From someone else's mouth

I copied this from another blog - so people know I am not the only one who feels the feeling I displayed in my previous blog. :)


So you are finally pregnant after however many heart-wrenching soul-and-budget-destroying tries at IVF.

Is it time to relax? To cut loose, feel normal again, to let your soon-to-be-luxuriant-thanks-to-pregnancy-hormones-hair down? Time to join all the other smug pregnants shopping at Egg and flaunting their bellies at every snatched opportunity?
By all means feel free to try but there are those of us, who, after so much worry and hopelessness, find it hard to stop worrying and rid ourselves of the nagging spectre of doom. After the euphoria of the positive pregnancy test wears off a feeling of anxiety, even fear can replace it.

Oh my God, how am I going to cope with twins/triplets/quads? What if after all this I miscarry? Will my baby/s be normal? Why am I thinking this stuff?

Maybe part of the reason lies with the fact that an IVF pregnancy is illuminated at every step of the way. There’s barely a minute when you aren’t being tested for something and monitored for something else long before you even conceive and beyond, until the end of the first trimester.
Firstly there’s all the blood screening tests then the drug screening tests, the ultrasounds, then when your baby is barely more than a four cell genetic (and oh so cute – looks like DH when he first wakes up) cluster you get to see it on a screen and it gets a rating.

Meantime you are following its progress like you’re the paparazzi and it’s Paris Hilton. You’re obsessed with every detail, how many cells is it now, is it a Grade One or Two, how’s it doing? Is it transfer-worthy? Is it implantation worthy? How’s it doing? It’s only eight cells and you’re turning into an anxious parent mulling over its achievements.

On the day of the transfer, you’re up at dawn, having not slept a wink. After the transfer you feel every little twinge, you don’t want to drive or make any sudden movement in case you dislodge it. You become constipated for fear of it falling out when you go to the toilet.
You cross off not the days but the hours, the minutes, until the pregnancy test. No wonder, by the time you get it, you’re exhausted. Then there is the scan to wait for before it becomes an official positive. You get to see the tiny pole beating. Then, if you’re 35 or over you have the further abnormality testing to get through and another scan at the end of the first trimester.
Meantime the non-fertility challenged woman has had sex, merrily gone on her way probably drinking and generally obliviously enjoying herself. At some stage she realized her period was late and peed on a stick. Oh, OK, I ‘m pregnant. A couple of months later she rocks up at the obstetrician’s office for her first appointment.

So it’s little wonder the woman experiencing pregnancy after IVF may suffer higher anxiety levels than a non-fertility challenged woman and surprising that more of us don’t end up sedated.

What do the statistics say? Is the IVF pregnancy less likely to succeed? Marginally. There is a higher rate of miscarriage although this is largely due to IVF being prevalent amongst those over 35, where the rates of miscarriage are higher anyway.

There is a higher risk of premature birth but again this is so for multiple pregnancies or older women too. So there is nothing conclusive to say we should worry more but, I say, after all we’ve been through you can hardly blame us, can you?

By Jodi Panayotov, author of 'In Vitro Fertility Goddess' a non-fiction book about her fertility-obsessed absurd journey to motherhood.