Hopelessness Scorned

IVF Progress

So last time I wrote was four days ago, and I was waiting for AF to arrive... Well, the very next morning, she showed up (three days after last Pill)! This was such a relief - I have had problems with not getting a withdrawal bleed at all on the Pill before. I am probably the only person who is really happy to get a period every and any time it arrives - I feel like a real woman, lol! At the moment I am even happier than usual to see it, as it means our cycle is going as hoped.

So on day 1 of AF I phoned the clinic as requested, and am now drug free until 09/10 (day 18 of this cycle) when I start Norethisterone, for at least 10 days. On 18/10 (day 10 of N'one) we have been booked in for our injection tutorial.

All this means I have some idea in my mind when everything major is likely to happen, and we can begin to plan around this a little bit. I worked out likely dates on the calendar, and realised - this time in TWO MONTHS we will be completely, 100% done with cycle 1!!! Not very long at all!

I am so nervous about it all, but also very ready to get on with life, and see what is going to happen already :). Life is a bit on hold at the moment and I am excited that we are moving forward.

Hopelessness to Hope

So today I went to meet up with a lady who is I guess what you might call a spiritual mentor to me. She has helped me a lot over the past year; really encouraged me in my walk with Jesus. I have only met her a handful of times, yet my life has been completely transformed in many ways by knowing her - the ways I talk to and listen to God have broadened, my confidence in my ability to hear from God has grown exponentially, and I recognise gifts in myself I would never have recognised alone.

It was very encouraging to meet up with her today. I haven't seen her for maybe six months, and a lot has been going on for me, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, during this time, and it was really good to catch her up on what has been going on and hear her feedback that she thinks I have been fighting well and growing... As when times are dark and confusing I find it hard to discern whether things are going 'well' or not. The past few months I have felt mainly like I am stabbing in the dark every day, hoping I am pleasing God and that all will turn out 'all right', but everything has felt like such a muddle.

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

The Merton Prayer

I hope I will look back on this period in a few months or years and understand what it was building up to and how I grew and changed in anticipation of that during this time. But often at the moment, things God is asking me to do - stop studying, re-start weekly counselling, delaying IVF for iron levels - feel like stepping backwards. I know that I can't be stepping backward whilst I am walking forwards... But still, the things I anticipated happening this year haven't happened. We can't afford to move at the moment - although we hoped to be putting the house on the market before Christmas. We can't afford to go to New Zealand to visit our friends. I hope we will get to do these things in the future, and that God has the perfect time planned out. 

Bearing in mind all these things I perceive to be setbacks, it was really refreshing and encouraging to hear from this lady that she sees such definite growth, and also that she thinks I have been hearing from God really clearly. It is hard to be in the middle of a period of such fighting and confusion, but as long as I am doing what God is asking of me, I trust that all will come good in the end.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

 Romans 8:28 

R finished by praying for me, especially during IVF, and she prayed for 'hope'... And when she did, I had this revelation that what afflicts me is a spirit of hopelessness. During the period between God's revelation to me that Pete and I would marry (two years before we did and a year before our engagement) I struggled so much with hopelessness. Once we were married, it was the most wonderful, blessed relief... But now, as we have been building up to IVF, it has come back, and I literally cannot - physically, spiritually, emotionally - believe anything good is going to happen to me... And in this instant, God showed me this is because I actually cannot hope or believe, because of this spirit of hopelessness.

So I am planning to have some chats with God about this over the next few days, and see what He tells me to do about it. I'm excited that He revealed this, because I know it must be because He wants me to tackle it... And things will change :).

But those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31 

Sometimes I Ramble About All the Beautiful Things Happening

IVF Progress

I took my last Microgynon pill on Wednesday... Now Friday night, and anxiously waiting for a bleed to arrive. Pretty please!

