# my career is crumbling at my fingertips... how do you all do it??????



## duckybun (Feb 14, 2012)

Hi Ladies,

I just wanted any pearls of wisdom you could all share. I work in the creative arts, and IF has sapped all my creative juices dry, the last couple of years I have found it increasingly difficult to concentrate and be creative. It's such an intangible procress, having ideas and sparks of inspiration and when you're constantly thinking about trying to overcome IF it seems to siphon off all my creativity. I've now got the stage where I dont enjoy what I do as I find it such a struggle, and I feel like my once well established name is starting to get swallowed up with an increasingly long list of mediocre back log. 

I'm currently in my 2WW of my first IVF which didnt go to plan on pretty much every level... poor response, then binding issues, poor fertilisation and 1 embie which developed very slowly and was put back in as a late 4 cell 3 day transfer.... I feel like I cant bear this not to result in a pregnancy as I dont even have my work to fall back on as a distraction. I just want to take a break from working, have a family and then come back to it with renewed vigour when I have my 'mojo' back. If I get a BFN I dont know how I'm supposed to do any more projects as I'll really have no joy left in my soul to give to them 

Anyone else had to come to terms with any of this??

x ducky


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## goldbunny (Mar 26, 2012)

ducky i spent years and years in dead-end jobs thinking 'there's no point my applying for something else i will be leaving in 6 months to have a baby anyway' but then not falling pregnant.. i didn't dare (ironic, really) leave because at the time (no idea how it stands now) you had to have been somewhere 2 years before you got maternity leave so i didn't want to be starting somewhere only to fall pregnant. I had no idea it would take this long and i still wouldn't have made any progress...

so i'm a 'housewife' now.. very very fortunate that DH can support me so far but very bored and wishing i had some proper work experience. despite my degree it would be very hard without experience to get into anything! I would love to be creative but have discovered that it is constraints which help creativity and i just don't have enough motivation and staying power. When every day looks pretty much the same it is very difficult to achieve things. I know that won't make sense to any of the hundreds of people who are so busy in their jobs and think they could be creative if they just had the time - it doesn't work like that though. 

there is a big problem with 'taking a break' in creative jobs which isn't really the same in most other areas - if you're a plumber or a doctor and take 6 months off you can just carry on doing what you did, but to make money in creative jobs usually takes reputation, reliability, persistance, and being in exactly the right place at the right time... and setting up work 'forwards' for yourself... which is a job in itself!... it's often also tied to seasonal things for example people buying stuff for christmas or whatever.. so timing is important.... if you take a break you run a huge risk of never getting back in... people don't 'need' creative stuff the same way they need a washing machine or a broken leg repaired... and there are other people to step into your shoes if you step aside... 

my instinct says try not to think about taking a break... and try not to think about whether your 'mojo' is there or not... and try to establish some deliberate constraints (deadlines, whatever) and remember that it is constraints that drive creativity. When all you have is a paper clip you can think of a hundred uses for it. 

i understand about IVF siphoning off your creativity some of it is the drugs and some of it the mental energy thing and some of it is the feeling that if you can't 'create' you can't 'create' - there seems to be a link between feeling fertile and feeling 'creative' ... 
that's really hard to get back from and i so so hope you don't get a BFN but if you do it will be a struggle to fight on being creative but i saw my first IVF as a 'dress rehearsal'... we have to try again.. and keep trying..

the best (very best) creativity comes out of an idea that just won't shut up and sit still, an idea that is bursting to get out there. Can you ditch some of the back-log or delegate it to hired minions? you'll need a fresh start... 
maybe you need to go to some places that will inspire you - museums, galleries, the beach.. perhaps plan a couple of days out to revive the creative juices. 

then just remember to make the constraints you have work for you. I was listening to radio 3 the other day about some bloke who was a musician, and we tend to think 'ah, famous musician, easy life' but this guy was working loads of other jobs in his life including painting and decorating, he would paint houses or whatever by day then go off musicianing at night and only get home in the early hours and then go out to his day job. 
Also one time i saw the painter david shephard (does elephants etc) at an exhibition and someone was asking him about his work and it turns out, he just painted *all the time*. Every spare minute. Not that spare is the right word. I think (and i am very guilty of this) that sometimes to be creative we think we have to wait for inspiration to magically zoom in whilst we're staring into space over a coffee.. but a lot of the people who are most famous for their creativity are actually famous for their unstoppable work ethic and just enormous amounts of effort that goes into it. Some people who are maybe famous for one symphony or something maybe wrote a hundred that weren't so famous... 

just keep swimming, as they say in 'finding nemo'.


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## angela123 (Feb 15, 2010)

Hi Ducky, Sadly I have no perfect answer to your problem, I just want to empathise as I also work creatively and found it impossilbe to create anything through the years of IF... And did end up doing a admin 9-5 job to get through numerous treatments as to turn the tap on of your creative flow for a job is hard enough..... I found it immpossible when doing  IVF also I was freelancing so the constant flow of money needed for treatment wasnt there.... so got a different job.... perhaps if I had full-time employment creatively I would have found a way, and I really do hope you do as I know that being creative was the only time i was distracted from treatment...and you will find that a godsend.... good luck with your BFP sending you good vibes!


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