When someone mutters the phrase “a month of Sundays”, they just have no idea. When it comes to waiting to get pregnant, we women know the process is a grueling waiting game. But what happens when you’re waiting for someone else to get pregnant for you?

I thought last September, when I found out that I was pregnant, that 9 months was forever to wait. Wow, I had no clue! After we lost our pregnancy 4 months later, I promised myself I would dedicate the following 5 months to healing and grieving rather than jumping right back on the baby bandwagon. I am somewhat of an impatient person when it comes to this baby game, so of course that didn’t quite work out. Here we are, 9 months after my first pregnancy, but another 11 months from having a baby. So in mother-to-be time, that’s forever.  This feels like the never ending gestation.

My weekly turn in counting occurred on Sundays, because that’s when my cycle fell. So every Sunday, I count down another week until our anticipated egg retrieval date on July 14^th. Another 5 days after the retrieval, we will put the trophy winning embryo in our carrier and then play another waiting game to find out if she indeed is pregnant. No one ever told me that the game of life was just a never-ending battle of hurry up, wait, now hurry up again. I am so sick of counting time, days, weeks, months and so on; I just want to wake up and go to sleep not knowing what day it is anymore! I know that many other women have so much longer to wait for children, and I know that my petty 2 years is nothing compared to what some women go through, but I am ready just the same.

I’ve started cutting back my caffeine intake, my artificial sugars (aspartame), increasing my “healthy” foods and liquids (lots of water!), and started taking my prenatal vitamin again. If someone else is going to carry this baby for me, the least I can do is prepare my body to produce the healthiest eggs possible. It makes me feel somewhat normal to still have a part in the health of my child, even before it is conceived. I did all of the same prep work last year before, and I’m not changing anything now. I believe that it is just as important to keep your body healthy pre-egg transfer or IVF cycle as it is before normally conceiving. So for the next two months until our embryo transfer, I will spend my time exercising (low impact due to the IVF injection drugs), eating right (I’m normally a healthy eater anyways), and cutting out the junk that I don’t need in my diet (caffeine is hard to say goodbye to).  If that’s all the physical responsibility I can have during this process then that’s what I’ll do, gladly.