Giving Up Studying

I am overall feeling much calmer, happier, more content, and closer to God at the moment than I have been for most of this year... What He said to me about quitting studying really was right - in August, He told me to stop studying and that it would be the key to my mental health, and it really has been. Also, giving something up for Him - because He asked me to, and only because of that, and something that means so much and is so close to my heart - has really helped my faith. It has been really hard to do; really, really painful... And things are better for having done it... Which reminds me that I really can give up anything for Him - and so I have stopped the constant worrying about what will happen to my faith if IVF doesn't work out for us. I know I can give things up for God. I know I could do it. And I know I would survive.

It's also really helped to remind me just how real He is. How interested and involved in my life. And how much He really does love and care about me. Things I had been doubting before for the first time since I became a Christian.

Small Group and Counselling

As part of our church, we belong to something called a 'small group' (which is sometimes called a 'cluster', 'cell', or 'home' group in other churches). Our small group started in January, out of an alpha course hubby and I attended, and it met every two weeks. I then didn't go to our small group for a few months as my mental health went downhill in late spring. I felt at a low ebb with church. Lots of other things are happening personally for us at the moment - we want to move closer to church, and can't afford to; my degree didn't work out as planned; my mental health had a blip - and I wondered how I can trust that this is the right place for us to be, and whether it will work out.

In August, there was a month's break from small group, and towards the end we all met up for a picnic. It was the first time I had been with the group for a few months, and I hadn't been going to church regularly either. At the picnic, I met a friend's mum, who just happened to work at one of the IVF clinics in Nottingham (the other one to the one we are using; we are using Care and she worked at Nurture, which doesn't provide a PGD service). She was able to advise and reassure us about IVF, and I was reminded about God's perfect timing and attention to the most intricate of details; something I had taken for granted previously. Having doubted that for months, feeling unsure as to whether I would ever feel it again as I had, I was reassured and reminded that I don't have all the answers, or even any of the answers, but that that is really ok... And that while I don't have the answers about the future, this church and this group really are the place for us to be at the moment. And 'at the moment' is all that matters - tomorrow will take care of itself (Matthew 6:34).

Small group started up again last week, and is now meeting weekly instead of fortnightly. This is already proving so helpful. I am amazed and humbled that God would provide this extra care for me - for us - during this testing time.

Also in August, after God spoke to me about giving up studying, I asked my counsellor whether we could see each other weekly instead of fortnightly for the foreseeable, and she was 'delighted' to. That's been happening about a month now, and again it is something I can already see and feel the benefits of. My counsellor is a Christian and the support she has given me over the past eighteen months has been something I can't put into words. She made my world alive again - I stopped just hanging on, trying to exist, and started to experience things I thought had died.

The reason I cut down from weekly to fortnightly initially was because I was worried about how much of a loss I would feel if and when we move, and I can no longer see her. Again, God has reminded me that I need to do what is right for now, and not right for tomorrow. I so easily fall into 'anxiety planning' - planning for disasters and trials that may (or may not) come, trying to keep myself safe. I rely on my own planning and my own safekeeping, and not on God's ability to keep me safe. With both church and counselling, I am being reminded of how much better He provides for me than I do, and being reminded of this just before IVF is such a blessing.

One Day At A Time

And so, on that note, at the moment what I am doing is reminding myself as often as I remember to 'take one day at a time', and focus only on the circumstances of that moment. The grace for tomorrow will be there when I need it. He can be trusted to hold me, and that is something I believe physically and spiritually as well as emotionally at the moment. I know He can be trusted, because He's held me through everything this year. Anything that comes my way, I can survive with Him.

'Follow the Peace'

I read a quote earlier - 'Follow the Peace' - and it reminded me how making the 'right' decisions feels, and how I will know how to do the right thing when the time comes again.

Follow the peace.

Peace - To stop studying.

Peace - To marry my husband (decided a year before he asked!).

Peace - When we decided to go to our church (18 months ago now!), even though it is in another town.

Peace - When God showed me (quite bluntly!) this time last year that my worries about IVF were selfish, and I had to take my husband's needs and desires into account. Peace, since that moment, about the whole 'is IVF right?' dilemma.

