Don’t want to be anything, where I don’t know when to stop

Ok, so people tend to have strong feelings about ph.ish, either positive or negative. I’ve alluded several times over the past year to my hardcore fandom to a particular band and really – there’s no point in pretending anymore. I’m officially coming out of the closet.

One thing that I deeply love about them, is their ability to speak to me through their songs to whatever place I am at in the moment I am hearing the music. Different parts of songs will resonate with me at different times in my life. Lyrics I didn’t understand will become clear. I will find myself sobbing in my car, or laughing out loud during a concert. They have been able to do this for me for over half my life. I think that says a lot.

So, I wasn’t too suprised today when this song came on during my drive to school, while I was thinking about a recent post from W4I about how with infertility, it can be difficult to know when to stop. That really, only a pregnancy or menopause will make you stop. She has been trying for three years like me, and has decided that she will give it ago for only another two years.

Five years of trying to have a baby.  Man, if I thought three years seemed like a long time, five seems unbarable. I’m ready to be on the same page as her, to get my life back after a long five years. But unlike her, I won’t be 35 – the magical age of declining fertility – I will be just turning 31. Super-husband will be 39.  At 31, I should have another 4 years of peak fertility, and the idea of quitting so young turns my stomach. But so does the idea of carrying on any longer.

Hence the weepyness. Thanks a lot ph.ish.

In other news, the neighbors? They are now officially confirmed in the baby department. She told me when we went to lunch together last week. I’m changing my guess to natural pregnancy, as they haven’t had a single ultrasound, nor do they plan to have one. Home birth. When I ran into them the day after my negative beta they had just heard the heartbeat.  I’m suprisingly fine with all of this. (Just please please please let me be next…?)

In guilty pleasure news, one of my favorite night time soap operas, One.Tree.Hill had a brief foray into infertility last night. One of the main characters told her boyfriend that she thought she might be pregnant, so she went to the doctor, and not only was she not pregnant but she can never. have. children! (cue dramatic music and tears)  This character has not made her desire for a baby a secret – last season she did some foster care for both a baby and a teenager.

But it left me wondering… What can her doctor have done in that quickie “nope, you aren’t pregnant” visit that made them discover that she can’t have babies?  While I enjoy seeing infertility woven into the plot lines of mainstream shows because it helps to make infertility seem more mainstream, it really irks me when they don’t portray it correctly. But I suppose, having the characters realize that they really want a baby… so they get married and start trying… and trying… and trying… and going to the doctor… and getting referred to an RE… and having an HSG, and bloodwork, and ultrasounds, and taking pills, and crying a lot… well, that dosn’t make for good TV.

Have you seen infertility or foster or adoption depicted on TV in any way?  How do you think they did with depicting a realistic situation?

 

Post #97

I am quickly running out of snappy post titles that reflect the fact that nothing is happening in my neck of the woods. I’ve got another acupuncturing tomorrow with the fertility specialist, and one on Thursday with the pain specialist. (Yes, that nerve is still causing me trouble) I’m basically just trying to live my life as normally as possible, while also taking my BBT and analyzing my saliva every morning, remembering that OPK every afternoon, and eating my special fertility diet all.the.f*ing.time.

I’m also hoping beyond hope that all this might help me to get knocked up on my own, thus sparing me from the awful pain of having to decide what to do next. I’ve always been indecisive, and never a fan of roller coasters. Infertility is really a special kind of hell for me.

I’m also searching for some new blogs to read. I would love suggestions, preferably people with a good sense of humor who aren’t pregnant. While I am tremendously happy for those who I follow who are currently pregnant or parenting, I recently had the revelation that 90% of my blogroll had moved beyond the place where I was. I still enjoy reading those blogs (when I am in the proper headspace… after all it is encouraging to know that treatment works for some people) and I still welcome their comments (Kate, this means you!) but I’ve realized that once someone becomes pregnant, I have a much harder time commenting and offering advice and support in return. Because while I know infertility, but I don’t know pregnancy… and I suddenly feel like the the lactose intolerant person at the dairy convention.

(Edit: I think it’s actually more like a vegan at a lactose intolerance convention?)

Ok, must remove the laptop from my lap now… I’m pretty sure that’s on the list of things I am not supposed to be doing!

ooooommmmm

Nothing like some weekly forced relaxation to make you question everything.

I’ve now been to the in.fertility cure acupuncturist twice, and have appointments scheduled every Wednesday through the rest of the month. Her style is different from my other person, and she is much more expensive, but I am hoping that w/ something as complicated as high FSH and general wonky-ness that you get what you pay for. I have been trying to feel good about trying something new, moving forward, blah blah blah… but last night I hit a bit of a wall and wound up sobbing into my knitting.

The problem at hand:  How do I know that this is the thing to invest hope in? Why should this work when nothing else has? Am I quickly becoming the desperate infertile woman who is willing to attempt (and pay for) anything that offers even a moniker of hope?

All this is compounded by other things… Super Husband’s father called yesterday to ask if I was pregnant yet. In my sexu.ality class yesterday we had a lecture on birth control, and one at a time the little college students told stories of how they got pregnant on birth control, and then the teacher told us she got pregnant while using birth control. My friend IRL who did IVF at the same time as me is pregnant w/ twins. (Seems everyone who did IVF around the same time ast me is pregnant w/ twins – why did the 100% implantation fairy skip my house?) Our friend the man-hoe’s baby mama is due any day now… frankly, I just don’t understand how fertility can come so damn easily for other people. Oh yah, and the Duggers were just in our town. So they are all over every media outlet around here.

I’ve been going at my fertility with as much estudious vigor (maybe more) then I am putting towards school. I am currently eating a special diet to help w/ my TCM fertilty type and high FSH. Acupuncture, herbs, femoral message… fertility awareness, saliva analysis, BBT, OPKs.   The last four all in an attempt to figure out when I am ovulating. And it really does take all four. As super husband likes to say, I am a very complicated flower.

If you have made it this far, I want to let you in on a little secret. We switched to the digital OPKs because I refuse to try to analyze those silly lines ever again. I thought about splurging on a fertility moniter, but figured I would try the smily face digital sticks first. I figured the pocketbook gougers at Clear.blue would surely make refills for those digital OPKs, right?  Wrong. But after a lot of searching, I found several different people on the internets that claim that you can use the fertility moniter sticks in the digital OPKs. So, I bought a pack of 30 and it turns out that they are exactly the same as the sticks that come with the digital OPKs. Take that Clear.blue!

So, that is what is up in my world. Also, I just saw a great movie, “My Neighbor Totoro.”  It’s by the same guy who did “Spirited Away” which I also love. Add them both to your net.flix queue, they are a fantastic distraction.