Not in a Great Place

This week has been a bit of agony for me. I am not used to not getting the level of care I had been getting with our RE and in retrospect, I should have just called them first rather than my obgyn. They don't call me until 5pm with results!!! Who does that???

So, I tested Friday & then spotted all weekend. Called Monday to say I think I needed to be retested. They said wait for the results. Ok - 5pm they say tell me 61 & to re-test Tuesday. Got those results at 5pm last night - 107. (I'm more used to a 5 hour turnaround, not 28 hour turnaround!!).

Anyway, it should have been around 240. So, less than half of what it's supposed to be. The irony is that I stopped spotting yesterday.

They're having me repeat bloodwork today - though I guess I won't get the results till 5pm Friday - ARGH!!!!! I'm also doing a sonogram today at 1pm. I'm worried it's either miscarrying or ectopic. Maybe it's just a really slow grower...

Think peaceful thoughts for me today, please.

I also had a hard time seeing the gift that my sister-in-law's gave to her sister in law on facebook - new onesies.

The thing I want most of all is just to be ME again. To be happy & chipper and not bitter. I don't know who this person is who has overtaken my body.

On a happy note, being in HR, I got my office to play App.les to App.les yesterday (and we even had apples & peanut butter as a snack!) & people LOVED it. (If you haven't played it, it's the MOST fun game ever - and a great family game if you're anxious of too much sitting around with your family over Thanksgiving!). I was very pleased that our office enjoyed it since that is my favorite game & because most of them hadn't heard of it before! And it let me forget about my problems for a little while...

It Pisses Me Off

I just took a test and it's negative. Quelle surprise! What else is new? The thing is, I haven't taken a home test in a verrrrrrrrry long time. Found them pointless. But for some stuuuuupid reason, I decided to be extra hopeful this month.

Grrrrrr. It just REALLY angers me. Why? Why can't I just be normal? Just once?

And better yet, since I'm clearly not, then why can't I handle this better? Why can't I be one of those people who really seek to make this situation better, or accept it, or make the most of it, or see the blessings that could come of it?

My husband was saying the other day that he thinks we've gotten closer as a result of all of this. Maybe. Maybe not. I'd like to think that we'd be closer in a totally different way if we hadn't gone through any of this. And I can't think that my friends who conceived naturally are not closer to their hubands. And I'm just not ready to see the silver lining yet in this.

And part of it is that I'd like for our silver lining to be adoption. I really do. I'm sick of my (failing) body. I'm sick of monitoring. I'm sick of timing sex (especially when we really don't want to). I'm sick of being anxious for 2 weeks. I'm sick of being hopeful. I'm sick of negative tests. I'm sick of doctors appointments. I'm sick of drugs. I'm just sick of it all.

I want a different silver lining. But my husband isn't there on that. So, I feel totally stuck. And this impasse is almost more painful than our infertility. Do I just 'give in' and do all the doctors appointments, more drugs, more everything? Why can't he see this beautiful thing that can be for us - a different silver lining?

I'm also sick of being angry. And sad. And withdrawn. I just want to be me again.

A Talk with Dear Ol' Dad About Mom

As many of you know, I continue to have a hard time figuring out how to deal with my mother in this whole process. So, I decided to call on my dad for some expertise.

He's hard to talk to - mostly because he works in cube-land and can't talk easily at work and my mom is always around at home, so can't talk with him there. I decided to call him at work anyway last week to talk about this pain I feel about my mom.

I told him how she and I have always had a close relationship and that now, with her constant unwanted advice - even though I tell her repeatedly that unwanted advice isn't helpful - I don't even want to spend time with her anymore. It's gotten to that point.

I feel like in a way, I've lost my mom.

He says that she hasn't changed. That she's always been this way - giving unsolicited advice and, at times, not being sensitive about it.

And I know I've changed. I know I'm now hyper-sensitive about anything anyone says.

