Holding on for dear life: the seven stages of IVF Grief
Holding on for dear life — the dear life of maybe baby #2 (both $$$ and a team of endearment)
It’s been a while since the last IVF update – almost a month – mostly because it’s been a rollercoaster, I’ve really struggled to stay on. In that time, I’ve moved through what feels like every stage of grief.
Shock.
Finding out the real stats behind IVF. That gut-punch moment of wait, what do you mean it takes an average of three or four cycles?
Denial.
Surely not me. Surely it’ll work the first time. I eat well. I do all the things. I’ve had the surgery to clear the scarring from Asherman’s. I’m following every instruction to the letter. I’m a good candidate, right?
Anger.
At the fact no one told me up front. At the hope I was allowed to have.
At the money pouring out of our savings like the ocean flooding the Titanic – and us, still hoping we don’t sink.
Bargaining.
With RaRa, mostly. How much are we willing to invest in trying for baby number two? How much hope can we afford?
Is it worth taking hard-earned dollars from our house deposit – trading bricks and mortar for a maybe?
Depression.
When stim cycle #2 ended with a single day-6 straggler, and #3 started looking worse than the last.
I remember holding back tears during a routine scan as the nurse said the follicles were underdeveloped this time. I stared at the ceiling tiles, breathing through the silence, pretending I was fine – I wasn’t.
I sank.
The tears streamed.
Then came the cruel self-interrogation: What if I’d spoken up more during birth? What if I’d pushed for that follow-up? What if I’d fought harder when my period vanished for a year and everyone told me to wait?
The spiral of blame is exhausting.
What kind of fool doesn’t check the stats before starting IVF? How did I end up in a situation where $50K could disappear and I’d still be walking away empty-handed?
And I know I’m not alone – thousands of women walk into clinics every day, hoping statistics bend for them.
And then there’s the grief for the body I used to have – the textbook uterus that turned scarred and complicated after a chunk of placenta was left behind, undetected for four weeks.
And the body I have now: softer, heavier, after months of swollen ovaries and medical procedures that have kept me from lifting weights or doing HIIT classes.
I remember sitting in the car, on the phone to our couples counsellor, unable to feel excitement, unable to reach the part of me that still wanted this.
Acceptance.
We’re here now. This is the reality. It might not work.
I’m not the same person who started this – softer in some ways, harder in others. I have to keep living, to find something else to focus on, even as I move through the motions of normal life.
Hope.
Then the call came. The day-6 straggler from stim cycle #2? Viable. Ready to implant.
And the underdeveloped follicles from cycle #3 – the ones I cried over before the IVF doctor suggested letting them bake a little longer? They produced nine eggs. Four fertilised. Two made it to day five: graded 5AB and 5BB.
The ones biopsied. Their samples are currently in London.
The ones that mean we now have, maybe, three tiny chances.
And somehow, in the middle of it all, I feel strangely blessed – that Asherman’s Syndrome is so rare I can call the top specialist in Australia as soon as my period arrives and be booked in for a hysteroscopy the same week. Even if I wish I’d never needed to know this much about hysteroscopies in the first place.
Glimmers of hope.
A better result than before, even though it started worse.
The outcome that made me start to believe again.
Maybe – just maybe – the $50K sunk so far will amount to something after all.
To the thing I want more than anything right now: another little heartbeat.
For now, I’m trying my hardest to figure out how to live in the space between fear and faith.
To hold both – the ache of what might never be, and the fragile joy of what still could.
I’ll admit, I’m not good at this. My usual life strategy is to give up pushing for outcomes outside my control, move on, and, if it happens, let it happen. It’s worked before – that’s how we fell pregnant with Lark.
People tell me I need more faith, more optimism, but both of those things sting. They ask me to shut off the part of me that can see a dozen possible futures at once – and that’s just not how I’m built.
So here I am – grieving the life where falling pregnant came easily, where Lark might have known the easy joy of a sibling close in age. Grieving that version of us, while trying not to live there.
Trying to move on, to accept that fertility – like life – will be what it will be.
