Dreams and False Alarms

Where I'm at today

I couldn't update yesterday, I had nothing to say. 

I woke up far earlier than is good on a day when you can't eat anything (we didn't have to leave the house until 9am), and I just immersed myself in Ballykissangel, where of course, a 40 year old woman has a baby in a hot tub. Nonetheless, I found myself crying tears of both joy at the birth, and sadness for my own loss. 

There have been a lot of tears, but none more than Friday morning. I sobbed through my shower, I sobbed through my teeth brushing and sobbed the moment my husband appeared when I awoke from the anesthesia. The nursing staff was very respectful and let us have a lot of time to cry and hold each other after I woke up, which was just what we needed. 

We came home and immersed ourselves in mindless TV and held hands.  At some point during the day I realized I felt calm and not as if I was turning away from my feelings, but that some of the rawness had left me.

This morning we had some lovely moments of lightness between us, and that felt as real as the crying.  We are still checking in and holding each other tightly, but there is still hope, and that makes it bearable. 

Oy vey

I heard from Dr Calm's lovely emissary yesterday afternoon, and she relayed that Dr C didn't want me to come in for an ultrasound, because if I'd ovulated it wouldn't show anything useful.  It seems hard to believe, but she's the doctor, eh?  So I go in for a blood test Monday morning, to see if my progesterone is high enough to indicate ovulation.  I think it must have happened either Monday or Tuesday. things have gone back to their usual level, of shall we say, moisture, my pits are a bit smellier than I'd like (an odd PMS symptom for me) and well, the test showed bupkis.  My worst fear is that I didn't ovulate and I've got lots of tiny cycsts on my ovaries, thus screwing up my chances of having an IVF cycle in May. 

I'm sorry to not have written more, but I feel sort of dried out. I'm putting a lot of energy into a work project I'd like to complete by the 14 of May, and a family visit coming up next weekend.  So, as the thoughts and such occur, I'll post.

all's quiet(ish) on the ovarian front

Today is Wednesday, the day before I am allowed to call the doctor and lament my LH surge less state. I did sneak in an email to the IVF nurse, but that doesn't count as harassment, does it? I didn't call, I merely emailed, just to do a little pre-planing for Friday.   Alas, she hasn't replied, perhaps that is her patient management technique. Or she isn't there. Or it's not about me?  Crazy, I know.

My acupuncturist said I'm having trouble going from Yin to Yang.  I need more ompf.  Ompf me up mister.

I'm feeling some painful stirrings, so hopefully we're just in 'slow and steady wins the race' rather than on the 'fast train to cystville.'

I'll update soon.

U-L-T-R-A-S-O-U-N-D Spells Relief

Whew.  A lovely ultrasound preformed by a forthcoming tech has put my mind at ease.  I have a 10ml lining (the thickest in my recorded history), and 'many' little follicles, some at 10ml, which means they have about 3 days to go to get to maturity.  Again, whew.

I also saw my acupuncturist who feels that since I had a 'chemical' period, it is really hard to know what cycle day my body thinks it is.  Also, the thick lining means good things for my own unaided estrogen. 

I'm feeling almost human.

When you are not infertile

Last weekend my husband and I spent a few days with his cousin and her husband. They are a very fun couple, very different from us, but easy to be around, and lots of good fun was had by all.  They are about 10 years younger than us and have been casually trying to get pregnant for the last 9 months.  They are not infertile. By that I mean, they aren't scared, they aren't shying away from baby talk to protect themselves from the pain of not getting pregnant.  Granted, they haven't been trying super consistently (they've used OPK's some months), but there was a quality of hope and pleasure about getting pregnant that my husband and I have rarely shared.

A big reason for this isn't just the infertility issues. It was also a matter of timing.  Everyone whose known me for the last 15 years has know that getting pregnant, and being a mother/parent were important to me.  I often spent a lot of time day dreaming about my future children, and once it became clear that my boyfriend would become my husband, I tried to involve him in these plans and fantasies. On one hand he wasn't ready, and on the other, there is a style difference: I get excited about vacation when were planning it, he gets excited when were packing.  The same thing happened when it came time to TTC.   