I don't know where to go from here, though. Just accepting that our relationship has changed? That it's ok to not talk with her about this stuff anymore? Dad says she comes at all of this with a loving heart for me, and I know that... but practically, she's not listening to me about what I most need from her - her listening ear and her empathy. And until she can get that, which I'm beginning to think will be never, then I simply can't talk with her about infertility anymore. It's too painful. And more than that, it really angers me. And I have enough to deal with without being angry about her.

Time for Counseling

I finally took the plunge and went to counseling. I felt like there was something different about how I've been feeling now than my previous lows and I couldn't wait around any longer to see if/when it would go away.

And it seems like I'm not the only one. We're all hurting. We're all in need of healing. We all want the same things.

I was struck by Rachel at The Pughs, who I wrote about just days ago with how much positivity she brings to me. Well, yesterday, she finally admitted that she needs time for healing. Her post is so touching. It so incredibly resonates with what I feel - and what, apparently, lots of us are feeling.

My counselor was helpful. I wanted someone who understood infertility and I found her on the Re.solve website. Luckily she had a cancellation that same day. Here's some of the things we discussed and that I'm working through:

• Upcoming 3 year milestone of trying to conceive
• Upcoming birth of my best friend's 2nd baby
• Upcoming anniversary of our first miscarriage last Thanksgiving
• Disappointments with how family members have dealt with me
• Unresolved conflict between my husband and I on next steps and thoughts about adoption

Those last 3 points I hadn't fully realized until I started talking through it in counseling.

Our miscarriage last year was a big deal and I'm still disappointed about how everyone handled it by basically ignoring it. I'm particularly disappointed with my in-laws about this and their continued supposed ignoring with our 2nd miscarriage.

And I'm still disappointed in my mom with how she dealt with my 2nd miscarriage, essentially making it seem like it was because of something I did or didn't do. It still makes me angry to think that I had to deal with her on top of my miscarriage.

And my husband and I are conflicted on next steps. He wants biological kids so badly. He lost his dad at a young age and wants that connection. But he also doesn't want me to endure more drugs and the heightened expectations, appointments, mood swings and energy that goes into a fertility treatment.  He also has a hard time conceptualizing adoption, which is what I really want us to look at as the next step.

We finally talked about all of this in more depth this week and it has helped. I think I can open my heart up to potentially doing more treatments and he's opened himself up to researching more about adoption and understanding the true toll treatments are on me.

So... counseling is helping for now.

Best Friend Time

My best friend and I are going away together this weekend to a lake for some chill-just-us time. I can't wait. We need this so badly - or at least, I need this from us so badly.

She has a 1 1/2 year old who I just love, but as you can imagine, it's been a rocky road with dealing with my feelings about everything infertility and therefore, somehow even though this kid brings me joy, he can also bring on my sadness. He's about the age that I feel my child would be.

My best friend and I had both agreed to start trying around the same time - about 3 years ago. She took the lead though and started 4 months ahead of me. She got pregnant within 4 months but then had a miscarriage at 10 weeks. She got pregnant the following month.

I sometimes still can't believe that even with her set-back, she still has a  1 1/2 year old... and I have nothing. I try not to think about it too much - or think about it in that way. But it's hard not to.

And that's sometimes my biggest challenge. How do I let others' joys not become sadnesses to me?

I really need this weekend with her. Just her.

Broken Into

Our house got broken into yesterday. They took 2 tvs, my work laptop, camera and ipod.

And you know what? I don't care.

Yeah, interesting view, huh?

I think we are very lucky to have homeowner's insurance. Nothing sentimental got taken (thank goodness I wore my engagement ring that day - I almost didn't). I think it may help that I got broken into about 10 years ago. It doesn't seem as frightening.

But I think infertility has put perspective on things. The trauma I feel I'm going through right now just doesn't compare. As my husband says 'it's just stuff'. And as Rebecca eloquently puts it with dealing with her grief and what she's learned: We would trade every material thing we have to have our daughter healthy & with us.

