Mother-To-Be or Mother-Not-To-Be, that is the question.

our struggles with infertility

September 03, 2004

OUT, DAMN SPOT!

Ummmmmmmm..............yeah.

I am coming straight to you guys tonight with this one, to my friends who are in the middle of an IVF cycle right now, and to those of you who maybe have an IVF cycle or two under your belt.

Should I be spotting on day 12 of the Birth Control Pills?

I'm not panicked or anything, mostly just confused and curious. And before I set out on a google quest on the whole world wide web, I thought I probably could get an answer faster this way.

Technically, assuming no insurance hiccups, I won't be starting Lupron for another six days.

I never have mid-cycle spotting, ever. But, I also always ovulate around cycle day 12, but must assume that the pills are working and that I will not be ovulating at all while I am on them.

Any thoughts? Just wondering.

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CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

Change in the seasons, time for a new look on my blog. Green is a fall color, right?

Reminds me of lush green grass on FOOTBALL FIELDS!!! Woo-Hoo!!!

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September 02, 2004

AND ON TO SOME OTHER TOPICS...

Aside from all my tears and worrying, it has been a rather interesting week.

First and foremost, my sister's baby is all right.

Wait! I am such a dumb ass I don't think I ever posted about this subject.

The day of my surgery, my sister had to go get another ultrasound, because something looked "not quite right" with the baby during the 20W ultrasound. She put on a very brave face about it, probably more so in front of me, but I know she was scared. Me, I was terrified. To the point that when Eileen and I spoke the night before, I kept saying "Good luck tomorrow, call me as soon as you can!" and she kept saying, "No, YOU'RE the one having surgery, good luck to you!" In the back of my mind, I knew that if we guessed at the possible outcomes of each of our "visits" to the doctor that day, her possible outcomes were ultimately so much worse. I have been praying and praying and praying, please please PLEASE do not have something go wrong with this baby. Don't do that to my sister, she deserves this!

Anyways, she had a follow up appointment today, and she and the baby are 100% FINE.

Phew.......

Tuesday, my parents moved in with us. It has been uneventful so far, except for the fact that Anthony and I are playing make-believe in front of them, pretending that everything is okay, because it is not time to disclose our troubles to them just yet. It is particularly hard to discuss the new houses (we are building on the same street, their house is just much further along than ours is).

But, the more relevant topic here is that on Tuesday, my parents moved out of the house that I grew up in. We moved to that house when I was seven. Eileen was only two, and my mother was pregnant with Cheryl. My dad inherited that house when his mother passed away; it was the house that he grew up in. His parents bought the house when it was brand-new, in 1957. No one outside of our family has ever lived in that house. When they had the phone number disconnected on Tuesday, it had been that phone number since the beginning - for 47 years. It is weird. It was a little emotional, but I don't think it has fully hit me yet that the house is sold. I keep waiting for the sentimental stuff to creep up on me and send me into - yup, you guessed it - tears. Because I don't really cry enough these days.

(Speaking of crying, I got another one of those stupid email quizzes from a friend of mine the other day. I started to fill it out and had to stop when it got to the question "when was the last time you cried?" I started to type, "Hell, I haven't stopped crying in six months," but instead I just closed out of the email all together and never replied. *sigh*)

I had a follow up appointment with my RE yesterday afternoon.

"Gosh, Dawn, we REALLY need to get you pregnant SOON."

"Well, um, YEAH, that would be preferable," I said, resisting the urge to add a "duh" to the end of my sentence.

"You are one of those tricky patients who is most likely going to develop a polyp after every cycle of meds, and this concerns me. We need to get you pregnant right away."

I emphatically agreed. (As if we somehow have any control over this? As if by saying, it has to be soon, magically, it will happen? If anything, I took this as even more stress and more pressure on me and my busy life).

"Thank GOD you switched insurance carriers," she said.

I grinned sheepishly at her. Oh, lady, if you only knew the turmoil going on in my life right now. Let's pray I have the insurance long enough to cover this cycle. I am willing to bet that if I told her everything going on with my life right now she'd advise me to cancel this cycle and try again when things are calmer. Which is precisely why I didn't disclose a thing about my stress.

Anthony and I decided, that since we have been running and running and working and crying and worrying and stressing for months now, that we need a break. We're trying to come up with something we can do together this weekend. This, for the past two years, has been the weekend that we celebrate our anniversary. It falls so close to Labor Day Weekend that we sort of figured, why not always dedicate this particular long weekend to doing anniversary-related stuff? And with EVERYTHING being so - ICK - lately, we sure could use some alone, away, quiet time.

Not sure what to do, where to go. Two years ago we went to Montreal. Last year, New York City.

