The power of positive thinking

I doubt I could resist rolling my eyes at anyone that would dare utter the above words to me in seriousness. Both the magnificent Bugs and Deborah have pondered the role of positive thinking in the past few days, and I greatly enjoyed reading what they had to say on the subject. I am probably not coming from the correct vantage point, given that I am a raging cynic and a lifelong member of the "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a REALIST" club. I even think my cynicism and reluctance to be positive have protected me from a lot of pain, but then again, am I in denial about this? Have I orchestrated this concept of protection from pain to justify being so negative?

After I had my first IUI in October I felt the onset of positive feelings creeping in, slowly trying to overthrow the long-festering negativity that had settled in after two years of disappointment. Driving home from the procedure, The Dude and I kept joking that he could be sitting next to a pregnant woman, and my mind was swimming with happy thoughts of what could be occurring at that moment. My logic was that ovulation was certain to have occurred, The Dude's little soldiers were numerous and not simpletons that would crash into the uterine wall and get disoriented, and hell, they were injecting the things directly into my uterus, virtually ensuring success, right?

The nurse did suggest that if this cycle was to be unsuccessful, that we might want to wait another month or two in order to get over the disappointment. I stupidly said to The Dude on the day of the IUI, "Pfft...we're professionals in the disappointment stakes, why would this time be any different? We'll get over it right away like we always do and move on!" Fast-forward to the day exactly two weeks later when I got my period, and I was certainly not feeling so blase. My rationale is that had I been a bit more realistic, none of that would have happened. Had I been true to myself, I would have realised that making these assumptions would end up hurting me much more than being negative would.

A day after IUI #2 I think it's quite transparent to see how I'm feeling. I'm trying desperately not to think ahead to what comes after this, as I'm only one IUI away from moving on to IVF and that terrifies me.

I once had to read a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories for a class in college. I didn't get past the introduction, which said, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always 3 o'clock in the morning." I read that line and decided that nothing in the rest of the book could possibly compare to that single statement, which I felt described my emotions perfectly unlike anything I'd read before. That, and I don't really like reading F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think of that line when I'm facing an IUI that I don't believe will work, and I live that line when the two week wait concludes in the way I fully expected it to.