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!

Happy Friday music

Many friends will be seeing the band we love in California this weekend… there’s a good chance they will cover this song. It always makes me happy.

Lo and Behold!

The great fertility socks of wonder!

I started knitting these the day after I started Lupron as a way to keep my mind occupied throughout this process. I chose a pair that I could knit toe up and two at a time, so I can keep going until embryo transfer day when I will cast them off and wear them for luck!

Diagnosis

Back in the early days of IF treatment, I wanted a diagnosis. I wanted to know what was wrong with super-husband or me that was keeping us from having a baby. And test after test came back normal.

Well,  I now have a diagnosis. Yesterday the nurse called with my money back gaurantee qualifying test results… and I have elevated FSH, which means I have low ovarian reserve. Or something. But it also means that I do not qualify for the money back gaurantee program. Which sucks.

I’m getting over it though. Having this diagnosis really helps us to quantify why we are doing IVF, and why we are doing it now. Yesterday before the results came back we were pondering (again) the idea of not doing this now, should we try on our own for another year, and came to the conclusion that no, we should do this now. We are tired of waiting, and I don’t have the emotional reserve to keep going through this process. But now that we know for certain that I have egg problems, and waiting could mean that we run out of time, we are finally at peace that we are doing the right thing.

Hurry up and wait!

Kate, over at Bee in the Bonnet, said something the other day that both resonated with me, and made me laugh. Because, people, this is exactly the big problem I have with fertility treatments:

“I hear it’s a lot of not-knowing, and hurry-up-and-waiting, and that those are frequently combined with a big fat dose of crazy-making drugs.”

Yes, that it is. And is sucks. (sorry Kate, wish I could have told you otherwise)

The last CD-1

At least for a while. Because I am officially calling it quits.

All is not well with the lady bits. After two weeks of cramping after the last IUI I officially have both a yeast infection and a urinary tract infection. I wound up at Urgent Care for three hours on Sunday to receive the good news. While they were at it they took a pregnancy test and delivered the unsuprising results. Now I’ve added good old auntie flo to the mix and am ready for a rousing chorus of “I Enjoy Being a Girl.”

So what is the plan for spring?

First I intend to lose the 15 pounds I have put on “eating for possibly two” two weeks out of the month every month for the last 3 years.  I am signing up for summer school and attempting to forget all about TTC until at least the fall whilst saving my pennies.

Come fall I’ll reevaluate things, maybe hubby will have warmed up to the idea of IVF, maybe my parents will have come around when they realize that all this relaxing hasn’t gotten me knocked up. (They still are of the mind that my stressful employment situation is what kept me from being with child for all those years) After all, what good is a comfortable retirement when there are no grandchildren?  (I am an only child, so I am their only hope!)

I’m going to try to not be too bitter, and I plan to avoid my pregnant-by-suprise man whore of a friend whenever possible – though he does like to hang out in my favorite neighborhood bar.

But for the meantime, I am going to take a strong dose of advil and have a good cry. Because this fucking sucks.

Still here…

I’m still around, menstruating, keeping up with you all, trying to figure out where to go from here.

Soon there will be a post about snow and how much I like various things that start with the letter “m.”  But for now, I am hunkering down and taking things easy.

so frustrated

I’m supposed to be having my IUI right now but superhusband can’t produce a sample.

I don’t know why he has such a hard time with this, but he does. Arrrrrgh! We have 5 more minutes before the clinic’s cut off time.

my body may be taking a month off but my mind isn’t

I’m a little over halfway through my month off TTC and I am really ready to get things going again.

At first it was nice… I stopped taking my BBT when the battery died (again!) in my thermometer. That’s two BBT thermometers down now. I’m averaging about one a year. I stopped checking my CM. I didn’t use any OPKs. This is my first month off TTC since this journey began. Back in Summer of 2006, when I was 25. Ahhhh, memories.

(as an aside, i’ve been charting for two years now, and it’s weird to have a record of every time we did the shaggy dance…)

I’ve still been thinking about TTC a lot though, maybe more so then usual since I am in such a transitional time in my life.  I’ve still been keeping up with your blogs though being a bit quiter. Last night my brain took over and I had a vivid pregnancy dream. Only I wasn’t pregnant.

I was in a large bathroom stall which was intruded upon by two very slender and attractive young women dressed in bikinis. They demanded that I relinquish the toilet to them, because they were pregnant and I was not. “We both got pregnant in the first month of trying!” one of them said. Then, “unless you are pregnant too, you have  to leave.”

Even in my dreams I am made to feel like a second class citizen because my body refuses to get knocked up.