More questions than answers in The ugly truth about making babies

So I had my blood test. It was for a repeat prolactin, apparently it came back ‘slightly elevated’. I didn’t get a good look at the exact numbers, although I wish I had.

Raised prolactin could be caused by something as simple as stress or pregnancy (ha!) or could signify something as huge as a pituitary tumour - thankfully these are usually benign. Really not helping with my stress levels!

Basically it’s a problem in fertility because your prolactin elevates during pregnancy. If it’s already elevated it’s harder to get pregnant. Not ideal coupled with joeys problem, and it feels like my biggest fear coming true, that alongside the problem we already know that he has, there will be something wrong with me too. My go to ‘what if’ of late has been what if there’s something wrong with both of us and there’s nothing they can do to help us get pregnant.

I’m hoping that it is just stress. I’ve been sleeping like shit, I’ve had insomnia when I’m stressed since a particularly painful breakup 10 years ago when I couldn’t eat or sleep for months afterwards. I wish my appetite was suffering rather than my sleep! Still need to shave a couple of points off my BMI, also something that’s worrying me because I basically have no self control over food, and our patients are constantly feeding us chocolate and sweets which is very generous and thoughtful but my god it’s hard to resist when temptation is right there!

I think the worrying thing is that if this second test comes back raised then it could signify an actual health problem, completely irrespective of what is going on with our fertility. I could need meds, further investigations, and if it does signify a pituitary tumour, people even have radiotherapy on those to shrink them and control them.

Or, you know, it could be nothing. I just have this weird thing where I have to prepare myself for every eventuality so it won’t come as a complete surprise if any of this happens. I do it with everything, I flip flop back and forth in my mind all the time about ivf, what if we end up with no baby vs what if they put two embryos in and they divide and I end up with 12 babies roaming around inside me. Yes I realise this is a little bit insane. But also, if someone said there are 12 babies roaming around in there, I’d feel comforted that I’d be able to say, funnily enough, I’ve actually thought about that, and I know how I feel about it, and I know what I’d like to do about it.

I don’t even know what to think right now. I just feel like my head is full of this all the time. Waiting for something good to happen, or something bad to happen. It’s bloody exhausting.

Xx