As promised on Twitter...
I've been having some trouble getting to sleep lately (hmmm... wonder why) and the last couple of nights, I've added nightmares into the mix. Suffice it to say I'm getting a little wacky with the lack of sleep. Anyhoo, I woke up from this particular dream very distressed and was unable to get back to sleep. It took me a good twenty-four hours of subconscious "chewing" before I had one of those ubiquitous Ah-HA moments. I'm not sure Freudian is the right word, but for what it's worth, this is for all you dream enthusiasts:
The backdrop is present day reality, and the Professor and I are due to start our IVF cycle in a week. The dream starts out moments after I've had unprotected sex with a drug dealer. Yeah, I know. He wasn't anyone familiar, just a generic composite of a vaguely nerdy guy. So I'm trying to talk to this guy and freaking out about this unbelievable thing I've done, terrified I might get pregnant, terrified I might wind up with some horrible disease. I grab my purse to go home and confess to Prof, and when I look inside it, my wallet has been stolen.
Like I said, it took me a good twenty-four hours to "get" it and when I did, I laughed out loud. Need me to spell it out?
Drug Dealer = Medical Establishment
Unprotected Sex =Infertility Treatments
My Fears = My Fears
Stolen Wallet = Cost of Treatment
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Not a Happy Thought
I'm in a particularly morbid place right now, so I understand if you want to skip this one. I just needed to get these thoughts out of my head and into the light. I've been doing a lot of thinking about what happens in the event of a positive beta. One unfortunate side effect of infertility is the all the extra time we spend thinking about what might happen when we finally get what we want. I'll tell you right now, I don't have answers. Only in an infertile's mind does this potential outcome spiral into a nightmare of epic proportions.
I'm putting the cart before the horse and wondering, if we do get a pregnancy out of this IVF (assuming we ever get to complete this IVF), how long do we wait to tell our friends and family? It seems like such a mundane question. Until I start to play out various possible scenarios in my mind.
Your average fertile couple seems to be sharing photos of the positive HPT within days. Cautious fertiles deem ten weeks to be the safe zone for sharing. This is clearly out of the question, but then, how long do we wait? Most of my IF tweeps seem to settle around the end of the first trimester, which seems... almost long enough. Until I consider all the things that could go wrong for a woman my age at any of the critical "seeing shit more clearly" appointments that seem to occur between 15-20 weeks. And the incompetent cervixes that seem to fail between 20-23 weeks.
And suddenly I realize, this is getting ridiculous. If I waited even as late as twenty weeks to tell, my family would be furious that I hadn't told sooner. So obviously, I would have to come clean before I felt safe. Cue epiphany.
If there's one thing I've learned from my involvement in this community in the last three years, it's that we are NEVER out of the woods. There will never be a point when we know everything will be OK. There may perhaps come a time when the fear abates, when we manage to relax or even forget about mortality for a while. Or maybe not. I'm one of those people who believes that the moment you get complacent and stop worrying about something is the moment things will go wrong. I have been told that I worry too much, that this simply isn't logical, but I'm wired this way. I don't know how to turn this off.
No parent should ever have to bury their child, but it happens all too often. As a child, one of my friends lost her little brother in a freak playground accident. As a teenager, I lost one friend to cancer and another to a car accident. In my twenties, I lost a friend to an overdose. In my thirties, a family member lost her five year old and the doctors never even found a reason. They all died too young and they all had mothers and fathers who will carry that loss for the rest of their lives.
This year, my thirty year old cousin buried her two year old son, and my eighty-nine year old aunt buried her fifty-eight year old son. We are never out of the woods.
If you made it all the way to the end of this post, I kinda feel like I should buy you a drink, or at least a cookie. I did warn you.
I'm putting the cart before the horse and wondering, if we do get a pregnancy out of this IVF (assuming we ever get to complete this IVF), how long do we wait to tell our friends and family? It seems like such a mundane question. Until I start to play out various possible scenarios in my mind.
Your average fertile couple seems to be sharing photos of the positive HPT within days. Cautious fertiles deem ten weeks to be the safe zone for sharing. This is clearly out of the question, but then, how long do we wait? Most of my IF tweeps seem to settle around the end of the first trimester, which seems... almost long enough. Until I consider all the things that could go wrong for a woman my age at any of the critical "seeing shit more clearly" appointments that seem to occur between 15-20 weeks. And the incompetent cervixes that seem to fail between 20-23 weeks.
And suddenly I realize, this is getting ridiculous. If I waited even as late as twenty weeks to tell, my family would be furious that I hadn't told sooner. So obviously, I would have to come clean before I felt safe. Cue epiphany.
