stepping down

Well, it was a short run, and good while it lasted, but it's over now. I resigned my post as co-cl ("community leader," kind of like a moderator without any mod priviledges) of my message board.

I'm tired. I can't seem to shake this funk, and I need a break. And I can't take a break if I'm supposedly a leader. So then I'm stressed, and feeling like I've let people down, and really, who needs that? It's supposed to be a good thing, a place for support and recharging.

I figured I'd have the support of "my" gals on the board. What I didn't count on was the kudos for being strong enough to do what I needed to for myself. I feel weak, and selfish, and ready to break down and cry, and they're saying that I'm an inspiration, a good example of how to be strong enough to take care of Me. I feel like a fraud. I feel like saying, "Can't you see I'm a woman broken down by this? Can't you see that I don't think I'm going to make it on my own, I need professional help, and I hate everything about myself right now?" (And since some of them read this blog, I guess I just said it, but somehow that's different than posting it on a message board.)

The truth is, I don't want to be strong, and I don't want to be an inspiration. I want to be a mom.

Ever watch Scrubs? Bear with me here, this is tied in. There's an episode where JD is turning 30, and he finds an old list of things he wanted to do before he was 30. And on that list was "Finish a Triathalon." So he hears there's one the next day, and decides to jump in. No training, no preparation, no idea really what he's getting into. But he sticks with it, noting that it doesn't matter how long it takes him to finish the race, as long as he finishes. So he's running the last leg as the other Triathelets are off to roast a celebratory pig. And just before he gets to the finish line, he collapses. He can't move any further. He is spent, and doesn't have any strength left in him. His friend Elliot comes along, and decides he has to finish this race, so she picks him up and carries him piggy-back across the finish line.

So. Anyone wanna give me a piggy-back ride?

*sigh*

The only good thing I can take from this TTC journey, at least from this side of it, is this - maybe, hopefully, my story will help someone else. Much as I hate that I've become one of the seasoned experts on the board, I am glad that others can benefit from what I've been through.

upset stomach ≠ pregnancy (I hope)

My coworker, G, has had an upset stomach for about three days now. She can't keep a thing down, she says she's been up all night the past couple of nights, throwing up. She even took a pregnancy test, because it reminds her of when she had morning sickness. Which scares her, because her son is only seven months old – she has no desire to go through that again so soon.

I didn't say anything when she told me that she took the test. But today she told me that even though the test was negative, her husband has been teasing her, "It's just too early to tell! You're pregnant, I just know it!"

She knows of my TTC journey, it's a tiny little office and I chose to tell her about my difficult time so that she could be sensitive about it as she went through her own pregnancy last year. And for the most part, she has been. She cried with me when my IUI didn't work, she was excited for me when I told her my surgeries had been approved.

I may have been out of line, but I told her that if it turns out that she is indeed pregnant again, I will probably have to leave for the rest of the day when she tells me. "I hope you won't take it personally, but I just want to let you know that I will most likely cry and then leave. Or leave, and cry at home. I'll be happy for you, really I will, but I hope you can understand if it hits me hard, since we've been trying since before you got pregnant last year."

She immediately felt awful. "Oh my gosh, I shouldn't have even brought it up!" I told her it really was okay, I just wanted to give her a heads up in case she is, in fact, pregnant. I don't want her to feel like she can't share with me, I just wanted to let her know what my reaction would mean, before she told me and I reacted and hurt her feelings.

"Was I mean about it?" She said I wasn't. I hope I wasn't. She also probably saw that I was almost in tears just thinking about it, seeing as how her desk is about three feet from mine. She understood what I was trying to say, even if I was abrupt about it.

Truth of the matter, she has always had a sensitive stomach. And she suffers from acid reflux, as do I, and neither of us eat like we should to minimize that. She has her new prescription today, and is feeling better. So I seriously doubt that it's a little bean inside making her sick. Most likely it was the combination of coffee, caesar salad, and Coldstone sundae that did her in.

my insurance kicks ass

I got a call from my RE's office this morning. He had told me that it was rare for insurance to cover both procedures, but he asked for both authorizations so I could get them both done at once, instead of the hysteroscopy now and then the lap later if I need it. Given my family history of endo (my grandmother and my sister), both the RE and I thought it would make sense just to take a look-see and make sure there's nothing else screwy going on inside. He also said that it was rare for insurance to cover the surgeries under the RE, that I may have to go to a gyn to get them done. That would mean more waiting.

