Southern Infertility

Success!

2009-04-22T16:18:00.002-04:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all of your help, advice, and support for my last post. MC did successfully take a bottle today, with a few techniques:

I got out of the house (I had a job interview to convert my position to a permanent one, so what else could I do?)
D fed him with the MAM bottle
D fed him in his bouncy seat in the kitchen, totally different from anything I do with nursing.

I won't say that MC was too thrilled with his eating option or with having me unavailable, but he accepted the situation better than last week, and now at least I know he probably won't starve while I'm away (we'll see how the next feeding goes!) While I'm sure that my going to work will be a big adjustment for MC, I would like it to be a time for Daddy bonding, not just a scream-fest, and being able to eat is a step in the right direction.

I have always known that I would like to continuing working outside the home, and I get a lot of intellectual stimulation from my job and profession. Plus the income is pretty important, especially after our move to Chicago. But after having had a child, I now completely understand why some mothers choose to stay home, and the idea seems much more appealing to me, at least for the first year, when he's still so little and needs me and my milk. I can tell it's going to be wrenching to return to work even while I am looking forward to seeing my coworkers and returning to many of the projects I left midstream to give birth. I suppose it's too late for this one to move to Canada and get job where I get a year of maternity leave.

Sometimes I get so caught up in these daily challenges and just the newness of having a child, that I forgot how hard and how long I worked to get here. Babies create a monumental life change, as they are so small and helpless that they have to rely on others to take care of them, and life as you know it is just wiped out and rewritten. Yet there he is, my son, imbued with his own little personality, likes and dislikes, wants and needs. He is his own person and I love him. It's simply amazing.

The Best Laid Plans

2009-04-16T09:29:00.002-04:00

Caring for any baby comes with unexpected challenges. I can safely say that I'm thrilled with MC's sleeping at night. He regularly sleeps for about 6 hours or so, and then for another 2-3 hours after that (although he does have a bad habit of waking up early on Saturday morning). Getting him to sleep can be difficult, but it is getting a little easier. So far, with the exception of when I was in the hospital, I've been the only one to put him to bed. I think it's safe to say that he likes a lot or at least is used to me doing things for him and wants me to be there. This is both gratifying and terrifying.

Before leaving work, I got a maternity leave plan approved with my boss. While I'm not eligible for FMLA, I was able to combine a short parental leave, generous sick leave, and my vacation leave to make for a decent leave time without having to request unpaid time (which, since I'm not eligible for FMLA, they don't have to grant). My plan involves starting work from home for about 12 hours a week, which I have for the past few weeks, then going back to work half-time for two weeks, before returning full-time mid-May, when MC is 14 weeks old. I'll save a few days for doctor's appointments/sickness to get me through to August, when my sick time and vacation time resets. D, who is caring for MC during my work-from-home time, will care for MC full-time until mid-July, at which point he starts daycare.

In the beginning things seemed to go well. I got through pregnancy working up until the day I gave birth, taking only one full day off the whole pregnancy. I've been pumping every morning since he was 3 weeks old, so I've got a good stash of milk in the freezer. We started giving MC a bottle when he was about a month old, just occasionally, to get him used to it, and then D would give him a bottle when I worked, as I was planning on working in four-hour chunks. But in the last two weeks, MC has decided that he no longer will drink bottles, he just wants the boob. He has also decided that he really, really would rather be held by me. He loves to breastfeed, and will happily nurse for forty-minutes or longer. So my work sessions have meant me holed up in the study attempting to think while I'm hearing MC screaming and D at his wit's end. This, of course, is not conducive to working.

This week, when MC was screaming in hunger but refusing to eat, I came down and breastfeed him for a little while, and then slipped the bottle in. It worked on Monday, but not so well on Wednesday, where he continued to reject the bottle. He chewed the nipple, gagged on it, and screamed through the feeding. We tried to feed him with a medicine spoon, but that basically made a mess, as a lot that went in got shoved back out by his tongue. Additionally he refused to let D comfort him to take a nap later in the day, so I came to down to soothe. By the end of the day, it took me about 7 hours to do 4 hours of work, and I wasn't really all that effective for the hours I was working, and D was scarcely able to work at all. So much for slipping the day. In the evening, MC seemed content enough, but it was me who was crying. I would like to return to work, but I feel horrible about putting him through that, and D feels rejected.

I'm not sure what to do. We have tried with Dr. Brown's and Avent bottles, and have some MAM bottles on the way to see if he will accept those nipples better. He doesn't like the pacifier either. They always warn you in breastfeeding class about nipple confusion and babies rejecting the breast in favor of the easier bottle, but they don't tell you that your baby may just like the breast to the exclusion of everything else! I'm thinking about whether I should ask for an unpaid leave for a month, but I don't know whether it would be approved, or whether an extra month would help the problem. Plus I'm supposed to go in for an interview next week to make my one-year visiting contract into a regular position! This is seriously stressing me out. Any suggestions would be welcome.

You Know You're Tired When...

2009-04-03T18:20:00.003-04:00

MC is a great sleeper at night. Once he manages to fall asleep (which can be a problem, admittedly), he generally has a six hour stretch of sleep at night, followed by a night feeding, where he'll be up for about an hour, then he'll sleep for another 3 hours or so before waking up. In an attempt to keep myself well-groomed and have an opportunity to do a few small things around the house. MC is not so good at naps, although this seems to be improving slowly. He also likes to eat about every 2 hours during the day and is a dawdly nurser, taking 45 minutes or so to be satisfied, so all I can do frequently is park myself on the futon with him. I've been going to bed about 1/2 later than him, but getting up about 2 hours before him. I'm trying to build up some milk supply for when I go back to work, and also have a chance to shower, etc. If I pump in the morning, I get much better output than later in the day, and if I get up early enough, I don't think I interfere with his getting enough to eat. Unfortunately this means MC gets enough sleep, but I don't quite. I have learned it's catching up with me.

(As an aside, I may be the most neurotic nursing mother on the planet. I live in fear that he is not getting enough to eat. Not that there's any evidence of this. He seems satisfied after eating, and has so far been growing appropriately, but the mysteries of how much he's eating continue to scare me for no good reason. I would probably only feel reassured if I knew I was making enough milk to feed three babies. While I'm not too fond of pumping, it does make me feel better to see that I do seem to be producing milk.)

We are using a diaper service with cloth prefold diapers. I decided to go the cloth diaper route because I didn't particularly want to be throwing away all of the diapers, plus if MC inherited my sensitive skin, I suspected that disposables would be problem. But I also didn't see D or even myself keeping up with the laundry, hence the service. The diaper service has worked out well, and the diapers themselves have been easy to use and so far have only leaked a little wetness on his clothes a few times, and never anything more messy. To fasten them on, we're using a contraption called a Snap.pi, which takes the place of the diaper pins, and then covering with a waterproof polyester cover. Perhaps a bit more complex than disposables, but not rocket science. Anyway, this morning I got up at six after not really falling asleep from his 3:30 feeding and he got up at eight. I changed his diaper, gave him something to eat, and was playing with him on the floor. This basically consists of me singing, showing him toys, and him staring, but he's generally in a good mood in the morning and seems to like it. After a little while, there were a series of explosions from the rear area, so I went to change him again. I noticed that the front of his sleeper was a little wet, and thought I must not have secured the diaper cover sufficiently. I unsnapped the sleeper to discover I completely failed to put on a diaper cover! Let's just say that the diaper cover should be used for a reason and there was poop everywhere. Oops. At least the mobile kept him distracted while I cleaned him up.

This weekend I'm going to try to sleep a little more.

One Month Old

2009-03-20T15:43:00.004-04:00

Dear MC,

Happy One Month Day!

You have become an integral part of my life, in fact your tiny self basically rules me right now! You might not realize this, because I know life has been difficult for you. It's been a big adjustment going from the cozy confines of my uterus to the bright cold world. But I know you're doing a good job with the adjustment. Already you've got a nighttime routine going: generally going to bed around 9-10, waking up between 1-2 AM, and then waking up at 5-6 AM (I'm always hoping for the 6 side). You've grown a lot:

Weight: 9 pounds, 8 ounces
Length: 22 1/2 inches
Head: 36 1/2 cm

I guess that makes you a bit of a pinhead for your size, but everything is growing quickly from you birth stats. I can tell those late-night feedings are doing you good.

Here are the things you like:

Snuggling, cuddling, being held in any way: At first you hated to be held in a carrier, but now you like both the Ba.by B.jorn and the Er.go Baby carriers--at least most of the time. Your favorite is still to be held in someone's arms directly. In fact, as I type, you are snuggled up against my body.
Taking walks: this is a great naptime activity for you. In the stroller, in the carrier, whatever, you quickly settle down and fall asleep, unless we are walking back from the pediatrician and you are cranky and hungry.
Staring: you will look at my face, at your dad's face, at the light, and more recently, at your mobile. It's all quite fascinating to you. A few times I think I've seen a smile play across your lips, but I'm not sure.
Eating: this is probably on every baby's favorite list, but you really savor your meals and can carry on for more than hour sometimes. Which is great for you, but kind of ties me to the futon as you tend to want to eat every two-three hours during the day.

Here are things you don't like:

Getting your diaper changed: For the first few weeks, you screamed bloody murder each time, but now things are getting better. The music box, toys, and other distractions have been helpful.
Sleeping on your back: You really don't sleep well flat on your back, so you've been spending your nights in the carseat, where you can curl up a little better. If it weren't for SIDS, I'd be happy to put you to sleep on your tummy.
Napping alone: you've pretty much refused to nap except if someone is holding you. I've tried various things, but most of the time, within minutes of being put down, you wake up unhappy to be left alone. Strangely, you'll happily sleep in the car seat at night, but you always know when it's daytime and then you refuse.
Evenings: I think it's safe to officially call this Melt-Down Time. I'm not sure what to do to help, but I still try to comfort you as best I can. I know it can be hard to make that transition to sleep after a long day (even with naps).

It will be interesting to see how this next month will develop and what new things you'll learn. Sorry there is no picture available, but I'm afraid my hormones have given you one terrific case of baby acne. It's a good thing you're not vain!

Slings are Wonderful Things

2009-03-02T18:08:00.003-05:00

I got back from the hospital Saturday morning. It was a tough 18 hours to be separated from my little guy, I have a lot more appreciation for those of you who have had to leave your babies in the hospital for some reason. I knew it must be hard, but having been hit with the maternal instinct, I'm getting a better sense for just how hard it would be. It was so hard to leave him at home so I could go to the hospital, I can only imagine how much worse it must be to have to leave your baby in the hospital. My mom had a fun time that night trying to calm MC and introduce to both bottles and formula, neither of which he was too sure of. He stayed up a lot of night and spit up all over her, which he really hadn't done until trying the formula. I managed to have the D&C without general anesthesia, but I came out of it in a lot of pain. Apparently I was a tough case to get all of the "retained product" out, and I woke up curled in a fetal position, shaking, nauseous, and with cramps from hell. After some morphine and about 5 hours later of drug-induced sleep, I felt like a new person and was so relieved to go back home a little later in the morning.

My dad joined my mother for the weekend, and then this morning they left. If I didn't know what I would do without my mother before Friday night, after that I really don't know what I would have done without her! It feels kind of scary, just me and the baby, so I made D work from home today, just in case, but tomorrow I'm going to be really on my own. My MIL is planning to come out for a bit over a week soon, so I won't have to be alone too long. There's a part of me that is relieved not to have guests anymore, but it does seem weird to think, "how am I going to go to the bathroom?" MC is a baby who loves to be held--all the time. He fortunately also likes to sleep for a good stretch during the night, so if I can manage a nap, I can get about 6 hours of sleep a day. His sleep stretch doesn't always come until 1, 2, or 3 in the morning, but he's only two weeks old, so I don't expect him to know night and day just yet.

A colleague of D's is loaning me a sling to see what I think, and it's giving me a little bit of time to type with my hands and pick up a few things around the house. He just curls up in it like a little frog. I have some other baby carriers, but he still seems so small for them, since he does like the frog position. I hadn't really thought about a sling before, because it looked like it would be uncomfortable with the weight all on one shoulder, but at least while he's small it's not too bad, and it's wonderful to have my hands again. He won't sleep in the bassinet, but instead will sleep in his car seat, I suppose because he can also curl up. He also loves to scrunch down and try to cover up his face in whatever he's sleeping in, which gives my SIDS alert a scare, but what can I do? At least when he's sleeping on me, I know he's breathing!

Post-Birth Update

2009-02-27T20:30:00.005-05:00

The Beautiful:
Here are the all-important birth pictures:

It's amazing how in only two weeks, he already looks bigger and older!

The Random Thoughts:

Breastfeeding is really, really time-consuming. MC is not a fast eater, so take 8-12 nursing sessions each day that each last about 45 minutes, and you can see where my time is going. Breastfeeding and using the computer don't mix very well, but I have been able to read some novels. Despite the soreness and time, I wouldn't want to do it any other way.
Having your mother out after giving birth is a great thing to do, but having a guest for two weeks also has downsides, such as when your mother gets mad at your husband after everyone has been feeling a little tired and off from trying to deal with a newborn.
Having new windows installed the second week after giving birth can heighten such tensions, but if you're going to have new windows installed and you weren't able to get to it before giving birth, it's good to have someone else there to help you out. I'm sure the workers also have appreciated my display of boobs.
I loved my son the moment I saw him, and still can't get over the fact that I gave birth to him.

The Story:
Who doesn't love a good birth story? I have to say mine was pretty straight-forward. As you already know, my contractions started in the middle of the night on Saturday morning. I felt like I was in pretty good control for the first few hours at home. I called the doctor and she told me to keep monitoring the contractions and if they continued and got stronger, I should come into the hospital. By early morning, I was starting to feel strong contractions about every 5-6 minutes, so I woke up D. He was confused and asked me why I was waking him. I told him I was in labor. "Really?" he asked with a smile. "Yes," I told him. "Okay," he said, "I'm going back to sleep." Well, I soon disabused him of that notion and he got up and got ready to go to the hospital. I took my time, taking a shower, getting the cats feed, etc. Meanwhile the contractions were getting very strong and I could no longer really manage them myself. I had D running over to put pressure on my back, because with each contraction it felt like my spine was being pulled into my belly. It was about 7:30 by the time we got to the hospital and triage. I was having a rough time of it and while trying to change into the gown in the bathroom, my mucus plug came out in a big bloody mess. Then while on the triage bed, my water broke, although because my bloody show was so bloody, it looked rather red. While I went into labor hoping to manage the pain, I knew I wasn't going to make it, so when they asked if I wanted an epidural, I said yes!

I was five cm dilated, so I was admitted to the labor and delivery room and soon got the epidural. While I don't think I would have made it through labor without it, it didn't exactly work the way I thought either. It was lopsided, so while my right side was completely numb, my left side continued to function and feel some degree of pain. Even with adjustment, this continued, but I didn't really want to have needles poked in my back twice, so I lived with it. I felt a little disappointed about getting the epidural, because it meant I was stuck in bed, and also meant I ended up getting a catheter, IV, and two internal monitors: one for the baby, and one for the contractions. I was a mess of tubes. My labor after the epidural slowed considerably, so by noon, nothing had really changed, and the doctor started me on pitocin. My body, never one to turn down artificial hormones, reacted in fine fashion and labor picked up quickly. I'm sure it was a doctor's dream because she could be completely in control of the labor: add a little pitocin and it sped up; going to fast and all she needed to do was drop the dose. By 3:30 I was fully dilated and ready to push.

The heart monitor for MC showed that he was having decreased heart rate with the contractions now, as he moved lower. So the plan for me was to push hard and fast to get him out quickly. This I did. Three contractions and just over 15 minutes later, he was out! It was amazing. I cried when I saw him. Who knew a body could do so a miraculous thing? The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, so they quickly fixed that and MC was fine. The disadvantage of the fast pushing was that I tore all over and it took an hour and a half to stitch me up. I'm still feeling the ouch. At least I got to hold my baby to take my mind off the stitching.

The Unfortunate
So how does a sleep-deprived, breastfeeding mother, who is hosting her own mother at her house get to write such a long post? Well, I'm back in the dammed hospital tonight, awaiting a D&C for some leftover matter that apparently didn't get out at birth time. I started noticing some foul-smelling discharge a couple of days ago, and an ultrasound earlier today suggested there was material remaining in my uterus. This has got to be one of the hardest things I've done: leaving my tiny baby with my mother, and going to the hospital to have this procedure. I have never given him a bottle or formula and the poor guy has to start rather abruptly tonight. The maternal instinct has really kicked in because it just makes me cry to think that I'm not able to be there for him. Once I got here, they had to delay the start time because I ate almonds at 3:00 PM and they don't want to give me anesthesia for eight hours. I'm hoping I'll be home late tonight or tomorrow and all will be well.

Valentine's Day Baby

2009-02-15T12:14:00.002-05:00

Yesterday at 3:52 PM, our new Master of Ceremonies, made his way into the World, at 7 pounds 4 ounces. We still have to take pictures, so I don't have one to post. At the moment all three of us are very tired. My labor went pretty well. I had hoped to avoid pain medication, but the back pain became excruciating, so by the time we arrived at the hospital at 7:30 AM, I had no hesitation asking for an epidural! Unfortunately it really only numbed my right side effectively, but it was enough to make the rest of labor much easier. The pushing part by necessity went very fast, because MC's heart rate was going down with each contraction. It turns out he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. So three contractions later (and a few tears for me) he was out!

I'm now feeling very tired and am going to attempt a nap. My mom will be arriving later this afternoon, but I'll try to get a picture up when we take one!

The Time Has Come?

2009-02-14T04:21:00.003-05:00

For a long time in my pregnancy, while I won't say it was my favorite experience, it really didn't bother me too much. I will say, however, this last month has been more trying in the symptom category, and I am ready to move on from my pregnant state. I saw the doctor on Thursday, and he told me I was 2 cm dilated and 75 percent effaced, and expected that I would go into labor within the week. Just in case, I made an appointment with him on my due date, but he said I probably wouldn't need it. After hearing that news, it was tough to go back to work and actually concentrate! I'm definitely ready to meet MC. Then both my mother and my MIL told me they were told similar things about going into labor at any moment by their doctors, only to wait 10 more days and 2 more weeks, respectively. So Friday I tried to lower my expectations of imminent labor, and just go with the flow. D is not in so much of a rush, but then he doesn't have the physical aspects of pregnancy to spur him to action. "I'm tired of not sleeping well," I told him. "Well, that's not going to get any better!" he reminded me. So true, but it will be sleep deprevation for a different reason.

Now, in the early and not so bright hours of the morning, I think it's actually happening. It figures it would start on a Friday night when D and I are supposed to be meeting an out-of-town friend on Saturday, and I was also looking forward to some good napping, but oh well. Obviously my labor isn't too far progressed, as I'm sitting here blogging between contractions. I'm still not totally convinced I am in labor, as I've been having some pretty powerful Brackston-Hicks contractions for the last couple of weeks, but these feel different. I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between real contractions and the false ones, but my back has become much more involved and I really can't do or think about much else besides the contractions once they start. Plus they seem to be very regular, about every 8-10 minutes (this post has had an interruption). So, maybe the real thing? My doctor's office said to call after this goes on for about an hour (which it has), so we'll see where this takes us.... Hopefully next time you hear from me, I'll have a new addition to the family!

Just a Boring Pregnancy Post

2009-02-03T20:49:00.003-05:00

I'm sorry that I've become that slacker blogger who doesn't update and just disappears. I've thought about updating, but then when the time comes, I haven't quite known what to say. I still don't quite know what to say. I have decided that the third trimester of pregnancy is way more tiring than I would have imagined, so when the time comes, I think the creative genius in me (should such a thing have ever existed in the first place) just disappears from exhaustion takes over and I need to go to sleep or at least lie in bed and attempt to sleep, where I wake up every hour or two due to my now pea-sized bladder and various aches and discomforts.

I can't say that pregnancy has really treated me badly, but I haven't found it to be a terribly comfortable experience either. Other than a careless doctor claiming I looked too small, and scaring the living daylights out of me, everything's been pretty uneventful. I've been putting up with some moderate swelling that started a couple of weeks ago and my feet hurt all of the time, but that's really been the worst of it (and the heartburn, and the exhaustion, and the hemorrhoids, etc. etc.) As I'm approaching my due date, I'm surprised at how nervous I am about MC dying--it's not logical, it doesn't make sense, but I can very quickly imagine a horrible outcome. I had a lot of fear about this happening early on, then again around the 20 week ultrasound, but after that I really relaxed about it for a while--probably until I had the careless doctor scare me two weeks ago. While I definitely don't want to hurry MC out earlier than he wants to be, I will also feel much better, mentally and physically, once he's born healthy and sound.

Even though I've always encouraged other bloggers to speak their mind on pregnancy, I haven't felt so comfortable doing the same for myself. I'm not sure why, but this just hasn't seemed like the forum to discuss pregnancy for me, and it didn't seem the like right place to carry on about how much I miss North Carolina (yeah, I'm still trying to move past that too), so I'm not sure what I want to do with my blog space. It hasn't seemed right to me to focus on my pregnancy in a community where my pregnancy could be painful for some, and some other things have just seemed out of scope or too personal to place in my blog. As someone once said, all infertility blogs eventually morph into something else: a life without children, a mommy blog, a journal of other aspects of life that take over. It's hard to decide where I want to go and how I want to go about it, even if I'll want to continue to blog in the future. You all have been such good companions and this blog has been such a wonderful outlet for me, so I really do apologize for just up and leaving abruptly. It wasn't my intention to be so negligent. But I do promise I will keep you posted on how the end of this pregnancy goes, with hopefully a happy outcome. My mother, and then probably my mother-in-law will be coming to visit and help out shortly after MC is born, so I don't expect to do much blogging at that point in time, but I will make sure to at least let y'all know how things are going.

North Carolina No More

2008-11-23T18:39:00.002-05:00

It's been a few months since D first got the invitation to apply for a position back in North Carolina. He applied, and we periodically talked about it, but could come to no conclusions. Our talks hashed and rehashed the same ideas. Our conclusions were always about the same. Chicago is a fun place to live, we have good friends here, and we like our house. There might be more opportunities for growth in North Carolina for both of us, as the organization there is in better financial shape and more highly regarded. The economic climate, of course has thrown every up in turmoil, and selling a house right now is not a good idea. Moving with an infant would be exceedingly hard, and we'd lose the support of family being (relatively) close by. Moving so soon after accepting a position for D could make some enemies in the small field. When we reached the end of one of our discussions, it basically just seemed like the timing is not for a move, but neither of us was ready to close the door. Last weekend I just burst into tears about it. It surprises me how much I have missed my job, my colleagues, my friends there, basketball (well, that one may not be a really good reason for moving, even I admit, but even that has made my cry), that my emotions run so deep. Sometimes I feel it might have been the best job I'd ever have, and I didn't really want to look at 30+ more years of work with that attitude. I told D I just didn't want to talk about for a while.

So this week I called up my former place of work and talked to the HR director. Basically I could apply for some other upcoming open positions and would probably have an inside track to getting them, but of course there are no guarantees. This was what I expected and not really anything I didn't already know. Meanwhile, as the weeks have gone by, I feel like I'm living a dual life: half in Chicago, half in a dream of North Carolina. I'm going out, seeing friends here, exploring the city, getting involved in new projects at work, and preparing for a future with a child here. At the same time, I'm daydreaming about returning to North Carolina, visiting my food coop, getting back involved with some projects at work that I enjoyed, and imagining not having to worry about dealing with a few difficult personalities and situations that are being uncovered at my current position. Then I'm feeling confused and guilty about trying to plan for things in case we do move, and sad about losing some of new things I enjoy, and leaving my family further behind. It's been a weight on my mind.

D and I went out to dinner on Friday evening, and I suppose maybe he thought I'd be relaxed and ready talk some more, so he brought up the potential move again and we hashed over the same territory. Finally, I said to him it was time for him to pull out of the search. The timing was not right. We were not in the same situation as we were last year, when we were living in North Carolina. We left, and now did not seem like the time to try to go back. It was time to commit ourselves to living in Chicago, and stop worrying about where we would be in a year. Then, of course, I burst into tears, and had to hide my face in my napkin for while, while our waitress wisely kept away from table. We had most of the food packed up to go, as I lost my appetite, and I apologized for eating so little of it. "It's good comfort food," she said. Probably she thought, "crazy, hormonal pregnant woman."

Sometimes I feel like D usually gets his way, because he manages quite successfully to come up with the logical argument to something, whereas I can only say, "I really want this, and I can't tell you why." In this case, I don't think that's the situation, as I don't really want to move, I just want to still be in North Carolina. And even that's not quite right, as in many ways I want to be in Chicago. It really was the right decision to make last year. Sometimes I feel angry that it always seems like my career interests get short-shrift to D's, but I can't say I've ever not felt a part of each decision or that we haven't made these decisions together. It just seems like each time we move, I'm the one with more to lose, the one who has to start up again, maybe even move backwards, and then build forward. I've been successful in the past, so I assume I can be successful now. So why am I so sad and upset?. It's strange to think that if D had not received the information about the North Carolina position, we would just be here. Now we are in that same situation, but I feel like I'm in mourning.

Maybe it's because someone has died. A good friend of mine here just had a miscarriage, and while she assures me she is feeling okay with it, it makes me feel angry, upset and sad. In some ways, it is not a surprise, because she had very little pregnancy symptoms, and was measuring smaller than expected in her first ultrasound. I felt a pang of fear, but I thought it was just my fear-mongering infertile mind talking. I feel sad that she has lost her baby. I feel upset because I was looking forward to being pregnant with her together, to knowing someone else here who would be having a child only shortly after me. I feel angry that while she got pregnant easily the first time, now she will have fear and worry added to her future attempts. No one should have to go through that.

Sausage Legs and Other Cliches

2008-11-20T20:26:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry I've been so quiet on my blog. I start thinking of posts I want to write, and then they seem trivial, foolish, or perhaps hurtful to all those who are still trying to get pregnant. Really, everything about my pregnancy has been uneventful. I seem to have gotten just about every pregnancy symptom in the book, but none with extreme severity or to such a degree that they pose a risk. Peeing, restless sleeping, acne, rhinitis, mild carpal tunnel, leg cramps, continued digestive difficulties, and now some mild swelling in my feet and ankles. I pointed out to D my "sausage legs" last night, where my legs were all puffy right above the end of crew socks. My complaints are annoyances, but not really anything more than that. Not really that exciting either. Despite this, they can consume a lot of my energy and thought--probably related to pregnancy brain! Frankly, despite my small complaints I feel pretty good, a lot better than I did at 16 weeks, when overwhelming exhaustion was knocking me down every night.

I've also been going through my own cliche experiences of worrying about my weight gain. Weight has never been something that I've really struggled with (don't hate me), and other than a time period in my early twenties when I had to adjust my eating because my metabolism slowed slightly, I haven't really been a dieter either. That's not to say that I've been a junk food fanatic, because I do think I eat pretty well. I eat a lot of vegetarian, and have usually always have at least one kind of vegetable with lunch and dinner, and fruit with breakfast and lunch. Despite my careful eating, I have been a little dismayed with how much weight I've gained, which is already 20 pounds. I think it started during the first trimester, when I started eating weird things and a lot of them to stave off nausea. Now I'm eating a healthy diet, but I still worry about it, even though my gain is within normal bounds. Sometimes I feel like I've really struggled not to eat too much, when in fact I've had an abnormal craving for french fries for months (which I have NOT given into!), so I might as well just have had the damn french fries every day and enjoyed myself (although that probably would have just made me feel bad in other ways). Instead, I sit at work and ponder, "eat the granola bar, don't eat the granola bar" until I can't stand it any longer and just eat the granola bar.

All of my obsession on weight does make me wonder how many society norms about women's body types must have been indoctrinated into me. Pregnancy is a time of changing body type and weight gain. It's not unexpected, and I shouldn't be disappointed that I now weigh more than I have in my life. Yet here I am, a woman complaining about her weight, the walking cliche. On the bright side, I have now officially surpassed both my OHSS weight by 2 pounds and my OHSS circumference by half an inch. Looking back, it does make the OHSS seem that much more impressive, that over the course of less than a week, I managed to generate the figure of a 6 1/2 month pregnant woman. Despite all of the pregnancy annoyances, I have decided that it is definitely much more comfortable to do this in 6 1/2 months. I think there'll be a better outcome in the end too!

Election 2008

2008-11-05T09:27:00.002-05:00

I don't usually comment on politics, as this is an infertility blog, but it's hard not to say something when America has just elected its first African-American president. Even while watching the debates, there were a few times I thought, "Wow! Could we really elect a black man as president?" And now we have.

While it's fun to be in Obama's home town, I'm sorry we couldn't be in North Carolina for this election, because I voted in the primaries there, and there's a whole lot of change happening in my adopted state. We kept our VOIP NC phone number, so each day, I've been coming home to at least one message about the gubernatorial, senatorial, or presidential race as it related to North Carolina. Things looked really tight. I told D, "watch those races be lost by 1 vote--it will be our fault!"

North Carolina is the state where, in 1996, Jessie Helms, perhaps the last unreconstructed Southern Conservative, a man who opposed the federal holiday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, was reelected for his fifth term. Yet here we are 12 years later, and a senate seat is ceded to a Democratic woman, from a Republican woman, no less. The first ever female governor, also a Democrat, is elected. And the presidential race? Too close to call at the moment, but with Obama leading. In any event, it doesn't look like it's going to come down to just one vote.

Go North Carolina!

Probably Won't Be Trying That Again

2008-10-30T19:21:00.002-04:00

*Warning: I'm going to complain about pregnancy symptoms*

Last night I had the opportunity to get together with a friend who was visiting. We had a great time catching up and she asked me if I liked being pregnant. At first I told her, not really, I missed having my body, and most of all being able to eat what I wanted when I wanted. Then I moderated a bit because there are really a lot of interesting and fun things about being pregnant, like feeling MC move and it's actually kind of fascinating watching my body change. But I have to say, all of the eating issues are just getting kind of tiresome.

I never threw up in the first trimester, but I had a lot of bouts of nausea. Generally I would wake up and feel fine, eat breakfast and be fine, but then the nausea would start to set it about midmorning, and the only way to deal with it was to eat snacks, nibble at stuff (which included surprising fondness for potato chips, which really settled my stomach). It was annoying, because I never really felt hungry, but I always felt like I need to eat. Finally after we moved here from Chicago, I started feeling hungry again, which was thrilling, but food troubles seem to continue.

Even now, I still frequently go through bouts of nausea in the afternoon, and then in the evening, can just feel really crummy (for lack of a better word) after dinner. Kind of a combination of heartburn, indigestion, a touch of nausea and a definite feeling of over-fullness. I can't pinpoint to any particular food (unless it's really too spicy), but just to amount of food at dinner. I'm also like a constant burping and belching machine. It was amusing for the first 4 months, but I have to say it's gotten a little old. To try to combat this problem, as well as to the fact that I can now get ravenously hungry in the morning, I've been trying to keep the meals smaller, and add some snacks. The main problem is that I am just not a snacker. I like my three meals a day, with snacks reserved for special occasions, and that's about it, so I think I can end up overeating still, because I just want to keep my dinners bigger. But it helps, so I'm trying to stick with it. I can imagine the heartburn and over-fullness is only going to get worse, so keeping the meals small is probably a good idea.