So the time finally arrived to start trying to get pregnant, and I was 12 kinds of crazy. It is really sad actually--he was excited, and hopeful and enjoying the idea of getting me pregnant, and I was acting weird.  I don't quite remember all the weirdness, but we worked it out, and it was exciting for about 3 months. During that time I had the mind-fuck cycles, and then after that, I sort of lost my mind. No, I really did. It sucked.  The spring and summer  were hard, trying to be hopeful, being dutiful about monitoring everything, and always having it together to have sex at the right time. We did it, and there were some really good times, some good laughs, but there was also a pressure. Especially as September drew near, which marked one year of trying with no results.  We started clom.id, did the IUI's, and still nothing. Again, in so many ways our relationship was richer and closer in ways it wasn't before. But what was missing was the innocence. The sweet innocence of planning,and wishing and imagining our baby in cute little shoes, or wearing that outfit, or just resting in our arms.

What I saw this weekend was so sweet, and I so want it for us, but whatever way we do come together around a baby, it won't be from a place of innocence.

So what does the title mean?  I was thinking about trauma, and that not everyone who experiences a traumatic event is traumatized. The degree to which one's coping is overwhelmed, or a sense of helplessness in the face of the event determines if one is traumatized. Maybe there is a parallel to infertility. At this point, and from a very early point my coping was overwhelmed, and I felt helpless to get pregnant. I wish I hadn't been so damn accurate, but some of that was the mindset I came into it with. My husband's cousin is young, and hasn't really tried too hard, and she doesn't feel helpless.  So hopefully she won't ever come to this point, hopefully she gets to remain innocent. 

Can I cough up my period

I stopped the prom.etrium on Monday of last week. I had 'staining', not even spotting for 6 days, and then the beginnings of a period, and now, not so much.  However, I did get a humdinger of a chest cold within minutes of getting my negative on Tuesday.  Is that weird or what?
I called the nurse, so hopefully she'll call me back soon. Perhaps it isn't that weird, and they'll give me a shot of something else that starts with a P and I can get this party started.
I have a good post brewing  about spending the weekend with non-jaded baby makers.

Hard night

Last night I was dozing on the couch, holding hands with my husband, and I had one of those fleeting dreams where I saw us in a hospital room holding a chubb faced baby. It was startled awake by the image, but I could hold it for a while.  I can even conjure it up today.  For all of my numbness and cake baking plans, the baby/no baby aspect of all of this is weighing heavily upon me.

In my sleep I woke up with a start, and I must have cried out, because my husband held me and said soothing things. The thought I woke up to was "I may never have my own baby."  I can conjure up those feelings as well right now, and just seems to tap into a well of sorrow that I hope has a bottom.

I'm reticent to write about my longing for a biological/genetic child because on the one hand I feel protective of whatever child I will have and I don't want them read that they weren't my 'first choice'.  Even as a biological/genetic child I keenly felt the pain my mother's reticence and ambivalence.  Clearly I still feel it today. My therapist assures me that no child of mine would be taken for granted, but working through this is oddly shameful.  On the other hand I'm plagued by the thought that a  'real mother' wouldn't go through all of these levels of grief, she would just move on and be happy to get that baby any which way. It doesn't seem to matter how many other people I've observed wade through this, I still feel very ashamed of wanting my own genetic child.  It's times like these that I wish Chez Miscarriage was still around; she had the most beautiful explanation for why she was choosing a surrogate over adoption, and I want and need to read it again. 

I've been wondering about why I watch "A Baby Story". It was pure torture last year, so I stopped, but right now it makes me feel as if having a baby is real, not just this abstract concept.  At this point my whole focus is getting to egg retrieval. I'm petrified that there is something wrong with my eggs, and that they will not mature, will not fertilize, and that this dream will never be realized. I keep coming back to the phrase "this is the only dream I've ever had."  Although I've wanted and pursued other things in my life, this was always the end of the sentence "I'll get my masters, and then we can have a baby."  So basically, this hurts like a motherfucker. And I know its too early to give up, but the reality that all the kings horses and all the kings men may not be able to make me pregnant.  I will really hate having to come to terms with my worst fear. I am defective. Please don't' reassure me that I'm not defective. If I can't, this will be true, and I'm going to have to live with it. 

Going to mop up my face and go to work.

Why it's hard to ever say the right thing to an Infertile

Amongst infertiles it is a known fact that the degree of asshattery goes way up once you let it slip that you are struggling with getting pregnant, or undergoing infertility treatment.  On the one hand you have your clods: people who just say asinine things, such as "if it's meant to be, it will happen."  and "Have you gone on vacation?" and other obnoxious things of that ilk.

