Wednesday 5 April 2017

#atozchallenge Letters to my Embryos: D is for Diary

Welcome to Day 4 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,

Have I ever shared my diaries with you? If I haven't by the time you're reading this, remind me and I'll dig some out for you to look at. I expect you'll have a laugh.

I've kept a diary in some form since I was about twelve (though sadly the pencil is very faded by now so by the time you're old enough to delve into my twelve year old musings, they may be indecipherable). Some of my diaries were kept online, like in the blog where these letters were originally published. Other's were kept in paper notebooks with slips of paper sandwiched between the pages from hospital appointments or parking tickets.

A diary is kind of a necessity when you've got lots of different meds to take at set times of each day. I even devised a(n admittedly complicated) chart to help me see all my medications, appointments and other important things during our treatment process.

Still tucked into that diary is the sheet from the hospital which serves as a diary, of sorts. It's got a treatment checklist where we were supposed to enter dates and times for the aforementioned appointments, pills and potions. You can see that I dutifully filled in the dates and times in the beginning, when those dates and times were given to us at the hospital appointments themselves. Later on there are scribbles all over the back of the sheet, haphazardly filled in anywhere there's space, because I was making those notes wherever I happened to be when the hospital called; on the train, on the ferry, sitting in an awkward position in the living room hoping that my phone signal wouldn't disappear.

I'll warn you though, the diaries aren't all happy reading. Yes, there's a lot of rambling about Tara and your father and random shopping trips, but our journey to you wasn't all plain sailing. You weren't the result from our first round of IVF, you weren't even from our second. So there's a lot of stuff in there about those previous attempts.

And I'll share those with you when you're ready.

All my love,

Your Mum.

18 comments:

  1. I kept diaries when I was younger. I think I still have 2 of them around here somewhere. When I started the blog, it pretty much took over for my diary. Now I guess my diary is very public.

    Aj @ Read All The Things!

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    1. That's kind of the way it's gone with my diaries and the blog. I still have my paper diary for the really personal stuff. ;-)

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  2. Beautiful post! Diaries! Oh... I also have written some kind of journal/diary since I was in junior high! When I look back at some of them, I am amazed, and entertained! Ha!

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    1. Some of my diaries are very entertaining, and so, SO embarrassing, hehe.

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  3. Thank you for stopping by my A to Z blog. It brought me to you. I, too, took a long time to get pregnant. Luckily didn't have to go to IVF. But the method won't matter one bit when you get that little bubble. Thank you for sharing.
    http://thebookwright.blogspot.com/

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    1. Thank you for visiting and sharing your story. :-)

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  4. I'm not sure I'd want my kid to read my diaries.
    However I think it's great you were and are able to capture all of your emotions, fears and dreams for yourself!

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    1. That's true, there might be some things they might not want to see, or I might not want them to know, but there are so many things they could learn from my notebooks as well! :-)

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  5. I am impressed with your steadfast diary writing. That's such a gift for you now and for your child some years down the line.

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  6. I know so many people who are religious about keeping diaries. I think it can be cathartic.

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    1. It definitely helps to get your thoughts in order.

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  7. Diaries are always special, when one looks back they can see various emotions flowing through the pages.

    MeenalSonal @AuraOfThoughts

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    1. Oh yes, they can make really interesting reading later in life.

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  8. Sorry Click - I'd copied someone else's blog address on my comment and pressed publish just as I realised - would you delete please or not authorise as it will look like they made the comment - many thanks. Special Teaching at Pempi’s Palace

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    1. No worries. :-) My blog now is like a diary too, I like that I can tag my posts to see what I've been talking about, makes things easier to find than in the paper ones.

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  9. I have not really kept a diary but I think it is healing in many ways for people and it will show your child or children how much you cared and went through to have them.

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Let me know what you think. :-)