Today I think I crossed over the top with feeling yucky. I stayed out too late last night with a friend and had a workshop this morning, so I decided I would treat myself to some coffee with caffeine. Generally, I've been sticking with decaf tea in the morning, with the thought that on occasion when I need I can switch to the caffeinated version and it will kick a good punch since I no longer drink it much. But it's pretty much been tea and not coffee, although I've had some decaf here and there. The coffee was great and I was interested and lively for my meeting, but then in the afternoon I felt horrible. Riding the train home, I thought perhaps for the first time in this pregnancy I might throw up, and I don't think other train riders would have appreciated it! Maybe it was the acid, maybe the caffeine, but I felt like my esophagus was just barely bothering to keep the contents of my stomach out of my throat. Now that I've been home a little while, and had some toast, water, and tums, I'm starting to recover a bit, although my esophagus still feels uncomfortably pressured. I don't think I'll be trying any of the real stuff again any time soon!

More on Child Care

2008-10-22T21:56:00.003-04:00

Thanks for everyone's thoughtful comments! Since there seems to be some interest in this topic, I'd thought I share a little more. When D and I were thinking about what we wanted, we decided we like the home-based care because of the smaller number of children (less illness) and because it seems, well more homey. For an infant, I'm less concerned about structured day activities, than just having a good, happy place to stay. I have heard more stories about of problems at centers too, although Kate's seems particularly egregious! The disadvantage of home-based care is that one person is basically responsible, so if they're terrible, they're it, and there are more days where care won't be available (holidays, vacations) and there's no back-up for illness.

In Illinois, there are a number of state regulations that cover daycares. The state sets provider/child ratio: for home-based care it is one provider for eight children, with a maximum of 3 children under 2 and of those, only two can be under one. If a provider has an assistant, then there can be 12 children total. For centers, the staff/child ratio varies based on age: for infants, it's 4:1, and goes up from there. Regulations also cover CPR/first aid. The providers I've been talking to have all been licensed, so they've been through some training and have to do 15 hours of continuing education each year. They also all seem to have contracts, standard late fees, policies for children's illnesses, and even policies for food. You provide the milk/formula and baby food, they provide table food once kids are old enough. Childcare comes at a price: so far, we've talked to three providers and rates vary from $200-$300 a week. I think centers are more expensive for infants. D and I anticipated childcare costs to be about $14,000 a year, so that falls within that range. I had also anticipated prices going down as MC got older, but that may not be the case. On the one hand, it's a lot of money, but on the other hand, it's going to be my child's care, and hopefully the regulations and higher rates will mean interested, caring people are willing to get into the business.

We went spoke to another provider today, and I liked her a lot, but she's going to have more children, as she's going to have an assistant (her daughter) stay in January, so will be eligible for up to 12 children (I'm actually not sure what the under 2 ratio will be with 12). She was a little more straightforward about how she handles her own illness and seemed to have a better ability to talk about her method of care. Of course, she was just loquacious in general, so it's hard to say. Her rates are also $200 versus the $300 a week of the other two providers, which is a pretty big difference. Her day is shorter (not really a problem for us, because we didn't need that long of a day), but she does also have more holidays and time off than the other providers, so a lot of my vacation time would be used for that. I'm not sure what I feel about the higher number of children. The other two places we looked only had three children at the time (although they could have more by next summer and there was also some talk about an assistant, so maybe no difference at all). All three places are within walking distance of home, and on the way to the train, which nice. I did think about finding a place near work (visiting at lunch seemed quite appealing), but logically it was easier to be close to home (kind of a suburb vs. downtown thing). So, no decisions yet. I'm hoping after I check some references and maybe spend some time during the day, I'll get a better idea. And we still have one more woman to talk to... As Elizabeth said, researching child care may not be the most touchy-feeling or fun thing to do, but it does definitely feel like a good concrete step toward planning for this baby.

By the way, we turned on the heat, and it works! I'm still waiting for that upped metabolism to make me feel less cold, but so far, I'm already chilled, and it's not yet November! Going to be a long winter for me! The wonderful thing that I did find out this week is that the public transit system is installs outdoor heat lamps at the train stations, which I'm absolutely thrilled about! I was imagining waiting for the train in January and February, and it was seeming pretty damn cold, so it's good to know I'll be able to get a little warmth. In fact, the heat felt pretty good today!

Child Care

2008-10-20T21:39:00.003-04:00

Fall is finally here in Chicago. We had a visitor here last weekend, and we went to Millennium Park (where all visitors seem to want to go when they visit Chicago) and the fountain was turned off for the season. The faces were still there, but it's not quite as exciting without the water. I haven't turned out my heat yet, but it's getting a chilly in the house. The heating system makes me a little nervous. I lived in an apartment with radiators but this is my first experience with a home boiler system. The boiler is about 40 years old and is from Montgomery Ward and has no manual, so I'm not sure of it's operation. We decided (although against D's first machismo opinion) to have the system checked out before winter, but the company can't come until Nov. 10, and since it's already in the low sixties in the house, I don't think we're going to last quite that long. According to them we can just turn on the thermostat, turn on the radiators and it will get cranking, but I haven't tested it out yet. I did vacuum out the radiators this weekend, and found probably five years worth of dust, toys, and a few unidentifiable objects. Having not inspected the radiators so closely, I will say that they are big, heavy, and ugly, and it's a good thing they have covers! I suspect some are original to the house. As usual, it took longer than I thought, but I think it was worth it. Now I just have to get up the courage to turn on the thermostat and see what happens.

Meanwhile, I decided to start investigating child care options. After reading an article about how child care in Chicago is expensive and difficult to come by, I figured that I couldn't start too soon. At this point in time, my plan is to exhaust my vacation and sick leave after giving birth, which should carry me through the first 2 to 2 1/2 months, and then D will take off work for another two months, so we can start daycare around July, when MC will be about 4-5 months old (all assuming, of course, that we stay in Chicago). D and I decided we wanted to go with a home-based daycare, so we asked around for recommendations and I talked to a home provider organization for names as well as the Dept. of Public Health for licensed daycares. When I first started calling about a month ago, it seems I could actually start too soon, as the first few places I called had no idea of their availability for the summer 2009. This week, however, things suddenly have turned around and just today D and I went and talked to two providers and now have appointments later this week for two more.

Our plan is to try to sit down with each provider, and then follow up with the ones we like by dropping by during the day to see how things are running and calling references. We came up with a list of questions and so far the first two people we've talked to seem friendly and their houses clean and inviting for children, although neither really jumped out at me as "this is it!" I will say, as licensed providers, there seems to be a lot of standardization on their policies, which is good. They both, though, fudged a bit on the question of illness, when we asked what they did when they got sick. "I don't get sick" (nice for them, but seems unlikely). There is also a mysterious assistant, who comes when needed, which is not now. So, a few things to follow up on with references. The location of both providers is excellent, as they are practically on the walk to the train, so I can't complain about that.

I'm a little befuddled as to how to choose a provider. It's an important decision, given that MC will be spending a lot of time there, but it's such new territory to think about. There's price, location, and hours, which are utilitarian concerns on the one hand, but important for helping us make a daycare work. Then there's the intangible touchy-feely connection, and that's harder to come by. Anybody have any tips about choosing a daycare or stories on what worked well for them?

Call of the South

2008-10-13T22:06:00.002-04:00

I first moved to North Carolina for two years, then D and I moved back to the Midwest. Two years later, we found ourselves back in North Carolina, D lured back by the call of grad school. We stayed for six years, and then moved back to the Midwest. Well, a couple of weeks ago, D got a call from the chair of his old department. The chair wants him to apply for an open position. The position would start in the summer of 2009. You can see where this is going. Is it time to move back to North Carolina?

Anyone who's been reading this blog knows that the move to Chicago was a difficult one for me. I really, really liked my job and felt good about my career and prospects. I really grew to like North Carolina: it seemed neither too big nor too small, was a vibrant, growing place, and seemed very family-friendly as well. Really, the heat was the toughest thing about the place. It was a tough, emotional haul to leave, but D and I came to agreement that it was the best thing for us. He had a good offer for a tenure-track position, I had a job lined up as well. Chicago is a big place, and if things don't work out job-wise, there's lots of other opportunities in the area. Plus we knew and liked the Midwest, and have family in Michigan, so quite a bit closer than North Carolina.

We didn't exactly burn our bridges, but we severed our ties in North Carolina without an expectation of returning. We sold our house, we bought a house here, I resigned. I tried not to look back, just to look forward. In the midst of it all, I got pregnant, and now some of our choices made more sense: closer to family, buying a house made for a family. So when just over months after moving here, D got the invitation to apply, I felt pretty angry. We could have stayed in NC and D worked in a temporary position for a year. I could have kept my former position, stayed in our house, continued to love the nature trails, the food coop, the sports, the music ensembles, and seen my friends. Could the timing be worse? Of course I would love to move back to North Carolina, but not after just moving barely a year ago! I cried a few tears. Now I am calmed down, and am returning to looking forward, not looking back, but I remain very conflicted about what we should do.

I would love to be in North Carolina, but I would not love to move back to North Carolina. The economy is not exactly up for house-selling, so it would be a big financial hit immediately, although we might make that up over time with a lower cost of living and higher salaries. I found the move stressful enough without a newborn, how could I handle it with one? And I do like it here. There are things I don't like about my job, but I am still learning new things and have opportunities to grow. I certainly don't dread and even enjoy going to work (as long as I'm not wiped out, which does happen with some frequency). Chicago is a fun place. I have friends here as well, there are lots of things to do, we like the house, we like the neighborhood, it also feels family-friendly. As a big place, Chicago feels overwhelming, but as a big place, it also has lots of options. Things might not always be easy or convenient, but whatever you might want or need, chances are Chicago has it.

Then there is the issue of family. Here both my parents and my in-laws are about a 5-6 hour drive. It's not close enough to swing by and help out for the afternoon, but it is close enough to drive in for the weekend. Both have offered to help out after I give birth and I'm extremely grateful. From everything I've read and heard, I can't underestimate how difficult the postpartum period will be, or how much my life will be changed. I say this not to sound overly worried or resentful, because I'm thrilled to have the opportunity, but I'm trying to be matter-of-fact and honest with myself about it, but I don't really know how to adequately prepare for it. If we move to North Carolina, it will be a 13 hour drive away from family. I would lose that closer location to family. It feels a little like trying to choose between between career and family to a certain extent, and I don't know how I'll feel after giving birth.

Moving to North Carolina would not be moving back. It would be moving forward. Things would not be the same. I have no job there, and don't really know if/how I could be hired back. It wouldn't be for the same job, as they will have that filled already. I haven't tried to live there with a small child. I don't know if we could find another place to live that we would like as well. D would be a professor, not a student. We might know and love the area, but there would be many things that would be different. I wonder if I am pining for something that just doesn't quite exist, because we did choose to move to Chicago.

We have some time to think about this. This is one of those posts where advice would be welcome, but ultimately I know D and I will have to figure out what we think will be best for us. D will probably apply and then sometime this winter be invited for an interview. At that point, we'll should have a better idea of what we want to do, and whether he should go for an interview. Of course he could go and not even be offered the job, so it all could be for moot. I hate thinking about moving again, it puts everything in a limbo, a feeling I was not missing, but yet it's back. The best thing would be think of it as simply an opportunity. If we don't follow it, we'll be no worse off, and if we do, it could lead to some hard choices but new options. Life never quite seems to get less complicated!

Revealing the Privates

2008-10-09T21:24:00.002-04:00

Thanks for all of your comments on my last post. It's amazing how much I struck a chord with so many of you, and thank you for all of your candor in your answers. Today I got to put my pregnant self to the forefront as I went to the medical building for an ultrasound. I had become irrationally nervous about this ultrasound, probably revealed by last night having a dream that I took illegal recreational drugs and then realized too late that I would harm my unborn children, only to go back to sleep to dream that it was prophesied that I would die soon in a storm and there was nothing I could do about it. So maybe just a little nervous, eh?

D and I walked into the hospital and located directly next to the ultrasound clinic was an infertility clinic. It felt very weird and wrong to not be going through the infertility door (not that I'd ever been there before). I told D, "I guess that's where we'll go if we ever want another one." I also felt like I should hide my small but getting more obvious belly. After being ushered through multiple waiting rooms, we finally made it to the ultrasound, where all of MC's organs were examined in great detail, and I wondered how exactly the doctors and technician could make anything out, but they seemed to know what they were doing. We left with assurances that all looks good and with a few pictures, including one that says, "pen.is" with a little arrow pointing to blob on the print. So folks, MC's a healthy baby and a boy!

We then went out and got flu shots. D was not so keen on getting one, and frankly neither of us had had one before, but I felt like this was the year to go ahead and do it, considering my pregnancy. My OB recommended D get it too, but D was not so sure.

"I've only had the flu once in my life," D said.

"I had the flu last year," the OB told D, "it was awful. I recommend everyone get the shot."

"I had the flu last year too," I said, "I agree it was no fun."

"Well, I didn't get the flu from you," D said to me.

"That's because I got it from YOU," I told him.

"Oh... I guess I've had the flu twice in my life."

To give D a little leeway, I realized later on that it was actually two years ago that we had the flu, in between the FET cycles after my second IVF cycle. It's hard to believe that's now 2 years ago! Anyway, the deed is done.

The fun thing about finding out the sex is that it's a win-win situation. All news is good news. Heads, you win, tails you win and everyone's happy no matter what the sex turns out to be. D seemed a little baffled at how subdued I behaved after receiving the news, but it just took a little while for it to sink in. Healthy. Boy. One more step towards a real live baby.

Marked

2008-10-06T21:00:00.003-04:00

I used to have the feeling that there was sign plastered across my head that said, "Infertile." Particularly for those people who knew how long we'd been ttc, it seemed to be there as something people gingerly took note and then were careful to steer around, being careful when bringing up those delicate topics of babies, treatment, and the future, and always thinking that what I really needed to do was relax for it to happen. But really, I didn't have a sign and most people didn't even have any idea. Now I suppose I could "pass" being pregnant, but I seem to have an urge to put the sign up there myself, just to remind people that this is no ordinary pregnancy. "It took me a long time to get pregnant," I'm always careful to tell people. "Maybe it looks like we decided to change everything all at once, moving, starting a family, new jobs, but really, we wanted to have kids years ago."

I'm not sure why I feel the urge to do this. I think it's because it just feels like part of my identity. I suspect also that I'm trying to show people I deserve to get pregnant, even while I know there's no such thing as "deserving" when it comes to pregnancy. This is no oops-forgot-the-birth-control moment, or let's-just-see-what happens attempt, this is a hard-fought-multiple-hospitalizations-more-needles-than-you'll-ever-know pregnancy. Like I'm really special or something, although I know the truth is once the kid is there, people perceive you as no different than the oopsers, and maybe that's really how it should be, but I just can't quite put it out of my mind.

It could be a more altruistic reason: I like to let people know about the battle in case they are suffering from jealousy or infertility themselves, that I'm not run of the mill. My pregnancy came up with a coworker at lunch, and I mentioned it took years of trying, and discovered she had her own story of years of trying. We exchanged some cycle and horror stories, but in the end, I'm still the own whose pregnant and she's not. Did it really make her feel better to know that she was going out to lunch with a pregnant woman who tried for over three years? I don't really know, so maybe it still comes down to me trying to point out that I deserve it.

Of course, I'm sure I'm experiencing this pregnancy differently than had I not gone through infertility. I sometimes find it hard to discuss it with friends and family, because it just feels wrong to be basking in my own success after having such a hard time with others' pregnancies. It also still feels unreal, and even while I'm doing my best to prepare for MC's arrival, there's still a large part of me that doesn't think it's going to happen. Despite having an easy time of it other than a couple of light bleeding episodes early on, dead baby thoughts are never far from my mind. I've dealt with it basically by not letting myself think much about them, since I know they're irrational. As time has gone on, I've felt more confidence in the pregnancy, but I still feel like it could be someone else's life.

Perhaps another reason that I feel like sharing my infertility history is because I want people to know where I'm coming from. I've been surprised myself by the profound sense of loss I continue to feel over the failed cycles. Just thinking about my lost embryos can bring tears to my eyes. I don't want to dwell in the past, but it's there. I think also I was so used to having a feeling of desperation over the treatment process, which really settled in during the last year, that I'm not really sure what to do without that feeling. I hesitate to use the word "desperation" because it conjures up tabloid-headlines like, "Desperate Moms-to-be Willing to Sell Soul to Devil For Children," and that's not quite what I mean. I felt more like I was doing all I could and it wasn't working, and I was desperate for control and not finding any. Last fall was a horrible time. And the fall before that was D's moment of desperation, I think he came to terms with the possibility of treatments not working before I did. It's a good thing we both managed not to fall apart right at the same time, because I don't know how we would have made it. I'm not feeling desperate anymore, and even before my successful cycle, I think I was starting to understand that things might or might not work out, and life would go on, regardless. But it still leaves this void in my feelings that I don't know what to do with. I got used to feeling that way, now I can't figure out what to fill it with. Happiness is there sometimes, but it doesn't always feel quite right. It's hard to figure out how to honor my past and look forward to the future.

Syringes are Back in the House

2008-09-28T15:30:00.002-04:00

But, not for me. And, thankfully, without needles. I decided to take Tubbers to the vet for additional investigation of her fur loss, in part because I just saw her licking and scratching herself enough that she seemed uncomfortable. I was also interested in the possibility of ringworm. Since I didn't have a referral for a dermatologist in this area, I decided to start with a veterinarian that my petsitter had recommended and work from there. Upon meeting the vet, it was fun to learn that she was also from my neck of the woods in North Carolina and even knew my previous vet! Well, Tabitha somewhat unwillingly submitted herself to an examination, and the vet ruled out ringworm based on her examination. The vet thinks it is most likely allergies too, and not behavioral, because of the scratching, which indicates some irritation.

So we are going to move onto the next step: food trials. The clinic was kind enough to give me some samples to see what might suit Tubbers' palate. And in the meantime, I'm giving poor Tubbers some prednisone to reduce the allergic reaction, and antibiotics, to rule out any infection, if she created one by scratching and licking. The medications are in liquid form, although it's still not much fun trying to shove them down the throat of a cat twice a day. Fortunately, Tubbers is greedy enough that if I promise to feed her after each dose, she tolerates it well enough. I thought she might start getting cagey about coming around each time I called her, but she cheerfully comes begging for food, only to be surprised (yet again) to find me seizing her and sticking syringes in her mouth. Let's hear it for the lack of short-term memory! Or maybe being force-fed medication twice a day is an acceptable exchange for also now getting wet food twice a day. It's a good thing this isn't my other cat, she'd be so traumatized I'd probably never see her! And I think Tubbers is willing to eat just about anything to get rid of the medication taste in her mouth, so the lamb cat food is a success so far. We'll she what she thinks about the venison or duck. How many cats get to eat lamb, duck, or venison? I think she should count herself lucky. I'm sure once I start paying for the stuff, I won't be feeling that way!

------
In other news, aka my pregnancy news, everything has been very quiet. I have to wait for two more weeks before my second trimester ultrasound, because my doctor is out of town, which is a bummer because I'm getting very curious about the sex. I had also been hoping the second trimester would be that glowing time in pregnancy, but I'm still waiting for that. Things I've been told that haven't happened:

You'll get your energy back (no, not quite)
You'll pee less in the night (um, still up usually three times during the night)
You're skin will start to glow (mine is only glowing with the red of pimples)
You'll get your libido back (still waiting on that one too!)

Plus there are things that I thought wouldn't happen until the third trimester: I keep waking up with sore hips and now my hands are starting to feel tingly. I've had a lot of problems with overuse pain and symptoms in the past, extending to nerves in the carpal tunnel, medial tunnel, elbow, and even shoulder. This past week, I think I was compressing them all while sleeping, even with wearing splints at night. So I went out and bought some new pillows, including a body pillow, to try to ease my aching hips and support my arms and neck better. D is not too happy about my new pillow set-up, but so far, there's still been room for him and the pillows in bed. It's seems to have helped some. I also know I need to work more on the ergonomic set-up at work, which isn't ideal. They "found" me an ergonomic keyboard in the dumpster (not joking, but it works, so I'm also not complaining), they are actually ordering me a new keyboard tray, but I think I may need to get a new chair myself. The "finding" process for the chair hasn't been going so well, as the chair they found had no arms, and I don't think that there's money to order one, so I may get one myself. I'm barely halfway there through this pregnancy, so I'm going to try to keep these symptoms at bay.

Despite my complaining (what are blogs for?), things really have been going well. I still worry a lot about things going wrong, but I've been able to feel MC move almost every day, and that's very reassuring. It seems like in the last two weeks or so I've really starting feeling pregnant in a much more physical way than before. My belly is really starting to swell (although I'm still probably in the "looks a little fat stage" more than the "pregnant" stage), and my boobs have been growing. D and I have been browsing around at baby stuff, not that we yet know what we want or what we are doing, and I've been gathering information about child care. I feel like I'm moving on to the next phase of the adventure and I'm looking forward it!

Housework Sucks

2008-09-21T22:24:00.002-04:00

As Chicklet said, y'all in the blogosphere rock! Thank you very much for the advice and thoughts on "cats who groom too much." It sounds like my poor Tubbers is not alone having some grooming issues, although on the whole she seems like quite a happy cat, so I am still going to ponder what I want to do, but I am actually leaning toward a vet visit. Ellem left me an interesting message about ringworm, which had never crossed my mind before, because Tubber's fur loss doesn't follow the classic patterns of ringworm, but it can come in various guises. The thing that makes me think more about that is that I have some patches of eczema on the backs of both of my hands. It started last winter, and seemed to be contact dermatitis from using a theraband to do stretches that I was wrapping around my hands. I stopped holding the theraband in that way, but the eczema persisted and since getting pregnant it's gotten worse too. I asked my OB about it, and he basically said, "eczema is common and hard to treat during pregnancy" and that was pretty much the end of it, as I didn't really push it and it doesn't bother me too much. My skin is pretty sensitive and I break out in heat rash quite frequently, so I figured it was just par for the course. It also doesn't look like classic symptoms of ringworm, with no ring, but now I wonder even more. If my cat has it, maybe I have it?

I have noticed that I am notoriously poor at judging the time it takes for household tasks. Unless it's something that I do on a regular basis, like clean the kitchen or vacuum on the floor, I just always think it's going to be easier than it turns out to be. When we put our house on the market in North Carolina, we needed to replace the window inserts of the back doors. After we put in the new windows with their fake vinyl mullions, of course they needed repainting. Thinking that getting up and started at 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning would be a great time to get the doors done and painted and still have the afternoon to chill out, I began taping up the mullions. This should have been my first clue my initial estimate of four hours to paint the doors was overly optimistic, but still I persisted. Stopping only to eat peanuts, and judging the time of day by which NPR show came on next, it took me over 12 hours to tape the doors and put to two coats of paint on the interior and exterior of the doors. D was gone all day and when he came home in the evening, I was a raving lunatic trying desperately and unsuccessfully to get the hardware back on. He was able to do it without a problem, so obviously my abilities were impaired by an entire day of painting mullions. The worst part of it was that the doors didn't even look all that good in the end. They looked okay, but really, they could have used one more coat of paint on the outside, but there was no way in hell that was happening.

So today, I had grandiose plans to clean the front windows, which had some grime and dirt on the sills and in the frames. The whole front of the house is windows, there are basically four sets of 3 windows that surround what used to be an exterior porch. For every set of windows, two of the windows slide open, and even have little tabs so that they tip out for better cleaning. The screens can also come out to be hosed down. What could be easier? Once again I started on Sunday morning, thinking it would be a before lunch endeavor. Even with D's ample help, the two of us were cleaning the damn windows until 5 PM (although I did take a break for lunch this time). There was just black filth and dirt crusted onto the sills so I kept having to change the cleaning solution and get new rags, the screens turned out to be more difficult to pop in and out than anticipated, and one of the windows was nearly impossible to put back on again. D and I ended up using a hammer to try to force it back in, but using a hammer on a window? We both had visions of it shattering. Still, what do you do? Call a handyman - "Um, I took my window out and I can't get it back - can you help?" That window will never come out again. The worst part? They don't even look that great, just okay. Our supposed streak-free glass cleaning left streaks all over the windows you can see quite clearly in the afternoon light. When will I learn my lesson?

Seeking Feline Advice

2008-09-18T22:01:00.002-04:00

My cat seems to have a grooming/fur loss problem, so I figured I'd ask the collective wisdom of the blog world, even if it is a little off topic. I've had my kitty for eight years, who sometimes goes by the nickname Tubbers, due to her shape. Her parents were clearly mismatched in size, as she has a solid cylindrical body on top of dainty legs and feet and an exceedingly tiny tail. She was a rescue kitty from an animal shelter, and found the street life quite hard, which, based on seeing her play with her toys, is probably because she was terrible hunter. She was very skinny when they found her, and also pregnant. She fattened up, had her litter and then I took her home. She had some eating issues at first, but after learning that I would always have food out for her, she eventually calmed down and stopped trying to raid the garbage. I thought only dogs did that!

When we moved to our townhouse in NC a little over five years ago, the house came with a surprise gift of fleas (and cockroaches, millipedes, and ants, but I digress). Since my cats don't go out, it took me a little while figure out what was going on, although when they started biting me, I caught on. Tubbers is very fastidious and did her best to groom the fleas off, and lost some fur as a result. After treating the house with boric acid and treating the cats with Advantage, we seemed clear up the flea issue. Then a year later she started losing fur on her belly and got a big pink patch. It didn't look irritated, just bare. I took her to the vet, and he thought perhaps she was sleeping on something too warm, since he saw that kind of fur loss on cats that liked to lie on heat ducts. He also suggested putting her back on flea medication, since she also lost some fur on her back side, and dorsal thinning can be a sign of flea allergy, although there were no signs of fleas on her and my other cat never showed any signs either. So I took away her heated pad (which I don't think would have been her choice) and put her back on the medication, and her fur grew back - at least mostly.

Then this past winter, into the spring she started losing fur again. This time I saw her really vigorously grooming herself, mainly on her stomach, legs and tail. So vigorously that she got little bare patches or short fur patches where she groomed her legs and tail intensively, and her belly got very bare. I took her to the vet again. Again, no obvious sign of fleas, but I put her back on Advantage. The vet also thought it might be allergy-related, since it was mainly on her underside, he suggested covering the areas where she slept with white cotton sheets and pillow cases, washed in Ti.de Free. Short of covering our entire house with white sheets, I tried to get the most popular areas, although she is always coming up with new and unusual resting spots. It seemed to help for a while, but since moving she seems to have gotten more aggressive about her grooming again. Tubbers grew back some fur in NC, but has since lost some more.

The vet suggested it could also be a food allergy, and I could experiment with her food, but I've been a little reluctant to do that, because she is a finicky and her stomach is a little sensitive. While she no longer feels fear about her next meal, it's very important to her to have her dry food (I.ams Weight Control) out at all times and to get her Fan.cy Feast each evening (Tender Beef is the only preferred flavor). There was one time where we bought a case of Tender Beef, but it had a slightly different consistency or formula. I've never seen a cat look so dejected. She'd run up all excited to eat and then stare at the plate in deep disappointment. I was relieved the next case met her standards. The vet also thought it could be psychological - she was just over-grooming herself for stress reduction or because she got used to it. He thought perhaps the move would do her good (away from NC allergens), and otherwise suggested a pet dermatologist.

So now I'm wondering what to do. I haven't taken her to a vet here yet, as she's still settling into the new house. I wasn't all that thrilled about the dermatologist idea because I saw it costing big bucks for something that may be difficult to diagnose and isn't causing her any great distress - her skin looks healthy. I do wonder about the psychological possibility, because if I try to get Tubbers to stop grooming herself by distracting her, she will frequently restart, but in a different spot, so it doesn't seem like one spot is irritating her. Plus I know moving can be stressful for animals and her fur loss got worse this spring when we put the townhouse up the market. Anyone out there have any experience with "cats who groom too much?"

Thanks and Happy Weekend!

Birthday Weekend

2008-09-14T19:52:00.003-04:00

While I used to feel anxious about rain after being in a year-plus long drought in NC, this weekend in Chicago it just rained and rained and rained and rained... I am now ready for sunshine. On Saturday I celebrated by 33rd birthday. Given the weather, D and I decided it would be a perfect day to go to a museum, so we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which proved to be lots of fun and not too crowded as the busiest season of the summer is over. I got to stand in front of an infrared camera and see a little red fire in my belly, which was pretty cool. While it doesn't quite give detail like an ultrasound, it was further proof that something wonderful is going on there. My museum outing seem to wear me out, however, and I confess I got a little cranky on the train ride home when we all had to get off the train and take a bus because of some "interlocking problem." We then had to get back on the train at a later stop, but of course this involved waiting for another train. Public transportation is wonderful when it works like it's supposed to, but this doesn't always seem to be the case in Chicago.

So today, while I had ambitious plans to clean to the house, I've spent most of it lying around recuperating and now it's evening and all I've done is pick up! Not the worst thing in the world, I guess! I think I'm already feeling sleepy for the evening.

It's Alive!

2008-09-10T21:55:00.002-04:00

I think I felt MC move for the first time this week. I was lying in bed quietly reading before falling asleep, when I felt a sensation like, well, popcorn popping. I've since had the feeling several times, and this morning, I treated myself to some real coffee because I had to get up extra early to drive to a workshop out of town. MC seemed to feel the coffee too, because I'm pretty sure I felt movement after I drank it! When I press, I can feel a solid mass inside me now, which I really haven't noticed much until this week. It's fascinating watching this pregnancy move from a queasy abstraction to a solid reality.

I got to see the doctor again this week to follow up my first trimester screening. I'm feeling less charitable towards all doctor's offices at the moment: my new OB because he made me wait for an hour and fifteen minutes for what was basically a bloodwork appointment, and my OB in NC because the office cannot seem to get their act together to send my medical records here. I called and asked for my medical records a month ago, and was told they would fax them, no problem. When I arrived at my new OB's office last week, were they there? No. My new OB called them to request the records and was told they would send them. I called last Friday and they hadn't gotten the records, so I had the new office send a new request to the old office. Then Monday, the old office called to say they would copy the records and send then later this week. They had no record of previous requests and couldn't send them any earlier because they contract with another copy and that's just how it's done. So I'm just hoping the records are on their way, and I will be calling to make sure because this is stupid! Why is it so hard for a patient to get her own records? It is hard to do a full sequential screening and have complete care if some of your records are missing!

While I'm complaining, I have had a diminished Internet presence recently because our cable company shut off our service for four days. We went out on Saturday morning, and came home to no cable, Internet, or phone. The cable company was singularly unconcerned about this, and could not send someone to investigate until late Tuesday afternoon. When the technician finally came out, it turns out the cable company shut off our service by mistake. Oops, sorry. Well, we're a monopoly, so what can you do?

Okay, back to happier news, I am actually starting to have some fun living here. D and I got out and went to the Art Institute and then I walked up the road to meet Rachel from Long Distance Infertility and had some ice cream. Whenever I go downtown I feel like a total tourist, with the throngs of people and all of the culture and happenings. I've never really been in downtown Chicago as anything but a tourist. Then I remind myself, hey, I actually live here now, I can come here quite easily - isn't that cool? So if you're ever visiting the city, feel free to drop me note and we can get together for ice cream too.

