Love Myself and The Journey, a look into my feelings around the Future and Uncertainty

I made this graphic today because there are so many unknowns into the future, the uncertainty of it all with the possibility of another round of IVF. After a decade here I am considering the possibilities and I can't help but feel like time is not on my side. Much has changed in the last ten years, fortunately hope still remains.

After the Kansas City Infertility, Family Building Conference, last Saturday, I feel like I have renewed hope. I spent the day in Kansas learning about multiple avenues families have taken to have their family. The moments of sorrow, devastation, as well as moments of hope, joy and celebration.

I asked plenty of questions throughout the day and feel like those attending received a glimpse into my life, the struggles, losses, complications along the way to having our last living rainbow child.

I learned about the newer technologies for chromosomal and genetic testing, the rates of success with different procedures, and the rates of a successful pregnancy and live birth rate. From what I understood, the live birth rate from IVF is still much lower than I thought it would be at 25% to 30%, considering the rate of positive pregnancy from IVF has gone up from 58% to 70%. It feels like the chance of success isn't always on your side, there are many factors that are involved. From what I took away it sounds like chromosomal testing is suggested and recommended for a variety of reasons. And I am confident that it might be what we have too after asking my questions during the conference.

The odds have been in our favor or so it seems in the past, luck of the draw going through IVF, however I will happily do without the hyper-stimulation side effect result and then cyst rupture, from the protocol. It was interesting to learn that many clinic doctors only like to transfer only one embryo, instead of two. That is because the changes of a multiple pregnancy increase with the greater transferred, and we understood that risk years ago when we went through our IVF and FET protocols. We were lucky that when we conceived via IVF that we only had identical twin daughters, and not triplets. And lucky with our son's FET, two were transferred and he was a singleton.

Now these days with chromosomal genetic testing you can learn if there would be any complications with your baby, health conditions that you may need to be watchful for in the future, what you are having, and have a higher chance of successful transfer, higher chance of pregnancy and higher rate probability of pregnancy leading to a live birth. It all feel so technical and can give a feeling of taking the magic or joy out of the process family planning.

This picture for me is hope, a reminder to love myself at all times during the process going forward.