the best week

I think, of all the weeks it takes to complete a treatment cycle, this is the best one: The Week Before.

I love this week. Because, this week, it's all possible. Fantastic response to drugs? Could happen. Lots of healthy eggs retrieved? Completely possible. Lack of Crazy Bitch Side Effects? Feasible. Awesome quality embryos to transfer? Can absolutely happen. Pregnancy? That too.

It's like the week before Christmas, when you're still anticipating all the fun things, and it could all be just as great as you've always dreamed - the family could all get along, the gifts could all be wonderful, that person could scream with joy at the present you chose for them, the food could be delicious, the weather could be perfect - it's all out there, in the future, in your head, and it could all come true. It could happen.

This is the best week. It's perhaps the cruelest as well, when you look back.

But that's another week. This is the good one. The happy one. The anticipatory one. It's one of the few weeks when I hate pregnant women just a little less, because I feel like I could be one of them in the not-too-distant future. Don't get me wrong: I'm not throwing myself into ecstasies of pregnancy-dreams quite yet. I haven't been infertile for four years for nothing, you know.

But not even those four years can quite ruin this week. I love this week.