What are the odds?

I do feel some relief, as predicted, to reach 12 weeks and 'pass' the 12 week scan. Many other feelings have taken me by surprise. I am often grappling with my anxieties and trying to decide which ones are rational and which ones are not. Things could still go wrong, of course, but the odds are better. As I like to remind myself in taxis/trains/buses to the airport, I have a greater chance of dying/injury on my way to the airport than on board the plane. It helps a little when I feel the odds are in my favour.

Back in December, 2010. N and I sat in the same room I had my 12 week scan in and were told we had a 45% chance of a pregnancy from a cycle with 2 embryos and a 30% chance of a live birth from that, with a 10% chance of twins. An image popped in my mind thanks to a wise Doctor I used to work with who used to tell families..."Imagine 10 (or 100) people at a bus stop....if we operated on all of them...X amount would develop X complication". At this time, I sat and imagined 9 other couples in a waiting room and wondered if we would be the one couple called through to news of twins or would we be left sitting. I found the odds hard to bear during the 1st cycle (that failed) but quite comforting when I was able to step back and see the bigger picture and imagine being in the 85% that would get a pregnancy from 3 cycles. Those odds were good.

I avoided looking at odds once I tested positive post FET but I saw a few numbers drift by on BC. Then, after the 6.6 scan with heart beat detected my Dr P gave us a new number...85% chance of a live birth. This is a great number. This is how it felt. Not that we were home and dry or had 'beaten' infertility as some people feel. It felt like the next step in the treatment, a real step in the right direction. Finally the odds were in our favour. And so I oscillated between feeling positive about these numbers and feeling myself becoming part of the one-and-a-bit couples left in the waiting area that didn't make it. After all, 4-6 hourly hormone tablets/pessaries and spotting, 35 years etc...hmm. But I had real hope, more than we'd had for years.

Now the percentage of losing what we have is minuscule and we have new odds of abnormalities and complications to face. These are the odds I've seen clients and patients deal with in my work and issues I've given a lot of thought to them but they feel welcome dilemmas compared to what we have faced recently though no less stressful. So as I sit in the imaginary waiting room with 100 other couples wondering if I will make it through the next door and I start to panic, I consider all the other odds, like being hit by a moving vehicle (it varies but where I live it must be higher than average). It provides a few rational moments at least in the emotional journey.