IVF

I'm almost to the end of IVF. I see an end to what I'm facing and the beginning of a new chapter. I feel a little anxious as I contemplate becoming pregnant but at the same time, I am so happy to face this next step in my life.  

IVF has been harder then I imagined and yet doable somehow. I didn't believe that I could give myself shots but to this point, I've given myself over 90 shots. That kind of blows my mind. Needles are not as scary but I still don't like to do it. 

What keeps me going is knowing that at some point a child will join our family. I feel it. I don't know how the spirit works completely but I do know that the spirit has told me that another child is meant to come to us and I really pray that this is it. Even if it doesn’t happen this time around I know that someday it WILL come.

This past week started the process to prepare my body for the embryo transfer. This has been so long-awaited. For 13 years we have hoped to be pregnant and here we are getting my body prepared to carry a little child.   

I know that the transfer isn’t always successful. There is still a lot of space for something to not go right. There is a chance that we go through all of this and it doesn’t work. I’m well aware of failure during IVF. We’ve already experienced failure during the retrieval phase and I know we aren’t exempt from failure during the transfer but I have a lot of hope. Matt gave me a blessing last week before we started transfer prep. In the blessing, he said Heavenly Father wanted me to be excited and hopeful. These emotions are a form of faith. I’ve never thought about it but I have a lot since that blessing.

Excitement and hope for this working is us believing that it actually can happen. Putting faith in the fact that there is a chance of success at the end of this journey. Since that blessing I have had a serious decrease of fear and doubt and a definite increase of excitement and hope. I’m so grateful. True blessing!

I spent 13 years building up a wall of doubt and fear because I wanted to protect myself from the pain of failure. Every time we tried to get pregnant and it didn’t work was the sharpest stab of disappointment.  To protect myself I would tell myself no matter what, that it wouldn’t work. That felt so much safer to not be as disappointed when the test came back negative then if I told myself it may have worked and then be crushed time and time again.

It has taken so much from me to open my heart up to hope. It still scares me and it’s easy for me to want to put that wall back up and try to protect myself. I feel so vulnerable in this situation trying to learn to hope and have faith in all of this working. It feels important though to let that wall down and face this all with faith, excitement, and hope. It feels right and good. I’m grateful for the times when Heavenly Father helps me let down that guard and trust him. I have never regretted a time when I fully trusted Him to lead me. I’m so ready to face this with faith. Faith that no matter what happens over the next month we will still somehow and someday be blessed with a baby. I trust that He is there, leading me along and I’m so happy that he is.

Here’s to vulnerability! I’m excited and have so much hope for a baby!