultimate fishing net I had cast in the ocean in the hope of a catch.
When I had my embryo transfer back in 2008, in my lone IVF/ICSI cycle, they gave me a pic...of three embabies supposedly nestled in my uterus. I kept that picture in my bag. The attempt 'failed'...in fact, for a while, and sometimes now too, I consider it a miscarriage.
If you read my posts from after the episode, that word has figured in the text. The status of the outcome of that procedure was always suspect in my mind. And because I like to trust my instincts, I have accepted the dubiousness of it. When I am all rational, I label it implantation failure. Otherwise, it is a 'maybe' in my mind.
Anyways, after the failure, I would randomly pop out that singular picture of the embryos that was in my bag. My bags changed, the picture remained. Initially, the reason was 'oh my bleeding heart', and then it somehow became a default.
Then the picture began to fade.
The picture is no more there in my bag. The picture is there in my mind.
I was nursing Figlia today when I thought of the picture and how religious I had been about preserving it.
I think the reference came to my mind, because someone from the clinic has been a subject of dialogue between my mum and me for the past couple of days.
And suddenly, I feel better. I feel better to have shrugged off a weight on my shoulders.
I am happy to have left that cloak of disappointment behind. I am glad that I did not have to heed to the offhand remarks that were made, that in a way, my own beliefs about my body were reaffirmed.
Everything that happened actually swam back on the surface. I was told that why I did not conceive was my weight. Oh wow. Well, to tell you the truth...I am not obese...I am definitely overweight, and am bottom heavy. I was told this repeatedly, but I did not really believe that to be a primary driver - maybe secondary, but not primary.
One of the things my then-doctor asked me to consider post-outcome was using donor eggs - this was completely wth for me...there has to be definite basis for such a recommendation. I have so far not come across any donor egg blog where the author hasn't mulled over the loss of genetic connection with the child...I was mentally not prepared to even consider it.
Today I am here...and today I have travelled from that far of give-up-your-beliefs to arrive to this point.
I am lucky. This is lucky.
Lucky indeed.
ReplyDeletexxx
If luck was dished out on a merit based, the world would be a just place.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, the world is far from just.
But when you get lucky, the world is a better place.
I am happy for you and your luck. Sometimes good things happen to good people as well.
Every now and then we think back to our little group of frozen embryos from back in 2008, how loved they were, how my husband would wave to them (their building) on the way to and from work every day. How when we moved we hated being over a thousand kms away from them. They were our real children in our mind, in our hearts.
ReplyDeleteFor a long time, even mildly now, when they were born, now that they are here and alive, and watching elmo, it feels like some distant war, a memory that is both distant and not distant at the same time.
(
For me, it's like a background noise - it never really goes away, but the sounds of life mostly drown it out.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you have been so lucky...
I have a couple of small memorial-type things that commemorate my lost ones. They will always be important to me on some level, but I don't cling to them as I used to. As areyoukiddingme said, it's like background noise, there but not as prominent as it once was.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I don't often think in terms of luck, I think it's important to recognize our blessings. And we have been blessed.
So happy that you didn't have to grieve that loss as well. So lucky.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written as usual.
ReplyDeletexoxo