It Could Be Worse!?!

You may have ready my post about "Things People Say" when you're TTC that are hurtful (whether intentionally or not). I mentioned my sister-in-law and the fact that she had been less than supportive of our infertility. She and I have had a strained relationship from day one, to say the least. It is a situation where we both want to make it work, but we also both have very strong personalities and even stronger opinions. This compacted with the fact that my mother-in-law and I haven't been on speaking terms for about a year and a half makes this all super fun! So my SIL and her husband were trying to have a baby for a little less than a year (she says they were only "trying" for one month) and in June she found out they were expecting. Here's where things get tricky! She decided to use this monumental moment in her own life to try to get the family back together (my husband doesn't speak to his mother either). I know that she had the best of intentions, but my infertile mind was like "Of course she wants everyone to be a happy family...it's convenient for her!!!" I was extremely bitter and upset for about a week. I know it's ridiculous, but she and her husband have been together for a minute and trying for half a second and they're pregnant???? Plus the fact that she's 30 and supposedly has PCOS!!

So once I got over the jealousy/frustration/hurt/infertile craziness/etc. I congratulated them, sent a card and moved on. The weird part is that because my husband has been inundated with infertility facts for two years now, his first reaction was "Why are they telling everyone after four weeks anyway?" He knows the stats on early miscarriages. So at 6 weeks she went in for a sonogram (because she had started bleeding and wanted to make sure all was well) and everything looked perfect. The doctor wanted her to come in at 7 weeks just to ease her mind if the bleeding didn't stop. Sadly, at 7 weeks, they discovered that the fetus had stopped growing. Her HCG levels were still progressing, but the fetus hadn't grown since the 6 week sonogram. She didn't want to have the D&C (which I totally understand) and was hoping that nature would take care of things. Unfortunately, her body didn't realize that she wasn't pregnant and she was still experiencing morning sickness and the whole thing. No one likes to throw up, but I think if it's because you're pregnant, it's probably much easier to take. This however, would be unbearable I imagine...insult to injury. It's like week 9 now (I think) and she is going for the D&C tomorrow, her doctor told her her body just hadn't figured it out and may never. I feel so sad and so hurt for her right now.

I've said through this whole thing that I would rather never conceive than lose a baby. I can't imagine going through the excitement of seeing those two beautiful pink lines and knowing that your body is creating a miracle just to lose it. I would be devastated. The silver lining for her is that her doctors are now telling her that she does not have PCOS! They got pregnant the first month they were really "trying" so there is a good chance that they will get pregnant again. I guess everyone's journey is different and filled with struggles, so compassion is the lesson for me. I was so upset when I found out they were pregnant, not because I wasn't happy for them, but because I was sad for us!! And now, I just feel sad for everyone...

Made it Through AF

AF came last week like a tornado! The good news is, there were only three days of spotting before (usually its two weeks of spotting from O to AF). Of course, even though we weren't really "trying" last month, there was that part of my mind that was like "Yay! No spotting? Maybe I'm pregnant?!?!" I know, I know, but at what point will those thoughts stop tempting me? Anyway, I had an INSANE headache the day before she came to town! I took over 3000mg of tylenol (the only time I ever take tylenol or any pain medication is for cramps) and I was still in pain between the headache and the cramps! Then two more easy days and over. So of course I'm thinking "Maybe I'm cured?!?"

Is it ridiculous to think that after all I've been through, my body just needed more time to figure things out? If I look back, I gave it less than 6mos after I got off birth control with very little "trying" before we started all of the natural stuff (vitex, teas, bbt, opks, etc). Then at 7-8mos (it's hard to keep it all straight at this point) I missed my period and that got the ball rolling to really "trying". I then started the acupuncture and all of the herbs. At one year, we went straight to the urologist to get my husband tested (test wasn't so great) and after that it was on to the Clomid crazy train. Here we are, 2.5 years later and I'm wondering if we had just let it go and let things happen naturally if we would have a baby right now! I know it's irrational and unhealthy, but I'm still always finding ways to blame myself. Did I rush things? I find comfort in knowing that God has a plan for my life. I know that we have grown as individuals and as a couple through this journey, but I'm so tempted to want to think that I have control over things. It's so silly because if this whole thing has taught me anything it's that I'm not in control, but I'm sitting here thinking, "Did my want for control cause all of this to begin with?"

So AF came and went and I stuck to my decision not to call the doctor to start Femera and schedule an IUI, but that doesn't mean the thought did not cross my mind. It definitely did...

