Remember when rollercoasters were fun?

The rollercoaster has left the platform, and my medications have started. 

It reminds me of those few moments after you get strapped in to a rollercoaster and start slowly creeping away from the platform in that slow climb to the first hill. There is no turning back.  Similarly, there is simply nothing like the emotions that you experience when going through an IVF cycle – but the biggest, baddest rollercoaster is a great analogy.   It makes me long for the tame little kiddie roller coaster rides I remember as a kid at the county fair. 

Most ladies that have been through any kind of infertility treatments will tell you that the effect of the medications on your hormones is akin to rolling puberty, raging PMS and dimentia all into one lovely package.  And if the effect of this all on your body physically isn’t enough, your emotions can take you from happy and excited to crying and depressed in mere moments and for no apparent reason.  A friend of mine used to refer to the fertility medications as “Satan in a pill (or shot)”. 

But, I digress.  Truly, I do feel so very fortunate to be living in a time that a 40-ish year old woman has options and reasons for hope when it comes to fertility.  The advances in medicine over the past few years have been dramatic (IVF, IVF with donor eggs and/or donor sperm, embryo adoption, surrogacy) there is no one size fits all, but they all make the chances of becoming a mother at this age so much more attainable.    

Go medicine!