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.
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