So be it

This morning I did my third pregnancy test in five days. It showed my third BFN.

I’ve been taking Cyclogest (progesterone) again this month and I don’t get my period until I stop taking it so I had to test. I decided to do it a little earlier this month at 12dpo. My thinking was that if I got a BFN, I’d take that hit with the knowledge I was testing early and things could still turn around - softening the blow a little perhaps.

When I tested yesterday at 15dpo and got my second BFN, I was pretty sure it was a conclusive result. But someone put a little doubt in my mind, saying they’d got all three of their BFPs at 16dpo or later. It left me with a teeny tiny smidgen of hope that made me test again this morning.

At least I know for sure now.

My response to not getting pregnant each month has started to shift a little lately. I think in the first year of trying I still had a lot of hope and expectation. After all, apart from low progesterone and a short luteal phase, the doctors couldn’t give me any real reason that I wouldn’t get pregnant. So each month that went by, where the hope and expectation were shattered, I had quite a strong reaction – lots of tears and moody silences, needing attention and reassurance.

But I think there comes a time with such regular and extreme emotional reactions that you just get tired, that you can’t deal with all that emotion anymore, and that you have to start protecting yourself from it.

Plus, the secrecy and taboo surrounding infertility means you have to get on with everyday life as though nothing’s wrong, as though your heart hasn’t just been ripped apart a little bit more.

So in the last few months, my reactions have been a lot less obvious and a lot shorter lived. And I’ve just been trying to get on with life without being pregnant. But I know the scars are running deeper.

I’ll keep going though, I’ll keep doing everything I can and carry on believing that I will have children one day because anything else is just unacceptable to me.

And if IVF is what I need to bring me my baby, then so be it.

Until next time.

Juno ☺