Peace - When we bought our house, three years ago now... Even though we had only known each other six months, weren't engaged or married, and I was mid-breakdown! Yes, it was mad... And yes, it was God!

Peace - When I relinquished my need for my husband to 'become a Christian' to God. (And of course now he is - but in God's time, not my time!)

His ways are not our ways. We don't often have a clue, in my experience, what the 'right' thing to do in a situation is. Often it is the riskiest thing to do. It may not seem risky to others, or it may seem downright foolish - either way, to us, it feels the riskiest.

Each and every time HIS PEACE (and not my crippled personality - which has also led me to do risky things, which have never, ever felt peaceful) has led me to do something risky, it has had ramifications I could not have predicted.

Right after we changed churches, and right before our wedding, our previous vicar's marriage broke down. I don't want to cast stones at him - am very fond of him - but for me, coming from a broken family, that could have been disastrous. We still got married at that church, by him, and it was awesome. But I needed to have the example of other mature Christian leadership marriages, provided at our then-new church, to encourage me in all the things I struggled with pre-wedding. When that marriage broke down, I knew why we had changed churches then. God's timing.

And now, right after I decide to walk away from studying, I hear that the final surviving first marriage in my parents' generation has broken down. My parents and all of their brothers and sisters have all been married. And now, all have walked away from marriages. For me, it is a timely reminder of why doing things God's way and not my way is so important - and especially why challenging the values I have grown up with is not of self-indulgent importance (as I try to tell myself sometimes), but of life-changing, life-altering, life-saving vitality. When I make decisions for God and deny those things I have been taught about life and self-worth, I make decisions for my husband's well-being, for the well-being of any children we might have, for the well-being of my nieces, and for the well-being of society and the world at large.

God matters. Divorce matters. Love matters.

Walking away from my desire to have a degree - something I have believed I 'need' and could not be whole without - matters. He teaches me how to be whole. Not anything else. Not any other single thing: and that includes whether I raise a child or not. I only need God - and I do not need anything else - to be whole. It's been tough to learn, and infinitely worth learning - and I am sure the same will be true the next twenty times I learn it ;).

Staycation

On the theme of following the peace and love mattering, hubby and I have enjoyed a 'staycation' this week... Spending quality time together, visiting spots of the country near us that we wouldn't otherwise have troubled ourselves to enjoy, and enjoying our life as it is, without wanting to change a thing. It really reminds me, again, that I will be ok - and that we will be ok - however things work out.

Sometimes things are hard. Sometimes things seem like they will not be ok, and there is no way things will ever be ok again. Hang in there. Things are ok again. Things are beautiful again. He makes a way. He makes a way in the desert.

On why babies are also OK

So right after I posted last night, I realised I needed to write a follow-up post, because babies aren't only a source of pain for me; far from it.

When I read stories, such as this one, of hope and triumph over infertility - whether the couple has biological or adopted children - these stories bless me, give me hope, and a deep sense of joy for the family, even though I don't know them.

I have online friends in the infertility/genetic cyber worlds, and hearing of one of these friend's pregnancies  gives a much greater sense of joy even than a pregnancy in the 'real' world, even one I am really happy about; because I have an idea of what that person might have experienced (only an idea, because my experiences are really different both to genetic friends and infertile friends), and all seems right with the world. A genetic friend announced a very early pregnancy last week and it is this that prompted me to write this post, because for her there was only excitement and pure joy. To be honest, being human about it, I think a lot of whether I am happy or jealous at a pregnancy announcement in these circles (as with any other circle) depends on how well I know and like the person.

But even 'normal' babies aren't always a source of pain. Our small group leader has a tiny baby boy and I have never felt sad holding him or being around her when she was pregnant. I don't know why that is. There are friends I am much closer to whose pregnancies and babies cause pain, so it's not that I especially know or feel close to this woman or her baby. I just don't feel sad around them.

