The waiting room

It's been three months since I started blogging and I'm really glad I did. It has been a very therapeutic step. I have been able to think through things as I type rather than suppressing how I feel. I have been able to go back and reflect on what I wrote a while ago and see how my journey is developing over time. I'm taking small steps in joining up with the blogging community and I even have a few followers! Hi, guys! ((Cheery wave))

One huge bonus has been able to connect with people going through similar experiences. It's so hard to talk to friends about what I feel, especially when even the most kind and sympathetic can't speak from a position of knowing what it's like. Here I can share without being nervous, without building barriers between the truth and what I'm comfortable talking about. I have been able to give a little comfort (I hope) to people who are in the darker places on the road, places I remember very well and which may lie in wait for me again.

I don't follow a huge number of blogs but each one means a lot to me. I choose ones where I feel a connection to the writer and where their story resonates in some way with me. Some of "my" ladies, travelling this path much longer than me, have been sharing their IVF stories. I have so much respect for these wonderful women and how they are managing the ups and downs of their challenges. Secondary infertility is hard enough for me to cope with, but I have the incredible comfort of holding my daughter in my arms and knowing that if it all comes to an end I will always have her. (Please God, don't ever let me lose her.)

Over the last few months something amazing has happened - three IVF bloggers I follow have become pregnant, two of them with twins! It has been an incredible privilege to follow and I hope everyone else at different stages gets to this point soon too.

But at the back of my mind has been a real sadness. I couldn't put my finger on it at first and was afraid I might be jealous - not at all how I want to feel! I think I have now figured it out... I just don't want to be left "in the waiting room."

Once pregnancy is achieved you are on the move, with a set timetable that has an inevitability about it one way or the other. But until that day I am still waiting, going in circles, unsure about when or if this is ever going to happen. Each setback is a fresh disappointment, and leaves me in a state which has been described elsewhere as "constantly grieving."

I have said before that I am bad at waiting. Indefinite waiting is even worse. I remember being told as a child "patience is a virtue, and if not possessed it can be acquired." I didn't like hearing it then and nothing's changed!

So three cheers for those whose patience, determination and courage has paid off. And for those of us still in the waiting room, I hope we can continue to find ways to make the best of it. Maybe the next ticket out will be ours.