Wow. I was doing so well! Spoiler alert – I just used the term “was”.
I really was feeling so good though. I was taking lots of supplements, I was exercising, I was meditating, I was sleeping well, I was surrounding myself with supportive people, staying positive and my second egg retrieval went easy and smooth. I didn’t feel the need to control any outcomes since I am not in control anyways. I was making plans and celebrating life. I was also waiting on the embryo status report, post egg retrieval. This is the report that tells you how your eggs matured, if they fertilized and what their “grade” is.
Yes, our baby is already being judged and he/she isn’t even a foetus yet. It’s like the one week wait before you start the 2 week wait later on to pee on a stick.
I admit, I did check my emails for the report like an obsessive pre-teen fan girl who has written to her favourite boy band lead singer. I checked it first thing each morning, then any time I had to use the restroom and then several times before bed. No that’s a lie. I checked it more than that.
I got the bad news when I was in the middle of a fertility acupuncture session.
Yes, even with needles in my hands and body I reached over for my smart phone so I could carefully see if there was an update. There was. You already know how this part ends, I gave that away. Bad news. They got 2 eggs, and both didn’t mature. Both were discarded. Yes, discarded – as in thrown away.
Right along with the eggs being thrown out, were my feel good vibes.
My hope for those “would be babies” were in that moment discarded. I had envisioned twins, and played with the idea of how I would set up the nursery to fit 2 little ones. All of that was gone in 2 seconds. 2 seconds that changed everything.
I couldn’t keep the tears in.
I sobbed. In that moment, I grabbed my smart phone and shared that very intimate and devastating experience for my youtube subscribers to see because that is the reality of this journey sometimes. (Video can be viewed via this link)
I tried to pull myself together in that moment because I knew I was going to have to go in to the waiting room area where people would see me, and I would have to pay the front desk. Worse though, I would have to walk past the wall of baby pictures plastered over the hallways showing everyone else’s successes to Babyland. I swallowed my tears, dried my face and then paid them quickly. As soon as I got to my car, I headed home and then sobbed so hard I had to pull my car over on the side of the highway.
I felt myself falling down a really dark hole fast.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want anyone to say what they felt would make me feel better. It wouldn’t help. I wanted to be in my own world, where no one could find me. My whole existence felt dark and sad.
I call this the bad news blues.
I think it’s important that we allow ourselves the space and time we need to process the bad news that we sometimes get on this journey. In a world where people always act like everything is wonderful, its hard to be authentic with yourself when things aren’t wonderful.
It’s ok to not be ok.
What you don’t want to do is stay there, in that ‘not ok’ place. It’s not a permanent destination; it is just a place we make pit stops at. Though I am not happy with the way things turned out, I am starting to be ok again. One day at a time. It feels a bit like a grieving process, and everyone has his or her own way of dealing with grief.
Allow yourself to feel the bad news blues, and then allow yourself to see all the other colours of the rainbow again too. When you are ready and on your own timing… let people back in, take a deep breath and get yourself back to that feel good place you started at. One more spoiler alert – you will get through this.
Have you felt the same? How did you deal with it? If you would like to share your story and help others going through the same, we would love to hear from you on tj@ivfbabble.com
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Amazing Site. Very much enjoyed reading.