Outsider...

Everyone I've come across in IVF forums and groups has been incredibly supportive to me and I will be eternally grateful to this.  This post is not meant in any way to detract from that, it's just something I've been thinking about.

I've not really fit in anywhere on my journey and it's been very hard to get the information I've been looking for about other people's experiences.  I'm not able to conceive naturally because of my husband's genetics nor am I infertile.  I feel somewhat of a fraud asking for help and advice on fertility forums because my fertility itself is fine.  I'm going through IVF but for a very different reason to many women and I've never had the opportunity to try to conceive naturally (nor have I therefore experienced what most women going through IVF have suffered through to get to this stage).  Because I don't have fertility issues my treatment has been quite different to those going through IVF after failed conception attempts, recurrent miscarriages and all manner of horrible, traumatic events.

My quest for people who can relate to my specific journey (and I theirs) led to me stumbling across a group on Facebook for women and couples going through IVF with PGD.  Whilst PGD isn't completely specific to Huntington's disease or our situation and whilst it can apply to women who have had unexplained recurrent loss or difficulty conceiving, I have found a few people in my exact situation who I can relate to.

Of those who are testing (both fully and non-disclosure) for HD, almost all of the women I have spoken to have become pregnant following their first transfer.  This has given me an amazing sense of hope - you hear so many IVF horror stories of women never actually having children, but realistically in my case that's unlikely as my fertility tests are all normal.  However, I'm not sure how much I'm appreciating the sense of hope because I've been trying not to get my hopes up too much until we have a definitive pregnancy.

All I seem to have learned from this process is that I don't know what I want (in terms of support, being hopeful, being realistic), my hormones are completely all over the place and I'm definitely not alone in these feelings.  All in all I feel like I'm handling the situation better than I expected and definitely better than ALS expected (he of little faith).  We are now 9 days post biopsy and I've not lost my mind yet - fingers crossed we hear something soon!