#atozchallenge Letters to my Embryos: M is for Manflu

Welcome to Day 13 of the A to Z Challenge, an April blogging challenge where you aim post every day during the month following the letters of the alphabet (with every Sunday bar the last one off).

In the past I've used the challenge to blog about my infertility and the IVF process. I'm following a similar theme this year as we wait to begin the process for a Frozen Embryo Transfer, having completed a Freeze All IVF cycle in February.

We currently have nine embryos sitting on ice, my little bubbles, and this April I am blogging to them about the process of how they came to be.

Dear Bubbles,

As you can imagine, the process that we went through in order to have you, while worth it, wasn't exactly a piece of cake. I was pumped full of hormones (which made me a bundle of laughs, when I wasn't sobbing about random things) and there were all the injections. On the whole, your Dad got off fairly lightly.

But don't forget, he suffered too.

With Manflu!

Whenever I look back on the time when we conceived you, I will always remember the snotty, cranky mess that your father ended up in that week.

But he coped with it masterfully. I suggested he stay home on our last two appointments before the egg retrieval but he insisted on coming with me. Little did we know at the time that he was actually coming down with a raging ear infection (please, don't inherit your father's predisposition towards ear infections) which took three courses of antibiotics to be rid of!

I do have to admit, I struggled to feel sympathy at the time. I was a human pin cushion, all bloated and uncomfortable, and when I had suggested he drink plenty of orange juice he'd not been too quick to stock up. I did feel pretty guilty afterwards when I realised how bad his ear was.

Of course, he's very big on sharing, is your Dad. The morning of the egg retrieval I felt a little snuffly and by the day after I was just as snotty and cranky as he had been.

I think we've got you to thank for neither of us letting the Manflu get the better of us. We'd waited so long to get started on this round of treatment and we were both so positive that this would be it, nothing like a little cold (or the beginnings of an ear infection) were going to stop us. And so we both kept on keeping on.

Every mother wants to think her child will be the one to change the world or influence people for the better, but I think you started making a difference before you even sprang into existence. Long may it continue!

All my love,

Your Mum.