I'm thinking maybe Vermont. It needs to be somewhere sort of close, because we don't trust my satanic devil car to be very reliable for any sort of real distance driving, since my car absolutely hates my guts. It does. It attacked me and ripped my brand new jeans the other day - no joke. Stupid dumb-ass car! Yeah, maybe Vermont.

So, that's what is new with me. PLEASE let the weekend get here soon please please please please please please please please please please......

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'CAUSE I GOTTA HAVE FAITH

First, thank you so much to those of you who left me comments and who personally emailed me and instant-messaged me. Your kindness and constant support (especially with me being cryptic) continues to absolutely amaze me.

Secondly, I am feeling a little bit better today. I have to keep reminding myself that I am on birth control pills. Birth control pills and me do not mix well. I was on them for three months in college, at which point my doctor pulled me off of them after learning I was being violent towards my boyfriend and I was feeling suicidal. The only other time in my life I was on the pill was three months before my wedding, because I had projected that my period was due to hit smack dab with day one ON my wedding day, and I needed to manipulate my cycles. Again, I was incredibly moody, but not quite as bad as the college experience.

Anyways, I am not saying that I was exaggerating our situation when I posted yesterday. But what I am saying is I am noticing that some days I am deeply, deeply depressed and yesterday was a rough day. Today, although nothing has changed with our problem, I am not feeling quite as dark.

Thirdly, with more time to think and with more time to talk to Anthony, I realized something very important. I need to have faith in my husband. In the seven and a half years I have known him, the man has not let me down once. Not once.

He promised me that he will do everything in his power that he can possibly do to ensure that we do not lose our insurance coverage for IVF. He promised me that he will do everything in his power that he can possibly do to ensure that we do not lose the new house.

I believe him. I have no reason not to believe him. He has never let me down, not once.

And, if things don't work out the way we hope, I will know he tried everything.

Really, I mean, REALLY, doesn't that just prove right there that I already HAVE everything I could ever possibly want in life?

(I've got to remember this on the dark days. I'll bookmark this post and call it "remember what you HAVE.")

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September 01, 2004

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE

I always thought that marriage was easy. I'm not talking about before I actually was married, when people tend to have a fairy-tale view of life in wedded domestic bliss. No, I am talking about in the almost three years that I have been married, I have often thought "this isn't so hard!" We have the right stuff - love, happiness, stability, common goals, and we have our health. Marriage is easy. Even something as tricky as the struggle with infertility isn't enough to knock us off of our foundation.

Isn't it always at those moments that you are feeling most secure that something comes along to knock you clear off your pedestal?

I haven't been blogging much because I haven't had much to say. Which isn't true, I have tons to say but I shouldn't. I mentioned before that my husband and I are having a problem that I really ought not blog about, out of fairness to him. However, I am going out of my fucking mind so I figured maybe I can blog ABOUT it without getting into specifics. If anything, to give me something to do except cry every five minutes.

The interesting thing about marriage is that, when one person in that marriage makes a mistake, both people pay the price. It is quite a unique situation to be in, one in fact that I can't remember ever being in before. I am beating around the bush to say that my husband made a mistake, and now we are both paying for it.

Let me stop right there to say this: I am not perfect. I make mistakes ALL THE TIME. I have made many a mistake that has affected the two of us in many ways, and he has always supported me, never questioned me, never even batted an eyelash at my fumbles. But, that being said, these errors in judgement of mine were truly nothing more than stumbling blocks along the way - nothing too major.

On the other hand, my husband never makes mistakes. He is so careful; he is such a perfectionist; in fact he is borderline anal when it comes to almost everything. I have been spoiled and accostomed to him not screwing anything up. So this is new territory for me.

And let me also say that his mistake is anything but a stumbling block. It is a colossal fuck-up in every sense.

When he first informed me of the situation about two weeks ago, I was absolutely stunned. Stunned. I wanted every detail; I wanted to know how this could possibly have happened and furthermore, what did it mean in the grand scheme of our lives? Was this going to change things for us?

"Perhaps," was his answer. "But I don't think so, I am optimistic that I can fix it."

So I held my breath and continued on with my busy, already stressed out life.

A week later, he approached me again with an update to the problem, which to my surprise had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. I again inquired, what does this mean for us? For our future? Was this going to change things for us?

"Probably," was his answer, a mere seven days later.

"Does it change...EVERYTHING?" I asked.

"Possibly," he sadly answered.

And my mind began to race. "What about IVF? What about trying to have a baby? What about the new house we are building? What about our FUTURE? What about our LIVES??" I wanted to scream all of these things to him at the top of my lungs. Because these things are all currently in jeopardy, because of him. Because of his mistake.

