5dpiui - 2ww ramblings

The weird thing about the two week wait is that you, the owner of the uterus in question, are entirely powerless.

If the egg is going to be fertilized, it has already happened. Nothing I did or didn’t do affected the outcome (so my last-minute panicked “I should have shaved my legs!” before the IUI was completely irrational, I know).

If the embryo is going to implant, it won’t be for a few more days. Again, I have no control over whether it implants or not. Of course I choose not to drink myself into a stupor or pick up a heroine habit during these two weeks, but empirically we know that it doesn’t really matter anyway. Drunks and druggies get pregnant all the time.

It takes an enormous amount of patience and faith to trust my body to do this. My body, which doesn’t ovulate on its own, is supposed to figure out how to get the egg fertilized and get it to stick in the right spot? It seems nearly impossible that it could happen. And the fact that when it does happen, it will be without any knowledge or participation on my part, just floors me. It makes more and more sense every day why people call babies “miracles”.

I just wish I had a part to play in the actual fertilization and implantation, the way I have a part to play in growing the follicles, ovulating, and inseminating. I wish I could offer some words of encouragement to my reproductive system (“You can do this, I believe in you, don’t let me down”). Or, if I can’t actively play a role, I wish there were some sort of window in my abdomen so I could peek in and see what’s going on in there.  

I know these are silly, unproductive thoughts. The two week wait makes me feel, at best, curious and at worst, helpless. I wish I was a person who believed “It’s all in God’s hands now,” but I don’t. I believe it’s all just random chance, and that’s hard for a control freak like me!