If there's one thing I've learned from my involvement in this community in the last three years, it's that we are NEVER out of the woods. There will never be a point when we know everything will be OK. There may perhaps come a time when the fear abates, when we manage to relax or even forget about mortality for a while. Or maybe not. I'm one of those people who believes that the moment you get complacent and stop worrying about something is the moment things will go wrong. I have been told that I worry too much, that this simply isn't logical, but I'm wired this way. I don't know how to turn this off.
No parent should ever have to bury their child, but it happens all too often. As a child, one of my friends lost her little brother in a freak playground accident. As a teenager, I lost one friend to cancer and another to a car accident. In my twenties, I lost a friend to an overdose. In my thirties, a family member lost her five year old and the doctors never even found a reason. They all died too young and they all had mothers and fathers who will carry that loss for the rest of their lives.
This year, my thirty year old cousin buried her two year old son, and my eighty-nine year old aunt buried her fifty-eight year old son. We are never out of the woods.
If you made it all the way to the end of this post, I kinda feel like I should buy you a drink, or at least a cookie. I did warn you.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
IVF Remix
So, in the wake of my second cancellation... no change of plan.
I call with CD1 for another baseline.
Based on the series of progesterone levels they took, the clinic believes I ovulated maybe the day before I got my period last week. They tried to tell me that it was "dysfunctional uterine bleeding" and not a period, but I'm not buying that. They think I'll get my period next week. I'm betting on early in the second week of October, because that would be the absolute worst possible timing for me to be out of work for retrieval later that month (and right on schedule according to my iPhone).
Any takers?
I call with CD1 for another baseline.
Based on the series of progesterone levels they took, the clinic believes I ovulated maybe the day before I got my period last week. They tried to tell me that it was "dysfunctional uterine bleeding" and not a period, but I'm not buying that. They think I'll get my period next week. I'm betting on early in the second week of October, because that would be the absolute worst possible timing for me to be out of work for retrieval later that month (and right on schedule according to my iPhone).
Any takers?
Monday, September 19, 2011
Limbo
Merriam-Webster's second definition (after the Roman Catholic meaning):
lim·bo
noun \ˈlim-(ˌ)bō\
2 a : a place or state of restraint or confinement
b : a place or state of neglect or oblivion
c : an intermediate or transitional place or state
d : a state of uncertainty
I'd say that about covers it.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Cancelled
Again.
Before I even got started.
Progesterone levels are still going up. Recheck on Tuesday to try and get a better idea of what's going on. Looks like I'll have to do BCP with my NEXT CD1 and then try again. The timing really can't get much worse.
Before I even got started.
Progesterone levels are still going up. Recheck on Tuesday to try and get a better idea of what's going on. Looks like I'll have to do BCP with my NEXT CD1 and then try again. The timing really can't get much worse.
Friday, September 16, 2011
IVF The Do-Over, Please Hold
Yesterday was CD1 as expected.
Yesterday I was home sick from work with a cold.
Yesterday we had a plumber in first thing to make some updates in our basement before we start our post-flood renovations. No water in the house for several hours.
I called to report to the RE right after breakfast, and they wanted me to be there for a 2pm baseline. Exactly what I wanted to do in my unshowered, snot-filled haze. I was also a little concerned that they might cancel the cycle due to excessive snot, but apparently, as long your excessive snot isn't overheated with a fever, you're OK.
The RE Himself did the scan and the ovaries look quiet. Just a few tiny follicles on the left gearing up... or perhaps I should hope they were actually settling down.
Today I am still home sick from work.
Today I missed the call with my blood results.
Turns out my progesterone is elevated. I gather from the rambling message the nurse left that this is a problem. So now I get to worry all day today that this cycle will be cancelled before it even starts and then I go in early tomorrow (Saturday, day of rest and my dreaded birthday) to have the progesterone rechecked before I can (please, please, please) start stimming Saturday night.
Thus, I am hoping those little follicles were corpus luteum (luteii?) that were just settling back down (since the scan was on CD1). If I just think that hard enough, it should do the trick, right?
Yesterday I was home sick from work with a cold.
Yesterday we had a plumber in first thing to make some updates in our basement before we start our post-flood renovations. No water in the house for several hours.
I called to report to the RE right after breakfast, and they wanted me to be there for a 2pm baseline. Exactly what I wanted to do in my unshowered, snot-filled haze. I was also a little concerned that they might cancel the cycle due to excessive snot, but apparently, as long your excessive snot isn't overheated with a fever, you're OK.
The RE Himself did the scan and the ovaries look quiet. Just a few tiny follicles on the left gearing up... or perhaps I should hope they were actually settling down.
Today I am still home sick from work.
Today I missed the call with my blood results.
Turns out my progesterone is elevated. I gather from the rambling message the nurse left that this is a problem. So now I get to worry all day today that this cycle will be cancelled before it even starts and then I go in early tomorrow (Saturday, day of rest and my dreaded birthday) to have the progesterone rechecked before I can (please, please, please) start stimming Saturday night.
