I felt foggy, sad, fatigued, and panicky about my impending egg retrieval, which was scheduled to take place 36 hours after that “trigger shot.” But being without it during the hormonally-fueled, emotional tornado of IVF, I struggled with much more than the baseline messiness of a bad mood or anxiety attack. Without it, I tend to struggle with the most basic everyday challenges life throws at me. My mat is my default go-to space for decompression, grounding, and the aforementioned ugly crying. My most trusted coping skill-coming to my mat to practice yoga-was relegated, along with all kinds of other beloved things, to a list of banned activities. But to my surprise-and, frankly, my horror-my fertility clinic’s staff psychologist, of all people, informed me at the end of our pre-cycle consultation that I was welcome to channel my IVF anxiety into meditation sessions and long walks. I thought maybe I’d finally have time to understand the physics of Firefly Pose or convince my impinged hips to get over their loathing of Cow Face Pose (admittedly, a lofty goal). But I had (incorrectly) expected to use the time off to dive deeper into my yoga practice. But I was blissfully unaware of one particular IVF-specific source of stress until just before the start of my cycle: According to my fertility team, yoga was strictly forbidden.īefore we started the cycle, I had (correctly) assumed that I’d need to put my more intense workouts on pause and that I’d probably need to lay off the HIIT and heavy weights while going through the approximate two-week stimulation phase of daily hormone injections and the egg retrieval procedure that caps the cycle. What would the daily injections feel like? Would the bloating be unbearable? Would the flood of hormones send my baseline emotional roller coaster flying off the tracks? Would I find a Google search for “annulment” in my new husband’s browser history? All of these questions plagued me in the weeks leading up to the exorbitantly expensive endeavor. Prior to starting IVF back in June, I had a million concerns. But the day after my husband injected me with the final hormonal shot of our in-vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle, I had to take my overwhelming emotional outburst elsewhere because, according to my medical team, I shouldn’t unroll my mat. Like most longtime yogis, I’ve ugly cried on my mat more times than I can count. Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!
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