Hold The Phone

After a few days to calm down - and a good long talk with the hubby who reminded me that while he tells me on occassion that I am superwoman, I do not actually own a cape and therefore do not qualify to take on the world all by my lonesome - we decided to put off off IVF until April.

Blah. Bleh.

Let's be honest - if you've read this mess of a blog, we all know it's true. I can blow bluster with the best of 'em, but when it comes down to it, I am a weenie.

J basically told me that I was waiting until April to do it. He said the only thing he could picture was me waking up from anesthesia crying. The drugs really fuck with my brain when I'm waking up. There's no sense to this, but every single time I'm knocked out I will wake up (and have no memory of it later) and start crying. I'll be handed a tissue and then I fall back to sleep. I wake up shortly after (this time actually awake), and every single time I have a balled up tissue in my hand that I have no idea where it came from. It's some really bizarre comfort for me - like somebody was taking care of me even though I didn't know it. It's weird. I'm ridiculously emotional when I wake up and I'm so thirsty I feel like I'm suffocating. Plus the drugs give me cotton mouth so bad I can't talk. So I'm crying and choking (but thank god I have my tissue!). J is of course the only one who has this routine down. So while I'm losing my mind unable to talk and the nurses are trying to figure out what the hell my problem is, Jeffrey is calmy asking for ice chips. Once I have some water in me, I'm a normal human being again. It's like being 4 years old for 10 minutes. Luckily, nurses tend to be sympathetic when you’re laying there having a 30-year-old tantrum on the table.

So, J told me no way in hell was I going to be laying on a table coming out of anesthesia crying while he's off at the slot machines in Vegas. Of course I reminded him that if I found out he spent ANY time at the casinos I was leaving him immediately and going to steal me a baby from somewhere. Having had a few days to calm down, he's right. I was being ridiculous in saying that I'd do it by myself although at the time I was mad enough to go through with it.

Stupid superwoman and her stupid ugly cape.

Oh - COME ON

So we just found out J’s job is sending him to Vegas for 4 days next month. The EXACT days that he needs to be here for his portion of the fertility treatments. And get this: his boss - who by the way KNOWS that we were doing IVF this month, knew about this conference in Vegas for months and just dumped it on him.

I'm so pissed off. I may meet his boss in the parking lot after work for a well deserved mental-woman-beat-down.

J is trying to get in touch with the doctor to see if he can have his "donation" frozen prior to him leaving. If so, I'm going by myself - even if J wasn't traveling, he wouldn't have been able to be there much anyway.

Which means I will be doing everything by myself. Everything - including finding someone who can get off work at the drop of a hat to come with me to the egg retrieval and drive me home after anesthesia.

I'll be totally alone on this one and for whatever reason that seems less scary than postponing another month.

The Recently Quoted

"I feel like a Mr. Potato Head that some mentally challenged kid has thrown together."
--Quote from one of my good friends going through a divorce, child in tow. I swear, it's my new favorite saying. I may have t-shirts made up. All this blogging, drinking, crying and depression over infertility - and all I needed was this one sentence to get me through it with laughter. I love it.

"Do you have kids? No? No kids? You guys are young, you should have kids, you'd get more money back. I have kids, I always get a refund. You should really think about having kids."
--Quote from our now EX accountant. You can't make this stuff up. Thank you H&R Block for rubbing your fertility in our face. Thank you Uncle Sam for not only NOT helping out with the cost of our fertility treatments, but also penalizing us for being infertile. Oh my god, you fucking rock.

"Well I guess we could afford the name brand green beans if we had kids."
--Quote from my husband as we're standing in the grocery store shopping for canned goods moments after our visit to H&R Block.

"We get a bigger house since we're having another kid."
--Quote from my Marine brother who now gets to move into a larger house on base simply because his wife is pregnant again. Another round of thanks to Uncle Sam. I suppose if we were enlisted, we'd be living in a box on the corner. I can't say it enough: You fucking rock.

Insomniac

I haven't been sleeping much the last few weeks. Not sure why. We get into bed around 10:30 or 11 every night. And I lay there, and lay there. I'm lucky some nights if I have fallen asleep by 3am. Once I finally do get to sleep, it's not restful. It's more dozing in and out until my alarm goes off. I don't feel tired during the day though.

Maybe it's just knowing more fertility treatments are right around the corner. I've been trying not put too much thought into it lately. I don't feel like I'm sitting around worrying about it, but who knows what's going on in this brain of mine.

