Girding my loins

I just don't seem to be bouncing back from this IVF as quickly as I did previously. I think it's because I'm finally facing reality that I might never have a child that is biologically related to me. And because I'd got my hopes up with my good quality embryo and then the faint lines on Accuclear.

The tears continue to leak out at odd moments. I continue to catch my breath at a possible child-less future. I allow myself to stare into that loneliness and try it on for size.

But, slowly, slowly I can feel hope start to creep back in. I am trying to do lots of positive thinking and visualizations, and I don't feel despair any more when I tell myself that there's no reason to believe that I can't produce a good quality egg. I know that there is still a chance. So that is what I am hanging on to now. It may not be as good as visualizing that all my eggs are great quality and that I'll get 12 perfect embryos next time, but it's as good as I can get right now. The thought that I can produce a good quality egg if conditions are right.

I am trying to control my food intake though. I have noticed that, although I thought I bounced back emotionally from the previous IVF failures, I definitely sought refuge in comfort food for a lot longer amount of time. So clearly there was some unprocessed emotion going on. This time, I want to try to control my blood sugar and my alcohol intake. I am wondering if blood sugar can affect egg quality - if I am ingesting a lot of ice cream, cookies, cake and chocolate, perhaps that is not helping. I found one study about blood sugar levels in non-PCOS women being a predictor of IVF success. So that's my plan for this time - get on Weight Watchers to monitor portion sizes, be stricter about only eating healthy food, and don't get smashed at all before the next cycle. I'm allowing myself a glass or two of wine on any day that I feel the need, but definitely want to keep it to two glasses maximum on any one day. I forced myself onto the scale today, and it was not good. I now need to lose 28 lbs to get back to being a normal weight for my height. Or 48 lbs to get to my ideal weight. Sigh. But, hopefully I will be able to force myself to go to the WW meeting on Saturday so I can start getting serious about not cheating.

I'm actually looking forward to my IVF consultation, which is a nice change, as up to now I was dreading it, so that's good. I still haven't called about a second opinion, as I still can't decide on which clinic to go with, so I think I'll wait until after I've discussed the whole thing with my RE.

P.S. (edited to add) I bought the camera! Having discussed it with my buddies at work, I decided that I didn't want to spend the extra cash on a printer right now, especially as I should be saving for the next IVF but I could use the gift cards to pay for camera accessories that I will need, like a 1GB memory card, more batteries, and a travel case. And buy the camera from the cheap internet place. Yay! So, coming soon to this blog - pictures! We're moving up in the world.