So, take all the tvs you want... I just want a baby.

Not Such an Uphill Road but an Incline?

I'm stuck on this journey feeling like it's a steep, steep uphill road with no end in sight - no ultimate goal in sight - our own biological children.

But does it have to seem that way? How can I make it not seem so hard, so far out of sight?

A friend who recently went through infertility problems gave me her insight when I explained my latest quandry over these thoughts and I thought I'd share them since they've seeped in and made me look at things in a different way:

I know that feeling extremely well. I felt so often like I couldn’t even get out of the gate, how was I ever going to get to the finish line. But I do really believe that it can’t be that challenging at each step, just a matter of getting past the one that is holding you (one, I mean, not you specifically) up. Does that make sense?

 Like for me, if I could just produce enough eggs for them to get a couple, the rest of the steps should be doable. And for you, once you get past whatever is stopping them from sticking, the other steps won’t be an issue (or any more than they would for any other person). Does that bring any comfort? It helped me, just knowing it wasn’t entirely up hill, just a really steep incline for that one step!

I hope she's right. One steep incline. Okay. I can do this.

I think...

Marching On, But Continued Grief

I still can't get Rebecca out of my heart and mind. My thoughts continue to surround her as she grieves for her baby girl who was born too soon and left our world too early. (((Hugs))), Rebecca...

And then I saw this post from Sara, who I met during June's ICLW. It's called Who is This Person? It's a great post that I'm sure many of us can relate to. As I commented on her page: I just want to be normal again... to be happy when I see others with their babies, especially my best friend's whose baby is the age mine would have been had we gotten pregnant relatively early on.

And my journey continues... with an MRI this morning, bright and early at 6:45am. Not eating or drinking beforehand. My doc wanted to check out my fibroid before moving to recommended surgery. Have you ever had an MRI?

It was a miserable experience for me - at least at first. I knew I was clautophobic but I surprised myself with how I reacted. Just thinking about it makes me want to hyperventilate again.

As soon as they put me in, I asked to be taken out and I started to cry saying that I didn't think I could do this today. The tech calmed me down and said that he could remove the pillow and let me look out the back way if that would be better. So, we tried that. And it worked.

I still didn't like it but I just tried to keep breathing. Yoga actually helped in this case - I just kept focusing on my breath (though not taking deep breaths was hard!).

And all I kept thinking of was this is for the greater cause, remember the purpose and if this is what is needed to bring me my children, my family, then I'll stick through this.

I told myself the same thing 2 months ago when I posted Scared of Self Injection but unfortunately, that didn't bring me my baby. I have a feeling I'm going to have to go through many, many more steps before that happens and I'm trying to take that information in while continuing to breathe.

On Being a Good Friend

I don't think I'm being a good friend righ now & I'm struggling with how to be one.

I usually am a good friend. I'm there, I listen, I empathize, I take interest in what my friends are doing, etc., etc.

But somehow with infertility, I can't fully do it. At least not now. And I feel like I'm being a crummy friend.

My best friend has the cutest kid. In fact, I'm his "god-aunt". Yet, it's painful for me to hear about the cute things he's doing. And she's pregnant again.

Her pregnancy actually prompted me to do our 3rd IUI. She, like many of us, is a planner, and she was going to wait to 'try' in March because she didn't want another December baby but her husband was going to be gone in April & May and she didn't want to wait that long (to which she also said that she could really feel for me... she couldn't wait 2 months to try, meanwhile I've had this struggle for 2+ years), so they went ahead and tried in March... and it worked.

That was the weekend I asked "so, what's going on with planning for #2?" to which she answered "I'm a week late". That's when I knew I had to do something about me & scheduled my Day 3 appt to get started on another IUI, which ended up not working.

She feels badly talking about her pregnancy with me. We were excited at the thought of going through pregnancy together and it pains her to see what I'm going through.