The good news this week: I was finally able to track down my HSG test I had done a zillion years ago. Thank good...I wasn't looking forward to having to redo that. Expensive? Yes. Uncomfortable? Oh hell yes.

J has been put in charge of scheduling our bloowork. Once that's done, we're free to start NCIVF. Which (according to my cycle) would be in 3 weeks.

Ready or not....here we go again.

I’m Annoyed

I’m annoyed at everybody today.

I’m annoyed at myself for not being more stoic.

I’m annoyed at my husband for not feeling as pissed off as I do all the time.

I’m annoyed at every person I’ve ever known who’s gotten pregnant just because they were trying – or not trying. It’s mind boggling what I’ve done in my attempts at TRYING. I can’t even grasp the idea of actually having sex with my husband and thinking: this could be the time we get pregnant. Seriously, it’s like speaking Chinese. It doesn’t compute.

I’m annoyed at people who announce “we’re trying.” Although I probably did the same thing with my best girlfriends - you know – years the fuck ago when trying was fun and didn’t involve huge sums of money. I really can’t remember.

I’m annoyed because in my mail today came a bill from a collections agency. For $15 goddamn dollars that our old fertility doctor keeps trying to collect - from almost a year ago. $15 that I do not owe, that I’ve gotten at least 12 bills for, that I have had to stop what I’m doing and make phone calls about, that I’ve made trips to the billing department in person, and even after admitting that I don’t owe it, their fucking billing department STILL can’t get their shit together. I will let my credit score drop to zero before I pay that man one goddamn cent that I don’t owe him.

I’m annoyed because two weeks ago I was bouncing off the walls excited about NCIVF. Now all I can think is: this is just another creative, expensive, soul-consuming, painful, emotional attempt at another huge failure. Screw the power of optimism.

I’m annoyed because studies say that depression lowers your chances of conception. Can someone please invent a fucking fertility treatment that is not only fun, but makes me think: Yay, I GET to do this again! You know - like SEX. I want to hear fertile women say things like: "Damn, I wish getting pregnant were hard for me, so we could try that!" or "You're so lucky - you get to do fertility treatments!"

I’m annoyed at The Money. The shitloads of money. And for what? So I can spend months afterwards walking around in a haze – fighting with my husband because he’s not as sad as I am about this?

I’m annoyed over every stupid baby shower invitation that has ever landed in my mailbox (with the exception of one).

I’m annoyed because I can NOT go to baby showers. Put simply, I’m not emotionally equipped to deal with them. Although if I finally get pregnant - I will expect every person I've ever met to not only be there, but to come bearing wildly expensive gifts.

I’m annoyed at people that in their attempts to “shield” me from this living hell of cycle-failure-cycle, go out of their way to keep their pregnancy news a secret. I appreciate the motivation behind it - I do. But avoiding the elephant in the room does nothing but isolate me even more. And trust me, I can’t be much more isolated in all this than I already am.

I’m annoyed that infertility is so isolating. This is what all my “woe is me” stems from. With the exception of my spouse, who internalizes this either very lightheartedly, or not at all, or maybe just in the exact opposite way that I do, I am entirely alone in my circle of friends. So basically I just happen to live in the same house with someone whose wife is going through infertility. It. Fucking. Sucks.

I’m annoyed that when I get together with a group of women, I am always the only childless freak in the room. I constantly find myself the only one who is physically unable to contribute to any of the conversation. I’m down to one friend that I see on a regular basis who doesn’t ramble about her precious child, or bitch about late night feedings, or whine and moan about being pregnant.

I’m annoyed at women who have children and yet don’t even know what hCG is. Or how miserable a HSG test is. They don’t know my old friends Estradiol, or Bravelle, or Follistim, or Menopur, or Lupron, or Novarel, or Prometrim. They don’t know the disgusting uncomfortableness of Crinone. Or egg retrievals, or holding their breath for fertilization and cell counts. They really, really annoy me.

I’m annoyed by all the fertility doctors that invented everything I listed above. Seriously, you HAD to have gone through a lot of trouble to reproduce all the pregnant-human, nun-pee and horse-placenta hormones that you ruthlessly shoved into me with needles. Couldn’t you have just FIXED the fertility problem instead of trying to get around it?

I'm annoyed at fertility doctors with shitty bedside manner. Sometimes we "patients" just need someone to hold our hand while we're having a procedure done, or an IV placed. One small thing like a pat on the shoulder will go a long way and will probably increase those success rates that you're so desperately worried about. It also makes forking over the $12k a little easier.