Thus, I am hoping those little follicles were corpus luteum (luteii?) that were just settling back down (since the scan was on CD1). If I just think that hard enough, it should do the trick, right?
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Holy Self-Centeredness!
Mine all mine, and I feel the need to own it.
I mentioned recently on Twitter that I've been spending a lot of time wandering in Memory Lane the last week or so. Sort of a slow motion Life-Flashing-Before-My-Eyes experience. Navel-gazing, moping, reliving good times and bad. I'm not sure where this extraordinary degree of introspection is coming from, but I'm guessing it's a combination of the changing season (Fall never fails to bring out my nostalgic side) and the impending start of IVF The Do-Over and the knowledge that I probably only have the wherewithal for this one IVF cycle. I feel like I am very near my limit with this process. I am ready for things to change. I either want my baby, or I want my life back. It's time to break out of Limbo.
In the process of this little memorial road-trip, I've also spent a lot of time contemplating the various branching points in my life that led me to my current place, and wondering where I would be and what my life would be like if I had made different choices. Wondering if it is too late to make some dramatic changes. And I know that, actually it is not too late. My mother went back to school at about age 40 to get her masters and start a new career. No reason I can't do the same.
It was thinking about my mother and some of her choices that really stopped me in my tracks this week. One of the memories that bubbled to the surface was from my early childhood, and it hit me quite hard. I guess I've never mentioned this here, but when I was about four years old, my mother had a miscarriage. I'm not sure how far along she was, but it was far enough that she was showing and everyone knew she was expecting (even me). Because I was so very young when this happened, it has always just been a piece of my family history, a simple fact of life like my grandparents divorce.
Only in this last week of soaking in memories and un-actualized potential, did the reality of my mother's loss sink in for me. And I feel horrible. How is it that in my nearly three years of struggling to get pregnant and one miscarriage of my own, I never made this connection? How is it that this was always so much a background fact that it didn't even register with me? You don't need to bother telling me in the comments, I know I'm a self-centered beast.
My mother has always been a steadfast figure of calm and caring. Who took care of her? Did my father give her the emotional support she would have needed, or maybe her sister did? Did she have close friends to help her heal? I'm not sure I could tell you who my mother's best friend was when I was four years old. I know there is one photo of my mother and I, taken just before she found out the baby was gone, and she keeps this photo out where she can see it. She has mentioned on numerous occasions that it is the only existing photo of her with both of her babies. And all I can think is, "Oh god, my poor poor mother."
I mentioned recently on Twitter that I've been spending a lot of time wandering in Memory Lane the last week or so. Sort of a slow motion Life-Flashing-Before-My-Eyes experience. Navel-gazing, moping, reliving good times and bad. I'm not sure where this extraordinary degree of introspection is coming from, but I'm guessing it's a combination of the changing season (Fall never fails to bring out my nostalgic side) and the impending start of IVF The Do-Over and the knowledge that I probably only have the wherewithal for this one IVF cycle. I feel like I am very near my limit with this process. I am ready for things to change. I either want my baby, or I want my life back. It's time to break out of Limbo.
In the process of this little memorial road-trip, I've also spent a lot of time contemplating the various branching points in my life that led me to my current place, and wondering where I would be and what my life would be like if I had made different choices. Wondering if it is too late to make some dramatic changes. And I know that, actually it is not too late. My mother went back to school at about age 40 to get her masters and start a new career. No reason I can't do the same.
It was thinking about my mother and some of her choices that really stopped me in my tracks this week. One of the memories that bubbled to the surface was from my early childhood, and it hit me quite hard. I guess I've never mentioned this here, but when I was about four years old, my mother had a miscarriage. I'm not sure how far along she was, but it was far enough that she was showing and everyone knew she was expecting (even me). Because I was so very young when this happened, it has always just been a piece of my family history, a simple fact of life like my grandparents divorce.
Only in this last week of soaking in memories and un-actualized potential, did the reality of my mother's loss sink in for me. And I feel horrible. How is it that in my nearly three years of struggling to get pregnant and one miscarriage of my own, I never made this connection? How is it that this was always so much a background fact that it didn't even register with me? You don't need to bother telling me in the comments, I know I'm a self-centered beast.
My mother has always been a steadfast figure of calm and caring. Who took care of her? Did my father give her the emotional support she would have needed, or maybe her sister did? Did she have close friends to help her heal? I'm not sure I could tell you who my mother's best friend was when I was four years old. I know there is one photo of my mother and I, taken just before she found out the baby was gone, and she keeps this photo out where she can see it. She has mentioned on numerous occasions that it is the only existing photo of her with both of her babies. And all I can think is, "Oh god, my poor poor mother."
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