It's hard on me to not be able to be a true friend to her. She's been my best friend for over 15 years. We're supposed to be sharing these milestones together.

Infertility is affecting my friendships.

I finally told her that I just need time away with her. We used to go on vacations, just she & I. And I need that again. So, that's what we're doing. July 10th weekend.

I can't wait to have my best friend back again... and be her best friend in return. I hope that can happen, if only for a couple of days in vacation-land.

Having a Scare

There was blood in the toilet last night. I started freaking out.

Then I called my best friend and started reading my book. It seems like some bleeding may be ok, especially if it's a lighter pink/red (which mine was)... what worried me was the bit sitting at the bottom of the toilet. I would understand if I were 'spotting' but some blood in the toilet? That seems more than spotting to me.

AND add to my worry that I feel like I'm just not supposed to be pregnant or it's not supposed to be this easy and I start thinking that maybe this wasn't supposed to happen for us after all.

I called my doc and they got me in this morning. He couldn't tell anything yet from the ultrasound - so said that it could be nothing but that it could also be an early miscarriage. They got bloodwork and will get the results tomorrow - let's hope my number has quadrupled since Friday - that will be a really good sign.

Ugh. I hate limbo-land.

My Long Road

I feel like this is going to be a never ending battle... or I guess a struggle that is taking way too long to resolve itself.

I started to write this earlier this week: If I'm not pregnant tomorrow, then I don't know what we'll do.

I have a 'next steps' appt w/my doc this morning. I think he'll say that he will likely want to remove a fibroid, so that means waiting once again for IUI #4. I'm not even really sure he'll want to do IUI #4. Isn't 3-4 usually the max that they recommend? We may want to get a second opinion at this point.

For the last two nights, I haven't slept between 3-5am.

What's strange in the last few days of my 2ww angst is that my boss told me yesterday that they do want to send me to India after all in July/Aug. Which actually made me elated. I really do want to go. When he told me about a month ago that I probably wouldn't go, that's kinda why I decided to do another IUI sooner... I know, we can't plan around things so much but...

So, I took a home test this morning and it was negative. And I know that that doesn't necessarily mean anything but I do think it's negative. And I'm ok. Maybe I'm ok because of India. Maybe I'm also ok because we're working through some things in counseling that I know we should probably keep working on without making 'baby-making' the be-all, end-all.

I'll get my results tomorrow but in the meantime, I can't help but think: we can do one more IUI potentially and then our next options are either IVF or adoption.

And that whole decision is overwhelming. I know, I know. 10 steps ahead but... I'm not sure where to place that $10k+ amount of money. IVF has a better likelihood but do we go with a more sure option? I don't know if I can face that decision right now. (And I know many of you have, so I'm sorry if my wallowing seems stupid right now).

It's just so unfair!!!! We should be able to procreate if we want to. I hate this. I look at myself 2 1/2 years ago with the naivete that I'd be pregnant right away - or at least within a few months. And six months later, remember starting to feel that dreaded feeling... and if I only knew then what I know now, I wish there was some way to console me back then.

And that's what I'm trying to do now. It may be another year or two ... or more. So I'm trying to look at this more as a long road rather than thinking it can or will be a short-term solution.

I just still can't believe it sometimes. 2 1/2 years. I would never have ever thought I'd be childless, pregnant-less in that much time. It feels like a slap in the face.

I just don't like feeling like my road can still potentially be that much longer...

Hormones, What IF Project Video & Face.book

I had just been thinking to myself that I was doing pretty ok with the drugs & my hormone levels have been in check. That is, until my husband said something insensitive last night... and I blew my top.

I mean, I screamed. I don't usually scream. And I was screaming. It was ugly. At one point, I felt like I almost had one of those out of body experiences where I was looking at myself screaming, thinking who is this person???

