A Year Ago This Past Weekend

A year ago this past weekend, was a weekend I will never forget for many reasons, and most of them being so very unpleasant.

We found out our IVF cycle failed. It was horrible. One of those moments in life where it makes you wonder WHY? Why is it always no's instead of yes's. When will things begin to look up? And better yet, where do we go from here? It was the bottom of rock bottom. I was done. Done with treatments, done with medications, daily appointments and monitoring, done with needles, done with pretending to be happy, done with pretending this wasn't our story, and done with the constant negativity surrounding our fertility story. Just plain and simple done. 

Both of our IVF cycles failed around Christmas, this one before and the one previous we found out New Years Eve. Why the hell was I cycling around the happiest time of the year? And to add to the misery, our first IVF cycle that was cancelled half way was at thanksgiving. For anyone out there cycling around these times of the year, proceed with caution, because in the worst case scenario the downfall is even harder because the last thing you want is to be happy around family and friends celebrating.

I promised myself I would not do that to myself and M again. But also in my mind I couldn't bear the thought of even trying again, maybe we were meant to be childless, maybe this is where our struggle ends, where we move on with our lives as just Mike and Ashley, the crazy couple with all the pets and too much love for other peoples children. Maybe we should adopt, or foster? 

M was ready to go and find out the next step, and I was reluctant to have any part of it, but went along to the appointment, where we were told that our options were dwindling, this cycle should have worked, maybe we need to do further testing on the quality of our eggs/sperm, but one thing that wasn't offered was a cycle right away, it was let me talk to my colleagues about your AMH, let's retest it. In my head it wasn't a positive outlook ahead. It was our RE exhausting his knowledge and it was money in our bank accounts that were beginning to dwindle. I promised myself I wasn't going to cry during this appointment, I was going to be as cold as this infertility has made me. My hope was shattered, my eyes were dry from being cried out too much, it was all I could do to get out of bed and fake a smile on my face. The only think I managed to mumble out was maybe we could just try a script for clomid when we are ready. My RE said it wasn't a fan of clomid and told us it wouldn't solve our problems, but wrote the script for just one month, I think just so that I could say I had tried it. 

Back to the weekend from hell, we had received the bad news, we had a Christmas Party to attend. I couldn't bear the thought of drinking away my problems and went sans alcohol, just as I would have had I received the positive outcome. But M, he ended up feeling absolutely no pain. I drove everyone home, and crawled into bed where I was finally able to let free on my tears, all the while my husband was puking all over my dining room. The smell was horrid and to make matters worse, I went to let the dogs inside and ended up stepping in it. And that my friends was the end of the end. I yelled and screamed and cried and all of my anger overcame me at that instant. I said horrible things I didn't mean and beat myself up for my failing body. I was the most angry I had ever been and not over the puke, not even at my husband, but at my failing body. It was horrible. 

But this year, this year is soo entirely different. Maybe I needed to experience the above to bring me to today. To make myself know just how lucky and blessed I am. They say once you hit rock bottom, you can only go up. I think that was my rock bottom. My marriage became stronger after I was finally able to get out what I needed to. I had bottled up every comment made to me about when we will have kids, every failed treatment, every fake smile, every baby shower, every holiday - faking it until I made it. 

This year having Baby V in my tummy snuggling and growing away, will not only be something I have dreamt of, but it will be a time I can just be me. Happy, go lucky, ME! I don't have to fake smiles, or drinking, or anything. This pregnancy has allowed me to be me for the first time in 4 long excruciating hard years! I've changed, my eyes are open wider now to a whole new world that many people don't even know. I see things differently and have a whole new perspective on life, our child's life, my marriage, just generally everything.

Everyone has a story and there are often unfortunate parts that take place and as shitty as I can say infertility is, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but it has broke me down in ways I can never forget, but because of it all, I am soo much stronger, my marriage is stronger. It is a part of our story and I will choose to embrace it now.

Not that our plans happened the way we expected them too, but we managed to pop by the end of the party for a drink and then headed home. But I suppose it wasn't the party that I needed to attend, just the weekend over all. And despite fracturing my ankle, I was still in a way better place than previous years, pain and all. Seeing sweet baby V was an added bonus to it all. Yet another small bump in the road, but a road I am well on my way into achieving.