I’ve never been a fan of leggings outside of going to the gym. HOWEVERRRR, I had a complete change of heart as I started IVF. My delicate stomach, swollen abdomen, and sore muscles made me rethink everything I’d ever muttered about leggings, jeggings, and everything in between.
IVF completely transforms how your body operates. Especially leading up to egg retrieval, your body does in days what it would usually do over months. One medication pushes your body to create and enlarge multiple eggs at once, while another holds all these eggs in place for retrieval. The goal? Collect them all at once rather than releasing one and letting the rest of the eggs go unfertilized (cue menstruation).
Holding every single egg at once is both uncomfortable and, for some, risky. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) and ovarian torsion (when an ovary twists) can happen when your ovaries swell and leak fluid. With all of this going on, leggings quickly became the least of my worries.
Exercise is also limited during IVF, so no matter how active you are, a slower, more sedentary lifestyle kicks in. At first, it feels like such a drag, but I found two things that helped a lot:
Journaling My Gratitude: I’m not an avid journaler, but jotting down a few things I was thankful for gave me some helpful perspective and lifted my spirits.
Shopping!: New clothes were my form of self-care. I picked out a pair of jeans and two loose dresses—items that would disguise my sore, growing abdomen. Even if they end up too big later, just finding outfits I felt comfortable in was a game-changer.
Problem solved. Quite literally: out of sight, out of mind. My body is doing a lot of work, and, in the words of Snoop Dogg:
"Last but not least, I wanna thank me.
I wanna thank me for believing in me.
I wanna thank me for doing all this hard work.
I wanna thank me for having no days off.
I wanna thank me for never quitting."