Telling the tide not to come in

The biggest source of tension between my husband and me is that his family Do Not Plan. I like to be spontaneous, and when we have a free day we'll often do something on the spur of the moment. But with a family and circle of friends as large as mine, I have to plan ahead or there are many many people I'd never get to see.

DH's family canNOT be pinned down to any firm arrangements for anything. Major birthday coming up? Silver Wedding anniversary? Christmas? Easter? DH and I keep the weekend free just in case anything is planned at the last minute. The bonus is that if no plans are made, we have an unexpected free weekend - but if we've turned down other invitations in the meantime in order to keep the weekend free, it does get irritating.

I, on the other hand, like to give people a bit more of a heads-up about when something might be going on and what it's likely to be. OK, I only booked the spa day for the weekend before my birthday (that is, the Saturday after next) yesterday, but the people who are coming have known about it for at least a month - and I've had the plan in my head for ages. And that's important to me too - call me a control freak (you wouldn't be the first), but I like to know what I'm going to be doing, and when.

The other piece of advice the nurse gave us yesterday was that we should take this process one step at a time - one injection, one scan, one procedure at a time, and try not to look ahead too much at what's coming next. Well, DH can probably do that quite happily. Me? It's like telling the tide not to come in, or telling the rain to fall upwards.

I've already sat with my calendar a few times, counting forward and trying to work out the approximate dates at which I'm likely to reach each stage (and when we could try again if this cycle fails, and how that fits in with our planned holiday in the autumn).

CD 1 of my next cycle should be around 9 or 10 September. I'll have to go down to the clinic then to have a scan, pick up my prescriptions and learn how to do my injections - and I've noted that this fits in OK with my work schedule, as I'm teaching every day that week, but only in the afternoons.

That would make egg retrieval and embryo transfer presumably about 14 days later - I usually ovulate on day 13, though I don't know exactly what the drugs will do to the timing. The clinic only does procedures on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so if egg retrieval is on a Wednesday, embryo transfer will be on the Friday. Monday of that week is almost certainly too early for egg retrieval, but Wednesday is a possibility, and if not Wednesday I'm sure it'll be happening on Friday.

And wouldn't you know it - that Friday is a hugely important day in the life of one of my very good friends. I've been invited to the ceremony that day and a huge party the day after - I'm godmother to one of their children, and they see me as part of their family. In fact, they see my entire family as part of their family, and my parents are also invited to this event. I'll be kind of sad if I can't make it, and I know they'll be pretty upset too.

And here's the other thing - I'm not sure I'd want to tell them why I'm not able to make it. They're so matter-of-fact about everything that I think they'd expect me just to get on with things and be hurt that I'm not making the effort to turn up anyway, at least to the party on the Saturday - but I just know that I'm going to want to lounge around with my feet up for a couple of days at least after the embryo transfer, and a huge party doesn't really figure in my plans.

Hmmmm - maybe this is why the nurse said to take things one step at a time. I mean, I might not produce enough follicles and the treatment might be abandoned. I haven't had my AMH result back yet, and the whole thing might have to be rethought if that's too low. This current cycle might be longer or shorter than normal. It might take longer to get to the egg retrieval stage than I'm expecting.

I wish I could just go to sleep for the next six weeks or so. Oh, and wake up pregnant - that's the important bit...