By contrast - smallest niece, and hubby's best friends' youngest baby... Source of joy and pain intermingled. Maybe because I'm closer to them. Maybe because some of these couples' children were 'accidents', I don't know.

But again there is no rule, because 'accidents' aren't always upsetting. A friend fell pregnant with her now son in her first year of marriage by accident and I was only happy and excited for her. They live overseas so I've only got to spend time with him one time, over a few days, but once again he did not prove a source of pain at all - loved spending time with him (he was a baby then).

I don't know why for some women I can only be jealous, while others provoke a mixture of joy and sadness, and others again I am only happy for. But it has been the case. There seem to be no hard and fast rules in my fertility zone.

I heard today that the genetic friend has lost her baby, so I wondered about writing this, as obviously that sense of joy for her as gone, and I am left wondering why these things happen: she 'deserves' a happy pregnancy and another child so much. But there you go; these things do happen. Ours not to reason why, even though we try.

In which I don't believe this is going to work

I know this is just another bitter infertile woman moaning, but - another school friend has had a baby. Apparently his wife pushed it out in 6 hours with only gas and air. Of course she did. She is clearly the baby maker extraordinaire. And I am some kind of shrivelled wombless old steak.

Oh, and one of other 11,22 carriers is having her FOURTH baby!! Yes, that's right, fourth. (One has ES.)

The thing is, I'm not the same as 'infertile' women, because we haven't had the agonising years and years of charting and failing to fall pregnant.

And yet, I'm not the same as the other BT carriers, because I do have a fairly serious fertility issue, and if we tried naturally, I am 99.9% sure we would have the joy of the agonising years of charting and failing. I've had three periods since coming off the Pill in September 2011, and probably haven't ovulated. And, of course, if we eventually did fall - probably only with the aid of Clomid or similar - there would be a 50% chance it would miscarry, or have very serious health issues throughout it's life.

And so I'm even jealous of other carriers, because they have a lot more chances to have healthy babies than I do.

And jealous of other infertile women, because they can transfer all their embryos back, instead of just 10-20%, and they therefore get to a lot more FETs than us PGD-ers.

I have this feeling really deep inside at the moment that this isn't going to work... That we are doing this as a step towards realising adoption or fostering is what we have to do. I don't feel too negative about it; I just feel resigned, a bit sad, but also trusting in God and His provision - much better in that regard than I have been the past few months.

All the things against us just seem too much. There's a lady on Fertility Friends at our clinic, who is the only other person I've come across with such a high antral follicle count as mine, and her first two cycles haven't gone well (she's my age, as well). She hasn't produced enough good quality eggs - Care are so worried about her over-responding to the medication (developing OHSS) that she has in act under-responded. And what it seems to me, from other women with PCOS I have come across, is that a lot of our follicles develop but very few produce usable eggs, because too many are trying to produce eggs at once.

With PGD, we need a fair number of good quality eggs to give us a chance of a healthy embryo.

This doesn't mean we won't get an embryo, but it does mean the chances are against us more than some doing PGD.

I honestly don't mind how we have a child - I just want to parent and be a family. I'd love to adopt; I'd feel it was such an honour that we were being entrusted with such a vulnerable being. And I know my husband, and what a big, kind, and generous heart he has... And I know me: how I can welcome and love pretty much anyone into my life; how much patience I have with people, especially when they are struggling or disadvantaged; and I know my heart and how I could love and look after any child - biology really doesn't mean anything to me, and is not the reason I am doing PGD... I don't have that urge a lot of people have to have a child of my flesh and blood; I have an urge to parent and create a good life for a child, a person. I hope adoption is for us, it's something that is really deeply entrenched in my heart now, after all these years of thinking about it. But, in all honesty, I would like to live in a perfect world, and have both biological and adopted children. When I think of that dream, I have to remind myself that God knows what is best for me, and I do not. If I could run my life, I would make a total mess of it.