So when that happened, I started explaining that even though I'm still upset, I really think it's the hormones and I can't quite control it. It's all fine now. I had to tell B that my evil twin sister isn't welcome to come around anymore. He seemed to like that.

One more week for my pregnancy test. Next Friday morning. It's all such a balancing act with continous mind games, isn't it?

And, have you all seen the What IF project video? It's remarkable. What courage this person had. Miriam/Keiko from Hannah Wept Sarah Laughed just put it all out there. And I thought, if she has the courage, then I can say something about it on face.book.

Here's what I posted this week:

as follow up to National Inferlity Awareness Week last week, this amazing woman made an incredible video. Hope it touches you too.

I wanted to add: B and I have been waiting 2 1/2 years now for our miracle. But I couldn't. It's ok though. I think it was enough a lot for me to have put this out there. And you know what? Two people have commented and said it did touch them. Nice, huh?

Hope you watch it if you haven't already!

Self-Injecting was... Ok

It wasn't great. In fact, it was very angst-ridden.

Due to travel and unexpectedly not having my travel buddy, I had to self-inject for my IUI shot for the first time ever. Not fun. Halfway through I was really wishing I had looked up a nurse on craigs.list to help me or something!

For those of you who told me about ice - thank you!!!! I don't know why I hadn't thought of that even before. There's no way I could have done this without ice. Must have ice from now on.

So, I was sitting there in the hotel room with my husband on the phone trying to figure out the different needles and how to deal with the vials. It's much more complicated than I had thought. I have to say, much as I don't think I want to do this again on my own, I'm glad I know what actually goes on instead of looking away the whole time B is preparing these shots for me.

It felt like it an hour, maybe 1/2 hour, forever. Longer than expected. And there were 2 shots - yes, my dosage came in two. Ugh. And I had no idea how hard it is to actually push the syringe part down into you. Not the needle into you but once that's in, then pushing the stuff actually into you. That was the hardest, really.

When it was all said and done, I just kept crying. The stress of it all, plus the stinging. Even with ice.

It's done. I have some bruising. Sunday night, B can do this for me, only this time I'll actually know what he's doing.

Greater cause... greater cause. It's all for our little one who just hasn't shown themself yet!

So, thank you again, everyone for your support - that was awesome!!

***********
Now, to enjoying the rest of my time in Chicago! Off to a bik.ram yoga class this morning and then will do some much needed shopping!

Having a Hard Time With Others' Babies...and Time

I'm having a hard time right now. It's not even that I'm having a hard time with others' babies in general, it's that I'm having a hard time wanting to spend time with the babies I know. Wanting to put in that effort.

I know that as soon as I do, I enjoy it. But it takes a lot of energy to get to being there. And I'm mad at myself for not putting in the extra effort.

I've mentioned a couple of times how The Infertile Mind has inspired me to spend more time with my nephews. Yes, she's inspired me alright... but have I done anything about it? No.

I don't want to be that person who is down. I don't want to be the person who doesn't want to get to know her best friend's baby better. I don't want my best friend to take it personally that I'm not craving to spend time with her baby. I don't want to be a bad aunt by not going out of my way more to be with my nephews.

I also know that it probably has everything to do with infertility. That, and a busy job, where all I want to do on the weekends is get my household chores done and REST.

And does work have more to do with it than I think? Why do I feel drained so much? I'm focusing on a great job that takes up more time than 40 hrs/week, I'm focusing on losing weight, I'm focusing on yoga and doing a 1/2 marathon, I'm focusing on my marriage.  I'm focusing on my church. And what's left? A tiny bit of time for doing some life necessities (laundry, groceries, etc) and spending time with friends.

I have another friend who now lives 45 mins away and everytime she asks me to do something, I feel like she's taking a piece of me that I can't give right now. I LOVE this friend. Every time I see her I'm so grateful for her.

So, how did I get to be this person? And do I force myself to do these things knowing that I'll be glad I did?? I don't know what to do!!