One of the many complicated emotions that flood the psyche at the end of an unsuccessful IVF cycle is that of failure. This runs deeper than the vain attempt to become pregnant, and the ultimate failure: not having a baby. Having little to show for our infertility labours is damaging to the confidence of any person going through IVF treatment. Going back time and time again to face certain failure is crushing. It starts to bleed into all aspects of our existence.
After the events of this week, my beloved Wobbles has found refuge in the part of his life which provides him with the most certain comfort: his work. This is a natural and expected reaction from him. I am grateful he has this escape which provides a constructive way to spend his time. Wobbles takes great pride in his work. He battles away despite little recognition. His out of work hours are largely spent at home on his work. I accept this. Although I possibly didn’t understand the extent of his work attachment, I knew this was the case when we first got together. When I worked this is how I conducted my own life. In Wobbles’ view he has to increase his workload now to make our future family life possible. Poor fellow, I pray this will not make our eventual failure even harder to accept.
My not so brilliant career went bung only months before I met Wobbles. The fact I got to meet him is in itself a miracle. I did not leave the house for the first few months after the spectacular end to that part of my working life. No doubt I will write fully about it when I can finally face my shame and sadness. Back then as long term single, I was resigned to scratching out a meagre existence to meet my small living costs. It was not a great way to live, but the loss of my mild-mannered career was catastrophic. No stranger to hard times, this one was the loss that really got me. I was the walking wounded when I met Wobbles and yet he was still willing to take me on. Ours was a short courtship before we moved in together. Months later we were pursuing this baby stuff. I had traded a stress I could no longer cope with; that of office life, for a completely unknown one; wretched life of an older infertile woman.
The end to my career left me so battered I actually wished for ways to avoiding going out to work. With no one else to consider, it was a decision I was free to make. Then I met Wobbles. We weren’t to know the time strain IVF was going to inflict on our lives. My chance of finding work that fits around the treatment schedule is low. A whole day of travelling is required to make the round trip for an ultrasound and blood test. I am weary and wary from my years of work. I can no longer turn to the shop assistant, pizza delivery driver, change room attendant days of my early pre-professional qualification days. Call me proud. Call me lazy. My country town location puts further limits to the range of work available to me. The simple truth is I can’t concentrate on more than one huge life thing at a time. To try and cope with and survive IVF takes every ounce of my ever diminishing energy. Perhaps it would have been different if I had been working when I had started down this path. Whatever my excuses it is too late to change things now.
Age means I am stuck in this limbo land for a while longer. If we are to do as many cycles as our fertility specialist allows, they have to be done in quick succession before I reach the clinic cut-off age of 45 for using my own eggs.
Thing is, with the ever growing belief that IVF is not going to lead to Wobbles and I having a family together, my excuses for lazing around the house are ever diminishing. First the idea was to allow me to be less stressed by being work free. Then the theory was that I could stay home with Wobbles Junior once he or she eventually arrived.
In the old days, before thoughts of baby I could hide at home embarrassed by my jobless career-less situation. Now with infertility I feel exposed. In the round of appointments with doctors, specialists, nurses, radiology, pathology and alternative therapists I feel that all the world knows of this latest failure of mine. A while back I failed at office life. I left that to fail at making life.
Not working along with attempting to make a baby via ART are costly luxuries I cannot afford. It is unfair of me to allow Wobbles to carry all of this on his own. He never complains about it, but perhaps he ought to? I need to find a way to be useful. My work was once how I derived my small amounts of self-esteem. Baby making is certainly no way for me to earn back any confidence. I need to find a way to work. I need to find a way to earn funds. I need to find a way to do all of this while avoiding going back to office life. I need to find a way to earn money, but still have the travelling time to spend getting to IVF treatments.
Does anyone out there have any ideas? How do you all earn a living while doing IVF treatment? If you have a lazy girl’s stress-free method to earning money please share your secret. It is desperation time here!
Aside from the tremendous cost, this is one of the reasons I have stayed away from IVF thus far. I just have no earthly idea how to fit it into a work schedule. Some say it’s doable, but looking at the course of treatment, I would politely beg to differ. I finally decided to pursue IVF for this summer (as I have summers off), but then circumstances did not allow me to. I wonder, will I only get a chance at IVF once a year during the summer because of how intrusive it is into my work schedule? After this train of thought, I completely understand your choice to stay out of the work force right now. If I could do it, I would too.
I am lucky that I have kept my job (and sanity) through all of our cycles. I have to say that I have known my boss (and his boss) for about 9 years and we all worked at a previous job together. My boss is a total softy so I was able to openly confide in him about all of our cycles. My clinic opens at 7:00 AM so I can squeeze in my monitoring appointments before work, so the only days I miss are the retrieval day (which oddly has fallen on a weekend with every cycle) and the transfer day. I usually work from home the day after my transfer. I have also been maxing out the amount of vacation days I can carry, thinking of course that when I become pregnant I will use all those days….HA! Now, my ability to concentrate at work is another thing. I make sure that nothing slips through the cracks and I do not think that there is a person in my office that thinks I slack off….but….I know I do the minimum to get by during these times.
Thanks for the comment. . .you certainly put Clomid in perspective, with your drug protocol for this cycle!
I was listening to a story on NPR this morning about one of those places where you can drop stuff on for someone else to sell on eBay. The business owner said that because the economy is hurting, people have been dropping off so much stuff that he has a two week backlog. He keeps something like half what the item sells for, and the former owner of the property gets the rest. Might be something to look into–no overhead, can do any time, and you can make decent money.
Well, you do have those affiliates and Adsense here now but I would be pleasantly surprised if it earned more than loose change.
Here’s another way by writing sponsored post. (Not sure if this is open to Au but check it out)
http://tinyurl.com/5oygk4
I think the above may be a referral link. Just a note of caution to avoid actions that can have your page rank (if that is important to you) taken away when you get involved with this.
Shelby: I hear you on the work schedule thing. In this way I am fortunate in not working, but gee even my seemingly endless time is severely limited by IVF. Years back while working through a serious illness my stress was added to with my concerns over what my employer thought of all of my time off – albeit it with medical certificates. I am grateful to not have to go through that added stress now. So what is the answer? I must get over to your blog and get the update!
Rhonda: Your situation sounds like the ideal. Having a long term good boss would be wonderful. I have felt too guilty to go ahead and look for work now, knowing full well how interupted it would be. We have to be of a certain personality type to take advantage of the work situation. I worked with a girl years back who was ultimately successful with IVF (triplets!) but boy, I shared an office with her and got to see up close how little of her day got spent on work during those years. How she got away with it I will never know! I swore not to do that to a potential employer.
Queenie: Are you going to give Clomid a try? Actually, I am well versed with eBay. It is a wonderful thing, but sometimes if can be unrewarding and bit of a grind…just depends I suppose.
Arpee: Paid posts? No, I hadn’t thought of those. Not sure anyone would pay for my posts! Thanks fo the idea though, I will check it out!
I want to see you turn your blog into a book! You have such a talent with writing and I would definately buy your book and it is the perfect way to work around your IVF schedule.
LOL! Mel76….if only a reader here (or their lover, brother, or mother) happened to be a big time publisher with appalling taste….I could acheive blogosphere immortality by being offered a five, no make that a six figure book deal! LOL! Perhaps I’d better get serious about that novel I have been working on since 1992?