Don't panic Mrs Mannering...

...My father used to say that to my mother when she was mid panic, still does. This could be a clue to my somewhat highly strung nature - it is inherited from my mother. When in doubt blame Mum.
I however don't like the term highly strung as it sounds like a horse that is basically a rotter but to be kind people call it highly strung. What they mean is it's a lunatic. I like to call such a personality trait impulsive, and when one moves on from the terrible calamities being impulsive tends to be associated with, it does have many good attributes. Those of us with an 'act now think later,' disposition tend to do quite a lot of exciting things in our lives because we don't think about the consequences. We have an awful lot of fun and when not stressing, enjoy life to the max. Sadly, one of the not so good attributes of an impulsive nature is to see things entirely on face value and not necessarily spend time gathering the full facts. It means we spend a vast part of our lives apologising and admitting we were wrong. It also means that when we are furnished with the full facts, we can somewhat obsess, see ALL the pitfalls and retreat into a world of doom and gloom. My husband calls me Health and Safety because when I do actually take a second to digest a situation, I find so many potential death traps, pitfalls, looming disasters that I become a neurotic stress ball, worthy of the phrase 'Don't panic Mrs Mannering.'
All of this leads me back to the blood tests. On an impulsive persons face value they were bleaker than bleak and worthy of a bottle of wine, straw and then another. Which is what we did. Example one of an impulsive persons propensity to admitting they were wrong. While knowledge is power, a little knowledge wrongly administered can be the root of many a downfall. My obsession to interpret information and  know all the facts immediately, instead of waiting for the actual trained expert to explain them is a clear example of this. I got it wrong. I am also beginning to adjust my opinion of Google, or rather my use of it, and think perhaps we might have an armistice. While it is clearly full of useful information, it is also full of snippets of potentially scary information, which digested the wrong way can definitely cause undue upset and worry. Which is where this Nearly Doctor fell foul. It would seem that my blood tests were indeed a bit bleak in the fact that one would obviously prefer not to have any issues, but in relation to IVF, according to Dr UK IVF who is flying so high in our estimations at present he is not far off Sainthood, they are actually not so bad.
I do indeed have some problems with my immune system - it is super active and tends to attack any supposed 'infection' with the force of a crusade. This is actually not a bad thing according to Dr UK IVF, because it means that I am healthy (like having super powers I think was the analogy he used which irritated my husband horribly as he does not have these super powers, but made me smile a lot) and my body is less likely to get anything nasty. It's bad news for any embryo as that is deemed a threat by my white blood cells, but with a little tweaking and some very clever medicine that will 'calm down' my immune system, we can hopefully control this when it comes to implantation time. I will probably have this for life, although there are no studies that can prove or disprove this as yet.
My blood clotting mutation (such a horrible word) is genetic, so I blame my parents entirely, but with steroids, asprin and some whopping doses of super powered folic acid (being shipped as I type) it can be controlled. I am at risk of Thrombosis, stroke and coronary disease, but now that I know this, I can control it.
During our phone call with Dr UK IVF he said that he was actually pleased with our results. This is a funny one, and I was not sure entirely how to take it but as he said, now that we know about all of this, we can treat it and he said his feeling was a positive one. When we ended the call, my husband and I sat silently on the sofa for a minute. We had just had what seemed like the first positive news in a long time, and a teeeny tiny part of me began to think that actually this might work. Which then obviously turned to fear. What if this is our one piece of good luck and we have just used it up and now the IVF will fail? Silly really to have such an irrational thought after good news, but as I am sure it is clear by now, I do have a very active imagination and my mind really is not under my control at all times. Luckily I have a husband who can go some way to controlling me and talking sense, of which he did, telling me to stop being so pessimistic and be pleased we have good news. Which is where I am now. Pleased, optimistic, a bit nervous and not overly looking forward to the next medical bit of this journey which is another general anaesthetic in a couple of weeks to do a Hysteroscopy and check that all is well in the mothership. As we know, GA's are actually not remotely horrible for me, I quite like them, but it's another investigations that could throw up another problem. But that is a couple of weeks away, right now the sun is shining, we had another successful night of big boy pants in bed, my walk this morning was stunning, and we are being grateful for the fact that we are even able to go down this journey, have these tests, try and find a solution as so many people are not as fortunate as us in their quest to have a child, and that must just be unbearable.
I think I might try and slow down a little, take things more in my stride, be a little more relaxed, less impulsive, perhaps try the 'think now, act later' approach to life. Don't fancy my chances but you never know......