Six months and one IVF cycle later

I just reread my first two posts today after having been away from my blog for so long that I had forgotten my user name and password. It was interesting rereading my first post, a good reminder of how I am because the last six months have been pretty up and down. I managed to keep to the average of 5 days a week at the gym until the end of March, when I did my first round of IVF. Between the hormone stimulation, travel, and my doctor's instructions, I began a three week hiatus that turned into a seven week lapse. The IVF cycle - about which I had ambivalence but convinced myself would be the solution to my problem - was unsuccessful. Well by that I mean that I produced a number of good quality eggs and three excellent quality embryos but neither of the two that we transfered took. And the hormones they put you on to support the potential pregnancy mimic symptoms of pregnancy. So I convinced myself I was pregnant and was devastated when I wasn't. I used the excuse of travel and work to avoid taking care of myself after I got the negative results.

But here's the thing, the silver lining as it were. One of the things I was most afraid of was that I would be get pregnant with twins. As a single woman who is not independantly wealthy and currently lives in excess of 300 miles from my family, the possibility of being pregnant with twins was terrifying. Now I have one embryo frozen which means I can try again, without having to go through all the stimulation, and if it is successful, I don't have to worry as much about twins (there is still the chance as with any pregnancy that it could split into identicals). I still have to worry about all the other things that one has to worry about as an older woman, but that is one thing I can feel less anxious about.

Before I move forward with the frozen embryo transfer (FET), I am trying to bring even more of my health and body into balance. The IVF cycle really threw things off for me. I have also been aware for awhile of a sense that there is more blocking the pregnancy than just endometriosis and working with frozen sperm. I've felt a sense of being too full of regret, of disappointment, of a sense of being punished for something I can't even remember having done. I've been full of sadness and disappointment that I haven't found a partner with whom to pursue becoming parents together. A sense that I am going after this to make a change in my life and heal and fill something that is missing instead of healing first and then pursuing the pregnancy. I've ignored that sense sometimes or convinced myself that lots of single women feel this way and that it doesn't matter. But now with the possibility of doing FET, I suddenly recommited to wanting it to work and more than that, I recognized that this whole process of pursuing pregnancy has led me to taking on and doing things to heal myself that I had been putting off for years. The acupuncture, the leadership and self-expression courses, the recommiting to healthy eating and lifestyle. All things I have been saying I wanted to do but not doing. I am starting to realize that this path I have chosen to follow is giving me the courage and determination to give to myself in a way I haven't been willing or able to do in years.

I have decided to jetison the TV and the microwave. I'm working towards getting back to a mostly wheat, white sugar, white rice, and white potatoe, dairy free diet. I've given up alcohal except for the occasional glass of wine. And I'm singing again. All these things which I have had in my life that have been good for me and that I'd given up, I'm working to bringing back. And yesterday, working with one of the healers I have added to my life, I realized that when I started it was all about doing it to get pregnant. I can recall being angry with my acupuncturist after the last IUI and then IVF failed because I thought - this is what I am coming here for and if it isn't making a difference then why am I spending all this money. But I realize now that while the desire for pregnancy has been the motivating factor in many of the changes I have made in my life over the past year, it can't be the reason. The changes have to be about taking care of me, healing me, strengthening me. For them to be real and sustainable changes, I have to realize that I am worth it just for me. Doing them may make it easier and more likely that I will be able to conceive, but they will certainly make my life more worth living. I will be awake and alive in a way I haven't been for years. I can recognize that the pain and disappointment I've been carrying for all these years, has had me sleep walking through my life. Not fully convinced that I wanted to be here and looking for someone or something to "save" me, redeem me, fix me. Yes of course I've had moments even extended moments when I have been more awake and more connected to my purpose and my passion. But for the past five, possibly ten years, I've been mostly trying to get through, to survive.

I feel I'm waking now, shedding the things that have been poisoning me and more ready to be alive. I know it is a process and even as I write this, there is the voice in my head warning me not to publish it, not to share this post, because I will look like an ass when I revert back to old patterns. I hear that voice and I am aware of the past and the shame that keeps me thinking that I need to continue to hide until I have it all perfect and fully in place. But I know that nothing is perfect or immutable. That integrity has room for screwing up - the key is to take responsibility for my actions to hold myself acountable so that I can clean up whatever places where I've messed up and then let it go and move on. I'm learning to believe that, to be that, and thus to have more compassion and love for myself. And I'm aware that if I don't love myself, I won't have room to truly love and nourish and respect a child. So that's a synopsis of the last six months of my roller coaster ride in life. I hope to be writing here more regularly, now.

I am finally getting back into it now with renewed commitment to myself.