Things I used to think and believe

When I was younger (teens and 20s) I hated having my blood drawn.  In fact during those years I never had my blood drawn because I thought it was the worst thing possible.  When I was 18 I was a candy stripper at the hospital and remember new mothers having to get their blood drawn before being discharged and so I swore at that time I didn't want kids because I didn't want my blood drawn.  Oh how IF changes things.  During ivf I have my blood drawn every other day, I also give myself shots in my stomach at least 3 times a day.  When I had my dd 2 years ago and was in the hospital for 3 weeks with pre-eclampsia I had my blood taken every single morning at 5am (of course they would do a nst at midnight and then a biophysical at 1am so by the time I am woken up at 5 I only had a few hours sleep).  If only my only worry was getting a couple blood draws to have a baby.

Another thing I used to believe was that people had a set amount of bad things that happened to them in life.  That if you had bad stuff happen early in life that your later years will be bliss and vice versa.  Now in my 30s I know this is not true.  I used to think we could not possibly face IF since me and dh had already experienced enough bad things and IF only happened to people that had things easy in their life because everyone needs a struggle.  I used to be sympathetic to couples going through IF, but was confident that would never be me.  Boy was I wrong.

The third thing I believed and still do believe is that our IF isn't as bad as it is.  I think maybe this is a coping mechanism to get through this.  I remember when I joined ff and reading people stories feeling sorry for them that they have been through so much, and now I realize these people have had things better than us.  I even remember reading about other mfi couples and thinking to myself how horrible it must be for these women to be fertile but not able to conceive because of their dh's.  Little did I know that we fit that bill and we didn't just fit that bill, but we fitted in the classification of mfi couples that nothing beside ivf can be done.  Then reading about couples that were on the path to ivf and how hard they must have it.  Well here we are on our third ivf cycle and it likely won't be our last since I am lucky to only get a few eggs at ER and this is on max stims.  I think part of the problem is we were diagnosised so early so it wasn't easy to accept the IF diagnosis at the time because I could justify things saying we haven't been trying for long and maybe we could have gotten pregnant naturally if we waited.  Well now I know this is false.  I took getting pregnant easily after each ivf cycle to see that our problem was fertilization.  I wonder if people are looking at me the same way I looked at other IF women a few years ago - with pity.