Bruised

It’s the day before transfer and somehow we have made it this far. My belly is bruised, my anxiety has been through the roof and my need to be supported has not gone to plan.

I keep telling myself that Neil and I have no control over what is going to happen but the truth is we can help ourselves. We can’t make Mother Nature be kind or the embryos stick but we can be kind to ourselves.

A happy home environment with limited stress and lots of love would be the ideal environment to remain positive and calm. The two week wait that people talk about is often the hardest part of the journey.

We have no control over what happens next or if we get a positive, what happens through the pregnancy. We won’t know how to deal with a negative until we face that situation. We can only try to keep being healthy, stay relaxed, calm and positive.

I have to tell myself that the floor does not NEED to be swept or if it does then someone else can do it. I also have to be thankful that it’s been done even if it’s not how I would do it.

I must rely on the people around me to show me support, understanding and love. I must not feel guilty for it being about me for a change. I don’t have to be there for everyone, I am allowed to be selfish for a little while. It’s ok to stay in my family home and not rush around for others.

I hope that I can achieve this so that I don’t look back with what ifs or guilt. I hope that I don’t look back and think I should have done things differently. I hope that I don’t regret anything.

I know many people around us have not experienced what Neil and I have as many nurses have said or pointed out to us with kindness. I can’t expect people to truly understand our situation or just how demanding IVF can be.

I often say that it is all relative. For someone the situation they are going through can be the worst situation in the world. Kindness is understanding that for that person there world is tough no matter how insignificant their problems might appear to others.

However what I find is that sometimes it takes life to get to a certain point for other situations to happen for us to look back and reflect that the moment we thought was tough then is not as tough as this moment now.

Watching my mother live with cancer and fade away slowly each day then ultimately die before me was horrendous. Not having my mum here now when no matter what age you are you always want your mum is tough. I thought her death would be the hardest part but actually it’s the hole in your heart when you want to pick up the phone or be embraced by her hug but you can’t. It’s living without her that is so hard.

We gain strength and resilience from every situation that we encounter. My mum taught me about grief and loss but not the grief and loss of our babies. It is a very different grief.

What my mum taught me though was that I will have difficult days but I will learn how to mange a life without her no matter how unfair and heartbreaking this can feel.

I thought nothing was going to be as tough as cremating our babies and then we found out that not cremating your babies and having them thrown on a pile of body parts to be incinerated was another situation we were going to have to learn to live with. It was another time we had to find new coping tools.

I look back to when I was 16/17 years of age and think about my experiences then and how others would consider them to be horrendous and traumatic. They were at the time and I had to go through counselling due to the trauma so I won’t belittle those experiences.

I was young to face the experiences I did and being younger I didn’t have so many tools in my bag to deal with the situation. Now as a 40 year old my experiences have been excruciating and life changing.

I don’t view the world in the same way I did when I was 16/17 but I do have more tools in my bag. I just wish that with age and experience I could find the right tool at the right time.

I feel that some of my life experiences have bruised me but over the past two years I’ve learnt that some bruises heal and others leave a scar and alter the way you look. I might have believed that when I was younger (as I said things are relative) but upon reflection I see that the world can get tougher, the experiences can get more complex.

These scars become a part of you and you learn to live with them even if it’s not always easy. The older you become the more coping strategies you have in your bag but it’s ok to admit that somethings in life are just to tough to ever recover fully from.

So right now feeling bruised, scarred and fragile I’m going to be kind to myself. I’m going to look after me and I’m going to surround myself with the positive network of family and friends I have. I am going to try and let negativity wash over me (even if it is my own negative thoughts).

I am going to protect myself in my safe bubble and will not allow outside factors to destroy my soul, my well being or my heart.

I’m going to allow myself to laugh, sing, cry, shout, smile or do whatever it is I need to do right now to survive this emotional rollercoaster that is trying to conceive and loss.