I forgot to mention something that happened that day we went to six flags. On our way into the park a woman with a handheld device stopped us to ask us a few survey questions. I’m totally cool with that and happily answer. Amid the questions she asks us if we went to six flags last year or the year before that. Last year, definitely not. But did we the year before that? Den and I discuss it briefly – I was pregnant that summer, I don’t think we got to go at all that year. We move on.

Near the end of the survey the young woman asked if we have any kids under 18 in our household. “Of course, one aged zero to 3, any others?” she says, pen poised above the screen, smiling happily. I froze, realizing that I was stuck, I had already mentioned the pregnancy and there was no way to get out of that without explaining the whole situation. I suddenly just wanted to get into the park. My mouth opened and closed, then I said, “No, just the one.” She nodded with that happy smile and moved on to the last questions.

So now Six Flags thinks I have a 1 year old in my house whom was being babysat on Monday so we could go ride the roller coasters. And I don’t feel bad for not correcting them. It’s more humorous in a sad, dead-baby-humor kind of way.

::

I drove home from work with gardens and projects and appointments and cycle dates all floating through my head, like usual. My mind stopped to weigh my thoughts, a little “check-in” with my emotional state. And I realized I feel okay. I’m not gleefully happy, but I don’t feel bad either.

I realized that a lot of that urgency and desperation has faded away, along with a large part of the grief. I remember cycling in December with this crazy feeling of fear mixed with excitement and a huge amount of frustration and anger and sadness. It felt like I was fighting uphill every step of the way, clinging on by sheer will. It was not a pleasant feeling, but it seemed both necessary and inescapable.

This FET feels like I’m floating along in the river. Just floating, treading water… conserving my energy for later, if I might need it. I think maybe it’s sunk in that all of this is out of my control. Or maybe it’s because now I know that pregnancy does not instantaneously mean bliss, and that maybe taking my time to prepare for the next emotional onslaught has its benefits.

One of the hardest parts of this journey has been redefining myself and my circumstances. I’ve been thinking about IVF and infertility. Just like there are those who are naturally very fertile and pregnant the first time they throw out the contraception, there are very fertile IVFers… which is to say, they get pregnant soon as they do IVF, that whatever their problem was is circumvented by the procedure. I once thought that was me. Even after our first cycle, with two embryos transfered, didn’t work, the second one did… so I convinced myself that the first cycle’s embryos were really bad and thus “didn’t count.” That all I needed was a “good” embryo and I would be pregnant. IVF#3 bombed horribly and didn’t really affect my belief, but IVF#4 hit hard. There was no crutch of bad embryos that time. 6 embryos, all looking so good, 2 frozen, 1 transferred at blastocyst stage… there was absolutely no reason it shoudn’t have implanted. But it didn’t. It just… didn’t. My next cycle from the same “batch” worked… well, not in the right place, but it did implant, I did get pregnant.

I was pushed into have to re-evaluate my mental perception of my fertility. Getting a healthy embryo is obviously not the only issue. Bad luck? Maybe. Whatever luck is, I do seem to have a terrible vesion. Or maybe there’s something else at play, another health issue yet unidentified. But either way it means that just because I have an embryo transferred, even a blast, gives me only a 50-50 chance just of getting a positive pregnancy test.

I think that’s what’s holding me aimless right now, holding me back from making plans and getting excited. I am a spectator to my own life, just sitting back to see how my self will be redefined next.

But I’m okay with waiting, for now. The weeks go by quickly enough. I keep myself busy.