Balancing on a knife edge

I can't describe to you what the last few days have been like. I've sat here trying to put my finger on ... something which might give you an insight into the end of the wait, but I have very little. In fact, nothing at all, really. The closest I can come is that we've felt completely disjointed and everything going on around us has seemed a bit unreal. I've felt fractured, as though everywhere I look inside myself shows me a different picture. A different version of reality. A different me.

The difficulty of waiting for the result of an IVF cycle is that it's nothing like when you're trying to get pregnant naturally. It's nothing like the usual (normal) waiting to see if your period arrives every month, and wondering if this month is the month. It's different because we saw our embryo. We saw it at five days old, and we saw it there, inside me. It was right there, and I carried it. The question is, did it dig? Was No. 9 strong enough, and inclined to stay? Did he like the view?

The result could, of course, only go one of two ways. Either it would be positive, or it would be negative, and there was nothing we could really do to influence either outcome. We were completely helpless, despite wanting it so much to be positive. No. 9 would stay if he stayed, and if he didn't? Well. We couldn't do any more. Sitting this morning, waiting at the blood place for them to draw the blood sample that would tell us within hours whether No. 9 had stayed or not was like an ending in itself. From that point, there would be no more wondering. It would be done. But, it would be a new beginning too. Whether positive, or negative, we would move on in one direction or the other.

I can't explain to you either what it was like contemplating either of those outcomes. Throughout the cycle, I've had to find strength and determination I never knew I had as we met each obstacle and made it through each step. There was fear and relief in equal measure, and then, once the cycle finished there was lots and lots of fear as we waited.

I can understand how IVF breaks people. I can understand very, very well.

We're not the same people we were six weeks ago. It's not a bad thing, it just is. We've come out the other side stronger, with an increased awareness of each other and what we're capable of - individually and together. We've grown, and we feel as though we've been through something enormous. We have been through something enormous. We've fought the good fight. In many respects, we've brought down Godzilla.

I wondered, and was afraid before IVF, how I might feel at the end, and I sat down and thought about that some more last night, how did I feel? knowing what today was bringing us. Do I feel scarred? Destroyed? Angry? Hurt? Not particularly. I feel like I've achieved something incredible with the greatest of motives, and I feel like I've realised a new level of love. For my husband, my family, my friends and, of course, No. 9.

The pregnancy test was today, and the result is positive.

For those of you that get what this means - HCG today was 518.

For those of you who have no idea - that means No. 9 dug in good. And we'll be waiting for the 8 week scan to make sure there's just one of him!


(Also, I wrote this yesterday - everything except the result, to make sure I meant every word I said about how it's been. It would have been easy to say after a positive result that it'd been a walk in the park. It was anything but, believe me.)