How to survive the blood tests?

The infertility road is marred with blood tests. Blood tests as part of the diagnosis of infertility. Blood tests before starting Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). Blood tests every few days during IUIs and IVF to analyze hormone levels. Blood tests to check pregnancy status after treatment. I know my hospital number by heart and can prepare the exact change for each blood test.

The weird thing about the room where women with infertility need to take blood tests is that it’s overpopulated with pregnant women. Indeed pregnancy is the other great life condition when blood tests are very common.
There’s a particular sting to be waiting in a room full with women who have what you want. At the lab I attended in France, when requesting a waiting ticket before joining the queue, one is required to specify whether pregnant or not, and they get a letter code instead of a number code. So just by the code called out by the receptionist, one can know if you are part of the lucky few or not. Then, there are the loud comments of the lab staff to the pregnant women: “ When are you due? Ah, it’s already your fifth?”; they usually go on to talk about kids.

I dream about the day I get to have the special pregnant woman code on my waiting ticket. Unlike most of the women here who get it without even noticing, I’ll be so grateful for it. It’s a little bit like fame, I like to console myself by thinking. Mozart was famous as a child and never really enjoyed life as an adult, and actually finished in pretty depressing circumstances. The French painter Bernard Buffet had a similar story — famous at 17, committed suicide when he was old as he could never rival his early success. We infertile women will have struggled to get pregnant - but a positive outcome, however distant it is, will be ever sweeter.