Still Here, Still Tired

2008-09-04T18:59:00.002-04:00

I know my posting has become fewer and farther between, and the main reason for that is that I am just very tired all of the time. I did get to the doctor this week and my iron levels are fine, so I guess it's just the whole pregnancy/move/work change that is sucking up my energy, not low iron levels. Which is good on the one hand, but I would have liked an easy fix! It comes and goes in waves. I'll be falling over dead tired for a period of about an hour or two, and then feel revitalized (I'm doing pretty well at the moment). In my quest to stay awake at work, I've taken to eating hard candy, but I have learned that too many Lem.on Heads in a day is just a little too much acid for the tongue!

My trip to see family went well and the weekend was quite relaxing. I met my nephew for the first time, and it's hard to imagine doing it if I weren't pregnant. London, the infamous husband of my SIL, was relatively well-behaved, which was a relief. My nephew was a sweetie, and pregnancy and baby-talk did end up dominating the conversation. I suppose I contributed my part, asking about how they did this, that, and the other thing. Even though I'm looking forward to starting a new family with MC, I still have a hard time looking back over all of the treatment with a lot of regret and wondering "what if." Maybe I'll always feel this way. I wondered if I hadn't gotten pregnant before leaving North Carolina, what would I be doing now? Would I search for another doctor? Would I take steps toward adoption? It's kind of a pointless spinning of the wheels, but my mind likes to go there. I think I still feel a sense of unreality about being here.

I can also see that there are some tensions between my MIL and a competitive streak that D has with his sister, R. As you all well know, D and I have found R's decisions to be irresponsible in a lot of ways, in terms of how she and her husband handle money and plan for the future. They definitely have a "have it, spend it" attitude, and it also seems that when they don't have it, D's parents provide the necessities, and when they do have it (like now, since R is working again), London spends it on various computer gadgets that he wants. After all, D's parents are supplying them with the diapers and baby stuff and are right there to make sure everything runs smoothly, from letting their dogs out to taking their son when London has a doctor's appointment. Well, it's probably fine for D and I to complain about this in private, but D has also taken to making snide remarks to his mother regarding the situation, and that makes his mother defensive. D says, "Well, you'll have to everything for Samantha that you did for R," and suddenly I'm in a competition that I didn't want to be in. D's mom bought R all of her maternity clothes, so now I'm getting a check for maternity clothes for my birthday. D's mom purchased a stroller/car seat combo for R, and now she intends to get us the same. This is all nice, but it's coming with a competitive push. So when we say we don't yet know if we want the same stroller because it's kind of large and might be difficult to travel around on the train with, D's mom gets very defensive. "R picked out this stroller, and she knows what's best and it's fine for public transit!" If I reject or even question the stroller I'm personally rejecting D's family. Now, the last I checked, there were no means of public transit by train in Detroit, so how would R know? Or if I say I haven't decided whether to use cloth or disposable diapers, the reaction is, "Disposables are so much easier. That's why R uses them. I don't know why you would use anything else." Well, you can see where this is going.

I've been thinking about this all week and finally spoke with D about it, to lay off the barbed remarks and stop with the comparisons. To R and London's credit, I think they are doing a lot of things right. R is working again, and London, even though I'm sure a 62 year-old Royal Navy veteran never could have imagined this, is staying at home with their son, and they seem to be happy. D and I aren't them, and aren't going to do everything like them, nor do we need D's parents to treat us in exactly the same manner. They can't--we live five hours away, so it's never going to be drop-in babysitting from the grandparents. In some ways I'm sorry we didn't end up moving closer to family when we moved back up north, but in other ways I can see that having a little distance is a good thing.

Spilling the beans

2008-08-28T21:26:00.003-04:00

I decided to tell my boss this week about my pregnancy. I think I could have gotten by another couple of weeks, but it seemed like telling sooner rather than later would be good as we start to formulate times and plans for projects, and it might also show good faith that I'm being honest and give them more time to figure out how my leave will work. I was pretty nervous about it, despite D's assurances that it would go smoothly, I still worried it would look to be taking a job and then promptly be out six months later. But it turns out he was right, my supervisor did not seem unhappy at all and told me congratulations. Really I haven't had bad experiences with supervisors, so I'm not sure why the anxiety. What remains to be worked out is exactly what I can take for maternity leave and how that will be figured. My supervisor was honestly surprised when I told her I wasn't eligible for FMLA, apparently she didn't know you had to be at a work place for a year before it would kick in. The organization also has a two week paid parental leave following birth or adoption (yes, my non-American readers, this is the U.S., and that may seem ridiculous, but it's more than has been available anywhere else I've worked). This leave becomes available after I've worked for six months. If MC is born 3 days early, I won't have worked for six months, so I guess I'll be rooting for full-term (not to mention the ability to work right up until I give birth)! The rest of my maternity leave will need to be covered by vacation, sick leave, and probably some unpaid time off, assuming that will be allowable since they don't have to give me anything without FMLA coverage. But my supervisor seemed to think arrangements could be made, and perhaps I could work from home for part of the time, or even try to make up some hours in advance. The good news too is the vacation and sick leave is very generous, and I get it all up front for the year, so I have 24 vacation days and up to 25 sick days to play with. I figure I can probably stay out until the end of the semester, at which point D will be done with his classes, so can step in more fully. Making all of these transitions all at once is just a lot to think about, but so far, we seem to be on the right track.

Currently, the just the thought of working extra hours in advance makes me tired. My exhaustion is continuing, although I have been more diligent about getting into bed early and other than getting up to pee with some frequency, I've slept pretty well. Seeing a post from In Search of Morning Sickness (who's having a girl!) about iron deficiency and anemia makes me wonder if that could be part of my problem. My exhaustion seems to have gotten worse in the last two weeks since starting work, and I was hoping with the end of the first trimester I would start to get some more energy back. The other thing I have noticed is that I get short of breath going up stairs, which is unusual. I'm certainly not so big that my lungs should be affected, and I thought I was in good enough shape that that wouldn't be a problem. Although my prenatal vitamin has iron in it, my diet is not very red meat heavy, and recently my meals have consisted most of dairy, which has protein but not much iron, and pasta with vegetables (though not of the iron-rich variety). Of course starting a new job and figuring everything out is tiring, not to mention the moving thing, so I can't say for sure. I'll see my doctor in a few days, so I can find out them, but in the mean time I'm going to try to get a little more iron in my diet by eating some lentils and iron-fortified cereal.

This weekend D and I are going to Michigan to see our families. It will be a much shorter drive than from NC, so that will be a bonus. My brother is leaving to study abroad for a year, and we'll also have the chance to meet our nephew for the first time. I know the meeting will be much easier for the both of us with me pregnant, so I'm hoping it will be a fun time. I have definitely noticed that family tensions still seem to be hanging around, but I'm not really certain what they are all about. I suppose as you get older, your relationship changes with your parents, and circumstances are definitely different with my SIL, who has married and now has a son all within a little over a year. Plus I know that my pregnancy seems to have changed my relationship with both my mother and my MIL. My mother has alternately been a source of huge comfort and exasperation, with her support and interest in my pregnancy, but I feel grateful to have her there for support. My MIL seems to have gotten more touchy and difficult to deal with, but I'm not sure if it's me or just because she's also had to deal with major changes in her daughter's life. Family dynamics can be complicated. I'm generally glad that my parents and in-laws all live in the same area, but sometimes it's good just to see one of them at a time!

Sleep Does a Body Good

2008-08-25T19:03:00.002-04:00

Thursday was the low point of my week last week. Then I went to bed at 9:30, and felt so much better on Friday. I think getting out all of my worries and then getting a good night's sleep made me feel so much better. I've been gradually tackling some of things that need doing too, and it's felt better to do them.

I've got my health insurance set up and have chosen an OB and made an appointment for Sept. 2. I don' t know this doctor from a hole in the wall, which is a little scary, but I figure I'll just have to see how he is and what I think of the practice. It's affiliated with a well-respected medical center in the city, which was how I chose the practice. I decided to go with the HMO, basically because of cost. My premium is about 2/3 what it would be for the traditional insurance, and dependents are less than half the cost, not to mention having less out of pocket costs. It does make me feel a little nervous, having never been on an HMO before, and no longer having the option to easily choose or switch doctors. If it turns out I don't like the practice, I'm going to have to switch primary care physicians and then try another practice, but it could get time-consuming when I don't have a lot of time to jump around. On the bright side, if it turns out the plan sucks, D selected the traditional plan, so we could always put MC on that plan and I suck it out for the rest of year. After my less-than-stellar experience with the OB in NC, how bad could anyone here be, right?

I cleaned my desk and workspace on Saturday. While I'm sure there are more fun things to do on a Saturday than vacuuming 30 years worth of dust, organizing manuals and getting rid of superseded and duplicate information, not to mention the past 30 years worth of used mailers (the fellow before me obviously liked to keep things), it felt a lot better going to work today and having be lighter, clean, and a few decorations. My workspace is still not going to win any awards, but at least it is more pleasant.

I continued tackling a summer's worth of weeds in the back yard, so that looks at least respectable. While I'm not a big fan of yardwork (a major advantage of a condo or townhouse over a house, in my opinion), it sure is a lot more pleasant doing yardwork in Illinois than North Carolina. The weather, which had been hot, grew cooler and breezy on Sunday, and I could be outside in shorts and tank top without becoming completely drenched in sweat or eaten alive by mosquitoes. In North Carolina, just to maintain our small flower beds, I had to suit up in long pants and long sleeves, no matter what the temperature, and then cover any remaining exposed skin with bug spray or I became the main course. If I wasn't careful, I could attract a whole cloud. The former owners also left us tomato plants, which have produced some very tasty tomatoes.

I decided one thing I really, really need to do is just get more sleep. This is something I've been talking about for years (and even tried and failed with last years Happiness Challenge), but now's the time to take it seriously, given my pregnancy exhaustion and all that's going on. I told D yesterday, I was going to start getting ready for bed at 9:30, to make sure that I would be turning out the light close to 8 hours from when I needed to get up. So far my resolve hasn't gotten me too far. Last night I got to bed late because D and I were trying do our finances, which results in some frantic searching for papers we thought we lost (this has been happening with some frequency since the move), then the house was loud and creaking with the wind, and finally it seemed like the city decided to clean the street at 12:30 AM. So last night, not so good, and I paid for it today while struggling after lunch to read documentation, which is perhaps not the most energizing task, even under the best of circumstances. But tonight's another night for sleeping, right?

My Safety Net

2008-08-21T19:12:00.002-04:00

I think the vacation phase of my move is over. Now that I've been in Chicago for a few weeks and have started work, it no longer feels like some sort of a trip where I'm going to be returning home. It's making me feel very homesick for NC right now. So far things at the new job seem to be okay, although I was a little dismayed at how little they had prepared for my arrival. My computer wasn't ready, my workspace is still covered in 20 years of filth, papers, and books of the prior occupant. Budget times are not so good around here, so money is very tight, and they don't have a vacuum cleaner available for me to clean out the space! I think I'll be taking a trip in this weekend to clean, and hopefully can find some place to park, because I don't really want to be lugging my vacuum cleaner on the train. I had hoped work would be a break from all of the cleaning at home!

Right now things feel pretty hard. Even though I've reached the second trimester, I just feel completely exhausted by the end of the day I can scarcely think straight. I think the past weeks of moving have caught up with me, so I feel so tired, which isn't really how I'd like to be starting my new job. I'm not entirely sure what I should be doing, and the exhaustion isn't helping me plan my days. I haven't yet told anyone about my pregnancy, and then I feel duplicitous staying silent when my new boss starts talking about time lines 6 months out, but I don't really want to say something in the first week. Everything feels sort of grim at work, even in the three days I've been there, between the physical space and the budget situation, and it's making me miss my old job. I miss my colleagues, I miss my work projects, I miss my physical space, I miss the resources at my disposal, I miss my biking commute. About the only thing I'm not missing right now is the North Carolina weather, but I think it's even been relatively mild down there! I don't handle moves that easily, so I know I'll adjust, but it really just feels like I left a work situation with so much potential and have moved backward, to somewhere scraping by on their fingernails.

I'm also feeling nervous about our financial situation. However I end up feeling about this with this job, I've got to keep it, or something. We had a lot of good things going for us in NC: we had a house where we could have gotten by with only one of working if we needed to, I had a good job close to home, we knew the area and how to get around, but D didn't have a long-term job prospect there. Now at least we're both employed, but we both need to be given the higher cost of living and our more expensive house, and this city is huge and the traffic is horrible. I'm working without any benefit of FMLA, right when I finally could use it, and have gone from essentially a tenured position to a one-year appointment. I feel like lost my safety net. I'm sorry to make this such a whiny post, because I know there are a lot of good things going on in my life right now, and there are a lot good things about this move, but I'm just finding it a little overwhelming right now.

Chicagoland

2008-08-17T18:52:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry for the long delay in posting. No news is good news in this case, I've just been super busy with cleaning, unpacking, shopping, yardwork, so that most of my free time is spent sleeping or watching a little Olympics. I did hear back from the ultrasound center and my first trimester screenings came back with very good numbers, which we had expected, but getting official confirmation lets me breathe another sigh of relief. I can't believe I'm nearly done with the first trimester! Here's the symptom watch:

Nausea: definite improvement! Most days now I only feel nauseous in the afternoon and evening and even can feel hungry before eating, rather than feeling like I need eat to avoid the nausea.
Indigestion: not so good. Me and Tums are becoming fast friends. I think I need to keep my evening meal a little smaller.
Cravings: it's all about cheese, cheese and more cheese! Gouda, mozzarella, Munster, Cheddar, (even American) - it's all good to me.
Exhaustion: This still seems to be going strong. If I could sleep for 12-14 hours a day, I think I'd feel great. I really missed my nap during some long unpacking days, and that made me rather crabby.
Size: I'm definitely thicker around the middle, although I think a lot of that is due to bloating. I can still wear some of clothing with elastic, but many of my pants are out unless I use a rubber band or Bella band to give a little more breathing room.
Emotions: these are running all over the place right now. I think both D and I found the move, the house closings, and the unpacking to be stressful, but I know I don't quite have the reserves to deal with it on an even keel, so I feel like small things upset me disproportionately. Tears and mood swings seem to be quite common.
Libido: well, this is personal, but I'm hoping (and so is D!) that I've turned a corner here too. It's hard to imagine being less interested in sex than I've been since about week 6.

On the move front, I'm pleased to say that most things have gone about as well as we expected. There were no major surprises at either house closing and really no unpleasant surprises at our new house. There are things to fix and work on, of course, but I really don't think that the previous owners were trying to hide anything. I felt like they could have cleaned up a little better upon leaving, but I suppose you're more willing to live with your own dirt than you are with somebody else's. D and I spent the first few days here scrubbing down, and with the exception of the windows, the place is pretty clean. We then got our stuff from the moving company, and spent the next week unpacking and shopping for household items and groceries. D is a big believer in the fully stocked kitchen, in case food were suddenly no longer available for the next six months, so the shopping turned out to be quite a tedious task, but I suppose the bright side is that we do now have plenty to eat. Yesterday I basically slept all day to recover, and today I turned to the outside of the house and started to work on the yard, where it appeared the previous owners decided to stop weeding upon accepting our offer. While I'm sure the new owners of my former house will find fault with some things, I hope they will appreciate that I both maintained the flower beds and cleaned up the cabinets and the refrigerator for them!

Tomorrow both D and I start work, so our vacation, if you could call it that, will come to a close. While I was freely telling people about the pregnancy in NC, here I've kept it pretty quiet. I don't really want news getting to my new boss except from me, and I'm not sure when exactly I want to tell her. I'd rather be able to prove my worth as an employee before informing my new employers that I'll be taking some time off next winter (especially considering that I only have a one-year contract to start and will not be eligible for FMLA given that I haven't even worked a year with them), but I know I won't be able to wait quite that long. Still, I can probably get through the first week or two before bringing up this news. It's funny, I think I feel a little guilty going into a new job knowing I will have to be out for a period time shortly after starting and at the same time I feel worried that they will judge me harshly for being pregnant. I'm just trying to tell myself it's life, and it happens to people all the time. I guess it's already just the start of juggling work and family.

A Tar Heel Born, A Tar Heel Bred?

2008-08-04T21:39:00.004-04:00

We left NC for good yesterday afternoon. In the morning the movers came, and my friend Sue helped us clean up the house and pack up the cars. After a relaxing stop in West Virginia, continuing to deal with last minute house stuff and listening to one of the cats complain about her day at 4:30 in the morning, we have continued on to Louisville, and are here for the night, expecting to get into Chicago tomorrow afternoon. I've been doing pretty well with the drive, and Saturday I felt great, and thought maybe I had passed some morning sickness threshold, but it did return Sunday evening. Oh well.

I'm going to miss North Carolina. I'm not actually from the state, as I've mentioned before, so I'm not sure the fight song can really apply to me. But over living there for the past eight years, I've gotten to feel like a North Carolinian, so maybe I've become a naturalized citizen? I love the people there, who are very friendly. I love the accent, and learned to say "y'all" without thinking about it. I know the politics and landscape and have even acclimated to the weather, although I never would have thought that possible in the beginning. I love being between the mountains and sea, and having only a short drive to get away into the country and take a nice hike. I've gotten into basketball and root for the right team! It really is a wonderful place.

This is the second time I've left the state. The first time I was sort of glad, and happy to be moving back to the Midwest. Now we are leaving again, but I won't say for good, since I thought that last time, but two years later we were back. But now, six more years in the state, and I really like as a place to live. It's not always that exciting for visitors, but it was just good for everyday living. I would have liked to have had children there. We lived near a daycare and across the street from an elementary school. I rode bike to work and shopped at the food coop. I know I'll find new things to love about my new home, but I already miss my old one.

I don't think I'll stop rooting for the basketball team, though. When I die, I'll be a Tar Heel dead!

Things are Looking Good!

2008-08-01T19:57:00.004-04:00

I'm sorry for being such a slack a blogger, but night after night of packing will do that to you! Combine working full time through yesterday with early pregnancy fatigue and packing every evening and all of my free time has been geared toward sleep! Not to mention sudden last-minute hiccups with both the house closing here and in Illinois, which while not deal breakers, have necessitated some action on our parts (I think the closing attorney for our buyers did a really lax job!) We have made good progress toward packing, but still have a long ways to go before the movers come on Sunday morning, so this post will be short.

The good news is that everything is going well with MC. I had my one and only real visit with the OB here yesterday at 11 weeks. We found the heartbeat going strong with the doppler, and while the appointment was late and then we had to wait for another 45 minutes while they tried to figure out what to charge me (I think this is why they want to you to pay it all up front, because something about their system must make billing a nightmare), everyone, including the doctor, was pleasant enough. I didn't push to ask too many questions though.

Today D and I went over to an ultrasound clinic to have the first trimester screening done. I managed to see one more NC Blogger, Elizabeth, and wished her luck on her upcoming cycle and gave her a little parting gift that should be helpful! The ultrasound clinic also made us wait for a long time before I got in, but they did give me snacks, which was helpful. The ultrasound itself was fascinating--MC has changed so much in the past four weeks. MC looks like almost like a person, rather than a blob, so we both had a good time with that part of the visit. The other good news is that based on the ultrasound alone, the doctor thought the probability of chromosomal problems to be quite low, although we will have to wait for the bloodwork to come back to get the official results. D and I celebrated by going out to lunch, and then started tackling the packing some more.

Tomorrow I'm losing Internet access, so when you next here from me, I'll be out of the state. For now, off to pack some more!

Final Days

2008-07-26T20:53:00.005-04:00

It's just over a week until I move! Time is really flying now, and my blogging time is definitely being eclipsed by my packing time! I think we are in good shape and are now ready to start packing up the stuff we REALLY want out, and will be soon eating from paper plates, and having no lights, etc. It's amazing when you look around the house and realize how many things you DO need to have around to make life easier.

As for the move, we decided we really did want to have both cars for the various items we would like to take with us, but to leave on Sunday afternoon following the movers picking up our stuff, which will give us a little more time to get a jump on the drive, and maybe get into a Chicago a little earlier and avoid some rush hour traffic. My fatigue seems to wax and wane, but I know being sleepy behind the wheel would not be such a good thing, so I think this will be helpful. Plus it's not like we'll have a comfy bed left to sleep in at home, just an air mattress. My parents seem be soothed by this offer and said they will pay for the extra hotel night, which is nice.

I got the first trimester screening scheduled for August 1, right before we go. Hopefully MC will be big enough for a good reading. I also got another annoying letter from the OB's office in reference to my upcoming visit next week. It was a form letter discussing the financial cost of their care and the cost of delivery. Well, doesn't really apply to me, given that I'm moving, but what really irks me is that letter expects patients to pay for their portion of the the delivery costs NOW. Is this typical obstetrical practice to make patients pay their coinsurance and deductibles, etc. for a procedure to take place in 7 months? I thought most medical services were paid at the time services were rendered, and I don't feel like giving my doctor's office a seven month loan! If I were staying in the area, I would definitely be shopping around!

D and I had a "closing house" party today, where we said goodbye to many coworkers, former coworkers, his classmates, neighbors, music friends from over the years. I am so going to miss all of the wonderful people we've gotten to know here. I finally let loose with the pregnancy news, and people were so overjoyed that I'm sure I turned beet red! We also managed to give most of our condiments away as door prizes, although we ordered a little too much pizza for the number of people who showed up. Fortunately, pizza seems to agree with me quite well, since that's what we'll be eating for the next few days. One of the loveliest gifts given to me was a quilt made by the wife of one of my quartet members. She chose special musical instruments fabric (complete with bass clarinets!) and left little white patches so everyone who came to the party could sign it. I leave you with pictures.

Full Steam Ahead

2008-07-21T20:59:00.004-04:00

Thank you ladies for all of the support and great information you've provided. I can see that this is an area fraught with risks, whether we choose to do the screenings or choose not to do them. I have decided that overall I am a "want to know" type of person, and while the tests do have the possibility for false readings, I think overall it will be better for me to have them, and then consider whether I want to do something more invasive should the results be scary. It's definitely a risk, but I think it's one I want to take. I have asked the OB office to try to schedule the full first trimester screening for the Friday before we move, which is August 1. As several of you pointed out, these tests need to be done with good equipment and trained operator, so I don't know whether we'll be able to get them scheduled on that day. I suppose if we can't, maybe we'll try for Chicago, or maybe we'll decide to skip them altogether. I'm not certain, but I get the impression that I am more interested in doing the screening than D is, so I'm going to have to find out more about that.

It feels really odd to be asking such a "pregnancy" related question. I am pregnant, it is what's on my mind, so it's not really so strange, but it still feels weird to be discussing it, like I'm bringing attention to my pregnancy. I never really wondered too much before about whether my physical state would offend anybody, because while some people might have felt sorry for me, I was pretty innocuous as the failed cycle blogger. Now I do wonder, me as the pregnant blogger, am I causing others pain? Do my posts offend? Sometimes as I leave comments, I wonder again, if my support, hugs, apologies for failed cycles, might seem to ring sour, as I am sitting here (smugly) pregnant. This is mainly a rhetorical debate in my mind, not really questions I expect people to answer. But I do find it interesting, as even though I've read many other blogs and watched many other bloggers go through the same thing when they become pregnant, I seem to be following a similar emotional path. A bit of survivor's guilt, if you will. Still more than a bit of disbelief in being in this situation. And despite having the knowledge from following many of you who have been here before me, a bit of surprise at some of difficult emotional and physical issues. I am eternally grateful to have this opportunity to be pregnant. But it also certainly is complicated!

My parents also decided to blow a worry gasket on me over the upcoming move. I'm not really sure how it happened, but somehow they talked to D's parents, and got the impression that my physical symptoms are really bad, and that I'm suffering from severe nausea and exhaustion all the time. I can't say I'm not suffering from nausea and exhaustion, because I am, but I am also able to function and I've been able to eat most things (although the burping does get annoying). I'm still doing my job, packing up, and yes, even writing in my blog, though I probably should be doing some other things. So now they are freaking out about me driving a car to Chicago. D and I are planning to caravan the two cars from NC to Chicago, and packing them up with cats, plants, and some valuables and things we want to take with us. We have two days between this house close and the one in Chicago to drive there. It's a little shy of 850 miles. My parents are offering to transport one of the cars for us, so D and I can drive together, and the second car will arrive after we get there.

After I reassured them that I was not trying to hide symptoms from them, I told them I would think about it. My mom even laid the ultimate guilt trip on me, "think about your baby. It's entire existence is dependent on what you do." I'm not really sure how driving a car for 850 miles is terribly dangerous to MC, although I do see her point about not pushing myself too hard. There are advantages to driving only one car, it would be less tiring and more enjoyable to share a car, but on the other hand, having the two cars means we can take more belonging that are better off with us (e.g., silver, breakables) or can't go with the movers (e.g., cats, plants, liquid cleaning supplies, our air mattress). If we just drove one car, we probably have to shift more items to the movers and have to get rid of some things (I'm not going to go crazy over keeping half a bottle of Spic 'n Spam, for instance). And if they want to do something to support us, there's a few things that the new house needs that might be of more interest to me, but this is a gift from them, so it's what they want to do. So I'm just curious if any one has any opinions about whether you think driving 850 miles over two days would be a problem. I expect to take lots of stretch and walk breaks and bring plenty of snacks and drinks.

Finally, in this rambling post, I'd just like to say thanks to Infertile Mad Woman, who treated me to lunch on Saturday. We both live in the state for now, although she is quite near the coast and I am not, so along with my friend Sue, I drove out to meet her halfway and met her husband and her daughter Turtle. It's always fun to meet bloggers in person and I'm so grateful for the support network. It's a good thing I can keep it up virtually, wherever I move!

Things are Good, in the Important Ways

2008-07-18T20:09:00.005-04:00

I had yesterday's doctor appointment.

The good news: based on a manual exam, my cervix is long and closed, and my uterus feels fine.

The disappointing news: I didn't get to have an ultrasound, or even a doppler because the OB said 9 weeks was too early to pick up a heartbeat, and she didn't see any need for an ultrasound.

The bad news: the OB was completely condescending and rude.

I've been to this office before, and always had very good interactions with my gynecologist, but he wasn't taking new OB patients, so this was one of his partners. D and I wanted to discuss with her the timing of our move to Chicago and our insurance concerns. We'll be moving in my 11th week, and then I'll have my old insurance in Chicago until I start my new job August 18, which is close to 14 weeks. I'm still trying to get some more information on the insurance options, so I'm are starting to learn a little more about the plans, but it's still proving to be difficult. So it's possible if I see a doctor in Chicago before I get my insurance is set up, I might not be able to see the same person again, and I'll probably be responsible for any out-of-network costs. I am also considering getting a nuchal translucency test (guess I'll get my ultrasound that way!), which would be a little late by 14 weeks, but maybe a little early here in NC since I'll just be 11 weeks. I was hoping to get some advice from this OB about when and whether or not to take the test, but she was pretty much completely unhelpful in that regard. "It's a parental decision. I can't tell you whether to do it or not." So if any of y'all have any thoughts about the test, feel free to share, although we are currently trying to schedule on in NC for 11 weeks, 1 day.

While she was not willing to give any advice about the NT test, she was perfectly willing to lecture me about insurance and my priorities in life, and what better time than when I'm sitting in the exam room with my pants off? When I tried to explain to her my concerns with insurance and whether they would cover ulstrasounds, she not only dismissed the concerns, but then proceeded to go on about how people shouldn't even really expect insurance companies to pay for things besides catastrophic events, it's HMOs that have spoiled us all into thinking that insurance should cover regular medical care. And what does it really matter to me anyway, because I should know that children are very, very expensive. (Insert finger wagging here.) 18 years from now, when I'm paying that child's college tuition, paying for an ultrasound out of pocket will barely be a drop in the bucket. And if I was so worried about the timing of the move to Chicago, I need to just change the time that I'm moving. House closings are just "social events" and they are changed all the time. If my priority is getting an NT scan, then changing the dates of two house closings, the mover's pick up and drop off dates should really be quite simple. And I should realize how nice she was to spend the last fifteen minutes discussing these issues with her, because she could have just said she didn't know how insurance would work and left (I wish!) To top it all off, she then turned sweetly to D and asked, "So what kind of work are in and what will you be doing in Chicago?" I guess me as the pregnant lady am clearly designated as careerless.

Who are these doctors and where did they learn their interpersonal skills? I was so pissed by the time she walked out of the room, I was shaking and practically in tears--not that it actually takes too much these days to reduce me to tears, good and bad.

The other good news: I'll only have to see this doctor once more.

Dr. Thoughtful Rocks!

2008-07-16T21:56:00.002-04:00

I've spent a lot of time comparing my old clinic to the new clinic, and, really, the new clinic has come up better in practically every way in terms of how they treat patients. Even the weird Dr. Cheerful with whom I had to have an embarrassing conversation about D's preferential times for sex, was willing to work with me to make this cycle work for me as an individual. The thing that has been really fantastic is the care they've put into making each patient feel like an individual person. Dr. Thoughtful called after I did Low and Slow #1 to get a game plan in place in case the cycle didn't work, because she would be going on maternity leave. So while I really didn't see her for my successful cycle, she's been keeping track of it all. After the second beta showed my numbers were doubling nicely, she called to offer congratulations and left her number to call her if we had any questions. Now, after I had the successful ultrasound at 7 weeks, she send us a personal congratulatory letter to both D and me, which was even personal enough to wish us luck with our move to Chicago. Now that is thoughtful! Such a change from my former clinic, where I got a post card from "The Dream Team" congratulating me on my pregnancy a week after I had finished my beta tests because my numbers never doubled, then fell to nothing. Not so much thoughtfulness going on there.

I have also gotten an earlier appointment with my OB here, after calling them about spotting and light bleeding and wondering whether that would qualify as a "medical necessity" to get an ultrasound. They decided I should come ASAP and see a doctor, who would make this determination, so I have an appointment tomorrow. I feel a little sheepish, because I probably don't really need this appointment at all, and it's only been two weeks since I last saw a doctor and got the good ultrasound. But I also feel relieved because I do have questions, and I think having this appointment will help for peace of mind. Don't be alarmed if I don't post tomorrow--I've got evening plans and the appointment's in the afternoon. I really am going into this thinking everything's going to be okay. I think since I called, not a drop of blood has been seen.

Meanwhile, I've been quiet because I've been busy, and also rather cranky and tired. After getting home late because I was on a search committee, I whined at D about packing, complained that the toilet still looked dirty after he cleaned the bathroom (normally I tell him, "thank you"), and yelled at him not to eat the pita bread, because dammit, that was going to be MY breakfast. Finally, last night I slept like a log, and didn't actually get up 56 times to pee, so I'm feeling a little better today. After dinner, my mouth suddenly feels like the Sahara desert, so it's all I can do not to down glass after glass of water until bedtime, while earlier in the day, I practically have to force liquids down my throat because they seem so unappealing. This clearly is contributing to the peeing problem. D, fortunately, still seems to be holding up with me around!

Insurance

2008-07-13T20:56:00.003-04:00

Thanks for all of the kind comments about my worries and predicament. I have decided:

I should be able to for more week without an ultrasound, or this is going to a LONG pregnancy indeed! Whether or not I can make it the next three weeks will depend on what kind of bleeding I have.
I intend to call the doctor's office in advance, tell them I've have some bleeding and spotting, and I do believe that will qualify as a medical necessity, based on what your stories here. And if not, I think an ultrasound is probably around $300 bucks or so, so I will just pay for it.