And so why try to have a biological child? At the moment, I'm not so sure. This - PGD - feels dangerous (emotionally and physically), and it is exhausting to think that we will likely have to do several cycles. I want to carry a baby, and I want to give birth, and I want to look after and nurse a newborn (oh! how much! it makes me choke up just thinking about it). But do I want to do those things enough to risk my health by going through this invasive and time-consuming procedure which has such a low chance of success?

However, I also know that we are not ready to adopt. Pete has rights as well as me, and this decision isn't mine alone. In fact, about a year ago, I very clearly heard God speak to me (it was precious and a very rare moment for me). I was stressing about whether PGD was 'right' or not, and God almost shook me by the shoulders: He reminded me that my husband has hopes, dreams and needs, that I am a family now I am married, and that PGD is something my husband wants to do. And since that moment I have not worried. When the doubts creep in, I don't let them interfere with the process - I am doing this for Pete, and because he has a right to hope and dream as well.

I also have previous mental health issues, and I had an unhappy childhood, so I am sure we will be screened and double screened prior to any potential adoption. And whether we would even be able to adopt - whether this is just some nice dream - is of major concern to me. Major, because I know how wrong it would be if we were refused, and what good adoptive parents we could make. And major because I've heard a lot about how hard the adoption screening process is, and how many people are turned down - and how much mental health problems can count against peoples' chances. Adoption definitely wouldn't be a done deal for us. And so, in order to move forward with the adoptive process, I would want to be in a really, really good position. I know we're not in that place now. It would be a process to get to that stage, and if that stage comes without a biological child coming first, it will mean mourning and giving up that dream.

All of this seems so long and drawn-out. I want to be a mother now; I feel ready now - to think it could be another 3 or 4 years before we are parents is exhausting. Honestly, it feels unfair that we have to go through all of this. It especially feels unfair because I have (sob! violins!) been so unhappy and so unwell for most of my life. Everything is hard for me. And so why wouldn't creating a family be hard? It follows the pattern of my life. And it hurts, it hurts really deep inside that this is one more of life's parties I am left out of; one more of life's rites of passages that is a challenge and maybe impossible for me. Yet another thing I have to fight for - I have fought so long now just for my right to life, and that fight seemed to come to an end... Only to start up again with this process. The most simple, biological act is another thing I have to fight for; and I've had to give up another dream - that of getting a degree - in the progress; another reminder of the scars of my childhood.

And so, I really hope - against hope and all my instincts - that PGD will work for us, and that we won't have to do endless cycles in order to get that BFP. I hope that a BFP is in our future. I hope that we don't have 3 or 4 years ahead of us. I hope that the road will be smooth.

But honestly? I am not the kid who gets picked for things. And so I can't believe it's going to happen - and whether that's intuition, the culmination of previous experiences, or my mind trying to protect me, I don't know.

I do feel bad writing my feelings down, as if I am jinxing this. As if, if I could just plaster on a positive face, all would be well and we would get our BFP first cycle. There are a lot of people out there who would like to believe that is true. Our lodger keeps telling me that all I need to do is 'think positive' about it (all I need to do is strangle her when she says that!). But what I believe is that if anything harms the body, it is stress - and stress comes out of repression. At the moment, I don't feel stressed - having felt stressed for about six months, I now feel such an amazing and lovely sense of calm, peace, and God's presence. How I love Him. I feel sad, but that's not stress. And feeling sad is as feeling sad is, and if I'm acknowledging my feelings and dealing with them, in my opinion I will get through this process a whole lot better, whether it works or not. I don't want to pin all my hopes on it working, and miss the good plan God has for us, which might well have nothing to do with PGD. I trust Him that He can make good things out of anything - He made me out of dust! This is so much bigger than me, than us, than humanity and our limited imaginings.

All the same, I would like to fast forward through the bit where we wait to find out if this process is going to work or not.

(P.S. I may or may not have comfort eaten six milk chocolate digestives tonight.)