Happy 4th!

I have no plans today, deliberately. Y'see, I'm trying to do that whole healthy eating, no booze thing, and it's so freakin' hard if you actually do anything social to stick to that. So I've dropped vague hints and lies that I have plans so as not to sign myself up for any barbecues. Pathetic, I know, and an infertile should try not to retreat into her shell but I'd rather keep myself on an even keel before my cycle. And besides, all barbecues have other people's kids at them, which probably would be a painful reminder of what I don't have. I'm sure my therapist would have a field day over this, but whatever. Self preservation is needed at the moment.

Things are looking good so far for this cycle. I had major omelet yesterday evening and this morning, so am hoping for a nice on time +OPK, which will mean that my travel plans won't need rearranging (hopefully). I have to say, though, that it is really nice that in the last six months I've had EWCM regularly and in good amounts. I used to be so jealous of the women that got omelet, as I could never tell, and hardly ever had real positive OPKs either, making IUI timing very difficult. In fact, I missed having an IUI two cycles because I misread the signs and ovulated early. So at least the acupuncture or something I've been doing has had an effect on that.

I'm even managing to keep the positive thinking going so far, although somewhat surprisingly to me, I've had a major shift in thinking over the past two days. It's quite weird. If I were a flaky spiritual type, I might say it's a "sign" but I'm just going to go with "painful realization". See, I always wanted twins. Ever since I was a kid. I had best friends at one point who were identical twins, and it was so fun being in on the jokes, fooling people about who was who (I could tell easily), and seeing that whole constant friend and companion thing. I wanted that for my kids. And then when I moved to IVF, I was secretly happy on one level, because I thought this would mean definite twins. Not identical probably, but twins nevertheless. And then after failing an IVF, and then failing another IVF and then another I started thinking that if I succeeded, I was not going to do another fresh IVF because I just could not face (or afford) going through this again. So I kept thinking that it'd better be twins, otherwise I'd end up with an "only" unless I was lucky enough to get frozen embryos and have a successful FET. Ha, right. So, twins, twins, twins. That's what I wanted. That's what I focused on. Sure, I knew that twin pregnancies were much higher risk, that it was damn expensive having twins, that it would be harder on me and them in so many respects. But I didn't care. Of course, I would have been thrilled to just get and stay pregnant. I told everyone I'd be thrilled with one OR two but I knew that inside I'd be disappointed if it was only one. Because then I couldn't just be DONE with trying to add to my family.

And then suddenly a few days ago, I started desperately wanting a singleton pregnancy. I just don't think I have the energy to deal with a twin pregnancy or parenting twins. I just don't think I have the money. I want a normal pregnancy and birth. I don't want complications - I've had enough damn complications with actually getting pregnant that I just want to be normal again. I don't want people staring all the time, and saying "look, twins!" and worse. I want to be able to focus on one baby at a time. I want that baby to have the best chance in life, and not risk their health with a higher chance of prematurity and other things going wrong.

And I'm at peace with it. All of a sudden. All of a sudden, a singleton is my goal and twins would be welcome but not the aim. Not that this means I'd transfer any fewer embryos. After all, I've transferred 3, 4 and 3 (had to go back down to 3 because that's all I had) and not had any stick. If Big Clinic allows me to transfer 4, which I think they will, and if I have 4, I'm going for it. But mentally I will be focusing on thinking "stick, baby, stick" rather than "stick two babies, or one baby that's OK too, stick". It will hopefully be easier to chant to myself and easier to maintain focus. It just seems weird to me now that I know that, and I don't even know what caused me to start thinking this way.