I do find my insurance policy rather baffling. Now, they didn't cover anything during my IVF cycles, but for time intercourse cycles, they did cover the ultrasounds. And from reading the booklet, it seemed like the ultrasounds should have been subject to coinsurance and deductible, yet when I look at my statements online, they are covering them in full, and I am not even paying a copay for the doctor's visit! I'm still waiting for some sort of big bill to suddenly come my way. Rachel may be correct in that the way they code "ultrasound" may vary quite a bit, and perhaps only the first ultrasound that confirms a pregnancy is considered the ultrasound, and others are coded with the types of tests or the anatomy scan they support. I wish there was some way to actually understand insurance, and be able to definitively look this stuff up, but there is not. I have no idea how to be an informed consumer in the health care world, at least in the U.S.

And all of this will be moot, because I will be going on a different insurance plan in a little over a month. It would be nice, I'll tell you, to know what that insurance plan is, so I can start looking up doctors, but that is also turning out to be a big mystery. There appears from the benefits website, to be three plans I could sign up for. One of them is a traditional plan with big copays, coinsurance, and deductibles, and the other two are HMOs. However, if you try to look up doctors part of the HMOs, it looks like no doctors are part of plan, so something clearly must be wrong there (unless they are REALLY sucky, I would assume they wouldn't offer the plans if there are no doctors that are part of them!). To add additional confusion, D asked his future colleagues about their choice of plan (he and I will be at the same employer), and they all are on a different PPO that doesn't appear to be an option when looking at the online benefits information! I am hoping all of this can be squared away when I start my job and attend a benefits orientation, which will be August 18. So there is not a lot of advance prep work I can do in that regard. The uninformed, and now irritated consumer must soldier on in the dark. I do predict more insurance confusion in the future!

In other news, I had my last quartet concert today. We've been doing the retirement community circuit, but some of these places have some pretty damn nice concert halls and draw a good crowd, so it's been a lot of fun. It feels sad to be leaving the group, I think it was a very special bunch of people, and I don't know that I'll ever have an opportunity to play with a group like that again. I suppose it's good to get all of these transitions done with at once, because it's hard to say what my ability to play the clarinet in the future will be like, after I give birth to MC. A trade-off I'm certainly willing to make, so I am also thankful that I've been able to play with the quartet for the past three years. It's provided me focus, accomplishment, and whole lot of fun.

Sometimes, Mom Knows Best

2008-07-11T18:12:00.002-04:00

I didn't really expect myself to be so tense about this pregnancy. So worried, so scared it wouldn't work, so full of dead baby thoughts. But here I am. On Wednesday, I had another minor episode of bleeding, like I did in Anaheim, it was just a slight rush of red, only enough to cover my liner, then things slowed down and I haven't had any bleeding since, but the worries returned at full force. This all despite being told by the RE, if it's not heavy bleeding, it's okay. I have an appointment with an OB on July 31, but that of course is still three weeks away. I only get to see this OB once before we move, so my medical care is feeling a choppy too. When I called the OB office to schedule an appointment, I asked if I got an ulstrasound. They said I could have one, but I should contact my insurance, because some plans will only cover two ultrasounds during pregnancy.

Yesterday I called insurance to inquire about this, and they told me they only cover ONE ultrasound during pregnancy. So my 7 week pregnancy confirmation ultrasound, that's it on coverage. They will only cover more if the doctor can prove medical necessity. I was pretty shocked. Maybe I've got the wrong idea here from reading blogs and talking with people, but it seems like people generally have even more than two ultrasounds during pregnancy! I'm only on this insurance for another month, so in the end, it's not a big deal, but somehow I came away from that phone conversation in near hysterics. Here I am, terribly, irrationally worried about my pregnancy, and I can't even get an ultrasound? I don't know if my bleeding would count, but I certainly don't think "mental health of mother" qualifies as "medically necessary." I'm just debating paying for the thing out of pocket, because I could really use that peace of mind. God knows I've paid for enough other stuff out of pocket, but somehow, I thought those days were over.

Like any irrationally worried daughter, I decided to call my mother, and asked her how many ultrasounds she had when she was pregnant with my brother S twenty years ago, and it was 4! I also confessed my terrible fears of losing this pregnancy, and she assured me it was normal. My mom had three of the most uneventful pregnancies on this planet, but she said she lived in fear each time. With S, she had CVS testing (she was 41 when she got pregnant), and had an episode of bleeding following the procedure. She was convinced she had caused a miscarriage, and even wrote a letter to her unborn son saying goodbye. Well fortunately, 20 years later, my brother is still around, but the experience was so powerful for her that she decided not to us the original name she had picked out for him. I had no idea how close she felt to losing my brother. The conversation made me feel better, that I'm not the only one with these fears. It was also interesting listening to her talk about the differences of care with S and with my older brother. With my older brother, there was no ultrasound, and the OB actually found the heartbeat through a contraption strapped to his head, because the skull was supposed to magnify the sound waves or something! It's a big difference from 1972 to 1987!

So I am going to try to be calm and positive about all of this. I have placed a new tracker on my sidebar, because this pregnancy's going to make it! D and I have also chosen a nickname for our embryo: MC. MC is our Mystery Child/Miracle Child/Master of Ceremonies who will run our lives after birth. It seems fitting enough. Well, MC, only 223 more days to go!

Barren Bitches Book Brigade: The Empty Picture Frame

2008-07-08T22:31:00.001-04:00

For the latest installment of the book club, we read The Empty Picture Frame by Jenna Currier Nadeau. Jenna may already be familiar to some of you as a fellow blogger, but her story actually was new to me. I think her personal blog has join password-protected, as the site mentioned in the book, http://www.inconceivablejourney.com/, has the look of a website, if not quite abandoned, not really being updated either, and references I've found to her blog no longer work. I'm sure someone out there (perhaps the author, even) can fill me in on this. Her bravery in writing this book, going on Oprah and being willing to enter public spotlight is more than I think many of us would be willing to do, so I can understand the need for a little privacy.

Depending on where you are on your IF journey, how did this book affect you? For example, if you have a child/ren after IF was it easier or harder to read? If you are in the middle of your IF struggle did the book help or hinder? Give me your thoughts on how you were affected reading the book no matter where your IF journey has taken you so far.

This book reminded me a lot of an earlier book club title, Waiting for Daisy, by Peggy Orenstein. Both books were personal memoirs of infertility and loss, but with one very important distinction: while Orenstein wrote from the perspective of having successfully completed her journey with the birth of her daughter, Jenna wrote while being in the thick of things. It's much more difficult and painful to be writing from that unresolved situation because you leave yourself open to others questioning your choices. If you have a child in the end, as Orenstein did, you can question your choices and your means, and how you behaved during that difficult time period, but you have your ends and it becomes worth it. But if you are still reaching for goals, then people seem to feel they have the right to tell you what to do - give up, relax, try this, do that. Jenna wrote the book when she is in at a crossroads: ending treatment for now, but still actively pursuing parenthood, just deciding how to do it.

When I first started reading this book, I felt like I was at a crossroads myself. While I can say I'm pregnant now, at the time I didn't know, and was going through my second low and slow stimulation protocol. Just six months before, I had completed treatment with my first RE, which was stunning mostly for being unsuccessful and dangerous to my health. While no doctor has ever said, "there is really nothing different we can offer you," I did feel like I had reached the end of the line with IVF at my former clinic. I debated for some time whether to switch doctors and finally did so, and was pleasantly surprised to find there was another protocol out there that could be helpful, that wouldn't give me OHSS. But I didn't have a lot of faith in actually getting pregnant via this protocol, it was mostly a vehicle for me to say, "well, I've fought the good fight and now I have to decide how I want to move forward, but any babies in my future will probably not biologically be mine."

In the middle of reading this book, I discovered the protocol did work, and now I was pregnant. My perspective shifted considerably, especially when reading Jenna's description of her own pregnancy. I had wanted this for so long, and reading of someone else's miscarriage made the possibility all the more scary for me. At the same time, I loved that I could relate to Jenna's feelings toward her own baby - it's a little like I joined the club. Even though I know if things don't work out, there will be a terrible price to pay, I'm still grateful to have had the opportunity to get this far with my own child. I understood what Jenna said, when she wrote, "I experienced a miracle, even for too brief a time."

On page 134, the author talks about the failures bringing repeated pain to their families. In what ways did your treatment affect your extended family?

This last year has brought the greatest heights and depths of emotions for me and my family. I've given my mother a few more gray hairs with my hospitalizations, but I also felt a profound sense of loss and of letting other people done when the transfer was canceled for my final IVF and the FETs both resulted in failure. It wasn't logical, I don't know that my family or D's family even felt the same the way, but I just felt so responsible for things not working. And the longer the process went on, the more uncomfortable I felt it got, because it seemed like it was time for me to move on, to enjoy all of the things life did have to offer me, but I was stuck. This past Christmas and winter was so hard, I can't even write about it now without feeling teary about it. I felt like a lead weight dragging everything around me down.

Most difficult has been dealing with my SIL's, R's pregnancy. I'm not very forgiving of myself on that one, even though I'm trying to show compassion for myself, and know that it was hard to be excited when it served as a reminder of everything I didn't have. Now that I've shared with family about my pregnancy, people's excitement has just been overwhelming. Sometimes I feel like I don't really deserve it, given how unenthusiastic I felt about R's pregnancy. If the best I could manage was such a lukewarm and perhaps even perceived hostile response, why should people treat me any differently? It still feels awkward.

The last chapter is a guide to the fertiles reading the book on how to respond and not respond to a situation. Some of the reactions and commentary has happened to many people. What was the best reaction you got to your story and what was the worst?

My ability to absorb well-meaning, perhaps, but misguided advice, has always been tempered by who it's coming from. I'm able to cut a lot more slack toward strangers or people who don't know my situation very well from those who know me more intimately. My former boss was well-versed on my fertility treatments, since I decided to just come clean with her when I started clo.mid cycles, in case I had a number of ultrasounds and needed to miss work. So she knew the whole story, from when I cried in her office from too much clo.mid affecting my ability to think straight, to visiting me in the hospital for my first OHSS, to following my decision to move on to IVF, and so forth. I switched jobs, but at first I kept her informed. Then several months after I had been gone, I had a failed FET cycle, and remember being at a party and telling her how things were still not going well. "You should just adopt, then you'll get pregnant!" I shot her a look of disbelief, but she persisted. "It's true! It happened to X!" I tried to take it as a benign misguided comment, but it really hurt my feelings, because it came from someone who knew so much and had been supportive. I felt like it was her way of telling me to move on and get over with it, and I haven't felt as ready to share additional information with her since then.

My SIL, R, also really hurt my feelings when she shared the news of her own pregnancy. Obviously she was very caught up in her own moment, but she too knew of the whole saga from very early on. She knew I was in a middle of an FET cycle, and although I hadn't shared the exact date of my beta, she called the same night I had gotten a BFN from an HPT. She decided it would be best just to pretend that I had never been through any treatment and hadn't already endured years of BFNs and a chemical pregnancy, and just blithely announced her pregnancy in great joy. I don't want to rain on others' parades, but a simple, "I'm sorry that you are still trying" or "I realize this news may remind you of your own losses" would have meant a lot to me. Even though we have spoken about it since to clear the air, it's still hard for me to completely move on from that pain.

On the best side, a few simple but very touching things have been the best for me: "I'm sorry, that sucks" from D's friend learning that all of our IVF cycles had failed. Getting flowers from my friend on the day of transfer. D spending the night with me in the hospital--twice. Another friend responding to my feeling that I had let the world down by not getting pregnant on my last FET cycle, saying, " The rest of us out here are concerned about you, not some theoretical child you could have some day." Most touching of all was my cousin's offer to be an egg donor, should I end up needing one. It was a completely unselfish offer, made in the vein of, "Isn't that would any cousin would do for another if needed?" These pregnancy hormones are making me cry when I think about all of the love in the world has directed at me!

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Sharing the News

2008-07-04T20:55:00.003-04:00

D and I decided with our families, we would just go ahead and spill the beans. First off, my parents and D's parents already knew about the positive betas, so there were no surprises there, although they were waiting impatiently to hear from me yesterday. Then my mom determined she would absolutely burst if she couldn't tell her mom, so I said I would call Grandma. My grandmother was already well-versed in my IF treatments, and she had talked to her sister about them, so when I met my great-aunt for the second time in my life, we unexpectedly had a conversation about infertility. Then my Grandma thought I should call my aunt and uncle, since they live in the same town as my grandparents and would want to hear the news. It sounds like a lot of people, but it's a small family on my mother's side, and, for better or for worse, from them no secrets are kept. Then D thought he might as well tell his grandmothers, and his aunts and uncles. So we're leaving it at that, but I'm still keeping mum around my coworkers and most of my friends.

Everyone we talked to was overjoyed to hear the news, particularly one of Josh's grandmothers, who, when we got some static on the phone, shouted, "Even's the telephone's excited!" It's rare to hear her so happy, but she's already planning her trip to Chicago to visit us and the new baby. There were a few other comments that did push a few buttons for me and D:
----

D's Dad: Aren't you glad that you got pregnant the "normal" way?

Me: I really don't like the use of term "normal." I don't view IVF as "abnormal" and I think saying that this is "normal" implies that IVF babies are somehow lesser or worse. I would have been absolutely thrilled to have gotten pregnant on my IVF cycles. Frankly, I don't really care how I got pregnant.

I think what he meant was more, "wasn't it nice that this procedure was less invasive, didn't make you sick, was gentler on your body, etc. and still worked," but I'm not about to let people use the word "normal" in regards to methods of conception.
----

D's Grandma (the other Grandma): Well, your child is just going to be so smart! With the genes of you and Samantha, you're going to have a little genius on your hands!

D: We don't know that our child will be smart. It could have autism, it could have Down's, it could just be stupid. And we'll love it anyway. Let's not start putting expectations on the kid before it's born. (Go D!)
----

My Aunt: I was thinking that the move to Chicago would be the best thing for you in terms of getting pregnant, because you'd have some good doctors available. But now you won't need that!

Me: Um, there are a lot of good doctors around here. My first doctor just wasn't flexible enough in his drug protocol. (I know I's in the South, but them's two damn good medical schools right here and more PhD's then y'all could shake a stick at! We ain't that backwards!)

But really, everyone was so kind and happy, I'm glad we let my family and D's family know. So the cat's out of bag, at least in part! It feels so good to be sharing good news for a change!
----
As an aside, since Katie asked about bleeding, the doctor thought it was most likely a little blood from my cervix. Apparently, the cervix becomes very "vascular" during pregnancy, so the additional blood vessels can be prone to light bleeding, perhaps, as one of you suggested, from the progesterone. As long as I'm not having cramping or heavy flow, he didn't see it as anything to worry about.

Time to Take Away the Question Mark

2008-07-03T11:03:00.003-04:00

I know you're all waiting for the news. I just got back from my appointment.

D and I said it would be "0,1, or 2."

The answer: 1 healthy embryo, measuring 7 weeks, 0 days, right on schedule. Heartbeat at 144 (I think).

I'd scan the pictures but really they look like a uterus with two little blobs: one for the embryo, one for the sack. Still, I love them. They're my first tangible proof my child.

I'm so in shock, much more so than after my positive betas. It feels so unreal. It makes me cry in amazement. Now I can really say I'm pregnant, no ifs, ands, or buts. Wow. D will get to be a dad after all.

One More Day

2008-07-02T19:45:00.002-04:00

I am now back home and feeling much better after getting one night's very good sleep. On Tuesday morning I got at 2:30 AM to catch the shuttle to the airport. I had asked the hotel if I could check out at 3:00 AM and they said fine. When I got down to the front desk, no one was there and no answered my repeated knocks. Finally, I called on my cell phone until some poor fellow leapt up from the back room after I let the phone rang about 20 times. I don't think he ever figured out it was me calling because he kept trying to say hello into the phone even after I had hung up and pointed at myself. I got to the airport at 4:00 AM, and it was surreal experience to arrive there in the middle of the night and find this huge long line of people waiting to check in! Between that and the extra-careful toothpaste police in security (My toothpaste tube was safe, but several other people had those dangerous over 3 ounce tubes taken away from them--just makes me feel safer, I tell ya) it took over an hour and a half to get to the gate, so I suppose it was correct to pick up the shuttle so incredibly early.

My flights back were uneventful and I made it through yesterday evening in an incoherent haze and finally collapsed in a heap to bed. I didn't feel too jet lagged today, although my back has decided the time has come to complain about all that conference and airline sitting, so it's a little ouchy. Ice pack time. I was so gratified to check my blog this morning and see all of the reassurances that you had left me. While I'm still nervous, it really is a consolation to see all of the positive stories out there. At one point, I tried to calm myself down by saying, "what's the worst that you could find out tomorrow?" but I could think of several really bad things, so I'm not trying that again! I'll soon find out where my own story is going, and your reassurances have made me feel a lot better.

I'd better get used to this waiting and uncertainty. It's not like I'm going to be able to control every minute of my children's lives!

Worries

2008-06-30T23:10:00.003-04:00

I'm still in Anaheim, although I confess I never really made it inside Disney's hallowed gates, between going to conference activities, not really wanting to spend the money, and then feeling like conking out every night. Really, if you don't want to go to Disneyland, there's not a whole lot that's attractive about Anaheim except the weather. I would love to bottle some of that up and take it home with me! So nice.

I had a bloody moment last night, and I confess it's freaking me out a little. It hasn't repeated itself, but I really would have liked just not to see any blood. I was walking back to the hotel after dinner and noticed I was feeling a little juicy. This didn't terribly concern me because with the pro.metrium, I have that feeling quite frequently. But it was blood, quite red, although not a lot. I know this is not terribly uncommon during the first trimester, but reading things like this on the Internet didn't really reassure me: "Studies show that anywhere from 20-30% of women experience some degree of bleeding in early pregnancy. Approximately half of pregnant women who bleed do not have miscarriages." Maybe that's meant to be reassuring, but I quickly started thinking of the half of women who DO have miscarriages.

Then I wondered: am I stressing myself? 3 time zones away, running around at a conference, maybe not drinking enough? On the one hand, you could consider a conference to be stressful, with the travel, the arrangements, being away from home. On the other hand, you don't have to deal with any home chores, and really the sorest part of my body is my butt from sitting in those conference room chairs. So I started drinking more water, even though it continues to taste disgusting to me, and felt guilty about the coffee (yeah, it wasn't decaf) that I had when I had to get up at 6:00 AM on Sunday morning, and have avoided it like the plague today. Today there has only been a little brown stuff, which I assume is residual from yesterday.

My nausea symptoms seemed to have improved slightly, although they are still there on occasion. My ginger candy seems to be helpful. Then I wonder, maybe the HCG is falling and that's why I'm feeling better. It's not too helpful to start thinking that way, and I'll know more on Thursday, so I'm trying not to dwell on it. I know some of y'all have had light bleeding or spotting early in pregnancy and things have turned out fine, but if you feel like sharing or reminding me of your success stories, I wouldn't mind!

Trippin'

2008-06-26T21:29:00.004-04:00

This whole food aversion/nausea thing is really weird. I don't really feel too bad, just like I'm on the verge of feeling bad. It's like the headache/faint stomach feeling I've gotten from trying to read in the car, or something like being vaguely hungover. Right now it's too new to be annoying, and in one sense I like because it reminds me that something's going on inside. The idea of eating seems repulsive to me, but when I eat I feel hungry, and usually feel better after I eat, so I'm trying to eat small meals frequently. As when I had OHSS, I seem to be attracted to eating cheese and eggs. Straight carbs can be more problematic, and water can make me feel queasy, which is really strange! At work, I've been drinking something like four cups of herbal tea a day to make sure I'm getting some fluid, and just trying to sip on water as I can. It's a lot of herbal tea, but as far as I can tell all of ingredients are safe and it does seem to tame my stomach! If anyone knows anything different, let me know.

Tomorrow morning I leave for a conference in Anaheim. As part of my conference prep, and perhaps just because I feel like I can spoil myself a little, I've gone out a bought a bunch of little snacks to keep me feeling okay during a couple of plane flights and some long days at the conference. I had read that ginger is supposed to helpful for fighting off nausea, so I picked up some crystallized ginger candy, and am also bringing pretzels and of course, string cheese. My plane flight on Tuesday leaves LA at 6:25 in the morning, so the hotel shuttle service needs to pick me up at 3:15. That's 3:15 AM, folks. I may need a lot of help that day, but at least the conference will be over by then! I'm trying to tell myself that it's really like 6:15 eastern time, so not so early, right? Saving that extra $100 better have been worth it.

I've now been taking the Pro.metrium as suppositories for about a month. I can't say they don't get annoying every now and again, but I am so glad not to be taking PIO. My butt thanks me every day. I remember preparing for this conference last year, and having to figure out how to give myself IM shots since D wasn't going to be traveling with me. One shot of del estrogen was hard enough to do, I can't imagine trying to give myself multiple PIO shots in what would be an already very sore butt. I guess I'm lucky I don't have to!

My mother told me today that she's knitting me a baby sweater. Even though I'm trying not to be superstitious, I found this alarming. "Don't get too far ahead of yourself," I warned her. She told me it was a sweater she had started for my brother 21 years ago and never finished. Well, then, maybe it was okay. I don't know why knowing my mother is making a baby sweater brings tears to my eyes, but somehow it makes it seem all of the more real that I'm having a child (or children). Hey kids, I'm taking you to Disney Land! Do you think this means I won't have to go later in life? I'm guessing not, as they probably won't remember it!

It's All Good

2008-06-24T20:54:00.002-04:00

Sometime over a year ago, I was playing in a concert with a really good chamber orchestra. Although I was only playing in one piece, D came to the concert to hear me and enjoy a free concert with a good chamber orchestra. The night before we had gone out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with some friends, and had taken home some leftovers. At intermission of the concert, I found D and we sat down together to listen to the rest of the program. He had eaten the remains of last night's dinner for lunch, but told me that he now wasn't feeling so well. While I can't be certain it was the result of that restaurant meal (although I haven't eaten there since, to be safe), he proceeding to belch up the most foul-smelling burps I had ever smelled in my life. I quickly regretted sitting next to him due to the rank odor emanating from his mouth, which was a combination of rancid garlic, fermenting soy sauce, and other unpleasant combinations. Some time later that night I think he started running a fever and throwing up, but it was those burps that will be forever in my memory.

This came to my mind yesterday because I now find myself to be a world-class belcher. Sunday evening I fixed up this wonderful fresh green salad with vegetables from the farmer's market, which was basically all I had for dinner (I had a lot of salad). I think I've been paying for it ever since. Salad, apparently, may not be the summer staple meal for me this year. Sunday night, I got very almost no sleep between my poor decision to take a three-hour nap earlier in the day, my neighbor playing his stereo until the wee hours of the morning, and the fact that I had set my digestive system on edge with all of those raw, crunchy vegetables. Fortunately I don't think my burps stank quite as much as D's did that one time! The next day at lunch, I took one look at my carrots, and thought, "nope." I'm finally feeling better today, and I'm also trying not to mix my liquids with my meals, as it seems to keep things calmer in there. I guess now I can say without a doubt I have symptoms!

D and I were looking at our schedule for the first ultrasound, and D realized that he is going to be out a conference for that entire week, and is leaving on July 7. So I called the clinic back and begged them to see if we could go in July 3. D really wants to be there and I really want him to be there. They were nice enough to squeeze me in on July 3, so we'll know more of what's happening four days earlier now. Whew! This probably sounds kind of weird, but since this wasn't an IVF cycle, I don't have any pictures of my embryo or embryos, so I'm eager to get a peek inside and say hello to start the relationship. While there's very little I really miss about IVF, in some sort of perverse way, I missed having that opportunity to greet the embies before they embarked on the implantation quest. Not that it's natural or anything!

Finally, did any of y'all see this brief about the therapeutic benefits of blogging? I certainly have realized it's helpful for me and my mental health, and I guess I'm not the only one!

Is Good News Interesting?

2008-06-22T17:58:00.003-04:00

I've been so grateful to have my good news of my rapidly doubling beta and pregnancy(?) to share with people (I've decided upon using a question mark after it - it's an acknowledgment and affirmation, but I can also still hedge my bets!). Yeah, I'm probably getting to sound like a broken record (or do we update to skipping CD?), but it's just so refreshing to say that things are going well, that my cycle worked, that I have good news, after so many times where I felt like my body was letting the world down, yet again. So I'm just going to cover this old territory once again. I still feel a lot of elation about the news at the same time I feel like I'm in some sort of a happy dream-like state.

Even more, I want to say that I'm grateful to all of you for your response. As I said before, I that reading about BFPs can be both thrilling and jealousy-inducing, because I've been there before. And even though I've written about how I personally support IF blogs where pregnancy occurs in a post last fall, I suddenly feel a little shy about pregnancy(?). Even though it's what most of us are currently working toward, or at one time were working toward, it's not something all people are going to achieve. I hate the unfairness of that. And it feels weird to think that now I have moved onto "the other side" and am one of the "those blogs" that may be causing happiness and pain to others. I don't want to censor what I write, I want to honest about this experience, both the ups and downs of pregnancy, and I know it won't be an easy ride because of the honesty of so many of you out there. But I now understand your hesitation and shyness about sharing some of these things. When you get what you've been wanting, it feels trite and ungrateful to say that you're still worried about how things will work out, to complain about symptoms, or to express your concern about how to balance work life and family. I suspect I will end up writing about all of these things, probably more than once, because they are part of the experience, even while some people might simply say, "she's lucky she can even think about those problems!"

I looked at my stats on my blog yesterday. I'm not a huge follower of my stats, but I do occasionally check to see who's been on and my gratefulness at this community has been doubled. I've gotten more visitors in the past week than any other week prior, and here I'm sharing this wonderful but potentially painful news. I've gotten the most number of comments ever, and have gotten calls of recognition from some wonderful cyber friends, including Ann, Infertile Mad Woman, Cece, and I have the distinct feeling I'm forgetting some people in there as well. My friend Sue, who doesn't have her own blog, but has had a long and difficult ride on the IF roller coaster, most recently including a canceled donor egg cycle, has been a great source of support for me as well, and despite her own setbacks, gave me a congratulatory card that ended, "P.S., as a former sex ed teacher, I knew you could get pregnant by having sex!" The support for my good news is overwhelming and welcoming. I am so grateful that all of you are here to continue to root for me because I want to keep that good news coming! Other bloggers have commented that their stories of failure and their worst losses have perhaps led in more readers than their best successes, so I'm glad to be here as a counter example!

For most of the time I've been blogging, I've felt safe and comfortable in my role bitching with other people about the injustice of it all, hurting for those people facing repeated failed cycles, and trying to support those who moved on to new dreams and are trying to leave the medicalized IF treatment world behind. While I've always kept ttc, I really saw myself in that last camp. I wasn't trying so much because I thought a cycle would actually work, but because I didn't know how to stop. There's always some hope, or you can't cycle at all, but I had stopped my fundamental believing. I planned for each cycle, while in that cycle I planned for the next cycle. I really went through a dark time after my final FET cycle last fall through a good part of this spring. I just felt like my life, my plans, my hope and dreams, were falling apart. But somewhere in there, things began to feel better. I don't know exactly when, but I came out of the valley of despair and began to realize all of the other good things that I really had, and that were happening in my life at that time. My stress and anxiety levels have remained high, but some of the depression lifted. So I continued to cycle, and plan to cycle, and maybe if this cycle had been a BFN, I would have been devastated. I won't ever know. What I do know is that I had planned for a bad outcome, so I'm still trying to figure out what to do with myself because the results are good. Already I feel like my perspective is changing. It is so strange and foreign feeling, but in a good way. I won't be there as a "this shit never works" kind of gal anymore, so it's going to take some getting used to. I hope I won't step on any toes in my transition.

I heard a story on the show, This American Life, on Friday, which you can listen to if you're interested. The first story was a fiction story by writer Etgar Keret, about a man who is a habitual liar but then has to confront the products of his lies, most of which have involved a lot of pain and suffering. After seeing the results of his imaginative stories, rather than resolving not to lie anymore, he makes his lies happier. Instead of being about pain and suffering, about dogs run over in the road with paralyzed back legs, his lies become happy tales about helping a mother cat birth to kitchens, his aunt with her gardening. It was a lot more difficult to come up with these newer happier lies, because it is more difficult to make an interesting and believable happy story than one about pain and suffering. Tying this back to blogging, it does seem more inherently dramatic and interesting were I to have continued the pathos and disappointments. Happiness can be boring and mundane. On the other hand, we all are attracted to happy endings, and failed cycle after failed cycle can get a bit boring as well. I hope to continue with this blog on happier subjects, to focus on my successes and not on my setbacks. I don't want anymore emergency surgeries, sudden heartbreaks, or bumping along at the bottom with despair. I know there will continue to be ups and downs, setbacks and successes. I'll try to continue to make it interesting (although I plan to tell the truth!). I hope that you will all continue on this journey with me.

I'm Back!

2008-06-21T11:05:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm back from Philly, where I had a great time visiting the city. We stayed at a charming old townhouse B&B near the historic area. I also got to see my cousin, who in January had offered to be an egg donor if necessary. So while I haven't told many people outside of my immediate family, I was thrilled to tell her. She also seems to be doing very well herself, with things going well with her relationship with her boyfriend and she's now taking classes in preparation to apply to a nursing program. It was great to share good news. I so expected this trip to be a consolation prize for another failed cycle, I expected to be on my period right now, and dragging through, squeezing one more cycle in before we moved, I'm still at a loss for how to handle myself. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream, and some one's going to come along and pinch me and this will all be over.

I did get a chance to get on the Internet a few times, and read each and everyone of your congratulations with relish, as a reminder to me that I'm not dreaming, that this really is happening. I still don't have much in the way of symptoms, other than my swollen belly. I've also been hungry, and I thought in Philly I might have eaten enough to take care of the weight gain of an entire pregnancy, especially considering how some of my clothes fit much more tightly around the middle. But then I came home and weighed myself and it was basically the same, maybe a pound or two more. It's just my shape that's different. I guess we walked enough that I burned off some of the extra calories I consumed! It seems like each morning, my waistline is smaller, then as I eat and drink during the day, it grows until my pants are tight by evening. Then I'm up every two hours peeing off the excess fluid, until morning, when I'm back to skinny time. It's a little strange, but not to difficult to deal with.

I also wonder, what do I call myself? I've had two good betas, but what is this limbo land? Can I really call myself pregnant? Clinically, I'm not, since there's been no verification of signs of life in there. But on the other hand, there are plenty of folks out there who don't have early ultrasounds, and probably declare their pregnancy based on their positive pee stick, and don't think anymore of it. I don't feel that nervous about this not working out or having a miscarriage--I've never gotten this far before and haven't had bad experiences in that regard--but I still feel a bit of superstition about how to handle my current state. On the one hand, I'd like to shout out to the hills, but on the other hand I want to keep it close, you know, just in case. Plus I don't suppose everyone else would be that interested in learning about my condition, whatever I should choose to call it. I certainly know that I, just two weeks ago, would have felt annoyed with some woman running around telling everyone she was 5 weeks pregnant. So I just hold it to my heart each time I see another pregnant woman or a couple with a baby or young child. I used to think, "that will never be me," or "that should be me, but it's not." Now I think, "that will be me, sooner than I think!" There's a lot of reasons why this may not work out, and I'm sorry to say that I've read about many of them out there on various blogs. I could lose this. But I am definitely grateful to have this little bit of happiness right now.