Still Standing Firm

I'm still a little afraid that I will regret the decision I have made to go rogue and not start the infertility drugs again, but I am standing firm in my resolve. After a lot of tears and even more prayer, I really feel that it is the right thing for me to do. I feel bad mostly for my husband. Here is how our journey has been: He wanted to start trying to have a baby, I wasn't ready. Then I was ready, it was fun for a few months and then I began to panic. All of our friends were getting pregnant and we weren't. So then we started trying all of the natural things to improve infertility. They didn't work. So then we started with the doctors. Clomid made me crazy, and my husband had to deal. I decided that we needed to see a new doctor and he agreed. NOW I decided that I don't want to do it anymore. It makes me feel so selfish. The thing is though that it is my body, therefore my decision. It is me that has to go to work hopped up on hormones and crazy and still deal with coworkers, employees and customers. We haven't really discussed much more than just that we aren't starting Femera this month. I think he doubts my resolve and believes that I will change my mind when the time comes.

Done Fighting

I am about to say/write something that I don't fully understand, but here goes...My husband and I have been really happy together for the last few months. Very inactively talking to the RE and planning our next moves but not yet making them. And as the day that I am supposed to start taking this new fertility drug approaches, I've had a looming sense that there is a decision I am meant to make. This past May I graduated from college with my bachelor's degree. I decided that I was not going to use said degree and that I would instead follow my dream of going to hair school. I have a great job right now where I make good money and have great insurance, but that does not feed my soul. So all summer I've been going over and over in my head this timeline of beginning infertility treatments again, starting school, and working full time. Here are my fears: 1. this drug will make me as crazy as clomid did 2. it won't work and I will have set us up for yet another failure 3. it will work and I will be too busy with work and school to be able to enjoy being pregnant. I talk a lot about my fears. They consume me sometimes and I feel that I am constantly at battle with them. I feel that there is some war that I have been training for my whole life and I have spent 25 years fighting in preparation, but I don't know if this is a battle I can continue fighting. I have been trying and trying to give this up to God and to trust Him enough to know that I can do nothing and if He intends for us to have a child we will, but the fighter and the control freak in me say that if I don't keep fighting, I will have wasted valuable time and I will just end up back here anyway. But I have to wonder if this yearning for a baby has turned into a seeking of God for a reason. Should I be seeking peace and with peace will come all of life's desires? And maybe God knows that I won't be happy with becoming a mother this way? Maybe He knows better that I do that I won't be able to enjoy it as much as I want to if it happens now? And then there is that annoying voice that lingers in my head and says that maybe if we stop trying we really will get pregnant. 

A friend of mine recently said to me that she is "too old and practiced in punishment to be interested in it anymore". It got me to thinking about all of the ways that I punish myself. I have been at war with my body for almost three years now. But how can my mind be at war with my body? And is there a difference between the mind and the soul? I've been talking it through and I think the problem with me is that I am so in tune with my soul that there is a disconnect for me between the three (mind, body and soul) and I have been at war with not only my body but my mind that wants to makes a completely irrational situation rational. It is my mind that tells me that it's just as simple as going to a doctor and taking a pill and that it makes perfect sense that a doctor should be able to fix my broken body. My soul tells me a completely different story. My soul tells me that this is a journey that God has sent me on that I could not have gone about without all of these difficult moments that will lead me to the peace that can only be found in Him. The truth that I know is that it wouldn't matter right now if I had the most beautiful twin babies in the next room, my life is not what I want it to be right now. I'm not saying that there is a perfect world out there for me that I need to find first, but that I need to find contentment in what I have now before I will be able to appreciate what more could be. I want to get to a place when I, like my friend "don't see milestones or accomplishments, just a fulfilling, steady, unexciting but centered walk". 

So how did this epiphany come about? I was really trying to work through all of these things late last night before bed. It was as if the answer was just outside the rim of my understanding. All night I had vivid dreams of tribulation and turmoil and woke up with a lump in my throat. This is what I dreamed: I was running through the streets with a tornado following me. I believed the tornado was my husband. I could feel how angry everyone around me was because this tornado that was meant for me was causing so much danger and destruction. Once I finally got to safety (in a movie theatre with a large crowd), I felt this overwhelming feeling of failure through the crowd's anger at me. And then suddenly my husband walked in and I realized he was not the tornado. He was not coming after me to hurt me. And maybe everyone in the room hated him just as much as they hated me. I'm not sure if the tornado was God or if the tornado was fear, but all I know is that I was no longer afraid of it. God gave me my husband as a partner to get through the fear. Even if the whole world hated us, we had each other. I think until this point I had been dealing with this decision all on my own because I didn't want to disappoint my husband. But the dream made me realize that I was wasting energy on an unnecessary fear. 

