Looking for the light at the end of the tunnel

I'm an optimist. I have a natural instinct to believe that things will work out. I think only in best case scenarios. My husband is the opposite end of the spectrum and is all doom and gloom, so we've learned to try and find a healthy balance somewhere in the middle.

At the moment I'm thinking that I'll be pregnant with twins after our first attempt at IVF and everything will go smoothly and we'll never again have the worry of where the next child is coming from. I know that I need to prepare myself for things not going the way I've planned, but what is there to look forward to if you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel?

When we first having investigations to find out why I hadn't got pregnant, I thought they'd find something that they could treat, give me the pills and send me on my way. When after being prodded and poked for about a year they couldn't find anything, I was sure they'd missed something because, if they hadn't, I'd have to face the prospect that it might be my husband causing the problem.

I knew there was a chance there could be him because I'd already conceived a child and carried it to full term, but I knew that if it was him, there wasn't much they could do except IVF, so I put that thought to the back of my mind. When we were sat in the doctor's office waiting for his results, I even joked that if he had fertility issues I'd leave him and find someone else to impregnate me. How was I supposed to know how very bad I would feel when the doctor came back in the room?

It turns out he has a very low sperm count and we will need ICSI, which sounds really cute when they pronounce it "iksy", and which means Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection. This basically means that they find a decent sperm and inject it into my egg, leave it to start cooking for a bit and then put it back in me. This differs from standard IVF because they just put the egg and the sperm in a pot together and hope they get together.

I think there is a lot to be optimistic about though. I'm only 32 (which apparently is young in the world of fertility treatments) and I've had a child, so there's a good chance it should work. I cant' find any statistics, but I imagine ICSI must have higher success rates than regular IVF because there's a guarantee the egg will be fertilised. In addition. we're both relatively healthy, we don't smoke or drink a lot and we're both committed to the cause. Of course money could be an issue if our PCT don't fund our treatment, but I'm burying my head in the sand about that at the moment.