I did call my clinic, and unfortunately with the July 4th holiday and all, was unable to schedule my ultrasound until Monday July 7. So you all, and me too, will have to wait to find out what's going on. It's really only a little over two weeks away, and in between I'll be traveling to a conference, selecting movers, and celebrating a holiday. What's three more days in there? Hopefully it will make the ultrasound definitive too!

Finally, I want to leave you with a funny story from Philadelphia. D and I were sitting in a park enjoying some gorgeous weather and just relaxing and people-watching. There were lots of people of all ages enjoying the day. At one picnic table there were a group of teenagers playing some sort of card game. I wasn't paying them too much attention, although there was an occasional outburst of noise coming from them, I guess as someone either won or lost a round. Then D said to me, "Is that girl only wearing underwear?" Sure enough, the girl was dressed solely in a bra and panties, which fortunately were on the modest side. As we watched them now more closely, it turns out they were playing strip poker! In a public park in the middle of the day! Fortunately no one seemed to lose enough to strip down below their underwear!

It's Really Happening!

2008-06-15T10:07:00.004-04:00

I went in for my beta number #2 this morning:

1200

This is really happening! So whatdaya think? Is it twins? I just never ever thought I'd get here!

So my first ultrasound will be sometime around July 4. The doctor recommended waiting until July 7, if I could, but I think I may try for July 3. Today, in the weirdness of the pregnancy calendar, I think I am 4 weeks 3 days. So July 3 is 7w0d, that seems long enough to wait, doesn't it? Yeah, I'm starting to count the weeks, because this seems to really be happening!

In symptom watch, my waistline continue to expand and contract with swelling and fluid retention, then I lose it. And maybe, just maybe, my boobs feel a little sore. Tomorrow D and I are taking a mini-vacation to Philadelphia for a few days to see my cousin and have a little relax time before our move. I'm being careful to pack elastic-waisted pants!

Things I have learned in the last 48 Hours

2008-06-14T11:27:00.002-04:00

Working after you get a BFP is about as distracting as after a BFN.
While seemed like a good idea at the time, eating a plate of nachos at 9:30 PM Thursday night after my concert turned out not to be so good. I swelled up like a balloon, and felt quite yucky yesterday.
Having OHSS symptoms is lot nicer when you know they're from your body's own HCG than from the trigger. I feel lot less annoyed by them. Conversely, I feel more nervous today because I peed off a lot of fluid last night, and wonder if it's because my HCG is going down.
Y'all are right about the boobs. Mine don't really tell me anything, so definitely not a reliable indicator.
I thought I would want to tell my parents right away, but I've felt a little reluctant. It's kind of like our special secret that I've only shared with a couple people beyond the blog.
D is already freaking out about thinking about the future and how we will manage with our jobs and financially. Starting a new job pregnant would not necessarily be the ideal option, especially when it's a one year contract and D's financial fears start to feed into me, especially later at night. Sharing anxieties is not the healthiest part of our relationship! It's just odd to be working at something for so long and think, it might happen, it might happen... it REALLY might happen! And even though you've been preparing, suddenly you feel very unprepared.
I have a lot of positive feelings that this is going to work out, but I still seem to have some infertile superstitions. I don't use the p-- word, instead I say, "I had a positive beta test." That feels safer than saying "I'm p---." And I tell myself, clinical pregnancy is when you've seen the sack and a heartbeat. It's silly, but I feel safer with that distinction.
Even while I'm trying to take this one step at a time, D says to me, "if we want another, we'll have to start trying right away since you're already getting older." Whoa there fella! One step at a time. But it's amazing how your mind starts to jump to that thought, where for so long I just actively avoided thinking about at all.
I am living proof that more is not always better. Anyone reading this who is disappointed with their egg count should just remember that I had an IVF cycle with 46 eggs, and ended up with NOTHING. A canceled transfer, 7 embryos, three of which died upon thawing, and two BFNs from the FETs. Now with a gentle stim I got two mature follicles, and through sex I have a strong BFP. I know there are a lot of medical reasons why people need to do IVF and other options are not even possible, but for me, it did not end up being healthy or successful.
This is just uncharted territory emotional for me. I knew how I would feel with a BFN. I knew I would get through work, have my concert, cry in some beer, and try to console myself. Even with my chemical pregnancy, my initial beta was low enough I knew it was likely bad news. Right now I feel sort of suspended. Occasionally I reach out and touch happiness, but I'm almost just trying to keep it at arms length and examine it as a fragile thing of beauty. If I hold on too tight, it might break.
Also in the uncharted territory, I feel a deep sadness for everyone else who is out there and is still struggling with unhappy news. While I can know my BFP doesn't mean it's more or less likely for others succeed, I have this vague feeling of responsibility. I love the blogging community and every one of your comments have meant so much to me, but I know some of the "congratulations" may have been painful to write. And I'm sorry about that.

I will keep you posted with tomorrow's second beta.

Beta Test

2008-06-12T10:39:00.003-04:00

So I went in this morning for my beta test and now am here to present the results to you. First to prolong the anticipation, here's my cycle history:

Clomid #1: no response
Clomid #2: no response
Clomid #3: no response
Superovulation with injectibles: BFN, OHSS
IVF #1: BFN
IVF #2: Chemical pregnancy, OHSS
FET #1: BFN
FET #2: BFN
IVF #3: transfer canceled due to OHSS
FET #3: BFN
FET #4: BFN
Superovulation with fem.era plus injectibles: no response
Superovluation with injecibles (Low and Slow #1): BFN
Superovluation with injecibles (Low and Slow #2): ???

So that's my track record, which is none too impressive. So what did I expect today? Well, I was hopeful. Why? Because my damn ovaries started hurting again with mild OHSS symptoms. Really mild, just a little fullness, a little tenderness. What else could it be besides a rising HCG bring back symptoms? (Well, I knew it could also be premenstrual bloating, but I was being positive.) But, I am happy to report, I was on the right track:

Beta HCG (14 or 15dpo, I'm not positive): 283

Freaking amazing! Guess I'll be sticking with decaf and avoiding alcohol a little bit longer!! Next check is Sunday. And I just want to add: I don't think this was due to me relaxing!

Symptom Watch: 13dpo

2008-06-10T22:17:00.002-04:00

Beta is Thursday. I'm not going to POAS. No pee sticks in the house, I'm not going to buy any. I've seen far too many negatives to tempt fate and draw out the agony. I've been feeling calm about this cycle, but now I'm starting to get nervous, and excited. Last low and slow cycle I was happy to have ovulated without hospitalization, but this cycle, I have higher hopes. I can't help it. And yeah, I've started the wondering about my symptoms, with the hopes that something is meaningful.

I've been feeling a lot of cramps and pains in my ovaries. Cysts? Implantation? Cramping in preparation for AF? I've had these cramps before with other cycles and they've amounted to nothing, so maybe not a good sign. My ovaries feel a little sore when I sit down. Residual swelling from OHSS? Signs of an HCG rise?

The last few days I've felt a little queasy waiting for the bus after work. Morning sickness? Of course that could be because we're having ozone action days and it's been 100 degrees outside. Enough to make anyone feel a little queasy. But maybe it's pregnancy-induced extra sensitivity to heat!

Now let's get personal (and up my hits via misled Googlers): I've never really been too sure about the whole boob soreness thing, so share with me your own soreness symptoms. I don't really feel much after the trigger shot, so I'm not even really sure what to look for. Is soreness equivalent to agony at the slightest brush of fabric, or more like if you mash them down really hard, you feel a bit of a muscle-style ache. Because I think I do have a bit of a latter. Of course, if I pressed on other body parts this hard, they might have a slight ache too. Maybe I'm reading too much into this.

2 more sleeps until beta. You'd think after this many cycles, I'd know better than to try to catalog my symptoms, but what better way to spend the time?

Sharing with the Coworkers

2008-06-08T10:43:00.003-04:00

House update: our buyers accepted our response to the repair request! Yay!!! So that's one big relief for me. In other, more annoying news, I discovered that our repair request for the house we are buying was not communicated in full to the sellers, so certain repairs are not going to be done, since they didn't know we wanted them. They aren't major issues, but they are things now we'll have to take care of ourselves. There's something to be said for renting. *Sigh* But I'm not going to dwell on that today, because I probably drive myself crazy with all of the ups and down of the process, and I'm tired of thinking about it so much myself, so I'm sure you're tired of hearing about it!
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A couple of weeks ago two of my coworkers invited me out for pizza on a Friday night. It was right when I was taking the foll.istim for Low and Slow #2, so at first I just turned them down because I had to go home and take my shot. Then I decided I really wanted some pizza, and also feeling emboldened, I told them I would be late because I had to go home and give myself an injection. After I met them at the restaurant, I decided I would just share the full details with them. My coworkers have been a really great bunch. They don't tend to pry into people's personal details or gossip about others. I suppose I could have said I had something to do and been less specific, but since I'm leaving my job, I've been feeling like being more open about the whole infertility situation.

I used to worry that if work-related people found out I was trying to get pregnant, it could limit me professionally, if people started to assume that I would be out for maternity leave or perhaps would have a child and decide not to return to work. Even though I work in a women's profession, I still think there can be a glass ceiling for women and an assumption that once the kids come around, a woman won't be as dedicated to her job. I don't think people make this assumption with men. Now that I've been in my current workplace two years, I don't really think that's the case, plus I'm leaving, so I no longer worry about that. But there's also the reason that it's just sort of private, so I didn't necessarily want people asking me about it all of the time, and offering their well-meaning, but extremely irritating advice. However, as IF and my treatments have been going on for so long, I've become more likely to share information, because it just feels like such a large part of my life, and if people are going to know me, it's now an important part of my history.

So I shared the details of my story over pizza, and first came the obligatory, "I knew so-and-so who had been trying for 19 years, and once they stopped trying, she got pregnant!" Yeah, I bit my tongue a bit on that (19 years?? Yeah, what did she start trying at 20, or did she get pregnant in her late 40s? Whatever). But then, more interestingly, one of my coworkers (they are both in their 50s) asked, "What's IVF?" So it became an educational opportunity. It's hard to think there are people out there who don't what IVF is, but both of her children are in their early to mid-twenties, not married, so why would she? At least now they know why I keep having doctor's appointments so often. So I have to say, it was a relief to get some of that out in the open and talk to people about it. And I trust they'll use discretion in sharing it, but I am more in the "what does it really matter if other people know" mode of thinking than I used to be, so I don't care as much either.

Another interesting follow-up happened as a result of this conversation. My other coworker, who works in a second job as a home health aid, and has had various training in being a nurse's aid, EMS, etc., came by and offered to give me a foot massage as part of her training in reflexology. I had never heard of it before, but it appears to be a form of alternative medicine where practitioners believe they can help problems in other parts of the body through the manipulation of hands and feet. Apparently infertility is linked to the ankles and heels. While I'm extremely skeptical that a foot massage is going to help my infertility, I figured, what can it hurt? And had her give me a massage on Friday, which was pleasant, if probably ineffective against infertility. Anybody else had any experience with this?

In the end, the lesson I learned from all of this is that sharing about IF was not so bad, once I got through the first response. I got a load off my chest, got to teach people about IVF, and got a foot massage as a result. Do most of you share or keep quiet with your coworkers? If you've shared how has their reaction been?

Just a Little Freaking Out

2008-06-04T21:41:00.003-04:00

Okay, so that house structure problem? Well, it is turning out to be a bigger deal that I would like. We're going back and forth with the buyers in a they-say-we-say situation about whether or not there is some sort of structural problem with the house. Their inspector says there's a structural problem, our property manager says there's not. Now I've had to cancel a rehearsal to go to the HOA Board meeting to find out exactly who covers said potential structural issue (the HOA, in most cases). So we've sent back our response to the buyers and now we wait to see what they say. I think there's a real possibility the buyers will pull out, which will SUCK. But, in the end, not the end of the world. We got two offers before, so if necessary we'll go back on the market again. I'm just telling myself all that.

Meanwhile, on the OHSS front, things seemed to have resolved themselves. I was up all night Sunday night peeing, and since then haven't gained back the fluid. So, one more week to go until beta. Meanwhile, I can say all of this house stuff is a good distraction for the tww! Never a dull moment.

Fit to be a Parent?

2008-06-01T21:48:00.003-04:00

Thanks for all of the comments! When I said, "just a little stress," I am trying to put the emphasis on little. In the end, none of these things will probably be a huge deal in my life, they are just a little annoying and inconvenient for the moment. I can have a lot of "why me" moments, I can sit and stew about how I'm worried things won't work out, or I can do what I can, and see what happens. Since I went all overboard with the mouse freak-out incident with the house a few weeks ago, I've been trying to keep a little perspective about things. I do feel a little concern about the house inspection thing, because the inspector flagged a structural problem with the beams running beneath the house. Nothing we'd done in the past five years, it just seems like it was built wrong. So I've spent some time wondering about why our inspector didn't note the same issue five years ago, and done some "why me-ing," but mainly I've been trying to work with the proper manager to address the issue. I was talking to my father about the situation, and he started freaking out on me, "you mean the sale might fall through!?" Thanks Dad, for helping me keep my cool. I really don't think the sale is going to fall through, but I appreciate you trying to make me fixate on it.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling better yet today than yesterday, and think I've peed out some of my accumulated fluid. There was still some futon-lying going on this morning, but I've been up and about most of the afternoon. Cranberry juice has been the beverage of choice, although I like to mix it with some seltzer water to cut the sweet and give it some fizz. It's a great drink, if you've ever tried it.

D was talking to his mom, who brought up my SIL R, and how tough things were going for her (she just had a baby). The breast-feeding's been difficult, she's still not feeling recovered from the birth now three weeks ago, and overall just doesn't feel well. D said he wasn't surprised she wasn't feeling well, because, well, she hasn't felt well in something like six years, with some ailment or another, which somewhat offended his mom. I suppose we should have a little more sympathy for her, since I know being a new mother is a really difficult transition, but we're still feeling jealous, and also she's been having a "tough time" for so long, you just start to wonder. Maybe it's because I've been lying around feeling not so great myself this weekend too, and feeling some selfish, "what about me?"

Then I was thinking about the amount of time I've spent lying around doing these fertility cycles. Every cycle I've gone through some blech time, from drugs, hormone changes, shot ouchies, OHSS, mandated bed rest for embryo transfers, etc. This week, it was lying around Wednesday from the UTI, lying around parts of Saturday and Sunday because of OHSS symptoms. I know things aren't quite all in head, because doctors have chosen to hospitalize me before, but I wonder, how much of my lying around is just plain exaggerated or overblown? Maybe other could have symptoms like mine, and they'd just be able to down their fluids and be on their way, instead of lying around, acting cranky, and crabby. Who am I to judge R's tough time? Who's to say in her shoes I'd being doing any better?

Then I also wonder, filled as I am with stress about moving, fertility cycles, switching jobs, and feeling busy with concerts, board, and professional obligations, what the hell am I thinking trying to become a parent? I can barely even handle my life as it is now! Do any of you have these sudden second thoughts in the middle of cycle? I know D has had them too. Those of you that have gone through treatments with a child, I'm quite impressed, because I can barely keep it together for myself, without also having that responsibility. How am I going to handle things if I do get pregnant, and then am pregnant and dealing with a new child in a relatively new job and new city? Don't get me wrong, I am really hoping this will work out, but it does seem like the longer this goes on, the less faith I have in myself to imagine being a good mother and able to balance everything. Maybe it's a small part of me that thinks I'm not getting pregnant is a sign I'm not fit to be a parent. I suppose the best thing to best to do is to be easier on myself and less judgmental of others at the same time. And I probably need to go back to how I started this post: let those little stresses remain little.

Just a Little Stress

2008-05-31T21:17:00.002-04:00

So here's how to put yourself in the mood:

Get very little sleep the night before.
Realize that the reason why you are not sleeping is because you probably have a UTI.
One hour before "time," check your email and get the home inspection report to discover there is some sort of structural problem that needs to be addressed with the house you are selling.

Well, the romanticism of all that didn't quite make me feel sexy, but it worked out in the end. I ended up going to my primary care doctor about the UTI, who put me one some pregnancy-safe antibiotics. He also had a great time catching up with me, since the last time I saw him was when I was having extreme abdominal pain last summer, which of course led to my emergency surgery and lost biopsy. I get the feeling sometimes that I'm the equivalent of a doctor's soap opera, as he soaked in the gossipy details.

A number of you commenting about the exact timing, which I thought was interesting, since I've done the timed cycles with two different clinics and they've both been very definite about the 36-40 hours after trigger recommendation. I again had the fear with this cycle that I didn't actually ovulate as expected, because my temperature didn't rise, so to be safe, we had a go at it on Thursday night after my rehearsal. There are certain things I prefer about IVF: you don't have to describe your intimate relationship with your husband to the RE to quite the same detail, and it keeps sex and procreation completely divorced. I like my sex for fun!

Meanwhile, I found out my E2 levels were at 650 on Tuesday, so that's still pretty low, but higher than last time. For those of you new here, me and OHSS have a long and sordid past, and pretty much I don't ovulate without getting it, although I'm trying to keep it in the "mild" to "moderate" range, versus the "severe" range. I've gained about an inch and half around my waist as I'm retaining fluid, and my ovaries have gotten pretty sore. This morning I felt really nauseous, so I made the remains of the protein drink mix and had that for breakfast. Didn't really help immediately, so I spent most of morning lying on the futon. Seeing D this morning, I was also struck with an odor aversion. "Don't breathe on me, I can't stand your breath," I told him. "But I just brushed my teeth," he protested. "I know," I told him, "it's the mint I can't stand!" Somehow I did manage to brush my teeth later, which was good because that protein drink has a nasty aftertaste. Meanwhile after a good nap, I feel a lot better, even if I still look like I've tried to eat everything in the kitchen. Maybe odor aversion will be a good sign for this cycle. And drinking lots of fluid is good for both the OHSS and the UTI, right?

Happy weekend!

Why It's an ART and not a Science

2008-05-27T22:02:00.005-04:00

This morning I had my third monitoring visit for this cycle. There were three measurable follicles, the biggest at 21 mm, one not far behind, and then one closer to 12 mm. The doctor doing my scan was not one that I worked with at the clinic before (since Dr. Thoughtful is on maternity leave), and he had a strange bedside manner: a combination of trying to be open and unhurried, while also seeming to be forcefully cheerful with a touch of brashness and somehow uncomfortable with the situation. I will call him Dr. Cheerful. I suppose maybe it was because he was unfamiliar with my file, and he wanted to appear as if he was on top of things. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. Nonetheless, one of the things I like about this clinic is that the doctor does take the time to sit down and discuss the situation, even if in this case, the answers felt a little mushy.

Dr. Cheerful (reading my file): So this is your third COH cycle?

Me (pondering the fact that there's an IF acronym with which I'm not familiar, although eventually figuring out that stands for "controlled ovarian hyperstimulation" and that he's counting the fem.era/injectibles cycle, which I have pretty much discounted): Yes.

Dr. Cheerful (pondering my chart some more): Well, this looks very good, so I think you are ready for the Ovi.drel. Are you doing things at home or an IUI?

Me: At home.

Dr. Cheerful: So how's your husband's sperm?

Me (so is the day I trigger the best day to be asking this?): Um, fine. His results have always come back normal and fertilization was never in a problem in my IVF cycles.

Dr. Cheerful (frowns and looks at my chart more closely): Okay. Well, let's see if you take the shot tonight at 6 PM, then you should sex 37 hours later... which makes it 7:00 AM.

(This is actually kind of alarming to me, because, well, morning, is not D's best time of day. Not that I really want to discuss this with the doctor, but what choice do I have? Besides, who really wants to have sex at 7 AM?)

Me: I think an evening time would be better, because for my husband, um, things would just work out better.

Dr. Cheerful: So your husband prefers the evening?

Me (now redder): Yes.

Dr. Cheerful: Well, okay, let's say you trigger right now, then it would be around 11:30 PM Wednesday night. Would that work?

Me: Yes. I also have a question about the progesterone. Last time, I had conflicting instructions, and was told to start taking it 2 days after trigger and but my prescription says 4 days after trigger, so I want to clarify that. When should I start taking it?

Dr. Cheerful: Oh, it really doesn't matter too much. I'll just say three days after trigger and you can start taking it Friday night. (Continues reading instruction sheet and looks some more at my file) I could tell you some more about the symptoms for OHSS, but you probably are already very familiar with them... Not that I think you'll have a problem with this cycle.

So they found me some Ovi.drel, since mine hasn't arrived yet, and I took the shot right there in the office and am off to the next stage of this cycle. Amazing! What I have learned:

I have managed to grow two mature follicles in only 7 days of 50 units of foll.istim. This means my supply will stretch even longer.
The timing of the trigger shot appears to be quite flexible.
When I start taking progesterone apparently doesn't matter!?!? (or at least within a small window)

I did not learn my E2 level, which I guess is not necessary, given that I had already triggered before the results were back, but I figure even if the numbers doubled each day since Sunday, that would still only put me at 800. So fingers crossed and fun tomorrow tonight! I also went ahead and scheduled a beta (no angst about that for me this cycle either) for June 12.

The House

2008-05-25T17:42:00.004-04:00

I guess I'm doing this kind of backwards, posting on the Show and Tell today and book yesterday, but I did want to get the book post out there, and then I saw the My Reality's (how might need a word of good cheer, if you go over there) request for pictures, so here are a few. I'm not including too many inside, since it will look different once we move in.

Front of the house: this will be a change from our 1980s townhouse!

Back of the house (I don't think the swing set conveys).

Kitchen (probably it will look the same for us, although my tea kettle is stainless instead of blue)

Leaded glass windows: in the living room, dining room, and stairwell. You may throw a stone from this window straight into the neighbor's house, but they sure are pretty!

Book Club: Water for Elephants

2008-05-25T14:24:00.005-04:00

I'm back with the book club and this month is the non-IF related Water for Elephants, which turned out to be an entertaining, if somewhat sappy novel by Sarah Gruen. Her characters were a little weak in depth of personality, typically turning out to be good or bad, and some of the situations seemed contrived. That said, I did still like the book well enough that I'm going to search out some of the author's other works. I found her depictions of the circus wonderful escapism and the plot kept me going. If you haven't read the book and want to, don't read my answers to the question, you can just jump down to the cycle update at the bottom.

What does the title mean to you? Why do you think Sara Gruen chose it as the title?

This was actually one of the most interesting aspects of the novel, and one that let you interpret it in multiple ways: was it a straight-forward love/adventure story, or was the story really as it seemed? Gruen chose to tell the story as the old man Jacob looks back on his life and remembers his adventures with the circus. While most of the action took place in the 1930s, some of the time we are in the present day, with Jacob staying in some sort of assisted living arrangement. He argues with a new resident, who claims to have carried water for elephants at the circus. Jacob finds this story offensive, arguing that elephants drink way too much water to be carried, and calls him a liar. The kind nurse Rosemary (you knew there was going to be some kind nurse there), keeping the peace, tells him, "Sometimes when you get older ... things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're part of your history."

At the beginning of the book, Gruen describes a brutal murder of someone, we don't yet know who, and we don't quite know who did it, although as the books proceeds we can take our guesses. Then the scene reappears near the end, and the elephant Rosie is implicated in the murder of Marlena's no-good husband, August. Now it could just be a plot device, designed to draw the reader into the story (it worked for me!), but that ambiguity could also be a result of Jacob's memory reaching back 70 years to event. Perhaps Rosie is not the real murderer after all, but instead it was Marlena. I think by choosing that title, Gruen opens up the book up to all sorts of ambiguity, because it focuses on that fact of what we remember may not be what happened. Even Jacob questions himself about August at one point, wondering if his perceptions of August have been tainted because he loved his wife. This ambiguity makes for a richer read, and for additional pondering about the story after you've finished it, which in my mind is the sign of a good read.

On page 109, old Jacob complains about how his family keeps secrets from him: "And those are just the things I know about. There are a host of others they don't mention because they don't want to upset me. I've caught wind of several, but when I ask questions, they clam right up. Mustn't upset Grandpa, you know... Why? That's what I want to know. I hate this bizarre policy of protective exclusion, because it effectively writes me off the page. If I don't know about what's going on in their lives, how am I supposed to insert myself in the conversation?... I've decided it's not about me at all. It's a protective mechanism for them, a way of buffering themselves against my future death..." Reading this, I could see myself in both Jacob & in his family members, both in respect to our infertility situation and other matters. Whose viewpoint do you relate to most in this passage and why?

I found Gruen's depictions of Jacob as an old man quite convincing, and it caused me to think some of my relationship with my own grandparents and about keeping information from people. There are certainly elderly relatives in the family with whom D and I have not discussed IF, in part because it's so personal and in part because we don't know if they'd understand. But those secrets do become a burden, and they do interfere with relationships, and while I'm sorry for them, I don't feel the alternative is necessarily better. After going through IF for so long, I'm feeling more like sharing, because it has become such a huge part of my life and it hasn't ended up being resolved quickly. I do think that Jacob was hard on his family, who clearly were trying to keep him happy and comfortable. But maybe he has a point too: too much isolation and control was leaving his life without meaning or joy.

Looking at himself in the mirror, the old Jacob tries "to see beyond the sagging flesh." But he claims, "It's no good....I can't find myself anymore. When did I stop being me?" How would you answer that question for Jacob or for yourself?

I ached for Jacob when he asked this question. I haven't experienced aging, but I do know what it's like to be disappointed with your body. It takes time to understand and accept the changes that might have befallen you. Jacob had gone through a lot of loss, and losing his independence and mobility seemed to be the latest, following his wife's death. It takes time to process these changes and become comfortable with current reality. Maybe with his wife dead, his hip repaired, he did need to go off and join the circus again to recapture some of his earlier self. While the ending was romantic, at the same time, I did still feel like the author was giving his family short-shrift. Was it really tenable for him to disappear and work in the circus? Could he support that lifestyle at 93? Was his family really that callous? Could the circus really take its place? The ending on the one hand could be seen as Jacob rediscovering himself and finding happiness again, or it could be a vain attempt to hang onto a past that's gone. Where some people might see an old man riding off into the sunset, I saw frantic sons and daughters worried about their father. Maybe as someone who's been left behind, I tend toward this interpretation. Or maybe we as a society are still grappling with how to continue to provide good quality of life to individuals as they get older, and are still failing. I don't know how I'll accept myself as I get old. From what I can tell, it won't be easy.

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/ (if it's not up there yet, it will be soon). You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: The Empty Picture Frame by Jenna Nadeau (with author participation because she's a blogger!)

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In follicle action, I went in for bloodwork and ultrasound today and have two follicles growing on the right ovary at 13 mm. E2 levels at 193, so higher than last time, but still doing good. Tuesday's the next check, and I hope that I'll get my Ovi.drel in time for trigger, in case they want it on Wednesday! I delayed in ordering it because I tried to get insurance to cover it (denied for unclear reasons), so now with the holiday, it won't arrive until Wednesday. Well, nothing to be done there for the moment. I suppose I may end up hunting around for it at a local pharmacy if need be.

House Poor

2008-05-24T19:35:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry for the posting gaps, but it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks! First, there was D's graduation and the relatives here. I think I worried more about things with my SIL than I needed to. While my in-laws were here, there was a scare with R and her new son, who threw up some blood, and they weren't sure if it was his blood or stuff he swallowed during the delivery. So they moved him to the NICU and then also treated him for some jaundice. Everything turned out to be fine, no problems, no health issues, and he's been home gaining weight and doing fine. But during that period, D and I experienced a lot of guilt about it. We shared some guilty pleasure that not everything went smoothly, and then a horrible fear that if something were were seriously wrong with him, it would be because we gave him the evil eye, or thought nasty thoughts. I've seen the pictures and given the congrats, and it's all okay.

I really haven't had much time to even think about it, with my parents and in-laws in town and then our trip to Chicago. Plus when I got back, I had a series of rehearsals scheduled. Maybe it was a subliminal sadness over leaving the groups I've been playing with, but somehow I have five concerts scheduled between May and July before we move, so that's requiring some time at rehearsals and practicing. My quartet played for a bunch of 4-6 year-olds on Friday. I think it's the first time an audience burst out in giggles upon hearing us play. Kind of charming reaction. "Twinkle, Twinkle" was the crowd favorite.

So our Chicago trip: I'm actually starting to get excited about this move. It seemed both so far and so close, but now it's seeming a lot closer. Chicago is both interesting an overwhelming. There were several times on the trip when I thought, "who are all these people and why are they all of the goddamn roads!" It was big, it was crowded, it was flat, there were parts that reminded me of Detroit (even though I'm from Michigan, I don't mean that in a nice way). On the other hand, there were lots of beautiful buildings, it was beautiful weather, public transportation was easy, and there's a big lake. D and I had some disagreements about space and what we wanted, but frankly D managed to disagree with himself enough so that I didn't even really need to step in. We made a decision, he then freaked out and we revisited the decision, we made the decision again, he then freaked out and we revisited the decision a third time.

In the end, we decided upon a beautiful 1914 house with leaded glass windows and a bright sunny living room. It has three bedrooms, and it does have D's much-sought after basement, although I've warned him he can't take this as an opportunity to save everything. It should be an easy train ride to to work, so we hopefully won't need to spend excessive amounts of time with Chicago congestion. I think it's probably about the same size as our current townhouse, but quite a bit more expensive! We've always been conservative with finances, so this is a bit more of a gamble, but I think it will pay off (our current house is under contract--Whoo Hoo!) I figure, we have the station wagon, we now have the house, so kids should be coming soon right?

Upon getting back from Chicago on Tuesday, I contacted the clinic to get started on low and slow #2. Dr. Thoughtful told me I could get a scan to make sure things were quiet and get started right away, even though I'd be in the "middle" of a cycle. I knew there had to be something nice about PCOS, it makes the timing easier, since there's no natural cycles to be concerned about. When I called the clinic, Dr. Thoughtful was out on maternity leave (well, I knew that would happen), and the nurse was not so sure that this was a good idea. But they let me come in and have the scan and bloodwork, and as expected everything was quiet. I've been told multiple times that some women with PCOS do ovulate on their own, but since it's been about three years since that last happened for me, I've stopped holding my breath. So Tuesday evening I started taking foll.istim at 50 ius, and have been going for 5 days now. Tomorrow is my next check to see what kind of progress has been made. If things go as last time, there won't be much to see, but hopefully there'll be a little rise in E2 to show that things are happening as they should be. And that will be fine for me. I'm all for keeping this slow, as I have too many concerts going on to get sick right now, and one follicle at a time is all I'm aiming for.

Another Addition to the Family

2008-05-09T08:36:00.003-04:00

Late last night my SIL safely delivered her healthy little boy into the world. She called to tell us this at 3 in the morning. I probably would have been fine waiting a few more hours (we already knew she had gone to the hospital), but I can understand her excitement. I will say that the first thing I thought in my confusion of being woken by the phone was, "someone's coming to look at the house now?!"

I am very happy for her, although I do feel a little additional sadness that now not only did I not have my own child and was I not pregnant when she got pregnant, now I'm still don't have a child and am not pregnant after she's given birth.

And I really hope no one encourages me to call her and wish her a happy Mother's Day, although I bet that's going to happen, with D's parents here this weekend. And I suppose it's the right thing to do too. I'll just have to keep the tears back.

Like I said, I'm mostly okay, but not 100%.