But the insurance came through, on all counts. So I am scheduled for both a hysteroscopy and a laparoscopy for the first week of June. The hysteroscopy is to remove the polyps, and the lap is to make sure that everything else is as it should be down there.

I'll have to miss a few days of work, but I'll be back at the beginning of the next week. And I'll be good to start trying again next month.

Which is good, because the following month is the start of Year Three of TTC.

I never thought I'd ever be strong enough to have to go through two years of infertility. Now I'm going to be starting my third year, and who knows how much longer the tunnel stretches ahead of me. I can't see the light at the end yet, but I know it's there. What I don't know is if it's obscured because it's so far off, or if it's just right around a bend.

Four Year Anniversary

Yesterday was my anniversary. Four years – it seems like such a short time, and it also feels like forever. I love my husband beyond words, and have such a deep appreciation for him. Yesterday I sent him flowers for the first time, and he loved it. All week I've been looking forward to getting flowers of my own, but then never came at work. I was so sad, and was trying to figure out what was going on all the way home. But when I got there, DH had cleaned up our living room to create a staging area to put one dozen red roses where I'd see them when I first walked in. It was so sweet! We kept it low key, just had dinner at Souplantation, since we had our big tada last weekend with a night at the Grand Californian and dinner at Downtown Disney. I am so happy to be married to this man. I love marriage, and I love my marriage to him.

Now the week is almost over. I'm a bit glad, but not really looking forward to the weekend. I don't have a lot of things that I need to do (beyond the cleaning and a few errands), which means I'll have a lot of time to sit with my thoughts and feelings. I don't know that I want to do that.

I'm seriously considering going back into therapy. This anxiety thing is no fun. And I do take an anti-depressant, which helps with the anxiety. It's actually to prevent migraines, and works wonders for that as well. But when I was given the choice of an anti-depressant or a med used for epilepsy (I'm interested as to why they both work with migraines), I figured why not kill two birds with one stone. And for the most part, it's been working great. On the migraines AND on the anxiety. But this has been a rough week.

One bad week is not enough to send me to therapy. I want to wait and see if scheduling the surgery to remove my polyps will help me – see if it's the waiting and the having to skip yet one more cycle that's putting me in a funk. But I also want to do something about it before I get used to feeling this way, used to the nervous, worried feeling I've been carrying around with me all week. It's so easy to get used to that feeling, and then to forget that it's not who I am. I know that some REs will require their patients to see therapists while undergoing treatment, because let's face it – this infertility thing is pretty hard to deal with.

I was supposed to hear from the RE's office by now whether or not I got my authorization. I'll have to call them on Monday.

long way to happy

This is a rough week for me, emotionally speaking. There's nothing really going on to make it any worse than any other week. But I feel it. I want to crawl into a hole and sleep for a year.

I am filled with anger. I am so angry with my previous doctor, the one who cost me six months. I am angry that I didn't listen sooner to those who told me to move on to an RE. I am angry at all the other ob/gyns who hurt me, so that I felt comfortable enough to stay with this one just because she hurt me less. I am angry that I have to wait another month for my surgery, which isn't even scheduled yet, and then another month to start trying again. I am angry that people keep telling me that everything happens for a reason.

Strangely, I am not angry with God. I'm actually talking to Him again. Mostly, though, I'm pleading on the behalf of others. I can't quite bring myself to pray for myself - what if I do and the answer is still No? I'd rather not ask. He knows the desire of my heart. Besides, there are enough people praying for me. It's too hard for me to have faith for myself right now, but I can have faith for others.

I am also filled with sadness. The kind that makes me not want to do anything, talk to anyone, move at all. I don't want to cook dinner, clean the bathroom, clean the family room - even though I've been telling myself for weeks that I need to do these things. I've copped out on cooking dinner for the past several weeks now, doing cheater meals like Mac and Cheese, taco salad, spaghetti and sauce from a jar. When I'm feeling good I can whip up a great meal - chicken stuffed with feta and spinach, london broil marinated overnight in baslamic vinegar and onions, pork chops with home made applesauce. Not so much lately, though. I want to spend as little time as possible actually making food. And nothing tastes right anyway, nothing tempts me. Except that package of donuts I bought when I went shopping hungry...

