Friday, July 28, 2006

Pesky Hope

I am waiting for my period to arrive on Sunday so that I can start the birth control pills for my first IVF cycle. Despite the odds, I've been praying that my period won't come, and somehow I'll be pregnant and this whole nightmare will be over before it even really starts. I even dreamed last night that I took a pregnancy test in the middle of the night and it was positive. I've been keeping these thoughts to myself, but H admitted today that he has been hoping for the same thing. It's ridiculous. I KNOW I'm not pregnant. But still I hope.

And I know I will hope even more fervently during the IVF cycle. How helpful really is hope? If I get my hopes up too high, I'm afraid it will make it even harder for me to go through cycles 3 and 4 or however many it will take before this is over. Is it easier to just abandon hope and expect failure--that way you can't be disappointed when things don't work out? I've read so much that says positive thinking helps the body; but destroyed hope seems to do an equal amount of damage. I'm aiming for realism, but let's be honest--in high school, I was voted "Most Optimistic." Yes, it was a real category. And I have lived my life optimistically.

H and I have been so lucky. We found each other and fell in love at an early age, while so many of our friends struggled with loneliness and breakups. We have a beautiful home in a great neighborhood that we were lucky to afford before prices shot up too high. We each are extremely successful in our careers and make enough money to easily support children. We have no debt other than the house and our cars, and our health, up until now, has been fine. With all of these great things going for us, we often would admit to each other that we were "waiting for the other shoe to drop." We both had this expectation that something bad was going to happen, because honestly--things were just going way too well for us. Granted, we've worked hard for all the good things we have, but we still attributed fortune to a lot of it. Well, wouldn't you know it. The other shoe HAS dropped. Hard.

3 comments:

hope548 said...

What to do with the hope is a tricky thing. Go in optimistic. It's good to be yourself. It's next to impossible to relax during treatments, but do your best to keep life normal and go about your routines. You want to hope for the best, but also realize it may take a couple of tries to get there! Maybe consider a yoga class or just a yoga DVD to help you relax. Good luck!

Hopeful Mother said...

Yup, I can relate to the "waiting for the other shoe to drop." Sometimes things seem to be going TOO well.

I had a feeling we were dealing with IF after only 3 months of trying... somehow I just knew.

Damn that other shoe, though, still!

NikkiM said...

I know how you feel ... When we finally got out IVF/ICSI prescription, I left the office and said to Hubby:
"Okay, let me get this right... we want to get pregnant, so I go on the pill. We are excited to have children and won't even waste a drop of spe*r.m and the MD has him giving sample after sample and has p.or*n in his office"

We both burst out laughing ;)

I trust you've gotten the flow by now ?? C'mon girl, I flowed on July 22nd we're probably going to be pretty parallel in our very first (and last!!) cycle :)