The optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity.
The pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
I’m not sure it’s ever that cut and dry when it comes to infertility.
I was more of a ‘denialist’ when it came to accepting that we actually needed to do the infertility gig.
That was 100% based on ignorance of the actual science of my low count combined with Lisa’s endometriosis.
That ignorance allowed me to be optimistic about doing IUIs even though I later learned upon becoming enlightened by research that the statistical probability of any of those cycles working was about 5%.
Lisa’s pessimism during those cycles came from a place of actually knowing what the statistical odds were.
It angered me when she kept saying with each failed IUI that we should just face it, we needed to do IVF.
I thought her negative thinking was keeping us from getting pregnant.
Nope.
The odds were just stacked against us.
Funny thing is, I never considered myself a gambler.
I’ve been to a casino I think a few times, plunked a few coins into the slots and walked away maybe $20 poorer.
Yet I was willing to shell out $400 to $500 a pop for a 5% chance of conception success, simply because I was in denial that the odds were really that bad.
Stupid, I know.
Later, I think I was neither an optimist or pessimist .
I was pissed when things failed.
Excited when it looked like things were going well.
I guess I had an infertility attitude adjustment after the third failed IVF cycle.
I had to decide to be relentless, or hopeless.
There are many times, when I could feel that hopeless shadow trying to wrap itself around me so I’d tell Lisa we were done.
But I don’t like losing. Don’t like giving up.
Lisa doesn’t either.
In the end, I don’t really think it matters whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about where your infertility journey is taking you.
You just have to be relentless, until you get what you want, or find a way to accept what you get.