How did/do you cope with the stress and anxiety?!

[HaveFaith1]

Hi, I'm on my first FET after a failed round of fresh IVF. I'm 5 days past my embryo transfer and I'm a quivering wreck, to put it mildly!

I'm not sleeping well, work is hugely demanding and stressful right now, and I'm feeling really, really negative. I'm trying to do things to relax but it's like I can't. I'm worried my stressing is going to harm our chances further.

Has anyone felt like this? How do you get past it? I've tried reading, meditating,walking etc . Xxx

[Karinyaa]

I'm sorry to hear this. I felt the same at the beginning of our egg donation route. (Here's my story in brief. We've been together with dh for 10 years. 2 years of which spent ttc. After we got no results we applied for a fertility expert's help. Soon I was diagnosed on severe endo. In haste we did try IUI, ICSI shots, despite dh's semen low count and motility. But it didn't work, as later we got to know my eggs were useless for the procedures. So we went on egg donation route with overseas clinic. We got our baby after shot#3.)

But all the feelings still so hurt to remember. I saw so many others moving on. Why couldn't I? Why did counselling just make me feel worse? This was my husband's only option, in a marriage with me, at being a bio dad. But I felt so guilty for taking that away from him because of my defective body. And because of my selfishness of not wanting to see him mixed with someone else!! It took really LONG for me to get there. But I'm thankful I finally meant to. We're through 3 cycles of de ivf resulting in our adorable boy, enjoying every minute of being with him. I don't know how the things would have turned out to be if we happened to fail accepting egg donation..

[HaveFaith1 in reply to Karinyaa]

Thank you for sharing your story Karinyaa. Like so many women, it sounded really tough. I'm glad you got the result in the end xxx

[Hidden]

Hey lovely. The first thing to say is don't panic!! I have managed to get pregnant during some of the most stressful times in my life and then completely failed when I have been totally zen and mentally prepared for IVF lols. So it really won't make an impact on your chances of success, and it basically is a self fulfilling prophecy as the more you stress about stress you get more stressed haha, so 1) stop worrying about being stressed! Thats an order!

However its absolutely impossible to keep calm during the 2ww. Its carnage. Some days you feel so positive, others you feel so negative. its just literally a matter of telling yourself 'get through the day.. whole new day tomorrow' and tick it off. Go to bed crazy early to finish the day off asap! I did the Mindful IVF app every day which gave me 10 mins of calm. I binge watched rubbish on telly. I tried to walk every day to clear my head with my favourite music on. And I just kept on keeping on.

You are nearly halfway there and doing brilliantly. So deep breaths and masses of luck xx

[HaveFaith1 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you for your lovely, reassuring reply Daisy1245. I actually took a break from the online world after posting this and that helped me hit the reset button and calm down a little! Sadly I did my pregnancy test this morning and it didn't work. I think I'll still take your advice of getting through one day at a time xx