Being 14% hopeful

It’s easier to write when I’m overwhelmed with happiness or sadness but this morning I’m struggling to find the metaphors and the adjectives to describe the incredible uncertainty I’m feeling. We had our first artificial insemination (AI/IUI) on Saturday and I’m trying my best to just stay 14% positive, 14% hopeful, 14% realistic.

14% is our chance of being successful. Unfortunately hope doesn’t come diluted and neither does negativity. To strike that perfect balance of forgetting about your situation, being calm, being a little hopeful but not too negative to influence your body’s fragile state, is an impossible task. I can’t quite forget about my situation because I have some cramps to overanalyse and some progesterone I have to remember to take. I’m in day 3 of the two week wait and I had all of these plans of just forgetting about it all for two weeks but the investment has just been too intense to just forget.

I had a hormonal day last week Thursday when I realised that my follicles and lining were not perfect. I was coming down from some Estrogen injections and I was overwhelmed by being poked, injected, scanned and drugged… I’m currently on my fourth hormone treatment in 2 weeks and even though I love the physiology of it, I don’t enjoy being the experiment.

I’m trying to ignore my symptoms. Progesterone simulates pregnancy symptoms which might mask the presence/absence of true symptoms and the trigger shot, Ovidrel, will give you false positive results on pregnancy tests, so I just have to wait for the blood test in two weeks.

In the midst of all of this, I’m incredibly thankful for my support group. I’ve decided to share my journey with a big group of friends and family. I’ve been sharing my updates in cartoon format to try and keep it light and it has mostly been fun but I realised last week on Hormone Thursday that if your policy is being completely honest and open, it also means you have to share the bad days. I’m so darn lucky to have all of these ladies in my life – they carried me on Thursday right through to today. They each have a completely different approach to motivate me and I appreciate them all so much right now.  Thank you to those ladies who also follow this blog!

My husband is an absolute superhero right now. I used to have the morning duty with getting his dad out of bed, dressed and ready for the day but the past few weeks I’ve been struggling to get him out of bed. He has ALS/MND and is a bit of a dead weight when you try and transfer him. My husband is worried about me putting strain om my body during the dreaded two week wait and has taken over morning and evening duties. He doesn’t want me to help at all and when I ask what I can do for him to reduce the load, he says: “You have other things to do right now.” He’s not much of a talker – he’s rather the Batman type superhero who rather does something about the problem. We’re in the process of getting a carer for his dad and I hope it happens soon. Maybe we should get a carer for me on the days of hormone overload! 🙂 We’re going away this coming weekend to a retreat in the Magaliesberg mountains and I think we both need it desperately.

I’m 14% through my two week wait and although I fluctuate, I’m trying really hard to be 14% optimistic.

Please dear God, Karma, Universe, Batman, Science, my body… have mercy.