But I didn't scream these things at him. As much as I wanted to lash out at him with a tirade of "what abouts?", I did not. As angry as I was with him, I didn't yell at him. I didn't scream at him.

Because he made a mistake. A MISTAKE.

I am mad as hell at him, because my future which was laid out so nicely before me a mere two weeks ago is totally up in the air now, because of him. Why should I have to worry about my entire future when I did nothing wrong? Nothing changed on my end, and my life is being potentially taken away from me. He is the one who screwed up - why am I being punished?

Because we're married - that's why.

His problems = my problems. His mistakes = my mistakes. His punishments = my punishments. And it sucks.

But this is marriage. This is what they mean when they say "or for worse." Right now we're living a very vivid "for worse" and I am coming to terms with it.

Getting angry at Anthony won't do any good. As upset as I am, he made a MISTAKE. Nothing happened intentionally. He certainly didn't set out to cause this chaos.

And believe me, no one in the world feels worse than he does. I can't even imagine the torture he is putting himself through. He is so sad, is so stressed, and is so full of regret. He tells me over and over and over how sorry he is, and he says he can't believe that with everything we already had going on that he has now added this stress to my life.

My problem is now, trying to figure out how to handle all of this. I am not doing a good job. I am sad. I am mad. And I am not supporting him the way he really needs to be supported right now because I myself am such a basketcase. I don't want him to feel like I am rejecting him or that I am never going to get over this. But I need time, and I need space, and I need to breathe.

No matter what our future looks like - babies, no babies, new house, no house - I still know that I want it to be with him. And I told him as much. I hope he heard me the first time, because I am still going to need a little time to recover from everything.

Bottom line, too, we still don't have a resolution to his mistake; this thing hasn't fully played itself out yet. But we aren't kidding ourselves - a good outcome does not look possible at this point.

Our marriage to this point has been very easy. Suddenly, it is very, very hard.

But I love him so much. He loves me so much.

Whatever is in our future, however this thing plays out, as long as we end up together on the other side then everything will be okay.

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August 30, 2004

I HAVE BECOME ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE I USED TO LOATHE...

Years ago, I decided that I had a million dollar idea. I was going to open up a coffee shop.

(I know what you are thinking - that's not a million dollar idea, its been done before.)

My shop would serve one thing - coffee.

There would be very few variations in the coffee, as well. We would serve caffeinated coffee only. (You want decaf? Go somewhere else!)

We would serve hot and iced coffee, in sizes small and large. You do the fixins' yourself.

(You want tea and scones? Go somewhere else!)

My idea came to me when I was standing in line once behind someone that took a half an hour to order their cup of coffee because of all of the personalization that went into it. Remember when coffee used to just be coffee? I was so annoyed and decided I would call my shop "Just Coffee."

Anyways, I have become that person that I once stood in line behind, cursing. I have had to modify my Starbucks order recently due to the fact that we are engulfed in the IVF cycle. I cracked myself up this morning when I actually LISTENED to myself placing my order.

"I'll have a grande half-caf non-sweetened shaken iced coffee."

This is before adding any cream or sugar or other accoutrements.

What the hell happened to me???

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August 29, 2004

COME ON IN, IT'S OPEN

Open house today. 12 - 2.

The friggin' heat killed us.

Yesterday (Saturday) - we cleaned ALL day, ALL night, in 97 degree weather and extreme humidity. The only positive is that I must have lost ten pounds in sweat alone. The single hottest day of the summer and we're on our hands and knees, polishing hard wood floors in our non air-conditioned house. (The new house will have central-air, thank GOD!)

We left a lot of work for this morning and set the alarm to go off early - then slept through it. So we woke up and panicked, continued along with the dusting and the vaccuuming and the FUCK I have no clean bras I have to do laundry and it is already 97 degrees and it is only 8:30 in the morning and...

(Did I mention that the birth control pills make me feel like complete and total CRAP????)

Anyways, we had about 7 groups of people come through the open house today, but it was like a sauna in here. I think the humidity killed us. We may have had more traffic if it wasn't so damn hot.

Anyways, we've got one open house under our belt, so that is good. My parents are moving in the day after tomorrow, so it is going to get crowded in here. But, next weekend is a long weekend and for the first time in what feels like FOREVER we have no obligations whatsoever. A free weekend? Wow! A free LONG weekend? Holy shit that's awesome!

I can barely move my bones, it is almost 9:00PM and it has cooled down to a pleasant 95. UGH. I'm going to try to get myself to bed now, I bet it takes me no more than two minutes to fall asleep.

Oh God, is tomorrow Monday already????

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