To Be Or Not To Be... Positive

Whatever happens, this morning’s events have made me feel clearer about the ‘to be or not to be positive’ dilemma which has confused me for quite some time.

There is a school of thought which says you should be prepared for the realistic eventuality with IVF, have a clear idea about your likelihood of success. Ie, in our case, probable failure. Our last doctor even put this in her letter. ‘The couple are prepared for success to be unlikely’. She kept going on about it every step of the way. Even just before transfer. My acupuncturist told me about a client who was having IUI whose doctor said, at the actual moment he/she was transferring in the sperm: "We'll do IVF next time if this doesn't work."

Others, especially nurses I have found, believe it is very important to keep positive until you know the game is up. Being prepared and dwelling on negative outcomes certainly doesn’t stop you feeling the anguish of them if they actually happen, I can personally attest to that. It hurts no matter what. I seriously doubt it hurts more if you were completely positive before. Of course, doctors are perhaps understandably protecting themselves against patients accusing them if bad chances were not underlined. But this is about them. Their warnings do not help the patients in any way, prepare them for, or ease their hurt and grief.

It is not just that there are few negatives to being positive, there are actually many positives to being positive. At least along the IVF journey, until the result is definitive. It aids your quality of life. It potentially lowers stress levels. It definitely helps your relationships with your partner, friends and colleagues.

Until now I have sat on the fence on this debate. People should just feel as positive or negative as they feel, was my thought. You can’t force anything. It is good when you are hopeful regardless of doctor warnings but it can be a pressure to feel happy if you don’t. Plus for a long time I needed to vent, wallow in the mire, let myself be a miserable, stroppy mare. It seemed a necessary stage of acceptance after all the years of ‘trying’.

But while I still believe all this something has shifted in my thought pattern. It is subtle but it is there. It is not about not allowing yourself to be miserable. It is about letting yourself be positive once you have vented and feel strong enough to go on.

The anaesthetist who couldn’t find my follicle definitely didn’t help in her attempts to over-prepare me for my lack of follicles, and the chances of the lack of eggs in them. It was unnecessary anguish to deal with just before going ‘under’ on anaesthetic drugs. I could have been told the follicle was gone after, I was anyway, it simply didn’t help and made things worse to know this was a possibility before. She really, really (really) didn’t help when, as I was groggily resurfacing from general anaesthetic, she told me she did find something, but she wasn’t even sure it was an egg. Especially since it was, and she could have said they just needed to do some lab tests until they knew.

In contrast, the second anaesthetist, who did not seem to be in charge for some reason, said simply after the search for the missing follicle: "You only need one egg. There's a good follicle there. There's everything to be positive for."

"Thank-you," I remember saying as I lost focus and spaced out.