I’m annoyed that I don’t have one friend that has ever said to me: all my crying and anger is normal and it will pass – but in the meantime feel free to be pissed the fuck off that there is actually Stork Parking at my local grocery store. Seriously, do I need a sign that will slap me in the face every time I need bread?

I’m annoyed that when we talk about our next phase of house-remodeling, we have to plan around a fucking nursery that may or may not EVER happen. And I'm super-annoyed that I actually lose sleep over deciding what color to paint said room "in the meantime."

I’m annoyed that when my husband and I discuss kids, I have to make a conscious effort to say “WHEN we have kids”, even though my natural response is “IF we have kids.”

Back in the Stirrups Again

It is with guarded excitement that I announce we are back on the baby-makin train. Yesterday we met with our new doctor. My first impression is that I LOVE this man. To start off the consultation, the first thing he said was: Wow, I’m so sorry that your stack of medical records is so thick. Me too, dude, me too. It’s officially thicker than our phone book.

He kicked back in his chair and said: Ok, tell me everything. This may sound like a simple thing to most people, but I’ve been to more doctors in the last 4+ years than most people go in their entire lives. It’s rare to find a doctor who listens. And not only listens (I have been known to shut a doctor up by just talking right over top of him/her), but truly WANTS to know.

After I recapped the last few years, he rambled off our options. Apparently this man thought we were still shopping around for a doctor – he also thought we were still trying to figure out our next option. I guess that’s the way it is for most people, but now that we can call ourselves infertility veterans, we know what’s up. Halfway through his sales pitch I piped in and said “We want NCIVF, when can we start?” I felt kind of bad, I could tell he was enjoying his well rehearsed speech.

Five minutes later I found myself naked from the waist down, wrapped in a fantastically small pink paper blanket with feet in stirrups having my insides churned with the ultrasound wand. “Yep, ovaries are lookin’ good, lining looks fine. Well, while you’re here, let’s go ahead and do a mock transfer.”

So as I said, I’m not used to doctors asking me to tell “the whole story.” Um, doc - did I forget to mention that my transfers are from hell, take an hour and a half with me screaming, blood pouring out of me? No? I didn’t? Let me go back and tell you more of the story: I need to be unconscious for transfers. My uterus is tilted enough for the medical journals. Can we just skip the mock transfer and then knock me out for the real one? No? It’s required to be an NCIVF candidate? Oh….ok then…..

The doctor promises me that he just needs to see what’s going on with my anatomy, he’ll attempt it, but if there’s any pain he’ll stop – he just wants to get a feel for how hard the transfer will be. The transfer begins, he is so fascinated with the twists of my uterus that there are now six people crammed into this tiny room because they just “HAD to see this.” They’re all ohhhhing and ahhhhing over the ultrasound screen. The doctor is taking still shots left and right to save for my real transfer. Not even five minutes later, with minimal amounts of uncomfortableness, he announces: “I’m in.”

Whoa? What? That’s IT? I’m desperately holding on to J’s hand waiting for the pain and he’s already done? I look at the screen – holy crap, he really IS in. And I’m not screaming, crying, OR bleeding profusely. This is fantastic – high fives all around.

After a few more quick tests, a few order forms for updated bloodwork, a couple of handshakes, we’re checking out of the office – it’s been less than an hour since we arrived. Quick, painless and we find ourselves back on the road to baby makin’. As we drove away into the sunset, J and I holding hands – filled with new hope, determination and smiles on our faces - I let out a sigh of content: It’s good to be back in the stirrups again…

Happy 2008

Any New Year's resolutions this year? I have come up with a good one for myself. Every year I have said: "This will be my year." Every year seems to get worse. So this year, my NY Affirmation is this: I can't control a thing that happens, but I can control how I handle it. So my resolution is to get my shit together, basically:

I will be sad when somebody gets pregnant, but I will remind myself that I wouldn't trade my life for theirs.

I will be sad if IVF doesn't work, but will remind myself that I'm moving forward. And regardless of the outcome, I am not doing this for nothing.

I'm going to take care of myself.

I'm going to try to forgive all the insensitive, ignorant people around me. It's not their fault they're not infertile too.

I will remind myself that The Hubby internalizes all this very differently than I do. I will not be mad at him when he doesn't join me in my sorrow.

I will not wallow in sorrow. Being sad is one thing, but no more weeks on the couch crying over this mess.

I'm throwing away my Victim Status and I'm going to kick some ass in 2008.