<a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> for me it was all about setting personal goals to strive for, it was the only thing that kept me sane in amongst the minefield of failure and disappointment you find on the internet whilst desperately searching for any guarantee that you won’t have to endure the torture for long. I told myself to think positive even when I was sure it hadn’t worked, encouraged myself to feel my eggs growing and yet each ache or pain was a new egg maturing and preparing for ‘harvest’.

I read <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> success blogs whilst assuring myself that we will be a first round success story despite the overwhelming odds stacked against us. <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> is hard and it’s something only other <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> survivors (be it the IVFers who are blessed with children or the IVFers who don’t) will understand, you spend your days politely finding excuses or reasons to give to people when they ask you when you will be extending your family, your heart breaks in an indescribable jealous rage with each pregnancy announcement and your Google search history will forever pre-fill the words - first, round, <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a>, success and pregnancy symptoms. From the moment our fertility specialist uttered the words ‘<a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> is your only option’ we instantly became a societal taboo.

Being labelled as an <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> couple in the ‘whoops I am pregnant’ society of today is difficult, from the moment I shared our experience and incredible pregnancy with friends the verbal diarrhoea of ‘accidental pregnancies, my babies were free’ comments soon followed and although the faces of the narrators soon dropped when they realised what they had said, the hurt they had already accidently unleashed had taken its toll. Nothing about <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> is easy.

THE DRUGS - The hormones are a new and un explored realm of both your psyche and your body, they CAN hurt to administer yet the mental anguish they unleash it worse. When you get any sensation in your abdomen you are instantly sure it is your’little eggs’ eagerly growing followed by an overwhelming fear that it’s all in your head. You spend the days leading to your ‘progress’ scan googling success stories for women that have only managed a mere few eggs at a collection (this in itself is something to be proud of) for fear that you will have nothing come collection day. You fear your ovulating early despite knowing your body is full of drugs to prevent it..... It’s a minefield of distress, excitement, trepidation and overwhelming fear of ‘what if’s’ fuelled by Dr Google.

THE HARVEST – No I am not referring to the exciting point each year that the wine growers begin to pick and brew your favourite wines, I am referring to the painful process of removing eggs from the ovary. On the day of my egg collection I was scared, Id had two surgeries within the 6 months prior removing my tubes and effectively declaring me ‘medically infertile’ yet the egg collection was scarier on a deeper and increasingly vulnerable human level. 3 days before I had been scanned and told I had 11 eggs on board, the days of headaches, hot flashes and painful injection sites had resulted in 11 beautifully little darlings sitting pretty in my ovaries ripe for the picking but who could be sure they were truly ready? Seeds of fertility doubt had been planted and the weeds were taking over. I entered the room with 11 partial future babies on board, frightened of the future where the reality may be a family of two and awoke an Embryo mother of 16. For days I had a seemingly taunting swollen belly resembling that of a successful pregnancy along with personal tormenting tummy rubs envisioning how it would feel to be pregnant. The days of awaiting progress phone calls dragged on like months to years yet I continued to echo in my mind at 2am when my mind was alight with fear and doubt that ‘this will work’.

IMPLANTATION – The day following the ‘Harvest; the embryologist called with a fertilisation rate, a number you will google for averages and unfortunately compare to your own because despite common sense you are sure that this is indicative of success. Some couples will have no successful fertilisation while others will have 90% or more, no matter the rate of success you will still wonder if someone out there managed higher numbers. For us we were lucky, 14 of our eggs fertilised, 11 made it to day 3 and at that stage only 2 had fragmented to the point of suggesting a ‘chromosomal abnormality’

‘I can’t help but wonder if we will feel any different after the transfer, will we feel or act any different? Will I touch my belly more as if there was a little one growing? Will rubbing my tummy add to the excitement? It will be the most pregnant we have ever been and it’s amazing’

PUPO – PREGNANT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE – For all you go through prior to transfer this day will weigh the heaviest in your mind. ‘Regular’ TTC couples will never know the day the egg and sperm meet, the ‘soon to be mum’ won’t see her embryo sitting pretty in her uterus and she certainly won’t be afraid to wee incase she’ flushes it out’. You may leave your clinic optimistic and sure you are PUPO or leave disheartened and preparing for the worst, the only thing I urge you to be sure of is your ability to <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android.nurture">nurture</a> and grow that baby. Some women may not ever successfully conceive and although I empathise with each and every one I will never truly understand the anguish they endure so from the moment we entered the room all I told myself was ‘If you can, you will and you’ll do a bloody good job of it’.

Infertility is a seemingly taboo subject; people will shuffle uncomfortably when you tell them your ‘infertile’, pregnancy announcements may be censored for your benefit or worse you may be left out of the joy all together for fear of hurting your feelings. You may be told or may read horrible, selfish, painfully pathetic opinions of groups claiming that ‘god’ has declared you unfit for children and thus infertile so the scientific breakthrough of <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> is blasphemous – to this unwarranted and entirely incorrect statement I have but one answer – Your god, deity, higher universal being cannot deny that my baby is a miracle. She was once impossible and now is. That is the very definition of miracle, your gods work entirely in miracles and the process of <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> is a powerful test of faith that in itself is powerful enough to drive the human race. I sat doe eyed and 6 months pregnant at my work station while a lady 50 years older than me described how I had gone against gods work – he had never planned for me to have children and I had gone against his will. Be strong. This is your life no one else’s. If <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> is your option you take hold of your opportunity with both hands and embrace the scientific breakthrough that at least gives you a glimmer of hope.

Im mindful that there will be women or men out there reading this who are starting or in the middle of their fertility journey. You may be rubbing your belly hoping one day there will be a baby in there, warming a wheat bag for your partner as she struggles through egg collection pain or sufferinjg through your first unsuccessful cycle, to you all I can say is - YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Your fertility journey is individual to you yet an increasingly shared burden. I had hoped for nothing more than a caring friend to say they had been there and they understood – well we have been there, we understand and we are rooting for you. You can do it.