So my decision is to stop fighting and to seek peace. This is no longer just my infertility story, but my search for peace and centeredness. I still desperately want to be a mother, I'm just not going to give any more power (or money) to something that is out of my control. I am going to put my faith in God instead of doctors. 

Endo?

Since our first visit with the RE, I've been thinking about him saying that there is a possibility that I have endometriosis. After my progesterone test at 7dpo last month came back normal (11.5), I'm beginning to think that my LPD self-diagnosis my not be accurate. Then came AF...might I mention the biggest biatch AF ever in my life!!! TMI alert: horrible diarrhea, nausea, cramps, pelvic pain, thought I was gonna die, had to go to work 2 hrs late. So I got online and started looking at endo. What I didn't realize about endo is that it can cause spotting before AF, which is my biggest concern about my cycle and I swear is why I haven't gotten pregnant yet. Some other facts about endo that surprised me are the fact that most women aren't diagnosed until 25-35 because it is something that gets progressively worse as time goes on. So if I had been on BC for 5 years (which is usually what they treat the effects of endo with) I probably didn't see the symptoms and during the past 2.5 years that we've been trying to have a baby it could have progressed. The only way to diagnose endo, however, is to do laprascopic surgery. The two plusses to having the surgery would be that they could treat the endo right then and they could check my tubes that the same time (the test to make sure my tubes are clear costs $1800 and insurance doesn't cover it). Sooooo my doc wants to do a round of Femara next month (which I have read is being studied as a treatment for endo) with IUI. I expressed to him how much I HATED Clomid, so he wanted to try something different and I've read that many women that didn't conceive on Clomid went to Femara and got pregnant on the first try! So fingers crossed!!!!

Whats Going On?????

After a big fat Clomid disappointment in April, Brett and I decided to take a month off from the fertility game. I realize that "game" makes light of this situation and implies some fun to be had. Nevertheless I had one month left in my undergraduate program and felt that finals mixed with family coming for my graduation was more than enough stress without adding Clomid craziness. I have to admit, taking a break from crazy Clomid Kendra makes me very hesitant to start back again. Today is day 1 of this cycle and we have our first appointment with the RE in two weeks. I'm just anxious about what his plan will be and whether or not he will recommend something different for us. I feel like I am at the point where I am beginning to lose hope. If not hope, then will.  I want to be a mother more than anything, but I have to wonder when it has already taken so much, if it is meant to be. I look at some of our married friends who have children and they take the kids for granted and have miserable marriages. I know that each relationship is different and it is not necessarily the fact that they have children that has made a mess of their marriages, but Brett is the most important person in my life and I have been worrying lately if God is trying to tell us something. Maybe He is helping us to build a stronger foundation so that we can have a lasting marriage. Brett thinks that my finishing school will take some stress off my plate and we will suddenly get pregnant. He is the eternal optimist, but I have my doubts. I DON'T THINK STRESS HAS A DARN THING TO DO WITH IT!!!!

Back In The Game...Or At Least I Thought I Was

So after about two days of being down in the dumps I got a phone call from my mom telling me that she started researching and found a RE where I live and he takes my insurance. I have been seeing an OBGYN and thought that the only RE in my area was six hours away. So I spoke to the woman in his office and she said that I would have to do 3-4 IUIs before moving on and it would take a while for us to get an appointment with the RE. So we faxed them our insurance info and called our OBGYN to do another round of Clomid and IUI. Unfortunately, I was supposed to ovulate on Thursday and it never happened. Instead, I started spotting on Friday. I also got a phone call from the RE's office to let me know that they couldn't read my insurance card off the fax (that I sent two weeks ago) and they needed me to fax it again. So now I'm sitting here with insane mood swings and ridiculous acne for no reason what so ever, and deciding whether or not I want to do this bs again next month or to take a break. What also goes into this decision is the fact that I am graduating from college with my bachelors degree next month. Do I want to be a crazy acne ridden freak during finals and graduation pictures? Hmmm not so much. I just hate to feel like I've wasted a month when we have now been trying to have a baby for TWO YEARS!!!!