Wednesday, October 24, 2012

What do you do with those emails?

I'm in the business of making babies. It seems kind of sick and twisted in that I'm really not hopeful at all about pregnancy right now, yet that is what I have to give our patients. Hope.
With the emails, we check up on all of our patients to see how the pregnancy went and what the outcome was. We have to report all of this basic data, but the patients love to send newborn photos. I'd say there's maybe ten a week...and I delete them all. They all have the same title so I know which emails to not even open. It's just part of that bitterness that I'm not past yet.
And on that note, I am doing transfers now. Probably the most important part of the whole IVF process. And part of that is talking to the patients about being pregnant, and how next year this time they'll have their baby. I hate that part. Again, I don't feel the hope I am supposed to exude to them. I wish I could just tell them, 'here's the pic, they look great, okay let's do this and I'll leave' because that is how I feel on the inside.
We also talk with patients about what happens in the lab. I do enjoy discussing the science behind IVF with the patients, but I dread the day that a patient asks about my kids. While part of me feels more of a connection with the patients because many of them have dealt with a loss, even multiple losses, before. Yet many feel like we don't understand how they feel (which is true for the rest of my coworkers, save one of the docs). But really I do understand, and I don't want that to come about in a confrontational way. Trying to make a family is an emotional business. Boy do I know that part of it now.
As I did my first transfer (who got pregnant, yay for her), I was able to spit out things like 'be pregnant' and 'I'll be checking for that positive test in 10 days' and it hurt less inside than I thought it would. Dealing with the pain gets easier, even though the pain itself never lessens.
So I guess here's to hoping that there will be hope eventually, because I got a lotta love to give.

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