IVF Journey: Second IVF day 27

This is my IVF diary. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for nearly four years now, and have a diagnosis of 'unexplained infertility'. We have finally reached the top of the waiting list for IVF - a form of assisted conception. I'm blogging about what happens as it happens, as a kind of therapy for me and as an awareness raising exercise of what IVF is all about.

Something that probably doesn't come across adequately in this journal is how ordinary my life is 95% of the time.

I'm happily married. I run my own business. I go to the cinema, go to the theatre, go away for the weekend, go out for lunch or dinner. I have chats, I have laughs, I have friends.

Most of the people that I enjoy these good times with don't know about my infertility or my IVF.

If you read my other Blipfoto journal you wouldn't know either. You would read about a very ordinary life.

However this journal is about my secret life, the things I have to think about specifically relating to being infertile and doing IVF. What I go through day-to-day, how real life interacts with infertility, and how I feel about that.

My ramblings might seem negative to you, but really it is... well, fine. I'm used to it.

I only write when an infertility-related incident occurs, or if I have something of relevance to say about infertility. I write each entry in a self-contained way, intended to be descriptive and stand-alone, and because this journal is deliberately anonymous I share my thoughts and feelings and experiences honestly. I sometimes wonder if what results appears to overstate either the importance of the occurrence in question or how much each single thing that happens bothers me.

But unless I tell you about it, you probably won't know what IVF is like or how often little ordinary things remind me that I can't have a baby. And you probably won't stop to think that some of your friends might be in the same position as me and that they might have secret lives as well.

I'm not writing for pity or advice, and although there is a bit of therapy in it for me it is more just intended to be a record of my infertility-related thoughts on any given day. There's ups and downs. Most people have ups and downs.

To be fair there's not a lot of ups when it comes to infertility, but if I had to generalise the majority of my life is quite positive and the majority of IVF is quite neutral.

Infertility is a hideous insidious drudgery though. It sits behind everything I do and it slaps me in the face five times a day. I actually feel quite pragmatic about that and take it as it comes. There is no escape, but it is what it is and individual episodes are generally transient.

But overall I'm doing it my way and I honestly think I'm coping as best I can. Actually, in the circumstances, I can't imagine it going any better than it is.