IVF Journey: 18w0d pregnant

This is my IVF diary. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for 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.

Today the husband took me out for lunch, as a little practice so I can hopefully eat out with friends at some point soon. It went OK. I had a steak sandwich and fries and it was huge, but the husband kindly offered to take half of the sandwich onto his plate until I was ready to eat it so it didn’t scare me. He suggested if in doubt I could ask for a small portion in the future. Anyway that all went fine, and I had a meringue and cream which was yumsk.

Later we went to Mothercare, our first time. They have all sorts of reasonably priced baby items, and we saw a lot that we liked. We’ll go back and stock up some time.

In Mothercare I tried on some maternity wear, yet another first. I came to the conclusion that I don’t need it yet so it really isn’t the time to be trying it on. But I’ll go back and get some staples such as leggings and so on, when required. I also tried a maternity swimsuit. Same conclusion, plus all their swimsuits were ‘beach wear’ swimsuits and not appropriate for serious lane swimming with their teeny straps and exposed cleavage. I’ll have to see what Speedo or some equivalent sporty brand does.

We ran into an acquaintance also buying baby items in Mothercare and talked babies for a bit, as you do in such situations. Now this was really hard going for me and I need to get my head round this. I’m just not quite ready for enthusiastic baby chitchat.

I am so used to feeling terrible and focusing solely on getting through the day that looking forward and gushing on happily just isn’t me, particularly if I’m expected to be the focus of the conversation. All the questions about due dates and gender and birth plans and how excited I must be. I know there’s a way I’m ‘supposed’ to react and things I’m ‘supposed’ to talk about and I just don’t feel them yet so I just don’t know what to say. It feels really awkward when people aim this stuff at me. It is paralysing and very intimidating trying to seem socially normal so as not to freak them out, and I’m so aware that (in my head at least) I’m not reacting how they expect me to.

As I get used to being better I hope I will be able to see forward and get into this a bit. That's what I want, how I feel in theory just not quite following it through in practice yet.

Because it’ll only get more frequent once I look pregnant.