Afterward

2008-05-08T17:28:00.003-04:00

Well, my list post came off a little grimmer than I was expecting. I'm doing okay with things, and in fact since my "letting go" of Monday night, I am feeling a lot better. One way or another my life is continuing, even with all of these major and minor setbacks that are going on. As for the minor setbacks:

Caught the mouse (not so pleasant - hopefully it's a loner).
House is REALLY on the market, after the real estate agent had to saw off the offending lockbox, which was either malfunctioning, or else he forgot the combination. New lockbox and three showings (that's at least more showings than mice).
Sinus congestion starting to clear up
Got at good night's sleep yesterday

As for the cycle, getting a BFN is a setback, but I do feel glad that my cycle went so smoothly, even with the sucky ending. I can do this again. I think I handled myself a lot better than I did the last FET cycle. During the last FET cycle, where I was convinced it was the LAST cycle, I spent most of my time crying because I had no hope it would work. Then, of course, it didn't work, and I spent even more time crying and felt even worse. I think, as part of the letting go, I'm not even really trying to look to far ahead to figure out a course of treatment. What do you you call your attempted fertility cycle after the LAST cycle? What do you call the one after that? I don't know, so I'm just thinking of each of them as the "next" cycle. Obviously I can't do this indefinitely, but to call something the LAST cycle, maybe that's just too much pressure, because I couldn't take it.

It also helps that the cycle didn't take a huge amount out of me physically or schedule-wise. No grave physical discomfort, no bedrest, no major medical procedures, no hospitalizations, etc. It makes it easier to think about trying another one, because all I have to do is make sure I'm traveling (which is going to delay the start of the next cycle by a few weeks). It takes a little pressure off too, so I don't feel that I've just spent all of this time, money, and physical risk for what? Nothing. Nothing still hurts, don't get me wrong, but it's not quite a pressure-filled. I don't think I have it in me to do another cycle with quite that much pressure, because the pressure of this one got bad enough at the end! Still on the hunt for increased mental stability.

Finally, I also think it was good to have a little hope for this cycle. My last FET cycle, I had no hope. Like I said before, I felt horrible. Yet that lack of hope didn't make the BFN hurt any less. So why not try to enjoy a little hope in advance, rather than feeling horrible the entire time? I've wondered a lot about the hope issue during the whole treatment process. I do think it's good to be realistic. But maybe you also need that spark to keep you moving through it.

I'm going to be entertaining my in-laws and parents this weekend since they are coming in for D's graduation (it's always fun to have guests when you are showing a house) and then D and I are traveling to Chicago for house-hunting, so my posting is going to be sporadic or missing. But don't worry, I'm doing okay (I think).

Why I am Not a Poet

2008-05-05T22:08:00.003-04:00

When your hopes dashed to bits
Because your beta's gone to shit,

no control
no control

When there's a mouse in your house,
And cat pee on the floor,
And lock box is now welded shut to the door,

no control
no control

When you're suffering from your sixth cold of season,
And your sinuses are stuffy and clogged beyond reason,

no control
no control

Whether stressed out and sad
Or pissed off and mad,

no control
no control

When your embryos die
Softly say goodbye,

no control
no control

When you're alone with your thoughts,
And you're up late at night,
Sit yourself down,
And hold yourself tight

And remember,

no control
no control

Feel free to add your own verses.

Not the Addition to the Family I Wanted

2008-05-04T14:18:00.003-04:00

The Mystery Child will remain a mystery. My beta was negative. I was not that surprised, because my temperature had fallen some this morning, although there was no sign of AF. Still, I'm disappointed. We did meet with the real estate agent, the house is up on the market now, and of course that was when I got the call. To piss me off a little further, while there will no human additions to the family, I just discovered a new unwanted rodent. A mouse chewed through the ceiling in the pantry and ate some chocolate and drink mix. We've lived here for 5 years - no mice, and the day we put it up on the market is when I discover a mouse. How perfect. Fortunately, our many encounters with ants mean that 90 percent of our food is in sealed containers, so there wasn't much of interest. For now, I removed anything else that might be enticing to the mouse and placed my cat's brushes in the pantry (we have cats, mouse--smell that!) and will call the exterminator if necessary.

I will now try look on the bright side:

At the rate I'm going, pregnancy will most likely not be something else I need to worry about this summer - just selling this house, buying a new house, quitting one job, moving, starting another. Maybe that's enough.
If I were pregnant now, I wouldn't have been eligible for leave at my new job because I need to be working there for six months to get two weeks leave (so generous, gotta love the U.S.) But that won't be a problem.
I am stopping progesterone, so I can stop obsessing about that.
I can take Suda.fed for my sinuses.
I can have wine tonight.
I have more left-over folli.stim, so I can try again.

Somehow it doesn't all seem like a worthwhile trade-off. I'm going off to be bitter for a little.

Fucking mouse.

It Was One of Those Nights

2008-05-02T22:11:00.003-04:00

So I predicted correctly with the damn cold, but am sticking out. I do kind of miss the whole breathing through my nose thing. Last night was not a good sleeping night. I fell asleep after 11:00 PM, and then at 4 AM I woke up and had to pee. While up, I had this visualization of the number of pills left in my pro.metrium container and realized it would only take me through Sunday, not Monday. First I think this just goes to show the infertile brain at work: who else conjures images of pill bottles at 4 AM? I don't normally remember things in such a visual way; in fact I think this is the first time that I've counted my pills in a mental image. Second, I think this shows my nervousness is building, as I am continuing to fixate on progesterone.

Well, what are you going to do about this at 4 AM? Not much, but I could not get back to sleep. When I went to bed earlier in the night, I was chilly, so I pulled up the quilt. But when I got back into bed at 4 AM, I was hot, so I took off the quilt. Still hot. I took of the blanket. Still hot (pregnancy symptom?). So I threw off the sheet. Then I was freezing. So I put back on the sheet. Then I was hot. And et cetera. This all lasted until close to 6 AM, while poor D was attempting to sleep while I pulled on and off the covers every 5 minutes. Finally I feel back asleep, but woke up at just before my alarm at 6:30 and I was cold again. It was crazy.

So I called the clinic this morning and decided I just couldn't take it: I want a beta. So after playing phone tag with the nurse, I got one scheduled for Sunday morning. That should be 15dpo. So even if my beta's a freakin' 10, I will know, and I will do all in my power to get it going up, which admittedly won't be much, but at least I'll know enough to continue on progesterone. At least then I'll know ovulation and fertilization took place. As a consequence of Sunday's beta, no POAS. I don't have one in the house for tomorrow, and Sunday will be here before I know it. I don't really feel the same urge to POAS I did with the IVF cycles, where they made me wait so long before the beta. The only advantage to POAS is instantaneous results, but I can wait for a phone call. I will be calm.

The house is continuing to give me extra stress. The painter delayed coming until tomorrow morning, which means the house is not up on the market as I expected. So we are meeting with the real estate agent on Sunday morning after my beta test to go over the paperwork, take the pictures, do the marketing and get this thing up. I'm sure that the clinic will call while we're meeting with the agent. It means I have to cancel out of my date with other NC Bloggers, which sucks, but if this house isn't on the market on Sunday, I might just keel over. I'm not sure why the house thing is making me quite so nervous, but it is. I really blew a gasket (or as D said, several) this evening doing cleaning and straightening up. I think I lost it over moving the clothes hamper, but I had warned about 45 minutes before that I needed to eat dinner (temper-- pregnancy symptom--or stressed out sick person reaction?). I think it's because the housing market is tanking everywhere, and even while I'm in a good area for the seller, it's still all relative. I know the market isn't what it was last year. Fortunately, we have a lead with one of my coworkers, who is interested in the place, so that would be great if she likes it and would buy it. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So in the meantime, I will be calm. Things will happen on Sunday, and I hope they will be good. I don't have any clues this cycle worked, but I don't have any clues it didn't. I suspect it didn't work, just since statistics are against me, but can't help hoping it did. We'll know soon enough. If you have any last minute good wishes to spare, I might need them.

Symptom Watch

2008-04-30T21:45:00.002-04:00

It is now supposedly 11dpo, so I'm starting to get a little antsy. I say supposedly, because according to my trigger shot, it would be 11dpo, but if I were to look at my chart, my most significant temperature happened two days later, so it would be more like 9dpo. Maybe I'm a "stepper," or maybe I really did ovulate 96 hours after trigger, which seems a little long. I don't have a lot of other data points to go on. Over two years ago, when I did the last ovulation induction cycle, my temperature actually jumped the morning right after my trigger shot, but it could have been because I slept in. And since then I haven't ovulated, except for the IVF cycles, where of course I know exactly what happened with my eggs. I'm probably putting too much stock in the whole temperature cycle thing, but it would be nice have all the signs pointing to the same time.

Doing this ovulation induction cycle has definitely been way easier than the IVF cycles, but it's making me nervous because I just have no idea what exactly went on. Not only am I uncertain of when I ovulated, there some question as to whether I ovulated at all. Well, probably, but the temperature spike could be due to pro.metrium. I know I had sex, but was it timed correctly with the trigger shot? I followed what the doctor told me. Is D's sperm in good shape? Don't know, but can only assume from previous analyses. Did it make it through my cervix? Don't know. Did an egg get fertilized? Don't know. Did more than one egg get fertilized? Don't know. Did an embryo or embryos implant? Don't know. When I start thinking about it too much, I can find multiple ways where this process can break down. I realize that this lack of knowledge is perfectly normal, as most people don't get fert reports from their embryologist, but I've kind of gotten used to getting that kind of information!

I also called the clinic today, because I had some confusion about when exactly I'm supposed to get my beta, and whether I had enough pro.metrium to carry me through. Well, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on, if you didn't have an embryo transfer, they just want you to take an HPT, and then if it's positive, come in for a beta. This makes me feel a little unsettled for a couple of reasons: first, it's like they really don't expect it to be positive, so why have you waste the time getting blood drawn, and second, I really don't trust those pee sticks. Not that I have any rational reason to distrust them, the negatives they've shown have always been on the money, but it seems much more fuzzy than getting a straight number of less than 5 to prove a negative. You could have a positive under 20 or 25, which isn't picked up by the pee sticks, or maybe you just drank a lot of water too close to testing. Plus I have this concern that maybe this Sunday isn't really 15dpo, and then the HTP would be more likely to show a false negative. But I only have enough pro.metrium to make it through Monday, so I need my answer. I'm thinking that if I get a BFN on Sunday, I'll may still insist on a beta test on Monday anyway, unless AF starts. This is probably not really such a big deal but just something to obsess about.

Meanwhile, I've been checking myself for symptoms of pregnancy, such as the twinge (in my uterus?) I felt last Sunday (implantation?). No breast tenderness to speak of. But I have noticed some other symptoms:

Sore throat
Stuffy nose
Headache
Clogged ears
Coughing and sneezing
General tiredness and feeling of being run down.

Wait a minute, this sounds supiciously like I've caught another cold this season, I think this will be cold number 6 since November, what joy! Well, at least even I can diagnose that!

Stuff

2008-04-27T21:19:00.002-04:00

I am in an anti-stuff mode right now. By "stuff," I mean the various items that I slog around and have become part of my entourage: my paper files, my kitchen items, my furniture, my books, my music, my clothes. And there there's all of Josh's stuff and a lot of stuff that we really share. Nothing like an upcoming move to make you think of your stuff in a whole new light. We're still struggling a bit to get the home on the market, but once we have the finish paint job this week, it's going up there. The real estate agent recommended that we clean up, de-clutter and depersonalize. So we (or really mostly I - D was admittedly busy, but also came up with unoriginal excuses like, "You know how to pack better than I do"--I personally don't think this is the case) took down the decorations, the pictures, the knickknacks and packed them all away. It made me feel really sad. It felt like it wasn't my house anymore, even though there were still four months to go before the move. Then I started tackling the bookcases, the kitchen cupboards, the closets, the little secret stashes of stuff that were located throughout the house. Some of it needed to stay and be available, but a lot could be packed up. Winter clothes, files and papers rarely used, extra supplies, those kitchen gadgets I figured I could live without, books I wasn't going to read soon, etc. We also donated a good portion of items that, after years, we finally said, "maybe we don't need this." Then we went through each room in the house and picked out furniture to either get rid of or place into storage. Finally one Saturday about three weeks ago we packed up a small moving truck and hauled it storage or to be donated.

In our closet we also had a stash of baby items donated to me from a friend, three years ago. A high chair, toys, bottles. I couldn't see moving it, even if I'm pregnant now, there's still 9 months to go. So I had to ask her if she wanted back or if I could donate it. That was a painful email to compose. She gave me the go-ahead to donate it, but has been strangely silent since then. I think I disturbed her with my bitterness, which was bubbling over at that time.

After cleaning up and rearranging the remaining furniture, I suddenly like my house again, and my mood has lifted. I still would prefer to have some pictures of family and friends and some personalized touches, but man, the place just looks better. The real estate agent was right for us to do this. It's spacious and comfortable, and the cats loves lying on the patches of carpet where furniture was moved out. There's less sitting out to collect dust. So far, I haven't really missed the items moved out to storage, and the biggest problem has been figuring out where we've placed the items we haven't moved into storage. It makes me wonder, even though we did donate a lot of items, if there's more in storage we could get rid of. Some things I know I do need to keep, like tax returns; some things I want to keep, even though they serve no useful purpose, like special letter from friends or other mementos; and some things I might want but not right now, like winter clothes. Then I wonder about all of the items that we have that are nice on occasion, but do I really need them? Fancy kitchen gadgets, extra clothes, coffee table books? My mind and my body feel lighter without these items, so should I hang on to them? Fewer items means less space and furniture needed to store them, and this spacious home could stay that way.

D and I have some disagreements on this point. D likes his stuff and worries about tossing something that might be useful. He also likes hanging on things past their prime, particularly in terms of clothing, and wonders if a piece of furniture not doing much here could be useful somewhere else. He has also been willing to relinquish items, but his nature is just more acquisitive. He's looking forward to getting a place with a basement, because then he can store all of those "might be useful items." I think a basement has its purpose, but that also kind of scares me a little. It's tough enough to get him to let go of items now!

Americans are particularly acquisitive. More seems to better, simply because it's more. I wonder if we are falling into this trap looking at house listings. D is interested in buying a four bedroom house: one bedroom for us, one bedroom for Mystery Child, one bedroom for guests, and one bedroom for his study. It all sounds reasonable, but then I think: why do we need a bedroom for guests, when probably over 90% of the time, no guests will be with us? Why do we need a bedroom for a child, when we don't yet have one? Can't D share a study with guests? Couldn't guests stay in a non-bedroom, or we let Mystery Child sleep in a non-bedroom when we have guests? Neither of our parents had dedicated guest rooms when we were younger. Are we getting too greedy? We're just two people. All of that space means more expensive to buy, more room to collect stuff, more to maintain. Is that really better? But I'm just as prone to looking at the larger places, and thinking, hey, that would be great! But does more stuff make us happier or just want more stuff?

Ovulation without Hospitalization

2008-04-26T12:59:00.004-04:00

So here it is a week and a day after my trigger shot, and I'm feeling good. Last year at this time I was busy being hospitalized for OHSS. The first few days after trigger, I spend a fair amount of time staring at my body, investigating it for changes. Asking D questions like, "So do you think my stomach's grown bigger?" He suggested I stop obsessing and what will happen will happen. I couldn't quite manage that, but I did decide I would keep my obsessing private. And really, I didn't feel too bad. I gained about 4 pounds, had a paunch like I'd eaten a few too many Thanksgiving dinners, and some twinges and soreness in my ovaries, but it wasn't too bad. Previous bouts of OHSS have left me looking like I swallowed a keg whole, barrel and all, made me breathless walking up the stairs, caused me to walk with a curiously slow waddle, and caused such extreme tenderness that I could barely dry myself with a bath towel. Clearly I still remember the feel all too clearly. So the paunch was nothing. And now, in the past day and half, I have even lost a good portion of that weight and swelling. It's simply amazing, I tell you! Maybe you don't think so, but when I think of my track record, this is a major accomplishment.

Now I can stop obsessing about OHSS symptoms and start obsessing about pregnancy symptoms, although it is only 7dpo, so I have a ways to go there. I still don't know whether this cycle will work, but at least I have accomplished something. Thanks for all of your words of support and reassurance about my letter to my SIL. I do feel better having gotten some of those thoughts written down and knowing that other people understand where I'm coming from. I don't presume to think that this will make me entirely comfortable with the situation, but I think it will help, at least for the mean time.

Letter to my SIL

2008-04-22T18:44:00.002-04:00

My SIL is probably going to give birth any day, with her due date of May 5. Even though I've had nearly her whole pregnancy to get used to the idea, it still weighs on me in a way that no other person's pregnancy has. And here she is about to deliver a new boy into the world, so I want to try to let some of that go. My therapist suggested writing a letter to her (not with the intention of sending it), as way to get some of my thoughts and feelings about this. What better place than a blog to do that? So below is my "letter."

Dear R,

I wanted to contact you regarding the impending birth of your son. As you already know, your pregnancy has been difficult for me, as it has served as a reminder of my own lack of pregnancy. I appreciate that since I explained my feelings to you about this, you've tried to be more respectful of my situation, but I'm also getting the impression that you're ready for me to stop with the self-pitying and return to my previous unenvious, non-judgmental self. I'm not sure that's possible for me. I'm not sure that our relationship will be the same, that you and I may have changed too much, and I don't really know how to handle it all. So maybe we need to start over with new ground and accept that things will be different.

I have known you a long time, almost as long as D, and I have always liked you and appreciated your company. You are smart and witty, and more laid back and spontaneous than your brother. You have a sense of style I can appreciate, and wide-ranging interest in all types of culture and activities. When we've visited you or you've come out here, I've always had fun, no matter what we've done. You were a natural choice to be my bridesmaid in my wedding, not just because you were soon to be my relative, but because I felt like we could build a lifelong friendship. I want to keep that relationship, but I feel like things have changed. Part of it is that we live apart, so you have been continuing your life, while D and I have been continuing ours, gradually and abruptly moving on different paths. In the past year and half, I have felt like a gulf has come up between us, even before you got pregnant. Things with London moved so fast, suddenly you had a boyfriend over 30 years older than you, then you were married, then you bought a house, then you were pregnant and lost your job. London meanwhile didn't seem to care for planning for the future, coming to a new country without much in the way of savings or a real plan for how to get employment. D and I were baffled, then worried, and then judgmental. When did laid back and spontaneous become irresponsible and thoughtless? Who was this guy, and how would this relationship work? We didn't and still don't know how to interact comfortably with London, with whom we share very little. I'm glad you love him, but if he weren't your husband, I probably wouldn't choose to continue to see him. I realize this is all harsh, but I'm putting it out there because things have changed, you have changed and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

I know that I have changed too. I know that I'm touchy. Dealing with my infertility has been a difficult thing. I want to share my situation with people because I appreciate their sympathy and support, but at the same time, I am reluctant to share something that is so intensely personal, and leaves me feeling so vulnerable. When I tell people about treatments, I appreciate it when they ask how I am doing, but I learned after my second IVF cycle that having to explain about chemical pregnancy each time someone asks you if the cycle worked gets very tiring. Telling people "no" can also be a conversation stopper. But it also hurts when people who know all about it don't ask, or when you tell them something and get no response. So I'm in a tough position, and I can put others in a tough position because of it. I know you don't want to hear this because you've already apologized, but the way in which you told me about your pregnancy really hurt my feelings, and still continues to be a sore spot. I don't want to rain on any one's parade, but a small acknowledgment that your good fortune isn't shared by all would have meant so much. You knew we had been trying and were at the end of a cycle, I know you were excited and wrapped up in your own news, but that made it feel all the worse. And lying to me about not trying, just give me a break! I wasn't born yesterday, and for most couples, having sex without birth control is a sure way to get pregnant, and that's what you were doing, and denying the situation didn't make me feel any better. I can understand why you chose not wait: London's not getting any younger and I'm well aware that getting pregnant can be difficult. Maybe that's why I still hurt with how you pretended like I hadn't been trying to have a baby for over two years--obviously you were thinking about it, given the story you told.

As you can see, I still hold some strong feelings about this. I am sorry about that. This probably makes you feel defensive. My feelings over my own infertility have both surprised and shamed me. I am jealous of you and London, and envious of your situation. I look at my life: getting to know my husband over a period of time before children even came up; discussing and planning with D how we might start a family; saving to be in a stable financial situation, both of us with
good prospects for the future. But yet we have no pregnancy. Instead, I don't ovulate, endure multiple cycles and hospitalizations to get the luxury of one week of pregnancy. Then you breeze into a marriage with an old unemployed man who smokes and has a heart condition, and neither of you seem to have a care for the world. Unemployed and pregnant? Let's go out and buy two puppies! I feel like, "why should you be the one to get pregnant, when I'm the responsible one here, planning for the future, and going so far as to take drastic medical intervention to achieve my goals? You couldn't have even afforded medical treatment! That baby should be mine!" But it's not. Deserve doesn't do anything here. Instead, after three years of trying, my hands and my body remain empty while you've built up an entirely different life, one that seems borrowed on someone else's dime, and left me behind in the dust.

If you had any doubts before, now you can certainly see why I can't send this letter to you. It's not very nice These aren't things I could tell to you directly without you becoming very angry and offended. I understand that. You are certainly not the first person to rush into having family, and most of the time, things still work out in the end. I also want to continue to have a relationship with you and with my soon-to-be nephew, and this wouldn't be the way to go about it. But my feelings are stubborn and run deep. I will see your son and congratulate you on him, but it's going to hurt. At first, I think all he will do is serve as a reminder of what I don't have. D and I will grit our teeth and bear it, but we might not come to visit as often as you would like. As he gets older, I expect that his role as a constant reminder of my infertility will lessen, and I'll no longer see him as the child I should have had, but as his own unique person. I can't tell you when this will happen. My feelings may continue to cause a lot of anguish or I could be surprised the other way. Maybe if I have my own biological children or adopt, it will ease the sting more quickly. Or maybe we'll never have children and I'll go into my role as a doting aunt, always with a little secret relief that I don't have to take care of any children of my own full-time.

Meanwhile, our relationship is going to feel awkward. I don't know you in the same way anymore, and you don't know me either. We can chat on the phone, or visit for a little while, but the comfort and the ease are gone. I don't feel comfortable discussing details of infertility treatment anymore because of what happened, and I have to swallow my urge to judge and disapprove. What good does it really do? Maybe you also feel uncertain about what topics are appropriate, and what are taboo, and feel defensive about dealing with my judgment. So our conversations have been a little cautious, polite, and superficial, but I think it's better to continue a stilted dialogue than to be silent. Don't push me to change how my losses have shaped me, and I will try to let go of my judgment and be happy for you. I don't think our relationship will be the same, but I think we can forge ahead on a new path.

Samantha

The Two Week Wait, Revisited

2008-04-20T17:20:00.002-04:00

It has been a rough and tumble six weeks since I last posted. I rediscovered some dark and unhappy areas of my personality, and have spent some time wrestling with those feelings. I thought maybe by not blogging, I would get a better handle on myself and my intense focus on my infertility, besides the fact that I've been busy and overwhelmed with work responsibilities and moving preparations. Instead, I just missed you all terribly and missed for myself the chance to get some of my thoughts out there, where I could analyze them with a little more distance. I don't know how much time I'll really have to continue to blog on a regular basis, but I can see that my blog is a part of me and what I need, so I don't see myself abandoning it. And I know you all wanted an update too.

A lot of things have happened in the past few weeks. Our house is almost ready for the market, minus two major fixes that need to take place. I've decided buying a house is more fun than selling, as this is my first experience selling a place. We've planned a trip to Chicago for May, and have a tentative moving date in early August. I turned in my resignation letter for the last day in July. I found a job in Chicago. I would like to say I'm excited about all of this, but I'm not: I'm sad. The depth of my sadness has been surprising to me. I went through a lot of days where I felt like the best thing about the day was waking up and it was all downhill from there. I'd like to say I've turned the corner, but I don't think it quite works that way. But I have started to have a few more days where things have made me laugh, made me excited, made me feel happy, so I'm starting to see how I can get through this, whereas earlier it seemed impossible. And I think I'll start to see how I can enjoy myself again too.

Meanwhile, in the IF front, I decided it was time to try again, this time with the folli.stim only low and slow protocol. I had to wait for forever and a day after taking pro.vera (well, 12 days after I finished the 10 day cycle, but it felt like forever) and had the yeast infection that wouldn't quit, but finally AF arrived. Sometimes I wonder if some of my depression was hormonal, because man did I feel better after AF arrived and I get the yeast infection taken care of! After 10 days of foll.istim at 50 ius, I had a lot of little follicles, but also one dominant follicle. So I triggered last Friday morning, and did the whole sex thing Friday night and Saturday night. So here I am in the tww again, just past ovulation, assuming that happened as it should. If my ovulation occurred some time during the night, I guess this is 1dpo. I still worry a little whether that really happened, since my temperature wasn't that high this morning, but I do tend to stress about these things.

It's been over two years since D and I had sex with the express purpose of getting me pregnant. It's definitely a lot more pleasant than have a team of medical experts intervene, but I have to say it didn't quite live up to the intimate experience I was hoping for. First, there was the pressure of the situation, and second, it involved a lot of wincing on my part. My E2 level after nine days of folli.stim was at an incredibly low 252, but them ovaries appear to be a little swollen and painful. I lay awake a good portion of last night, my ovaries aching, and my imagination running wild with various OHSS scenarios. Today, with my ovaries continuing to ache after a walk, but feeling not particularly bad overwise, I am less concerned than I was at 3:00 AM. Still, I'm drinking gat.orade and this horrible whey protein drink just to be safe. But hey, the protocol worked, and it's giving me another chance, so I do have that be happy about.

The Brittle Responder Strikes Again

2008-03-05T21:09:00.003-05:00

Nothing doing this cycle. I went in for my CD12 ultrasound and my lining was a measly 6.5, and all I had were little follicles (although lots and lots of them). My cycle is now officially canceled and I'm not really sure what the next steps will be. My zen has been rattled. Fucking ovaries. Pieces of crap. Somewhere out there there is some dose of medication that will work for me. Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, our hero the doctoral student has accepted the position in Chicago. This knowledge that we'll be moving has really jolted me from my complacency of my life. I really felt like last fall in particular I was just dragging myself through the motions, and not really enjoying things. My mind was focusing on the things I didn't have. Now that I know I'm going to move into a new situation and give up a lot of things I do have, I feel like I need to start living in my life more in the here and now, with what I've got. I really did feel more relaxed about trying again, but the non-response hurts. I'd like to say that the canceled cycle doesn't bother me, but it does. At the same time, I can see that I'm going through a transition, and part of that transition is letting go. Letting go of the pregnancy dream, letting go of having children that look like me, letting go of my expectations. This non-event of a cycle is only confirming that. I will probably try some other protocol, but at the same time I want to keep my distance, because it probably won't work either. Or maybe I'm just making this transition last forever.

For me, right now, this letting go means letting go of my blogging too. I have loved blogging, and everyone has been such a source of support for me, and I hope I have returned the favor for many of you going through your own private hells. I can wish that I could have been more engaged in the world last fall, but I was where I was, and the blogosphere was a lifesaver for me. Now, I think it has become a bit of a crutch for me, a place where I retreat to when I'm feeling bad, but instead of simply providing me solace, it's providing me with excuses not to move on with my life and engage with the world. I think it may have allowed to indulge in some fantasy thinking too, reading about pregnant bloggers and dreaming about how I might some day get to that state. Uh, Samantha, probably not going to happen.

D's new job and our move to Chicago not only is going to take a lot of time for me right now, but has provided me with a little jump start to get re-engaged. Obviously, from reading over this post, I still have issues, and lots of them. It feels weird to be actively taking a step back from the blogging world right after celebrating my first blogaversary and getting my own computer, and I just really hope that no one takes offense at what I think may be a needed leave of absence. I don't really know how long this leave might take or how frequently I'll post, but I don't want to leave anyone hanging. There could not be a more supportive community in the world. Take care and sleep warm.

New Attitude?

2008-02-27T21:56:00.002-05:00

Coming into this cycle, I was very nervous. I've been anxious and excited both, dreading and looking forward to starting new treatment. It's funny, now that I'm actually doing the cycle, I've been thinking about it so much less. It seems like with everything else that is going on in my life, my attempt to ovulate is just a little piece of a pie that's larger than I remembered. Having my brother here for a few days meant I had a little computer/blog break, and I really had a good time hanging out with him, and talking about non-IF related things. Somehow, even though I've reminded myself that IF does not rule my life, it was taking over. Focusing on starting a family, getting pregnant, lamenting my body's uncooperativeness had grown to become the most important thing in my life. I lived it, breathed it, thought about it all day long.

It's not that this weekend didn't have IF-related activities going on either. My period started. I went to the doctor for my baseline ultrasound. I started taking drugs. I got my shipment of ovi.drel through the mail. But it all felt routine, just things to do and take care of, not like the treatments and activities were ruling the day. I feel surprised and a bit relieved after all of the build-up. It's like I've arrived at what I expected would be momentous place, and am left to wonder: is that all? I feel like I turned some corner in my life outlook with IF. It grew and grew until it threatened to subsume me, but now I feel it shrinking a little.

Maybe it's been the whole experience with D being on the job market. Maybe it's that I've been focusing on a new organization in my job that could come with new responsibilities should we stay here (though that's looking rather unlikely). Maybe it was hanging out with my younger brother. Maybe it was taking the break from doctors and treatments. But I feel a little more at peace with the fact that I'm not pregnant, and probably will not be pregnant. I feel more cavalier about what the outcome of this cycle's going to be. I feel more detached from my body. Looking at yesterday's post, it was rather clinical and dry, sort like I'm more observing my body with mild interest, rather than fighting it. I feel like, if it works, it works, but if it doesn't, it will be okay too. There's other ways to build a family and I've got other things on my mind right now.

We'll see if my new attitude lasts should I reach a tww.

Holy Headache!

2008-02-26T22:07:00.002-05:00

I went in for my baseline ultrasound on Monday and everything looked right on for starting this cycle, so I began the let.rozole yesterday on CD3. I'm glad this drug has been side-effect free for some of you, and thanks for providing all of your success stories. For me, so far, I seem to have the headache from hell, so I am off to bed after this post. Has anyone else every taken let.rozole and had this side effect? Clo.mid did many things to me, but headaches weren't one of them.

Since Elizabeth asked about my testosterone levels, the elevated testosterone is my other PCOS symptom, besides, of course, that pesky anovulation. Dr. Thoughtful has described PCOS as existing on a spectrum, and I am on the "thin PCO" side: no weight gain, minimal strange body hair, just a little extra acne. Since my blood glucose levels were perfectly normal, there's no reason for me to take the met.formin, although I'm curious as to whether taking that drug might have lowered my testosterone level slightly, since it had come down from 100 to 71. So we took some more bloodwork, although I haven't gotten the results back yet. Dr. Thoughtful doubts they could be related, since Met.formin works to lower testosterone by regulating insulin, and since my insulin doesn't need regulating, it shouldn't have any effect on me. Still, we're checking it out.

Finally, one last interesting point, in this post where I ponder my body and hormones, I also asked Dr. Thoughtful about my full-fat dairy diet. Again, she thought that would be more helpful for women who had insulin resistance, because it would regulate their blood sugar levels. I did point out that I have actually lost a bit of weight on my diet, without really trying too hard, and she thought it might just be because fat is more satiating. For now, I'm sticking with the diet because I like my full-fat dairy for flavor, and I lost my pounds I put on last fall during the FET cycles. But will it help me ovulate? Probably not! You'd think in some ways it would be good to be on the spectrum of PCOS where I don't have many of the symptoms, but it also seems to make it harder to treat, as there's even less idea why exactly my body is the way it is.

