Friday, January 23, 2009

Feeling my way

Just wondering how much I want to reveal on this blog. I wanted to stay anonymous so that I would be able to bitch about my DH, family, DH's family (oh yeah) and friends IRL. However, I'm still feeling uncomfortable being nasty because I worry that I'll hurt somebody's feelings.

It made me a little crazy to put enough information out there that my birth date can be extrapolated. Having a D&C the day before my b'day was such an important part of my journey I didn't feel that I could skip over that little tidbit of information. Crap, did that birthday suck!

I'm amazed at the women that blog about their IF openly. You chicks are brave! I have told NO ONE about this blog. I don't want anyone I know looking for it. God forbid someone I actually know start following my blog. I'd feel so restrained.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of you veteran bloggers on this issue. I assume you become more comfortable and forthcoming as time goes by.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Fear

How can you simultaneously want something so much and be so terribly afraid to do what you have to do to get that thing that you want so much?

In this case, of course, "that thing" is a baby. What I have to do to get it is submit my body to the freakish science of IVF again. Logically, I know that this cycle will be easier on my body. Emotionally, I'm scared shitless. The fresh cycles with the OHSS were so hard on my body. The first FET the Lupron made me a crazy, psycho-bitch-shell of myself.

Deep breath. I'm suppressing with BCP's there will be no Lupron. My stimulation drugs will be a fraction of what they were before. Even so, I've been fighting depression for the last week. Is it the impending cycle or is it the BCP's? I don't know if BCP's have ever caused me to be depressed. I was blissfully clueless about what was going on with my body when I was on BCP's in the past. Isn't it a joke that we ever did anything to keep from getting pg? Anyhoo, I'm scared. I'm nervous. I'm trying to talk myself through this. There's a part of me that wants to yell uncle, but what will that get me. Years of what could have been.

Hmm, I didn't even touch on the fear of another loss. I'm going to go try to work and take my mind off of all of this for a little while. Fat chance!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Thanks Ladies

I'm so very touched by the warm welcome that I've received from you ladies in the Land of IF and Blogging. Thank you.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

And we're off...

Got my period today. Will start BCP's on Friday and then stimulation drugs with the next cycle. I'm pretty excited now that it's real and underway. The limbo of waiting for AF was just that: limbo.

My hopes are sky high. I'm feeling nothing but positive for the outcome of this cycle.

I go in for testing and training on Monday. This clinic requires that you take a class so that you can be indoctrinated into their way of doing things. I suppose it's especially important to them for women like me who've been at another clinic for a while.

Looks like we should be on for a transfer sometime around the 3rd week of February.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Joy

As of today, I'm officially back to yoga. I haven't gone regularly in such a long time. I think about a year. I tried a new studio and it went really well. I had a strange and really moving experience. The yogi said that she likes to have theme for each class and that today's theme was joy. She asked us to think back to a time when we felt pure joy and to remember it; what we heard, saw, smelled, the feelings. Of course, the first thing that came to mind for me was finding out that I was pg. I can't think of a moment in my life that was more joyful than that. Sadly, it's just not really possible to only think about finding out that I was pg....that moved right on to thinking about losing the pg. I started crying right there in yoga. I didn't lose it full-on like I wanted to, but I just had a beautiful moment right there in that place. I took stock of the joy and the sadness. It's what I had intended to do on New Year's Eve, but I just never really felt it on New Year's.


The other thing that I want to say about joy is how I lost it for so long and I'm glad that it's back. For so much of the time that I've been dealing with IF, I was completely unable to experience joy in anything. It was just utterly absent from my life. The pg changed that. The amazing thing is that even with the m/c, the capacity for joy did not leave me. I think it's because as horrible as that loss was, for me, it was not as bad as all those stupid, hiddeous negatives. After having been pg, I suddenly was able to find hope where there had been none. Apparently, hope is the precurser to joy.


Joy. I intend to have a great deal more of it in this lifetime.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Ramblings

Ugh! I've got too much crap rolling around in my head. How long will it take to purge some of the frustration and clutter to get to the girl I know is in there. I used to be clever and funny. That was before I met my new friend Lupron. Oh, what a good, good friend indeed. HA! Lupron is a traitor to my body. Thank goodness I get to cycle without it this time. It was too easy. My old RE always said that you couldn't do IVF without Lupron. My new one....I just mentioned what a horrifically difficult time I had on the drug and he says, "Okay, we'll just suppress BCP's!" It was so easy. I really credit Lupron with the failure of FET#1. I was such a complete mess. No living being was going to be attaching itself to that crazy woman's uterus.



I've been a lump on a log today. I had 3 glasses of wine last night and it gave me a bit of a hangover. Sad really, isn't it? When you go 3 years without alcohol, that's what happens. It actually doesn't even take 3 glasses. I get a headache after only 2 glasses of wine these days. The quest for baby had changed me in so many ways that I'll probably be realizing new ones for the next 30 years. So today I hung out on the couch with my cats. Not a bad way to spend a day.



I woke up at 4 am with the anxiety of a new cycle bouncing around in my head. I want to do it. I'm scared to do it. I'm scared not to do it. Hell, it appears that I'm just scared. Every time we get close I start getting really afraid of actually having a baby. Even while I was pregnant, I was terrified of the actuality of it. I suppose every pg woman is. You'd think that weeks of poking yourself with needles and loading your body full on hormones would prepare you. I mean really, you're doing all of this to get pg! Then you are and OH SHIT! It's the happiest, most wonderful, most terrifying thing that can ever happen to a human. Oh, my goodness! That phone call when I found out that I was pg. That's what I need to be thinking about now; while I'm nervous about cycling. The pure unadulterated happiness that I felt for the 4 weeks that I knew that my body was growing a sweet, precious baby. Oh, it ended too, too soon, but it was the sweetest time of my life. I wouldn't give up that experience for anything. Even though I miscarried, it made all of the pain and suffering worth it. And it shall be worth it again.



Ladies and gentlemen: I am going to do another fresh IVF cycle. And I will not fear (okay, I will, but I won't let it slow me down). Aunt Flow, please come for a visit so that I may get this show on the road!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Here I go....

If I don't get some of this pent up angst out, I'm going to blow. Hello blog world.

It's a new year and I should be hopeful, but I'm not. Not really. I'm trying to be. After 3 failed IVF attempts, our 4th led to a pregnancy in August '08. Sadly, it ended in miscarriage at 8 weeks. I was devastated, but now it seems so incredibly distant. Almost like it happened so someone else. Now we're off to cycle again at Cornell. The doctor is hopeful, my husband is hopeful, everyone is expecting a positive outcome. Why can't I?

I think I'm numb to all things related to my fertility, or lack thereof, just now. What is going on? When I found out at Christmas that my nephew's wife is pg with their 2nd child, I was only mildly upset about it. What happened to the days of distress and gnashing of teeth that used to go along with a pg announcement. I had become so accustomed to being that woman that I feel disoriented now. I was comfortable in my bitter infertile woman role. Being infertile and non-violent feels very foreign and uncomfortable.

So here we go....I have to find out who I am....again.

A note about the blog title, Wombded. After a particulary dreadful hysteroscopy and D&C last spring, I was inconsolable. The news about my uterus was all bad and the RE gave us very little hope of future success. I was in a great amount of pain. My womb was wounded. As I was being wheeled to the car in my foggy state of recovery, the only thing that kept running through my mind was "I'm wombded." The pain was unbearable, the description incredibly apropo.