Image by Kenneth Spencer via Flickr
I do it every cycle whether its IVF or FET… Every. Single. Cycle.
In the final days leading up to our procedures I start cleaning and organizing. And when I am done, I clean and organize some more.
Pregnant women nest in order to prepare the home for baby. I suppose it also helps relieve anxiety about the impending birth, the pain, the joy, and changes it will bring to the household. I really wouldn’t know thanks to several weeks of prescribed bed rest when I was pregnant with Spork. But I know a lot about nesting before IVF. I even know why I do it, however having that knowledge doesn’t save me from practicing my own personal brand of crazy.
I nest before IVF in order to gain control over my environment as things begin to feel more and more out of control. I clean in an attempt to occupy my mind, however I try to convince myself and others that I do it to prepare the world around me for 12 days of light activity and waiting.
This time, I took it to a whole new level. My bags are packed, every single linen and piece of clothing in the house is washed and put away, the bills are paid, the drugs I will use this week are neatly organized into a pill box, those drugs that I no longer use are tidied up and stored for a possible later time that I pray never comes. I even boxed up Spork’s 24 month duds and broke out her hand-me-down 2T sizes, washing them and tucking them away (sigh).
This is what I do and I do it so very well.
My nesting began three weeks ago when I began meal planning so I could eliminate stress during the cycle by ensuring that I always had gluten free leftovers to carry with me throughout the state of Michigan as I traveled to and fro for work. Never mind that I never cook anyway and I would have been just fine leaving dinner up to Bill like I always do.
Tonight my nesting ends with an impeccably clean attic. That’s right, attic. I won’t even see my attic over the next 2 weeks while I wait to find out it we are going to have another baby, but I would know it was a flippin’ mess and that would be enough to make me crazy. Not only does this cleaning save me from being even more nuts than I will be during the two week wait, it helps make me sane in the short term.
Cleaning the attic stops me from obsessing over questions like:
What if there are no eggs in my follicles?
What if we overstimulated and the eggs are immature?
What if Spork permanently damaged Bill’s little swimmers when she jumped on his lap a few days ago?
What if the eggs don’t fertilize?
What if I spill the only HCG within 3 hours of us tonight when I trigger?
The list goes on and on.
If you have followed my blog for more than 5 minutes you have already correctly diagnosed me as a control freak. I could try to fight it but after 38 years I know its pointless. All I can do is recognize it and try to be balanced by not letting my desire to relieve stress create more stress than it relieves. The meal planning failed that test, plus my cooking was pretty bad, which is why I stopped it last week. However it was sort of fun to watch Bill pretend to like my food so I may bring it back for some comic relief during the two week wait.
In fact, I think I will. After all, I can’t control whether or not my embryos attach and grow into healthy babies, but I can make a terrible batch of gluten free swedish meatballs to enjoy eat while we are waiting to find out the results.
Besides, other than a few bland meals, what’s the downside? My attic as well as my soul are better for this.
Do any of you do this as well or am I alone in my infertility induced obsessive compulsive behavior?
Laughter Through Tears 
To use a line from my friend, “I think about it every day. I just don’t do it.”… Feel free to head this way if you need to get your mind off of things. I could occupy you for days! You’d better take it easy soon! My orders! 🙂
I would LOVE to head your way…
I’m taking it easy from here on out…
We also compulsively clean and cook before the start of a new cycle…it really helps keep stress levels down!
Hopefully you are better at the cooking part than me 🙂
I wish I were that focused. My house would be spotless. I do engage other variants of my latent OCD however. Wishing you so much luck!
Thanks and right back at ya 😀
I’m not nesting, but I’ve love for you to come over to my home to clean and organize!
I never leave comments for anything. I’m reluctant to even rate my perfectly nice Uber drivers 🙈 But I just had to here because this post alone has cracked me up three times just because how much I can relate to it! 😅
Oh, do I nest or do I nest?! I have cleaned my apartment to the point of ordering a new dual-compartment kitchen bin so that I don’t have to look at the bag of recycling and bought an organiser for the bags themselves so that I don’t even have to see the bags either.
I ordered so much food to be delivered from the supermarket even though I can barely summon any enthusiasm for my own cooking even when I’m not feeling sick from the drugs 😂
It is 2:38am now which means, instead of writing my immanently due assignments, so far I’ve spent 7.5 hours asking Dr. Google about overmature and immature eggs so that I would know whether or not to strongly suggest waiting an extra day at what may very well be my last scan on D11 scan tomorrow morning as I only had three 13cm on my D8 scan.
And I was literally laughing out loud about “not letting my desire to relieve stress create more stress than it relieves”. Just how true is that?! lol! And I am fully expecting this to turn into my stressing about not having enough time left to get a good night sleep which of course is going to stop me from sleeping altogether 😂
It’s like you are in my head 😂
Thanks for your blog and thanks for making me feel I’m not the biggest weirdo on the planet for feeling and doing all these crazy OCD things that I do when there are almost enough hormones in my body to power a small nuclear plant, lol (and when things had previously gone wrong in the past…)
And thank you for writing your heart out so honestly. I haven’t found my “Bill” yet to hold my hand through this process, so I’m extra glad that I stumbled across your blog which I suspect also has a happy ending given the picture with the twins at the top of the page. So happy for you and thank you!
Thanks! Glad it resonated with you. I am indeed on the other side of our fertility journey, so much so that I haven’t posted in ages. I miss writing, it ultimately was the best release for me. Wishing you the best on your journey. Will pray!