Come to think of it, I feel a lot like I felt when I was taking the Clomid - sad, angry, weepy, moody... Maybe it comes with the ovulation, and I'm just not used to it? Or maybe I'm just looking for excuses for why I feel this way.

I wonder if I should step down as cl of the message board. I feel like I have nothing to give right now. Honestly, the only thing that keeps me going back there are the emails and messages I get from ladies telling me they're thinking of me. I originally started our Elfing program so that ladies could send support to each other (it's kind of like a Secret Sister exchange), and I never assigned myself to anyone since I was putting it together. But I've been receiving several cards a week, sometimes with little gifts, and it's been such a blessing. I keep them in my Fertility Notebook, so that I can look at them if I want to.

Anyway, here I am. Sad, angry, weepy. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. How much longer will I have to wait? My heart hurts to think of it.

bad week

I have that feeling. The "it's going to be a long, hard week" feeling. I don't know why, but I've been blue all day. Kind of weepy, even. I got a parking ticket, and it made me cry. Usually I just brush them off, no big deal, it's just a parking ticket, right? This time, it reduced me to tears.

I hope I'm wrong, I hope this week gets better. Not that it's really been bad. I think Mother's Day took more out of me than I thought it would. I spent most of yesterday in bed, just because I could. Today I feel weary.

I don't want to wait a full 'nother month to get my surgery over with, to get back to starting TTC again. I'm tired of waiting. I feel like the past six months have been a waste of time.

I filled out the paperwork to file a complaint against my previous doctor. Tomorrow I will fax it to the CA Medical Board, and find out who to send it to at the two insurance companies that covered me under her care. She can't give me back my lost six months. Hopefully she won't be able to take time like this away from someone else.

The ONLY good thing I can take from any of this IF crap is this - hopefully my journey and my experiences will be of help to someone else, even just one person out there. If I can help one person, it helps me a little bit more. It doesn't make any of this okay, but it helps.

Blogging from Word 2007

I've heard that I can blog from MS Word 2007. So I'm testing it out to see if it works.

Anywho – things aren't changing quite like I thought they were. I guess it's good that some things are staying the same. My job, for example. I've been much happier since a certain someone doesn't work there anymore, and it amazes me how quickly the days are flying by.

I thought I was doing pretty well. I was "on a break," just going about my business as if TTC hadn't already marred my life. But with the arrival of yet another cycle a few days ago, and having had time to think about it and consider the implications, I have come to realize that I am not as okay as I'd like to be.

I am tired of waiting. I am sick to death of it. But I have no choice. I meet with a doctor on Friday to discuss when I will have surgery to remove polyps from my uterus – polyps that could be preventing me from becoming pregnant, polyps that could cause me to lose a baby if I were in fact able to conceive. I have no idea what else my doctor sees in my future, any other surgeries or procedures, but I'm going to ask him to do them all at once. This piecemeal stuff is bullshit. Put me under, cut me up, let me come home and heal so I can actually have a chance at this.

During the week it's not so bad. I keep busy, working and cooking and pretending to clean. This past weekend, however, I never even took my laptop out of my case, and I spent the majority of my time doing nothing. Which can be very nice from time to time, but it also gives me time to just sit and think, process, feel. And I don't like what I'm feeling right now. Pain, frustration, sorrow.

Mother's Day doesn't help any. Why oh why am I agreeing to go to Disneyland on Saturday? What possessed me to think that was a good idea?! Disneyland is literally crawling with families, and I'm going there with mine, on a weekend that celebrates motherhood. Seriously, what the hell am I thinking?

*sigh*

Next week is my wedding anniversary. Four years. We're getting a room at the California Grand Hotel at Disneyland, the big beautiful Arts and Crafts style hotel right there on what DH fondly refers to as Disneywalk. It will be nice to "get away," albeit not far nor for very long. I wish we could plan a more extravagant celebration, but with DH in school it just isn't feasible at this time. I'm just glad we can take a night to enjoy each other, celebrate our years together. And once he graduates, I'm planning a much longer vacation.

Okay, it's nearing bedtime and I can tell my thoughts are rambling at this point. Let's see if Word 2207 can actually, successfully post my blog entry.