#AtoZChallenge: J is for Joking Around

This is the tenth of a series of posts that I’m posting during the A to Z Challenge; that’s a blogging challenge where you aim to post a blog post for each letter of the alphabet throughout the month of April (with Sundays off for good behaviour). During my first A to Z Challenge I wrote about infertility, which I’m sort of revisiting during A to Z Challenge 2015.

My theme this year is IVF/ICSI, a process we’re starting at the moment and today it’s J is for Joking Around.

You know that saying ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’. A lot of the time going through assisted conception treatments can feel like that. It can be such a heavy-going, stressful process with so many appointments as well as drugs which do crazy things to your hormones, that you need to be able to relax and unwind occasionally.

This is especially important because chances are your partner is just going to be able to sit back and watch as you go through all the unpleasantness of the injections, egg retrieval and embryo transfer. It’s really important that you’re able to see the funny side of treatment and share a laugh, even during the difficult bits.

Some things that make me smile:

• The fact that when I write ‘I’ve’ my phone automatically autocorrects it to IVF.
• Likewise, occasionally, I write the word ‘in’ and my phone autocorrects it to ‘infertile’. I think it does that to boost my self-esteem.
• The effect of the hormones on me, making me cry at the slightest thing… like Mr Click bringing me a glass of water, prompting me to noisily sob that ‘you’re just too good to me’.
• The other effect of the hormones which may or may not turn you into a raging nympho, when there’s nothing you can do about it!
• Openly admitting your partner is having an affair. With a plastic cup.
• The fact that you become so conditioned to walking into a room, stripping from the waist down, and hopping into the stirrups that you expect to do that at every medical appointment, even when you don’t need to take your clothes off.
• Referring to the vaginal ultrasound as a ‘dildo cam’. Then using the phrase dildo cam in conversation with your family.

Be aware that due to the cocktail of drugs involved during IVF treatment things that seem to be funny one day, or hour, or minute, may cease to be so shortly afterwards. This is something to remember if you’re thinking of playing a prank on someone going through it.

If you’ve got a friend or family member going through treatment, don’t be alarmed if they say something which doesn’t sound particularly funny and seem to think it is. They’ve not cracked, it’s Infertility Humour and you just might not get it.

Remember that it’s okay to laugh about things. It’s a big thing to go through and sometimes it’s good to relieve some of the stress with a giggle.