Bitter sweet

We should have been given a scan photo today of our embryos implanted safely. We should have come out and rested, wishing and hoping for the embryos to stick! Wishing that this time they would stick in the right places! We should have been filled with hope today. Embarking on our two week wait again with optimism that this time it would work out.

Instead we are staying at home helping to save lives (a crazy statement I never thought I would write). Rallying around our elderly neighbours, supporting our vulnerable. Our IVF cancelled due to the pandemic. A decision we did not make for ourselves but a decision we understand even if it is so bitter sweet.

The cots still lay there with their beautiful bedding, waiting for the day that they get to cradle alive baby or babies! The nursery a sea of colour for our expected bundles of joy. A book shelf with babies first books which holds instead the book “how much do I love you”. The book that came in the memorial box given to parents who don’t get to take their babies home. A play mat under their cot that they didn’t get to lie on. Two hearts as empty as the cots!

At my age i worry as I sit on the nursing chair (just now and then) that time is against me. I know you have just pictured me as a crying mess, eyes all blotchy and swollen, with a very red face! I am not that person but could easily be as after all I am human and there is no shame in being that crying woman that sits there hugging the outfits my babies never got to wear. After all we all grieve in different ways and there really is no right or wrong way. It’s about survival, managing and coping. I marvel at the men and women I come across that have dealt with the loss of their baby/babies, their infertility or their IVF journey.

I look around our beautiful nursery and a tear escapes. Fear and sadness intrudes in that we may not get the chance to become parents to babies we bring home due to a pandemic out of our control. Age is against us and no one knows how long this virus will be around or the implications on pregnancy. The hope and optimism could so easily become lost in the fear of losing our chance. Yet we refuse to break down the cot, part with the changing table, nursing chair or baby products. We are not ready to give up yet. We will not lose all hope just yet.

Somewhere inside our hearts we keep the hope for each other. Somewhere we know that what will be, will be. That we will be just fine. When you have lost babies you gain a strength you didn’t know you had. You face the world a very different way. You’ve faced the unthinkable of losing your child. We continue together to face whatever the world has to throw at us next. And if that is a life without living children then I know that we will be just fine together. We will embrace our lives and live every moment.

Of course we wish that our future is one with babies. We have a lot of love to give but we are at peace for now with what we can’t control. It’s a difficult place to be but right now with a world where you can’t attend your loved ones funeral we feel we need to count our blessings and hold onto the good we have. In a world where people are missing out on seeing their loved ones or watching their grandchildren grow we count our blessings again.

Stay safe little embryos and maybe one day we will meet again!!!