baby dreamtime- I am glad you are doing your best to get to a place where you can move forward in the new year. I am doing the same thing right now to be honest, and have found the comments on this thread very helpful to me personally too.
I thought I needed to be positive...I thought I needed to be strong and move onwards...I realise now, I can be moving onwards, and also be sad, and angry and grieving...and that that's OK...that's something I hadn't really acknowledged before reading everyone's experiences. Of course, when we can be in a place feeling positive, that will help our own well being if nothing else.
I hope it helps you too...and that come the new year, we both get our BFP and our forever baby in our arms....
Firstly, I am so sorry that this cycle did not work out the way you wanted it to. I really hope and pray that the New Year will bring you your BFP.
In regards to feeling positive - I think this is really a personal choice and will depend on your circumstances. For me, the cycle that resulted in my BFP, I did make a concerted effort to be positive. I introduced acupuncture into my cycle which helped my stress levels immensely. I went into the cycle with the thought that I would do everything in my power to remain positive. I regularly imagined receiving the phone call from the clinic advising of my BFP and how that would make me feel. Every time I felt a negative thought entering my head I would focus on that phone call.
Now in saying all that - do I think that being positive made the difference? Well all I can say is that it did for me... but then my answer would be different if the result was different.
I am naturally a positive person and do not cope well with negativity so this is why I made this choice. I was lucky as it worked for me, but I am under no illusions that it is the only reason the cycle worked. We also happened upon the right embryo, my health was spot on... the stars really just aligned for us.
I guess we can lay off the self criticim if we have an unsuccessful cycle and we are worried we weren't thinking positively enough. Like some have suggested, the positive thinking is perhaps the only thing that keeps us going, but possibly does not effect the outcome. Love to you all.
Positive thinking does not help fight cancer: study
PM - Monday, 2 June , 2008 18:14:00
Reporter: Barbara Miller
MARK COLVIN: We journalists too often deploy the cliche about people "battling" cancer, but now Australian researchers have found that there's actually nothing much a patient's attitude can do to fight the disease.
Cancer specialists agree that it's a finding which is both reassuring and unsettling.
They've concluded that a breast cancer patient's attitude to the illness has no influence whatsoever on their chance of survival. The scientists say the work proves that patients should stop blaming themselves if their cancer returns.
But some patients aren't keen to let go of their belief in the power of positive thinking.
This report from Barbara Miller.
BARBARA MILLER: It's an idea which has been gaining ground for some time. Smaller studies have already suggested that positive thinking does not boost a cancer patient's chance of survival.
Those findings have now been confirmed with a large long-term study involving the assessment of more than 700 breast cancer patients over a period of eight years.
The study's lead author Associate Professor Kelly-Anne Phillips from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne has just presented the findings at a major cancer conference in Chicago. She says for some patients it's good news.
KELLY-ANNE PHILLIPS: I think it?s certainly good news for those women that I see whose cancer has unfortunately returned and who come to me and are really blaming themselves for not having thought positively enough or having been depressed or anxious after their cancer diagnosis.
And they come along thinking that is the main reason their cancer has recurred. And now I?m able to tell those women, look that?s just not true.
BARBARA MILLER: Kelly-Anne Philipps, who's also a Colebatch Clinical Research Fellow at the Cancer Council of Victoria, says the findings don't need to take away a patient's sense of having control over their illness.
KELLY-ANNE PHILLIPS: The things that are important are, you know, having the right treatment and taking the appropriate treatment and also there are other emerging factors that are important in survival after breast cancer, so things like regular exercise for example, is something that women do have control over and it seems to be emerging as an important prognostic factor, maintaining normal body weight for example, is clearly a very important prognostic factor after breast cancer.
So I think it means that women can focus on the things that we really do know make a difference.
BARBARA MILLER: Dr Jane Turner, a spokesperson for the Cancer Council, has welcomed the research.
JANE TURNER: I?m absolutely delighted because a number of people believe that stress causes cancer and women are commonly told to be positive. However, that denies them the chance to talk about the things that are really concerning them, it denies them the chance to necessarily seek the support they might need, and it also denies them a chance to seek treatment for anxiety and depression, which are very common.
Some people are naturally optimistic, some people are worriers. You can?t turn yourself into something you?re not, nor should you feel burdened that you have to.
BARBARA MILLER: Would you expect that these findings would also apply to other forms of cancer?
JANE TURNER: I would expect so. There has been some research done in Melbourne, at Peter MacCallum Hospital, looking at lung cancer and they?ve found similar results.
BARBARA MILLER: But some cancer patients are sceptical about the findings.
Lizzie Wheeler from New South Wales was diagnosed two years ago with ovarian cancer.
LIZZIE WHEELER: I don?t think I could have made it this far if I didn?t have a positive outlook and everybody around me was positive. I?ve had times where things have been really rough and I?ve been really ill, but I?ve managed to bounce back up again.
BARBARA MILLER: What do you make then of this study that finds that the attitude that people have, in this particular case, to do with breast cancer had no impact on their chance of survival?
LIZZIE WHEELER: I?m not sure where they?re coming from with that. I don?t know. I can?t believe that your attitude doesn?t have an outcome that helps with you to keep going.
BARBARA MILLER: John Stubbs is the executive officer with the advocacy group, Cancer Voices Australia. He says the research findings will help some patients.
JOHN STUBBS: Personally, I feel that my positive attitude was of great benefit to me, not only that, I had a great clinician and I had great family support. So, I think I got the whole package.
It?s probably fair to say that there would be a number ? or there would be many cancer patients who feel the same, or there may be an equal number of patients who don?t want to be trapped ? I think we call it, trapped in the prism of the positive, that they?ve been positive throughout their cancer and its returned and all of a sudden they?re made to feel guilty about that.
So, I think there will be some good things that?ll come out of this report.
BARBARA MILLER: That report prepared by Barbara Miller.
This thread is great. I recently recieved a long awaited BFP. After 3 ectopic pregs (2 ruptures) and 3 IVF cycles it does not seem real. I cannot find the strength to be positive. Every twinge, every pain convinces me I am about to have a miscarrage or that the wee bubba is somehow growing in a microscopic stub of my removed fillipean tubes.
I feel like I have everything pinned on this pregnancy. The changes to medicare in january mean that we will be able to afford maybe one full cycle and of course my bio-clock is ticking.
This morning I said to my DH "well if i am going to lose this baby then I want it to happen now so that I can have at least 2 more boost cycles before the end of this year. At least that way we would have be able to get some frosties before the changes hit."
DH was totally shocked. He is so happy and upbeat and I am sceptical and concerned.
I hope that once I am in the 2nd trimester I will feel better.
BD, thanks for posting that study and bumping. I feel ALOT better knowing I am not the only one who cant be Mary Bloody Sunshine all the time .
Congrats Baby Dreamtime & sammiejam
I think being positive helps our own frame of mind and the way we percieve things in our life. I doubt it does much physiologically though.
Sammiejam, given your experiences it's no surprise you feel this way. I hope you are able to get past this and enjoy a happy & healthy pregnancy. I think for me once I felt movements I was able to relax a bit, but what really helped was realising that the worry would never really end unless I let it. We get past the first trimester, then we worry about the 20 week scan, and then the birth, and then those early days, and then....
But no, nobody can be mary sunshine all the time .
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