IVF Journey: 30w3d pregnant

This is my IVF diary. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for four years now, and have a diagnosis of 'unexplained infertility'. We have finally reached the top of the waiting list for IVF - a form of assisted conception. I'm blogging about what happens as it happens, as a kind of therapy for me and as an awareness raising exercise of what IVF is all about.

A bit from the husband...

This pregnancy lark has definitely proved harder than expected. When we embarked on IVF 16 months ago, we were rather under the impression that IVF would be the difficult part. I saw pregnancy as an objective rather than the next challenge. Oh how naïve I was!

My wife had three months of completely debilitating nausea, then a couple of months that were marginally less bad before the exhaustion set in combined with the twice-weekly hospital visits for blood pressure monitoring. Now she is on her 9th consecutive day as an in-patient at the hospital with pre-eclampsia.

I think it’s simultaneously boring and stressful for her. Boring because most of the time she’s just left on her own in a room to entertain herself (although I have visited her every day, and lots of her friends have come to see her). Stressful because they are forever interrupting her for tests or to give her medication – she never gets long when she doesn’t have to be reminded that she’s ill. It’s also stressful because we don’t know when things will move on – or how. Last Wednesday they said she would be in hospital until she delivered. By last Friday the doctor seemed to think she would be delivered (by cesarian) over the weekend. Then her blood pressure got a bit better, and on Monday the doctor (it’s a different one each time) was talking about booking a 32-week growth scan – about 10 days from now – and the possibility of being monitored as an outpatient again. Today (as of about five minutes ago) her blood pressure is up again and it’s back to “imminent delivery”. Who knows whether it will end up being today or another few weeks. It’s most unsettling for both of us – we’re living and planning day by day! I know everyone expecting a baby has uncertainty about when it will be born, but with the added complication of my wife being stuck in hospital and me wanting to arrange to visit regularly, and being apart from each other for most of the time, it’s not fun.

She’s a trouper though. Of course she’s not exactly enjoying herself and we both have our ups and downs just now, but overall she’s coping admirably. I am so stupendously proud of her.

Now, I have to try and concentrate on a work meeting – while what I want to do is go and see my wife…

Oh well, I’ll just have a quick look at some old scans to cheer me up (pictured) …