Cap and Hospital Gown

I received an invite to a high school graduation the other day and I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that I've never actually graduated anything. I moved 1200 miles to Texas just before my senior year of high school and rather than be the awkward new kid (as opposed to the awkward old kid I'd been back home) I decided to get my GED and head directly to college. But after a year at university a job at a record store seemed more appealing and I quit to become a full time indie-chick. Yet another graduation thwarted.

I expected I'd do a bit of graduating tomorrow, from an IVF cycle-r to an IVF success story. With my history I knew that a couple of lines on a stick wouldn't mark me as a success just yet, but at least I wouldn't be a failure, doomed to sit at the back of the fertile class with a big pointy "Barren" hat on my head. Nope, I'd be a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, star student, concerned about doubling betas and yolk sacs. I could feel it. Things were happening. Things were growing. I was finally gonna graduate.

But after countless pee-sticks (ok, 9 pee sticks - so sue me) it appears that yet again, I am left behind. Girls cycling with me have already announced their BFPs, while I pray for that hail Mary: the + beta after a - HPT. But I know it's not coming. Regardless of what my fertile friends are saying, all the hope in the world isn't going to plant growing embryos firmly in my uterus by tomorrow morning. If hope did anything I wouldn't be doing IVF in the first place.

But on second thought, it looks like I will be graduating tomorrow. Not to the world of Success After Infertility, but rather to the rank of Infertility Veteran. Looks like I'm about to earn my wings. Somehow graduating isn't quite how I expected. And it sure ain't all it's cracked up to be.