On the other hand you've got people, often women, but occasionally men on behalf of their women, who once they hear you are having trouble say some variant on "It was so easy for me I practically thought about getting pregnant and it happened."  I don't get the point of this.  I tell you something is hard for me, and you tell me how easy it was for you. We are not talking about jacks people, this is a bit closer to the bone than that.  Yesterday I did have a lovely experience that counteracted one of these moments of asshattery.  I went to a luncheon with my mother, and sat with her and a dear friend, and that friends niece. We started talking about children, I said the minimum (like, trying for a year, starting IVF next month, blah blah blah), and then she said "People told me would be hard, but I got pregnant on the first try!"  Just as I was about to take a deep breath, and let it go, my mother's friend spoke up and said "Yes, but it is very hard on people when it doesn't happen easily. My son and daughter-in-law have been trying for a year, and its just very very hard."  And then she looked at me as if to say "I headed that one off at the pass kid."   It's moments like that that keep my from withdrawing completely and saying I have a contagious disease.

And then, on no hand, you've got the people who get it right some of the time, like normal humans, but because as an infertile you are constantly changing how you feel about it, and where it's hitting you, they get it wrong some of the time.

Case in point: For most of the last year, during which I was a mess of epic proportions, I would often harp on the theme of fairness. One lovely friend who had been so positive and supportive, and listened to my ever changing theories of why it wasn't happening, saw me in passing, asked how things were going, I reported the usual, and she said "It's not fair."  I said "I know, but it doesn't help me to think that way right now."  And even though I handled it well, and spoke from where I was at,  it still managed to hit me in my wound. 

Infertility is a wound, it gets you where you are most vulnerable (i.e. mine is preoccupation with defectiveness), and then you feel rage.  I felt angry at this friend for not getting it just right, not knowing that I wasn't in that state of mind at that particular moment, and putting me back in touch with that part of me that is all wound.  Ick.  So clearly, that one was all me.  I was the asshat.  Luckily I was only an asshat on the inside.  Is that called internalized asshattery? No that would be different.

Oy.  What a pain this infertility shit is, eh?

The Tyranny of the Prenatal Vitamin

About two years ago I started taking pre-natal vitamins. It was a couple months before we would go totally without birth control, and I wanted to be prepared.  Also, it made me feel like I was joining the club, or maybe rushing the sorority, anyhow, it felt good. I was diligent. I took them everyday. I carried extras in my purse in case I forgot.  Then we started trying for real, and I was especially careful to take them every day.  During the mind-fuck cycles I was more diligent than you can imagine--military precision.  And then last January, when I got my period on day 21, the vitamins seemed to mock me on the counter. "Perfect nutrition for mother and baby."  Well my hair was looking pretty good and so where my nails, but there was no baby.  Some months were harder than others. It seemed that once my period arrived it seemed pathetic and pointless to take those damn horse pills.  In my darkest days, I would wait until the last moment after dinner so that I didn't have to see the bright yellow evidence of them spilling out of my body.

Last solo ovulation

From September to December I used clomid with each cycle. The first cycle we did as a 'test run' to see how it would affect my cycle, and then Oct, Nov and Dec we did IUI's.  Each of them had their own clumsy aspects, and none were successful. On the first day of my cycle in late December we me with our RE and she suggested not taking the clomid and doing a natural cycle with a monitored IUI.  It turned out we were out of town when I ovulated, and it was just the two of us. That cycle didn't work either, but it was so sweet to be totally alone with the possibility of getting pregnant.

I was such a mess going in to trying to get pregnant, convinced it would be hard, and also convinced I'd get pregnant easily, that I fear that there was very little of that sweet aloneness that we experienced last month.  I know, from knowing myself, that sadly I tend to get quite anxious, and that sometimes anxiety is the experience rather than the thing itself.  I hope that when or if I do get pregnant, I can be less anxious and dread-filled; it is getting sad to see myself ruin pleasure and excitement of good things with my dread and anxiety.

So today is our last solo ovulation.  A part of me really hopes that it works and that we get pregnant this month, and that just filling out the IVF paperwork is enough to flip that switch (because that always happens when people decide to adopt, right?), but realistically this is another month, and another chance, and if it doesn't work there is something good the next month; I won't be all alone trying to get my hope to trump my disappointment.

So wish us luck...