The Protocol

2008-02-21T18:13:00.003-05:00

What a crazy day! Between the doctor's appointment, additional information on D's job search, working on my own job search (just got my first application out today), preparing from my brother's visit, and, oh yeah, trying to do my current job, I feel a little overwhelmed. So here is the skinny before I need to run off to rehearsal.

First, I got the results of all of my bloodwork. Great news: I passed my glucose test with flying colors (Dr. Thoughtful even said, "I don't think I could have numbers that good if I took the glucose test"). Other blood levels showed normal, normal, normal, except for a mildly elevated testoterone level, which we will be checking again. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I don't ovulate, no one would ever know I have PCOS. Well, still not ovulating, so we're on to try some ovulation induction.

Dr. Thoughtful offered us two protocols: one combined let.rozole with foll.istim, the other was foll.istim only (the low and slow dosing). Given that I've never tried let.rozole at all, and that the first protocol offered a lower chance of OHSS and a lower chance of multiples, we decided to give it a go. It also has a lower chance of working to cause me to ovulate at all, but that's the trade-off. If this doesn't work, then we can try again, with more foll.istim, or else more on to the next protocol. So I now officially name this cycle, Let.rozole #1, rather than low and slow.

After the appointment, my hopes have actually come down some for the cycle. This is about the most conservative path we could take, but I feel like it's best to start here and see whether I respond, because I'd rather find my dosing by slowly working it up, rather than hitting OHSS again. It was interesting that Dr. Thoughtful also said that if I produced too many follicles, on either approach, they would just cancel the cycle and not convert it to IVF. She said that the success rates for converted IVF cycles are usually poor. My first IVF cycle was a converted ovulation induction cycle, and no one told me that! Well, whatever happens, I have no regrets switching REs.

Meanwhile, the whole job/move thing is weighing heavy on my mind right now, but that's just less chance to stress about trying to get pregnant, right?

Naturally Speaking

2008-02-18T21:26:00.003-05:00

After my mother cautioned me to be prepared for my cycle not working, she seems to not be taking her own advice. We had another conversation about my appointment:

Mom: So have you heard anything from the doctor? Did you get your blood results?

Me: No, not yet. Since my appointment's Thursday, I guess I'll just find out then.

Mom: Well, I think it's really great that you're seeing this new doctor and you're trying this new approach.

Me: Well, I have hopes that it may work for me too.

Mom: I think it's better and you'll have a better chance of getting pregnant. It's just more natural.

Me (after some silence): Mom, people do IVF all the time, and it has a higher pregnancy success rate than ovulation induction.

Mom: But there are even more people who get pregnant the old-fashioned way.

Me: Those people also probably ovulate regularly every month. I don't. They get more than one chance.

Mom: Well, okay, I think it's less expensive.

I know what she was saying and to a certain extent I hope she's right: that a less invasive, less aggressive approach will give me a chance to stim without hyperstimming, thus my eggs will be better, my body more receptive to pregnancy. And why go through IVF if you don't have to? I don't know anyone who gets excited about having a big needle shoved multiple times up their vagina. But that term, natural, bothers me. It implies that IVF is unnatural, artificial and thus inferior to "the old fashioned way" or even a crime against nature. At best, it's like buying polyester instead of cotton, at worst, it's like Rosemary's Baby. It's just so close to offensive question some of you pregnant bloggers have gotten, "Is your baby natural?" As if we all don't already suffer from an inferiority complex for having to go through all of this when other women get pregnant without trying to. Besides the fact, as I tried to remind my mother, that IVF is not some sort of freakish medical treatment without standards. It exists for a reason. It works, at least sometimes. It might not have been the right thing for me, but that doesn't mean that ovulation induction is going to work any better.

While I'm thinking about this subject, as taboo as IVF can seem, having sex to try to have a baby has its own awkwardness. Even my mom's calling it "the old-fashioned way." It seems easier to say, "I can't do [fun or not-so-fun activity] because I'm having an egg retrieval, than to say, "I can't do that because I'm going to ovulating and I need to be home having sex with my husband." Maybe it's because the IVF procedure is so far removed from any resemblance to the "old fashioned way" that it becomes less embarrassing to talk about. There's only one person who gets to have an orgasm, and not under very sexy circumstances. Whereas with an ovulation induction cycle, although it's pretty far removed from romance to have a doctor stating the specific time sex should occur (probably 24 hours after a nice large shot in the butt), a man and woman are still going to end up getting naked together, presumably in a private place. Maybe I'm just pondering this more because I've never really done much trying "the old-fashioned way" myself, with the exception of one other cycle. Well, as my mom pointed out, it is cheaper.

On Moving

2008-02-16T12:05:00.004-05:00

First, I just need to confess: I am not a true Southern Belle. In fact, I grew up in Detroit, which is, shall we say, very un-Southern. So I know what winters are like, even if I haven't had to experience them in a few years, and frankly, Chicago weather is definitely worse than Detroit. But I am probably a Midwesterner at heart, and while every now and then D and I lapse into a bit of a piedmont-ese accent, and I like to throw around a good "y'all"--since it is a useful term for describing a group of people--it's not my native tongue.

I've lived in North Carolina for eight years, on and off. We came down here for grad school, and then left to go back to the Midwest upon graduating. I remember leaving North Carolina at that time, stopping to get a cup of coffee before the long drive north and west, and thinking, "I'll probably never see this place again." And when we moved back here a scant two years later, it was a move full of angst. D may have had a graduate school fellowship, but it was not exactly a full salary, and there we were going from two incomes to half an income in the midst of an economic downturn. I hated being unemployed, and felt a lot of pressure to do something about it. I ended up working in a couple of temp jobs to help bring in some money while I tried to find something in my field. After 5 months, I got a temp job in my field (with no benefits), which led to temp job with benefits, then to a permanent job, and eventually to my much-beloved position today. 5 months of not working in my field is really not so long, looking back on it, but it felt really long at the time, and I felt really discouraged. It was a hard move, and I hated doing it, but in the end, it's really helped my career, and I moved on to more interesting jobs and gathered more responsibility. I've also grown to love where I live, with its mix of small town and bigger city aspects, green trees, and highly educated people. I haven't learned to love the summers, but the winters more than make up for that.

So I have to remind myself that if we move to Chicago, it won't be like our last move. First of all, and this is a big plus: one of us will have a job. If I can't find a job for a while, it will be a financial hit, because even though D's a student, he's gotten increasingly good at gathering money for himself, so while we're not quite dual-income, we're close. Plus, six years later, we've built up more savings, so our financial situation is better. So I can look for a job, and not have to do lousy temp work just to earn some cash. It looks like it will be another economic downturn (just my luck), but Chicago is a big city with a lot of employment options, so there should be something there for me.

Second of all, I do have more work experience than I did six years ago. I have a fear, possibly with some basis in fact, but probably more imagined, that I am just a poor candidate. I know I worked hard to get to the position I'm in today, and it took a few years to feel like, "finally! This is a place I could work at for the rest of my life!" The work is interesting, the management culture is open and supportive, the pay is decent, and the job security is good. So it hurts to think about giving that up, because I don't know that I'll find that again. I feel like I must have had a lot of luck to hired in the first place, rather than thinking it was my skills and experience that got me the job. Other places won't give me the benefit of the doubt, and then I'll be stuck or moving backwards. As you move forward in a career, you tend to get more specialized, so while having more experience is helpful, it may not always be the right kind of experience. Now that I've worked extensively on my C.V., I can see that do have real experience and real contributions to the profession, so I do have things to offer. While I know that I am justified in feeling fearful, because I could end up moving backwards, it's not really the end of the world. I could find new things I'm interested in and be pleasantly surprised with a shift in career focus. People do change careers with regularity, and it works out. Being in a large city does afford me options, so while I might struggle in the beginning, I have more of chance of finding something I like.

Third, it was hard to move to North Carolina because I was moving farther away from family. We went from being able to see our parents with a weekend drive to only seeing them 3 or 4 times a year, having to plan plane flights or day-long driving trips. Frankly, parents are sometimes better in small doses, so it will be nice to have the option for more frequent shorter trips to see them. And I already have several sets of friends in Chicago, so it will be nice to be closer to them.

I can't deny that moving will be difficult, and I can't say I'm not jealous of D who gets to take his job of choice, but we're not exactly long distance couple material. I would say right now, our chance of moving somewhere is about 95% and chance that the somewhere will be Chicago is about 90%. Meanwhile, D is waiting on potential other offers, including seeing if he can find anything here. So I will need to chill and go with the flow. But don't worry, I'll keep my blog posted, whether you like it or not!

Jobs

2008-02-14T18:08:00.001-05:00

D just got a job offer in Chicago.

I don't know whether to say YAY! or FUCK!

Maybe both?

Exciting times, that's for sure.

Time to go update my C.V.

Preparedness

2008-02-13T22:14:00.003-05:00

I was talking to my mother about the new RE and my new treatment plan (at least what I know of it). I suppose my voice contained some excitement, because my mother asked me, "Are you prepared that it might not work?" In a fit of honesty, I answered, "No, I don't really know how to prepare for that." Can you go through a cycle and really be prepared for failure? Can others of you do this, but just not me?

I've thought about that some over the last few days, because, let's be honest here, this cycle may not work, in fact probably will not work. It's simply ovulation induction, which has a lower chance of success than IVF, and the protocol, which I don't even known yet, is untested on me. Intellectually, I can think through what the outcomes of this cycle might be:

I ovulate one or two eggs, get pregnant and carry successfully to term.
I ovulate, get pregnant, but have a miscarriage.
I ovulate, but don't get pregnant.
I ovulate, but despite precautions, get sick and swell up like a beach ball, and don't get pregnant.
I grow too few follicles and the cycle gets canceled.
I grow too many follicles and the cycle gets canceled.

There's a few more choices than that out there, but you catch the drift. There's really only one choice out there that's quite what I want, and while ovulating would be nice, it's not exactly the ultimate goal. Intellectually, I've thought about these possibilities, and am aware of their existence, but emotionally, it's all about possibility #1. If I'm going to subject myself to shots, bloodwork, ultrasounds, and take a drug that I know I've reacted to adversely in the past, I need my hope. It's hard to do all of that without imagining a successful outcome. I already feel like I have a lot invested in this cycle, and it's not even started, other than me starting to take pro.vera to induce a period. It's like a dive off a cliff where you can't quite see the water: you have to believe it there's and deep enough to handle your entry, or you wouldn't take the dive. I'm just not prepared for this cycle not to work, and I don't think I can be. But, come to think of it, I'm not really prepared for it work either! Just taking the plunge and hoping not to crash at the end.

Happy Blogaversary!

2008-02-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been one year since I first wrote this post. I had decided, after being a lurking reader for while, that if my FET cycle didn't work, I would start my own blog to chronicle my journey to create a larger family. I had a fear that I would start this blog and then instantly get pregnant (ha!). A lot has happened over the past year, but not that. What have I done?

I had one fresh IVF cycle in which they retrieved the equivalent of about 5 years worth of eggs, and the transfer was canceled due to OHSS.
I had two FET cycles, the second of which included the transfer from hell, which did not result in pregnancies.
I had one emergency abdominal laproscopy to remove an intestinal instruction of unknown origin because the hospital lost it, although I continue to harbor suspicions it may be related to IF treatment.
I attended two seminars on adoption.
I switched REs and am now starting back at a pre-IVF time.

I met and got support from so many of you out their, both in real life and in the blogosphere.

During this past year, I have also gotten a chance to meet (both virtually and IRL), get support, and provide support to so many wonderful people. All of the people listed on my blogroll, and more as well, have taken part in a sometimes wonderful and and sometimes heartbreaking journey. I thought about trying to single some of you out, but all of the comments and emails have meant so much, that it just got too difficult, so I'm taking the easy way out and thanking everyone.

It's funny, looking over the treatment in the past year, because it just doesn't sound like that much. One IVF cycle, and two FETs? Only three cycles? How can such a thing be all consuming? I think this is why I chose not to write a Christmas card this year. Sometime, I want to be able to look back at the last year, and say, "look where I was then, and look where I am now. What great progress!" But I can't say that this year. I've tried to get pregnant a few times and failed, and have now switched REs, but it's not exactly progress, it's a gamble. I've done a lot of thinking about adoption, but am not actively pursuing it at this time. I thought after this year, after my final FET cycle under my contract, I would be able look at last year and compare to this year and see a difference, either by being pregnancy, or by stopping treatment. Instead I'm choosing to continue treatment, albeit in a different vein. In my heart of hearts, this is what I want to do, even while it feels frustrating not to be moving forward and scary to consider more failure. But, as I remind myself, it is a choice. It is MY choice (or D's and my choice), so here's to hoping for progress for the coming year.

Maybe I'm Not Making Such Great Progress Afterall

2008-02-07T22:04:00.001-05:00

We've been trying to schedule a quartet concert over the summer, and I felt a little bad having to tell my quartet members that I might be moving, so scheduling could be problem. I encouraged us to do it in June, as it's pretty likely I'll still be here. The member who usually handles scheduling was being a little slow about it, so I apologized about it again, and told him early June would most certainly be okay, and I'd like to do a concert. Anyway I came to find out through an email, that in fact, the main problem was one of the other members of the quartet, the one who's my age and female, is pregnant and due right at the beginning of July.

There's been no shortage of friends, relatives, acquaintances, coworkers, doctors, or the wives of all of these people getting pregnant. I felt heartened by my "yeah, so?" attitude about my RE being pregnant, about my increased level of comfort with my SIL's pregnancy. So I wish I could say I reacted differently, but after emailing my congratulations, I skulked off into the bathroom at work to cry a little bit.

Now that I've had a bit of time to think about it, it has occurred to me why I reacted so rawly to the news. I don't feel animosity or even that much jealousy toward my quartet member, I just feel bad because her news reminded me of my unsuccessful past and I wasn't expecting that. Two summers ago I was the one who had to pull out of a concert opportunity because of my ill-fated IVF #2 and last spring I was the one who dictated our concert date around ill-fated IVF #3. Some people have miss things because they might give birth (which is normal), other people have to miss things because they're trying to get pregnant (which is weird). It would be nice to be in first camp for a change. Plus I feel even worse that my whole quartet knows I've been trying to get pregnant for years, since of course I had to tell them, but no one's about to acknowledge this fact, and they've never really asked me how I'm doing, although I suppose it's obvious treatment hasn't worked, given that I'm not pregnant. I don't like prying and having people say stupid things, but sometimes I wish people who know would just ask how I was doing it. I guess I'm not consistent about this either.

Oh well, what is it they say? One step forward, two steps back? No wait, is that two steps forward, one step back? Whatever.

What is a Loss, Anyway?

2008-02-06T17:55:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking about Mary Ellen and Steve a lot during the last few days. I originally wasn't going to write about this because, well, I wasn't a friend or even a cyber acquaintance of them until word started spreading about the danger to their triplets, and culminated in forced early labor and Mary Ellen being placed in a life-threatening situation. But you probably already know this if you read other people's blogs, because the news has been out there. Even though I didn't know her, and she doesn't know me, her story still affected me to the core, and I feel terribly sad for both of them for being in such a situation. I feel terribly sad that they lost three children. Still, to acknowledge this on my blog seemed a little like saying, "me too!" since I hadn't had a prior connection. But I've been thinking about it, more and more, encouraged by other postings, so I'm going to go out on a limb here with my thoughts in a sensitive area.

The wonderful thing about our IF blogosphere is that we all came and responded with heartfelt sympathy to Mary Ellen's position, and I think it's safe to say that we probably all felt a sense of loss at about a pregnancy lost so late in the game. We were all drawn to support her, not only because of the complicating factors of her health at risk and the fact that is was triplets, but I think also because this was a pregnancy that was fairly well progressed and supposed to be in the "safe" zone (if such a thing is possible with triplets). I realize I'm going out on a limb here, this probably has shades of the pain olympics, but I think we do sympathize with a late term pregnancy loss more than with a BFN, a chemical pregnancy, or an early miscarriage. Of the 1000+ entries on Mel's blog list, there were others at the same time experiencing a sad ending (you can tell by checking out older posts of Lost and Found Connections Abound). But we weren't all sending out notes and posts asking people to provide support. I'm not saying the blogosphore wasn't supporting other people, but the push of effort was concentrated on Mary Ellen.

I've never experienced any sort of pregnancy loss, let alone a second or third trimester pregnancy loss, except for a week-long chemical pregnancy. I have my mementos (or my shrine, if you prefer) of my embryos in picture frames of the 17 embryos that were transferred, as well sea shells to represent all of the ones who didn't make it that far. I frequently think about my infertility or the fact that I'm not pregnant, and I mourn my lost embryos, but I mourn them as an idea, as their potential to become unique individuals, and how they never achieved this potential. I don't look at those picture frames and mourn a specific embryo. Some people have named their embryos, I never have. I mourn what I don't have, not really what I had and then lost. To me, to have a child or children growing within me for twenty weeks would represent a fundamental shift in that potential. That growing life in me would cease to be an abstract, yet-to-be-achieved goal and become something more specific. It would grow into a unique individual, a son or daughter or both. I have thought about a recent post of Ann's where she discussing being surprised at how much she still mourns her son, despite being pregnant again. She lost her son at 20 weeks, and I was also very affected and saddened by that. To me, that is because her son was not an abstract idea of wanting to have children and failing, but a unique boy who can't be replaced. I know if I do ever get pregnant, I will still feel sadness with having to go through all of this infertility, and sadness for all of my lost opportunities. But that's what they were: opportunities and potential, not unique individuals.

My post has been further pushed on by Mel's post today about baby showers. Baby showers are an opportunity to prepare for a new life. They are usually done later in pregnancy because by then the fear and worry of a pregnancy ending has lessened, although, as Mel points out, some people believe any recognition of the pregnancy can be tempting fate. It's also a time to validate the pregnancy, stop worrying that it won't work out, and have a little celebration. Since ttc, I've managed successfully to avoid them, because I'm not really up for that celebration, but I don't begrudge anyone a shower. It would probably be horrible to have a shower and then lose the pregnancy, but I think it would be horrible to lose the pregnancy anyway, even without the shower. If you lost a late-term pregnancy, everyone (I would hope) would mourn with you, so why not give them a chance to celebrate with you as well? Life is short.

In the end, I'm no expert on this subject. I know my pain and I know my situation, and can speculate on how I might feel in such a situation, but I don't really know. I know I do hurt for Mary Ellen and Steve right now.

Tagged!

2008-02-04T21:22:00.000-05:00

Chicklet from Blurb This! tagged me for 6 things. Well, y'all probably know the rules, but here they are, and here I go:

1) Link to the person who tagged you (I did above).
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

I'm pretty lazy about getting my hair cut. I like to get it cut about every six months or so, and in between I have D trim my bangs. Even though I set part of my hair on fire a few weeks ago, I still haven't made an appointment to get it cut. I figure you can't really tell.
I've been fairly behind the technological curve in terms of my own electronic devices. Finally got a cell phone about a year and half ago, just got an mp3 player this fall, and this weekend we finally set up a wireless network in our house. Now that I have wireless, it's so nice! How did I live without it?
I like driving stick-shift cars. The first car I drove was my mother's 1981 VW Rabbit. I actually taught D how to drive them on my father's old Escort, and he's been hooked ever since.
I get really tense watching sports if its a team I care about. I like having something else to do during a game that can distract me, at least a little bit. Sometimes listening on the radio is good that way because I can do chores while listening and take out my anxiety cleaning something.
I was reminded by Chicklet's story of scaring her husband about the time I brought home a gong after orchestra rehearsal (a colleague wanted it for a workshop). Now this wasn't exactly a huge gong--it was about the size of a dinner plate, but if you struck with the side of your hand just right, it made quite a sound. So I crept in the house after rehearsal, snuck up the stairs, and looked in the bedroom to see D lying on the bed with the cat, reading. I gave the gong a good whack and he gave a good shriek, in fact his reaction was quite a bit stronger than even I expected. Little did I know that he was reading a horror novel at the time I crept up on him. Still makes me laugh.
To show you how D is nicer person than I am, I'll tell you about the most memorable surprise he ever gave me. He and a friend of ours planned a surprise wedding shower for me (an unconventional role for the groom). They planned it around our graduation from grad school, and he even got some friends of mine from New York to fly in for the party. The only surprise party of my life, and I was totally surprised, and wouldn't have it any other way.

Okay, well there you have it. I now tag Mrs. Spock, Cece, and Ann.

More on Second Opinions

2008-02-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about my latest post, and maybe I wasn't that fair to my first RE, and probably even prejudiced all of you with the name Dr. Fast (even though I do think it fits). The new RE, Dr. Thoughtful, had a lot more information at her disposal to help her consider what course of action I should take. There wasn't really any way that Dr. Fast could have predicted that I would get OHSS from my first timed intercourse cycle, and he did take steps to provide extra suppression for future cycles. I do feel disappointed with my third IVF cycle, where my pattern of response was already established, that he really didn't change his philosophy of treatment, which was "this usually works, let's keep our fingers crossed." I think that In Search of Morning Sickness (who just lost her kitty, so could use a kind word) had it right in that Dr. Fast and the clinic had their protocol and way of doing things and if you fit it, you had a great chance for success, but if not, there wasn't a lot of wiggle room. I was just on this treadmill of treatment, and I didn't really feel like I could diverge, but had to keep running forward.

Friday Dr. Thoughtful called (and how cool is that--having the RE call you!) and I talked to her a little more about if there were any other reasons why I might not have gotten pregnant, any other tests to do. She didn't really think so, and suggested that my "exuberant response" might have created lining problems and embryo quality problems (something that Bea has suspected from herself from her earlier cycle). Not all my bloodwork has come back yet, but so far, she said it looks good, and progesterone level has even fallen from 100 in Nov. 2005 to 71. So perhaps the met.formin was doing something good after all. I'll be taking a glucose test Wednesday to find out (and from what I can tell from all you pregnant ladies, it will be tons of fun to drink that stuff). So I went ahead and scheduled a follow-up in three weeks, and then I hope to move forward with the cycle.

A little more about the protocol, which appears to be rather uncommon since none of you are too familiar with it, I'm not going to do another IVF cycle. In some ways I'm getting my wish and starting over by going back to timed se.x. D and I have discussed doing more IVF cycles, and we're both pretty against it at this point. I feel like I could be persuaded (probably too easily), but D is pretty strong about not wanting to do that again. Given that I've gotten OHSS three times, and twice on a dose of 100 units of folli.stim, it doesn't seem to take much to push me over the edge. So this low and slow protocol starts out with a 25 unit dose, basically to just get my ovaries used to the idea, before pushing them to grow any follies. Then it should result in only one or two dominant follicles being produced, instead of a whole village of them. So no need for IVF, and lower E2 levels. I don't really know the whole story yet, since I'll go over protocols in my appointment in three weeks, but Dr. Thoughtful did tell me that I could start taking pro.vera to time it so my cycle would start right after that appointment. I can't even begin to tell you how both excited and freaked out I am by that!

Finally, and this is kind of ironic: Dr. Thoughtful appears to be pregnant. What is funny about this situation is that I didn't even notice, but after the appointment, D said to me, "So do you think she's pregnant? I'd guess she's about 4-5 months along." I just had no idea. And then my friend who goes to clinic2 confirmed it. Normally, I notice pregnant women everywhere, whether I want to or not, so I thought it was kind of funny that I was oblivious to this fact. I guess I was just really focused on getting my information! Interesting, it doesn't bother too much either, other than that she'll probably be out for maternity leave at some point. Maybe I'm continuing to make progress in that area.

Second Opinions, New Ideas

2008-01-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

"I don't like to have my patients get sick and have to go to the hospital," the RE whom I saw today told D and I. It's an interesting statement and one that I think tells a lot about the difference between my original RE, and the woman at Clinic2, whom I'll call Dr. Thoughtful. Really, what doctor wants to see their patient get sick and go to the hospital? Of course, there are certainly treatments for conditions where the treatment can cause people to feel pretty bad (chemotherapy comes to mind). But this was such a refreshing change from, "We'd just have to stimulate you and hope for the best," which is about what my original RE, whom I'll call Dr. Fast, recommended in our last consultation in November. I want to get pregnant, that is of course the reason why I'm getting treatment. But I also don't want to end up with a life-threatening condition in the hospital. Dr. Fast didn't seem to consider that as being very important.

To update any new readers on the state of my reproductive treatment, I had been seeing Dr. Fast for about two years after being diagnosed with PCOS. Clomid cycles that did nothing but make me see psychedelic images quickly switched to injectible gonadotropins, and then quickly to IVF, when my second injectibles cycle was converted to IVF due to high response (the first cycle landed me in the hospital with OHSS). From there, I signed on for the 3 cycle warranty program, and it was IVF all the way. I've thought a lot about that decision to sign up to the warranty program. Given that my IVF cycles and subsequent FETs didn't work, it certainly has saved us a lot of money. We basically got three IVF cycles and 4 FET cycles for about $2,000 plus the cost of drugs (and I don't have insurance coverage). That's certainly great (not that it worked, of course). On the other hand, I got stuck on this path of high response, high stakes cycles that didn't work and instead landed me in the hospital and took up a year and half of physical and mental energy. Dr. Fast was aggressive and he pushed me hard and my ovaries responded with wild abandon. Maybe his protocols works for some people, but they didn't seem to be working for me. If I had decided to have only paid for a single IVF cycle, or if I had simply canceled the injectibles stimulation, would I have gone for a second opinion then? D and I had told ourselves that if the 3 cycle situation didn't work, we wouldn't pursue further treatment, and here I am thinking about pursuing other treatment.

I had decided that getting a second opinion for things would be good: if there really wasn't a lot of other options besides what I'd already done, then I would feel more certain in the decision to stop treatment. When D and I had our last consultation with Dr. Fast, we came up with a list of few options to pursue. After some thinking, I had decided that maybe doing a fe.mera cycle alone would be an appropriate thing to try. Then my cousin offered to be an egg donor, and I thought maybe that would be the thing to do (although the expense was a whole lot more). So it's fascinating to me to learn that suddenly I now have a new option in treatment protocols.

First, let me say, Clinic2 rocks in few key ways:

They took me on time (admittedly I was at 8:00 AM)
Dr. Thoughtful spent practically an hour and half reviewing our history and discussing options.
Dr. Thoughtful actually listened to our suggestions and responded. Dr. Fast had never been exactly rude, but he has always had kind of breezy attitude about appointments, just float in and out quick. Having a little space and time to ask questions was really refreshing.
Clinic2 is only a twenty minute drive from my house.

In reviewing my incomplete records and having me fill in the details, Dr. Thoughtful noticed that I went from timed intercourse to IVF in a big hurry. She also noticed that I'm a little light on the diagnostic details. As a first step before determining other treatment, she suggested running some more blood tests, to see if I'm glucose intolerant, and to test my levels of DHEAS and 17-hydroxyprogesterone, which I've never had done before. She also wondered if there wouldn't be other ways to get me to ovulate without leading to OHSS. She suggested we try a different protocol, which I wasn't familiar with, which I'll basically call the "low and slow" approach. Rather than starting with standard dose of FSH to stimulate the ovaries (which admittedly for me has only been around 100 ius), you start with a really low level, like 25 ius of foll.istim. The low dose of FSH primes the ovaries to get used to FSH, so they don't decide to produce a crazy number of follicles, and instead end up producing only a couple of big ones. The "slow" part comes in in that the stim portion of the cycle takes about 20 days or even more before ovulation. So I wonder if any of you fellow PCOSers/high responders have had any experience with a cycle like this? Or with any of the blood tests? Also interesting is that she suggested I didn't have to take met.formin unless the glocose test showed a problem. I've just been taking the stuff for over two years now, so it feels a little weird to stop, but if it's not working, why do it? I suppose if I show intolerance, then I may start again, but otherwise, I'm done with it.

After our really long consult, I went and gave a prodigious amount of blood (and even embarrassingly got faint somewhere around vial number 5 of 6). Now I'm waiting for the blood results I did today, and will do the glucose test after I've been off met.formin for a week. Then Dr. Thoughtful will provide us with some suggested protocols. I feel really happy with the consult. I kind of got all of the answers I wanted to here: there are other more conservative options that might help me get pregnant, I don't have to move on to surgery or donor eggs if I don't want to do more IVF. I have a fridge full of foll.istim and I can put it to use! On the other hand, I feel a little guilty for feeling excited, I know D feels more ready to move on with things, whereas I'm still interested in doing more treatment, and sometimes I worry that I will just always be interested in doing more treatment as long as there's a doctor interested in treating me. Then I also feel a little guilty that I didn't try looking into these things earlier, that I got myself stuck on the previous path to heartbreak. But hindsight is always 20/20. So I may be trying to cycle again as early as next month.

Off the List

2008-01-28T21:16:00.000-05:00

Several of my big activities of the month are now completed:

I've done all my travel for the month. D is in the midst of his travels, so we're still a little wild there.
I played my big concert yesterday. We ended up with a good audience and it was really fun, despite being a little freaked out about the music. Still, it's very satisfying to play a tough piece of music and play it well.
I just had the homeowners' association annual meeting and it went okay. I didn't realize that it was making me nervous, but I do have a big sense of relief to have that over with.

I feel a little more comfortable about D's job search. As you all reminded me, we're in a fairly common situation for couples. I think for me, I need to be heard out on occasion, and D sometimes gets very defensive about his job search, then we both get angry. He has a rough next week with three trips in a week starting on Thursday, so the best thing for us to do right now is talk about this in small doses. It's hard when there is one big unresolved issue--infertility--and then there is another big unresolved issue--jobs--that gets put on top of it.

I think I'm also feel a little nervous about tomorrow's appointment with Clinic2. It's been over two months since I've had an appointment with any doctor at all, and that's been a while for me. Not that I haven't had other things to occupy my time. My medical records finally arrived, and my usual clinic managed to disappoint me once again: the records, although I had requested EVERYTHING, were incomplete. Now I don't know if this is the clinic's fault or the medical record copying company's fault, but they seemed to be mainly just a listing of lab results and ultrasound visits. There was nothing about my drug dosages in there, the dates of retrievals and transfers, and only for the last IVF cycle was there really any mention of IVF at all. I suppose I should call the clinic to complain, and I had planned on doing that today, but I'm just tired of dealing with them, plus I have work to do, you know? Basically I already have everything in my records and more, albeit in a less official form. Clinic2's just going to have to deal with what I've got so far.

Going through the records put me in a bad mood, not only because they were incomplete. It just made me feel depressed to go through the whole series, watch my estrogen levels rise and rise, see the full CBCs each time I hyperstimulated, and be reminded of the week-long chemical pregnancy. It looks like a very sorry track record and makes me wonder what exactly I am hoping to accomplish with Clinic2 anyway. I feel like I do have some good questions to ask them and information I want to gather, especially in light of my cousin's offer to be an egg donor. I wish that I could approach this visit with a clean slate, that I could view it as starting over, but it's not quite like that. Instead, I'm going into with 151 pages of incomplete medical records documenting two years of unsuccessful treatments with an RE (not even getting into the year of unsuccessful trying and treatments not with an RE). It makes me want to rewind the clock on that time period so I didn't have to carry it with me, but it's now part of me and my history. Like I've told D about his job search, I need to go into this appointment without believing that on its own it will lead to a clear path for the future or provide closure for the past. It's simply a way to continue the conversation to help me figure that out and is best to be considered in small doses over time. It's hard to take your own advice sometimes.

