It’s on my list of 101 in 1001 to go through and clean up my old blog posts from when I was on Blogger. The formatting is weird, the photos suck, or they’re missing from posts—it’s just a mess. Plus, I’ve been horrified with the typos back then. Did I even proofread before hitting Publish? Apparently my motto back then was Post It And Forget It. Until now. Some of them make me cringe. Some of them I stare at them wondering what the fuck I was thinking. Some of them I seriously question my privacy values. But these posts will remain up. They tell a story and it may be awkward and strange and cringe-worthy, but they’re my stories to tell.
I’ve been going through my old posts chronologically and since I do a big batch at once, it’s making me relive those early days of infertility treatments. When I read these posts, I feel the heaviness of infertility all over again. I read through these IUI treatments and fights with the insurance company, I can’t help but cheer her on. The 2012 Risa that was so stubbornly and positively hopeful that this next cycle would work. She believed her baby was coming soon. As I read through post by post, I wanted so badly for it to work for her even though I know how the story goes. Even though I know the personal hell she was going to go through and how she’d be pushed to her breaking point over and over again for the next several years. Even though I know just how many treatments it would take before she would finally get a baby.
Before my first IVF cycle, somehow I knew my eggs were bad. I had forgotten about that. Maybe it was some weird sort of foreboding that made me think that back then, but I had no idea the extent of how my journey was going to unfold. The Risa back then had no idea what using donor eggs would really mean. She was anxious, she was crossing her fingers that IVF would work. I think that in 2012 I knew it was going to be difficult for us to get pregnant. But I probably would have dropped to the floor if someone would have told me that not only would my first IVF fail, but so would my third. And so would the cycle using donor eggs.
It’s interesting, this moving back in time and reading the thoughts of Infertile Risa from way back when. I don’t usually go back and read my old posts because I sound like a fucking idiot, but this has been fun. It’s been…healing?
Yes, I think it’s been healing.
I distinctly remember after getting pregnant on one round of clomid thinking is this all it took?? Super excitedly! Of course that ended in miscarriage and it did take IVF to get my sweet boy 2 years or so after that. I think it’s interesting that we remember those exact feelings in the early days.
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So glad you have your sweet boy!