Jobs

2008-01-23T21:15:00.000-05:00

D is on the first of four job interview trips. His job search has turned out to be difficult for the two of us to deal with. D is naturally feeling nervous/excited about the prospect of graduating and becoming a professor. It all feels a little unreal , after all of his years as a student, for him to finally be done and moving on. He is also of course focused on the process, which involves a lot of time and energy from him (not that I don't feel like I'm luxuriating in free time, but I'm still not the one to have to do the interviews). I'm having a harder time of it than I thought I would. I feel like this is now an area where other people, like my husband, are moving forward, while I end up standing still or moving backward. For D, a new faculty position means a new job, the beginning of a career. For me, it means losing my job. It's weighing more strongly on me now as I get involved in projects that will be ongoing through the year, and I start to think that it's likely I won't be here to see them to completion. I want for him to do well, to get multiple offers, to find the job of his dreams. But I also don't really want to move. I like my job, my house, my town, my bike commute to work. I know if I move, I'll probably find a new position, like the new area, and find good things there (we could be closer to family, have a bigger city to live in), but I'm having trouble focusing on the positives right now.

D and I had some difficult discussions about this. He wants the issue to be resolved, for me to be happy with all aspects of whatever possibilities lie my way. Sometimes I feel when I argue with him about things like this, my opinion fails to count. D relies on this sense of being the person with the logical argument, why his job is more important than mine, why moving makes more sense than staying, and I feel my arguments crumble to dust. Not even just my arguments, but I get to feeling like my feelings don't matter. What I want fails to matter. We moved here for him to go to school, and we knew at the time we would end up moving, so I just need to accept that and be happy about it. I knew all along it was temporary, and when we move again, I'd better keep the idea of temporary in mind again, because to move up, people move around. Of course, if you're not in control of the moving around, you may not really move up in your career. The whole thing just has this air of inevitability to it, which makes me feel small and unimportant. If I were thrilled to be moving, we'd probably be moving, and if I were apprehensive about moving, which I am, we'd probably be moving, and if I hated the idea, we'd still probably be moving.

I'm exaggerating this situation in my mind. I know that D values my feelings and my happiness. D is uncomfortable with having things unsettled, and this is the sort of topic we could talk about on and off all day, and not reach a resolution, or agree on feelings, but he pushes to reach that point and then I yell at him. I wish there were an easy way for the two of us agree on what the best thing is to do with his job search. We can't both have what we want, which for me is to stay in my job and for D is to find an academic position (there aren't any openings here). We both know we want to stay together (I don't see trying the long distance thing either). In fact, I think we probably do agree that we should move where ever he finds the best fit for himself in a position. I just wish that I could feel more comfortable with the decision, and not be feeling like I'm just left holding the short end of the stick. Or I guess at the least have D being willing just to accept that I feel that way. I'd be willing to bet that once we move, I'll never be able to bike to work again. I feel jealous that I can't have control over my career path, while D is doing a national search. Still, I want him to do well on the job interview. There just isn't anything straightforward about this.

Vignettes from the Visit

2008-01-21T14:52:00.000-05:00

I have to say this trip went a lot of better than what I was expecting. I went into it knowing what was going on with my SIL R and her husband London, and managed to deal with the whole pregnancy situation better than I had been. I knew it would be a topic of conversation and if I were pregnant, I'd probably want to be talking about it as well. Other than smoking like a chimney and making a few inappropriate remarks, London was well-enough behaved. And the whole family drama between R and the Aunt never came to pass. D and I had a rather tough conversation about his whole job search and my reticence about having to move and start over with a new job yet again. We reached no conclusions, but I felt better for having spoken about it. Below are some of the more interesting moments.

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On Friday after celebrating Grandma1's 90th birthday D and I were finishing the clean-up of the dining room table. We were packing up the remains of the birthday cake and I was leaning over the box to check to see if we should refrigerate the cake. Suddenly I smelled an acrid smell and D shouted, "Sam, you're hair is on fire!" I jerked my head up to see flames in my hair, ignited from the candles on the table. Fortunately, with a few well-placed claps of his hands, D put it out before too much damage was done. I need a haircut anyway, and now I have a good incentive to get it done quickly, but man, does that stink!

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When I travel to New York, I become my alter-persona: jigsaw puzzle-master extraordinaire. My jigsaw puzzle prowess is unmatched by any of the other grandchildren. If they happen to get piece in place here and that, Grandma1 simply says, "Sam's talents must be rubbing off on you." It's good to have a specialty.

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Naturally the topic of pregnancy came up, particularly with Grandma2, who enjoys discussing, aka quizzing people on the state of their health and their body and their future plans. She was delighted to discuss things with R, from her diet to what kind of diapers she was going to use. D has recommended against telling her about our infertility because of her intense quizzing nature and interest, so she doesn't know about my situation. He worried that she would then be calling us all the time to find out what was going on, and want to know intimate medical details. However, we thought she might press us about our plans for children, especially since D's the older grandchildren, and I was considering perhaps it was time to simply say we'd like to have children but it was proving to be difficult and we didn't really want to discuss things further. D offered to say that we wanted to have children but it was hard since he didn't have a pe.nis, and that such a statement would provide a good conversation stopper as well. While I'm sure he was right, as it turned out, she didn't end up asking, so we didn't end up saying anything.

So I sat through many a pregnancy-related question and answer session, and most of the time it really wasn't too bad. I just kept quiet and tried to watch basketball. The only time it really bothered me was when the discussion turned to feeling big and uncomfortable at the end of pregnancy. London decided to bring up a story of some "crazy lady" who did fertility treatments and ended up carrying sextuplets and got so big that "after she gave birth, she had to use a girdle to hold her skin together" (there was no basketball game even at that time to keep me out of this).

The end of the night, we were driving back to the motel room, and London said to me, "Grandma2 doesn't know about your 'birth' problem, does she?" I told him no. "I think you should probably tell her, it's putting R in a really awkward situation." I'm glad London is starting to show sensitivity toward others.

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London is a picky eater. No, really London is a bizarre eater. If it has color other than white or some shade of brown, he won't eat it. On Saturday night, we went out and he ordered an entire large pizza for himself, with five types of meats and mushrooms as toppings. That's a little more meat than the rest of us like on our pizza. The pizza arrived, and he then ate half of it, but picked off all of the mushrooms. Grandma2 was perplexed. "Didn't you order that pizza by yourself?" she asked. "Well," London replied, "they're not cooked enough and they left the skins on." Have you ever skinned a mushroom before? I haven't. The next day for lunch, Grandma2's boyfriend asked if he was wanted the leftover pizza and said, "I was up last night skinning the mushrooms for you!"

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Another odd thing about London's eating habits is that he has a hearty breakfast, and then eats nothing until dinner. No lunch, no snacks. I think this may have been tough on Grandma1, who sees feeding us as an expression of her love. Perhaps that's why she was more insistent on making us eat a large lunch. After devouring various leftovers and birthday cake, she put some fruit on the table and kept insisting that we have a little more. R declined, "I'm full Grandma." Grandma1 replied, "It doesn't matter if you're full, you can still eat it. It's just fruit. It's a nosh." R had nothing to say to that.

Three Things

2008-01-17T23:36:00.001-05:00

First of all, y'all are too nice to me. I was just reading my last post, and it just wasn't all that pretty. I think it does not live up to my New Year's resolution of handling my challenges with grace and poise. Reading my post again, I would say I need to get over myself with my SIL R's pregnancy, and maybe you felt that way too, but were too polite to say so. Other people have gotten pregnant who I know, and I am genuinely happy for them, even if a little jealous of the ones who had little difficulty. Practically half of the entire Ph.D. program in D's department is either pregnant or has had a baby during the time that D's been here, and currently you can even throw in a pregnant member of his committee. I manage, I deal, so I'm not sure why R's situation continues to bother me. I'm going to be an aunt to this boy, and that's an important relationship, so it's time for me to move on from my jealousy her coming motherhood and disapproval of her situation. I may never love her husband London, but he's in the family, so I'll deal with it. After all, she's dealing with me. I think I've written something like this before, but I seem to need a reminder.

Second, I got my computer. Yay! It actually arrived a couple weeks earlier than I was expecting it. So far, all I've had time to do is make sure it has all the parts and turns on, since I'm leaving early tomorrow. So I'll have to play around with it next week. It's been a long time since I've had a computer, and I've come to rely on D to manage the computer maintenance, like updating programs, defragging, and backing up files. I guess I'll have to figure that out for myself now. I want to also say thanks to a friend and fellow Stirrup Queen who has loaned me a computer while I was waiting.

Third, I started spotting again. Not so yay. So, once again, after my blissful blood-free week, the spotting starts on CD18. I suppose I could look on the bright side and say my body is getting some consistency, but this isn't quite the consistency I wanted.

Well, I need to go to bed so I can get up early for the plane flight tomorrow. Good night, all.

So, I have issues

2008-01-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

It's funny to think how last December I felt so sad and frustrated and uncertain about whether taking a break from treatment was the right thing to be doing. Now, between all the stuff happening, there's really no way we could have done much in the way of treatment anyway. I ended up having to postpone my second opinion appointment to the end of the month because the medical record saga continued. While I learned that my records have been scanned over a week ago, I have yet to receive them. I called the record company and they basically said it takes 10 business days from the time they copy them until the time I'll get them. My clinic had originally told me 10 business days total. So my appointment, originally for tomorrow, is now at the very end of the month, although fortunately on a day D is in town. The damn records better be here by then! I do know that it is 151 pages long and I've already paid the nearly $50 for the privilege of getting my own records. Clinic2's going to have a lot of information to absorb. I'll probably need a week just to read them myself.

Now I'm gearing up for this trip to NY to see D's relatives, leaving on Friday morning. I was secretly hoping my SIL would get sick so I wouldn't have to see her and her husband at all, but she seems to be feeling better and is set to travel too. I know, not very nice of me, I didn't want her to be really sick, just not feeling quite well enough to travel. I feel guilty about this, because my SIL has tried to be considerate of things, and here I am being the difficult one. I walk this fine line of the tear-free life, and most anything related to fertility good (like my cousin's offer to donate eggs) or bad (like the fact my SIL is pregnant) can push me off. Plus I have a good deal of snark that can be hard to suppress. I got cc'd on a email of my SIL's to another relative in NY, as she was trying to see if we would get to see him while visiting. The email also included the line:

"I doubt that you've heard the news yet--it's a boy!"

I, of course, have heard the news, and didn't really feel like being reminded of it. I'm thinking maybe I need to start adding the news to my email:

"I doubt that you've heard the news yet--I'm not pregnant!"

But I guess that just doesn't have the same surprise and joyous quality to it, though it would be sort of nice for some shock value in the short run. Well, I admit, as you can see, I'm still struggling with the whole situation.

A Gift

2008-01-15T22:22:00.000-05:00

While I was in Philadelphia, I had the most amazing conversation with my cousin. First some background: my extended family is pretty small. My dad has three brothers, two of whom are married and have children, so I have three first cousins altogether and one step-cousin in my generation (no first cousins in my generation on my mom's side). My cousin K and I have seen each other on and off throughout the years, although we never have really lived in the same city, so we weren't best buddies, but we enjoyed getting together. She is eight years younger than I am. Her mother died of cancer the same year, really only months, after my brother committed suicide, and I think having experienced a loss growing up has bonded us together. She ended up coming to college in North Carolina, so at least we were in the same state then, and I got to see her usually every few months or so. She stayed here for a little while after college, but then she lost her job and got a boyfriend, so she moved to Philadelphia. She's now 24.

We met at the art museum and ended up having a three-hour emotionally charged lunch, in which my cousin basically paid the admission fee, but then had no time to even see the museum because she had to get to work. Somewhere after my first IVF cycle, I told her about the infertility treatments and she was very easy to talk to, never judged me, and simply provided a sympathetic ear. She knew that we were running out of cycles, but I hadn't seen her since the final FET cycle, and hadn't actually told her that the FET last fall had failed and we had no more embryos. I've had a hard time telling people about it, even those that know we're doing treatments. I hate to say we reached the end and failed. Logically I know it's not my fault, but I have this feeling of responsibility and the topic can make people uncomfortable, as I've often written about.

Somewhere in the process of telling her things, as I said, "and it was our last cycle, and we've run out of chances," the tears came, rather unexpectedly too. I was trying to be light and complaining about my SIL's pregnancy and the bad timing there, but obviously the sting of it hasn't faded. So I dried my tears, and we talked a little about what possibilities for building a family might exist.

"Have you considered using donor eggs? Would they help you?" she asked me. I told her where we were at with donor eggs: they could help, given my wonky hormones, I hadn't ruled them out, but wasn't really exploring that path right now.

"I could donate eggs to you," she told. I was pretty shocked and immediately told her she wouldn't want to do that. "Well, why not?" she asked and I went into the details of the whole stimulation and retrieval process, which, as we all know, isn't much fun. But as we talked, it became clear that this wasn't something she had thought of on the spur of the moment, it was an idea that had been percolating with her for some time, since I had told her before the third IVF that I was beginning to fear the whole IVF thing might not work. And even more amazing was her whole attitude about it. She really felt like a family member, it was the most natural thing to offer in the world, and the thought of giant needles sticking her ovaries didn't phase her.

Just writing about this now brings more tears to my ears, and I told her then that it was incredibly generous, and I was deeply touched by such as selfless and heartfelt offer. Beyond the logistical issues of working with someone out-of-state, and the financial issues of doing another cycle, and emotional issues in case this cycle doesn't work, what could such a donation mean for our relationship if it does work? We talked some more about the long term implications of such a thing. Would it be uncomfortable if she donated her eggs, and then never had any children herself? Would it bring us closer together? What sort of special relationship would she have with my children? We both agreed to think about it, as has D.

I really don't know what do with it yet, although I don't feel a particular rush, given all of the other things going on just now. But no matter what, I feel so touched, like some bitter part in my heart has just been exposed and made to feel a little better. I never would have thought about asking her to be a donor and certainly never imagined that she would offer it herself. As I think about, I realize that I'm holding a precious gift in my hand, one offered in love and in familial ties, and I feel incredibly lucky to have that.

Busy

2008-01-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

If my posting goes down a bit this month, don't be alarmed. My January is turning out to be rather full, including:

I'm going to conference on Friday, where I'm also presenting. There's something not so great about having a conference this close to after Christmas, as I decided last weekend, when I had to spend the time writing my presentation.
D and I have the family trip to NY for grandmother the following weekend, AKA, Trip of Family Drama. Fortunately, it appears that my SIL and the Aunt are at least on speaking terms again, so maybe that will go a little more smoothly.
I'm playing a big concert the following week, with music that is kicking my ass. I play a lot of weird music, but some of these pieces take the cake. Any piece named "Ball.istic Etude: Pan.ic!" you know is going to be bad news (the title could be considered instructions for the players). The range of notes of this piece goes higher than I've ever seen before for bass clarinet.
I'm hosting the HOA annual meeting, since, lucky me, I'm the president of the Board. Unfortunately I don't see myself getting out of the position for the following year, but I'm trying to recruit some help. I called my neighbor who used to be on the Board and did a good job to see if he'd be willing again. He told me he didn't really want to. "Of course you don't want to," I told him, "but will you?" I got a maybe.
I'm guest-lecturing in a class at the beginning of February. I have no clear idea of what I'm going to talk about yet, and am also supposed to get some readings together for the students. Since I haven't done anything like this before, I have some work to do. Those of you who are teachers all the time, I have great respect for you!
And while all of this is going on, D now has three job interviews at the end of January to the beginning of February. Plus other schools are making noises about contacting him. D is excited, but nervous. And when D gets nervous, he needs to talk about things--a lot. So while I won't be going on these interviews myself, I will be spending more time with the household chores and then reviewing things with D, which is good thing, since this does affect my future a lot too.

So you won't hear from me this weekend, and if I post less frequently, the above is why. Just writing all of that is making me stress out a bit!

Hope with an update

2008-01-09T07:44:00.000-05:00

First, I'd just like to say thanks for all of your words of support from my last post. Talking about my brother isn't something I do on a regular basis, and it's one of those things I feel hesitant to bring up in a significant way, because talk of suicide tends to make people feel very uncomfortable, as well as on occasion evoking strong feelings of disapproval. As it is something that happened a long time ago now, it's not something that weighs me down on a daily basis anymore. At the same time, my brother's life and death is a part of me and my history, and continues to shape how I feel and react to things today. I appreciated your honesty in your comments, even while I was saddened that so many others of you have also had to deal with this issue.

In the area of looking back retrospectively at life's experiences, there is a recent article about one woman's experiences with infertility in the NYT. This has been linked to on several blogs, but if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. It's short, beautifully written, and so many of the author's points resonate with me. The author reflects on their small but aging collection of baby materials, stuffed into the closet, the need for snarky and sarcastic humor in the face of friends' pregnancies, and the tough reality that after pouring so much energy and resources into trying to have a baby, she and her husband "have nothing to show for it."

What particularly struck me, after thinking about this article for a while, was the author's thoughts on hope. She writes:

It’s time for us to move on, I know. But how do you move on when every month brings a new cycle of hope? When your first reaction to a new period is to add ovulation predictors to your Target shopping list? When you can’t stop yourself from feeling a corrosive bitterness toward every family parading by with the babies they seem to have come by so easily?
Conventional wisdom tells us that hope is a good thing. Hope is what gets us through difficulty. But over these years I’ve come to realize that hope is sometimes slow torture. When hope keeps you anxious and bitter and stuck in some fantasy of the perfect nuclear family, then maybe hope isn’t what you need anymore. Maybe the most hopeful action one could take would be to abandon hope altogether.
Turns out I’m not alone in thinking this. When The New York Times Magazine recently published its list of the most innovative ideas of 2007, I got some satisfaction out of the inclusion of a study claiming that in certain cases hope can be an obstacle to emotional recovery.

She continues to say that rather than channeling their unspent love toward additional treatments that may not work, she and her husband are now in the process of adopting. I wondered, when reading these paragraphs, is that me? Am I continuing to hope against reality that a second opinion, a tweaking of treatment, or whole milk will get me pregnant? Am I letting myself get overly hopeful about the fact that it looks like my period has actually ended without drug intervention? This, after all, is not something most people really have to think about, regardless of whether they're ttc or not.

After the transfer for my third IVF cycle was canceled due to OHSS, I lost a lot of my hope, and found it really devastating. Over the summer, I regained some hope about the FET cycles working, but then they didn't work and it was devastating all over again. Yet I am still here pondering how I might get pregnant. I really don't see it as much of a chance, but I know there is a part of me rooting for it, hoping for it, or else I would have just started BCP and ended treatment officially. Is it time for me to abandon hope all together for pregnancy? I had no idea just how hard this situation would feel, despite thinking about it practically the whole last year. Maybe I'm like the author, who writes, "We don’t know how to stop hoping for a biological child." Yet she is moving forward, so I suppose I'll be able to at some point in time too.

**Update**
Here's the NYT Magazine article, referenced above, about how hope can be counter productive, as additional food for thought. Read that article and try to replace "colostomy" with "infertility" and see what you think, particularly when reading the last paragraph. (Okay, so I'm not really saying those two conditions are completely comparable, but I do believe the point can be applied here.)

One final note: I have wondered why it is that the first article is in the "Fashion and Style" section. I'm pleased that a reputable newspaper has printed such a thoughtful article, but is it really a fashion article. I know it's not news or current events, but still...

Christmas Trees in the Middle of the Night

2008-01-05T21:11:00.000-05:00

On January 5, 1991, my older brother died. He shot himself. He was 18 years old. I was only 15 at the time, and in some ways my memories right around then are pretty scattered. I remember returning to school with new boots and a new skirt following New Year's Day and feeling pretty pleased with myself. Things must have been hectic at that time period, because we hadn't taken down the Christmas tree (normally we took it down on New Year's Day). We were going to take it down that weekend. My brother B and I were also going to go to the pet supply store on Saturday to pick up some more cat food and litter. Instead, on Saturday morning, a police officer showed up at the door while I was still in bed. I didn't hear exactly what he said, but I knew the news wasn't good. Some time later in the next few days, perhaps even that night, I couldn't sleep and went down stairs and took down the whole Christmas tree by myself--all of the ornaments, the lights, and then the tree itself, which was artificial--and lugged it into the basement. My family would never be the same.

There are many things about me that B never got to learn about. He didn't complete college, he didn't ever get married, have a career, or even move out of my parents' house. These are all things that I've done, milestones in my own life he never gave himself the opportunity to experience. I never got to have an adult relationship with him, where we could compare home repair issues, complain about work problems, or discuss our parents. D only got to meet him a few times. My younger brother was barely 4 years old at the time, and has almost no memories of his own about B. Any time someone dies young, it is painful, when you consider that person's potential has been abruptly cut short. A suicide also leaves those left with guilt over not being able to prevent it, and anger at the person at that person for doing such a thing. It's easy to think about "what if's" and "if only's"--even when it makes little sense to do so. B had a history of depression and had been in serious treatment for a period of time, after two previous attempts, although at the time he died, he really seemed to be getting better, with many things improving in his life. I sometimes wonder, if only he could have grown up a little more, would he have felt well enough to continue living? Would he have gained the perspective to understand how terrible and final his decision was? Was there some clue out there I missed that would have stopped his actions? As a teenager, it's so easy to fall into a pit of despair, and not to see an end in sight. And also not to realize the number of people around you who love you. I know because I went there myself after B died.

The first year after he died was the hardest for me, but I was able to leave my own dark place. Even though I've been alive longer without him than with him, it's something that's always there. I don't necessarily even think of him on this day each year anymore, but the reality of his death tends to weight on my mind this time, lurking in my subconscious, so I like to acknowledge it, if I notice myself feeling snappish or unhappy. I wrote a few weeks ago about time passing, and how I knew the pain of infertility would diminish in its strength and power and I would sometime look back at this period in my life and be able to acknowledge the loss without feeling overwhelmed by it. Most of the time that is now how I feel about B's death. But the hurt never goes away, really, so I like to give it its due on occasion.

Second Opinions

2008-01-03T18:21:00.000-05:00

Well, one good night's sleep later, and I am able to at least gain some poise, if not quite grace. Clinic2 called me back today and apologized for problems with their voicemail, and I've got the appointment moved to January 17, which, fingers crossed, should be enough time for my records to be ready. I've faxed over my request for records and there's nothing more to do there.

D and I talked some about our next steps on the car ride to Michigan. Fortunately, we both seem to be on the same page or very close to it. Of the medical options that my RE presented to me, trying the fe.mera seems simple and low-risk enough, that I know if I don't do it, I'll always wonder if it would have worked. If there's any other ladies out there who got no response from clo.mid but did respond to fe.mera, let me know! At the same, I recognize that the chance of fe.mera allowing me to ovulate, let alone leading to pregnancy, is low. It's a strange step back from the high stakes IVF cycles I've gotten used to thinking about, but I think we're through with those (I'll never say never, but I will say highly unlikely). Fe.mera may not amount to much, but I know if I don't try, I'll wonder about it, especially since it seems simple enough to test it out, at least physically. Emotionally, that's another story, but I'm going to take the risk.

D and I also talked some more about adoption, and plan to continue to gather information about going that route. I'm interested in finding out more about domestic adoption, since we've only attended information sessions on international adoption. I don't know how much agencies would be willing to work with us given that we're still considering medical options for pregnancy, and I don't know how much we can really accomplish given that D's job and our location is in transition, but I feel like there's just an entire world of information out there that I know so little about, so simply spending some time learning would be good. It would also take the pressure off any fe.mera cycle to keep myself aware of other options available.

I decided prior to doing any new treatment I wanted to get a second medical opinion about things because I do have a moment here where not much is going on, where I'm no longer tied to my current clinic. And I'm really not in a huge hurry (as I remind myself of this). I don't really expect Clinic2 to tell me much different, but just like with fe.mera, I'd feel remiss not checking that out. Plus there are some things about my clinic I don't like that well, so maybe interpersonal relations would be better somewhere else, or maybe I'll decide it's not worth it. Frankly, my clinic is about a 45 minute drive from home, and Clinic2 is closer. Not a medical reason, just one that indicates my fatigue with the whole thing. But if I don't really pursue much more treatment the location is a moot point anyway. My RE, when we last talked with him, started recommending clinics all up and down the east coast that I should consider for a second opinion over Clinic2, because they, to paraphrase him, have better success rates. Yet I get the feeling that he and his doctor buddies run in the same circle, and so probably offer similar methods for treatment, and frankly, I've been turned off by the aggressive nature of my treatment at my current clinic. It hasn't given me any children, just given me multiple hospital stays. Clinic2 is more conservative, and knowing that I'm no longer willing to just shoot up with foll.istim and hope for the best in terms of OHSS, I'd like to hear a more conservative point of view. I think I could also be using this visit as a way to help justify to myself my decision to stop, if Clinic2 can't come up with any other treatment plans.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to try to have only whole fat dairy products in the diet, although this seems rather counter my desire to lose the pounds I gained last fall. However, I've made a few adjustments so hopefully my total calories is not greater. Whether or not it's doing anything about ovulation remains to be seen. I finished my course of pro.vera, so of course am on another period, which damn well better end in a reasonable time! On the bright side, truth be told, whole milk yogurt tastes pretty darn good! Plus my skin seems to be less dry with the extra fat in my diet, which is nice in the winter.

New Year's Resolution

2008-01-02T17:46:00.000-05:00

As some people have been discussing New Year's resolutions, I have been thinking about it. There are some straightforward things I'd like to do: lose the pounds I gained last fall, continue to cut down my water usage--straightforward, though not necessarily simple, and actually things I was already working on, so not necessarily tied to the New Year. I have decided that my main resolution for this year is going to be psychological. On New Year's Eve, D and I and a couple we're friends with went out to a celebration where there was a "resolution tree." You could write your resolution on a green strip of some sort of plastic material, and then tie it onto a branch of a metal tree. So I wrote my resolution:

Handle life's challenges with grace and poise

I don't have a lot of control over what might befall me this year, although I do expect a lot of changes: D getting job, probably moving, me having to get a job, determining our next steps in family building. But I can control at least how I react to it, and I have recently tended to react to most things that don't go my way with anger and bitterness. I would like to describe myself as in control of my emotions, taking steps to improve my future, while at the same time accepting that which is out of my control. I would like people to say, "hey, no matter what, Samantha really has it together and makes the best of her situation." Right now, I feel more like a raving mad woman, or else I feel just down. I am not really sure how to achieve my resolution, but I would like to get there. In fact, just on January 2, I have had my resolution tested twice.

First off, I really want to get my own computer. I have been using D's for my home use for some time now, and I finally decided I would get one. We've been discussing this since well before August, and then continuing to discuss it more seriously after August, and D remains implacably logical, pointing out that I have my work computer available to me after hours, that we may be moving and he'll get a new computer so I could get his computer as a hand-me-down, that prices are always falling, etc. At any rate, as D points out, not buying a computer now will save us $2,000 and I mostly want a computer for personal, not work reasons. I hate arguing with D's logic because it's completely unflappable. Saying I want a new computer just because I want one, can win no arguments. It will always be cheaper for me not to have one, and no matter how many reasons why I might want a computer, I don't need one. I have now stopped arguing with logic and just said I wanted it, end of story. So, I'm buying a computer. Except that now the deal I am planning on using means my computer will not be available until February. I would like to say that I am handling this with grace and poise, and that one more month or so of not having a computer is not a big deal, but in reality I am angry and frustrated.

Second problem: I decided to try to book a second opinion with Clinic2. The whole background of finally deciding to get the second opinion and what exactly I'm going to do with it needs a post of its own, so I'll get into that later. Amazingly, they had an opening next Monday morning! But, I need to get a copy of my medical records over to them for the appointment. At my clinic, they only send out those requests once a week, which is Wednesday morning. I called Wednesday mid-morning, but it doesn't really matter, since it's really about a two-week turn around. Plus, it goes through some company who does the copying, and charges $0.25 a page! Given the thickness of my file, I would not be surprised if it costs me well over $100 for my own freakin' records. So I called Clinic2 back to try to reschedule for toward the end of this month, and was unable to reach anyone. As requested I left them a detailed message, but did they call me back? Naturally, they did not. I do not have grace and poise; instead I am both annoyed at Clinic2 for not calling back, and annoyed at my clinic for the difficulty I'm having getting my records. I'm annoyed at myself, because I asked about getting records when I was last there in November, and they blew me off, telling me to just wait and see what I wanted, but I should have just set things up right then to get the damn records.

Frustration levels are definitely running high today. Not the most auspicious start to my new year.

The Family Drama Continues

2007-12-31T14:00:00.000-05:00

I am still trying to catch up on blog reading from my trip. Like many people out there, I would be mortified if my family found out about my blog, as I have said some things that might have hurt their feelings. D's computer couldn't connect to my folks' wireless (for undiscoverable reasons), so I didn't want to read blogs on my parents' computer--just in case. And now that we are back from seeing lots of family, a new drama has unfolded. So I'll write about it, and just continue to rely on my family's and D's family's lack of knowledge of IF blogs.

We are traveling to NY to visit D's grandmothers and celebrate one of his grandmother's 90th birthdays. These visits can be tense, as I've mentioned before, because D's grandmother's like to fight over who's seeing what when and where, but not everyone gets to have a 90th birthday and I had to miss the last trip to NY because of my emergency surgery, so we made the plans. However, I can see the power struggle over who's getting together with whom and under what circumstances that I experienced over Christmas is going to continue here.

Weirdness #1: D's parents decided not to travel for Grandma's actual birthday, but to arrive later in the weekend, so they in fact won't be overlapping with any other family members coming for this event.

Weirdness #2: D's Aunt has been the ringmaster for organizing the reunion, but then has been curiously uninterested in our plans other than to say that they are have organized a dinner for Friday evening and we are welcome to come.

Well, anyway, my SIL R and London wanted to come, but are short on funds, so they organized their travel plans to coincide with ours so we could rent a car together, although Grandma is basically helping both of us fund the whole trip. Naturally then R and London planned to join the dinner party Friday night (Grandma is big on family get-togethers and loves having everyone around at once). So then Aunt emails D and R stating that while they were planning on treating Grandma to dinner, now that the number of people has grown, she wants to just split the bill three ways: between R, D and herself (the three couples who are involved in the dinner). R, as you know from yesterday, can't really afford the trip as is, so recommended splitting the food bill three ways, but not participating in the bar tab, given that she can't drink (Aunt and Uncle have been known to imbibe a few, which she not-so-subtly implied). Aunt then responded calling R "small," complains of London's prior expensive eating habits, and cancelled the dinner. All of this of course happened over email, and D and I are the silently cc'd participants. So effectively, four couples are traveling out to NY for Grandma birthday, but one of them won't be arriving until everyone else has left. And the three who are there at the same time won't be able to go out to eat together. WTF!

I didn't really know what the deal is, but London has been known to rub folks the wrong way (including me), and Aunt has also been known to like to be in control and not be that accommodating. So I called as an outside family member and D and I offered to pay London and R's portion of the meal as our anniversary gift to them, assuming we manage to go out to dinner at all. Aunt basically said she and Uncle dislike London, disapprove of the way R and London dug themselves into a financial hole, and will not make any plans with them. Somehow, this trip and these plans have ended up digging into some sort of deep family power struggle. Gotta love the in-laws.

This is not for a few more weeks, so I will enjoy my in-law free time between now and that weekend. Happy New Year, everyone!