April 7, 2013

The Time In Between

I've received so many entertaining spam "comments" from my last post! I guess the title of "Meas.urements" will bring the spam bots out of the woodwork.

In the time between that post and now I had failed mock cycles in February and March. Life went on but I was stuck waiting and cursing my body and the situation in which I find myself. I did a lot of thinking but obviously not a lot of blogging. There's only so much I can write about being sad and disappointed. And frustrated. And angry.

This mock cycle was successfully executed and the result? An actual fet date on the calendar. Finally. I'll be leaving in about a week and a half to go and claim the two frozen embryos from my failed fresh donor cycle. As always, the prospect of travel is thrilling, but I don't really have any hope this cycle will yield any different result than any of the others.

I've started to plan a life quite different than the one I had dreamed of my entire life. I may do some teaching abroad eventually but in an attempt to repair some deep wounds and find the person I used to be, I expect I'll do some extended travel in 2014. I see no point of continuing the rat race lifestyle of the American corporate cube-dweller I've been living if I'll never get to take part in the American dream.









January 29, 2013

Measurements

This fet cycle is eleventy billion times more stressful than the fresh donor cycle. At my scan appointment last week my RE measured my lining at 3.1 and said she felt I could move right into the fet cycle. I was giddy with relief as she wrote out my treatment schedule and as I left the front desk after making my next scan appointment I thought about what I had to do at home and work to prepare for an fet in late February. As usual I relayed the appointment results to my American consultant along with a picture of my newly slim uterus.

The CZ RE was not as impressed and rejected the plan. This has happened before and it's beyond frustrating. I don't want to pick apart the clinic at this point because as a patient I feel I owe it, and the doctor there, some loyalty. I made this choice and have to abide by this RE's treatment plan. And so I will.

However, the delay, the new plan, the new timeline, the different med regime, it has all just chipped away a little bit more of my sanity, my (illusion of) control and my hope that this emotional pain and this physical "abnormality", for lack of a better word, will always be a part of my life.

The new plan has an fet around the third week of March. I can't help but feel any chance of a 2013 baby is slipping away. I hate that I think that way because the goal of this whole blasted thing is not on the same plane as a date or an age or a financial sum, logically thinking that is. I've long since lost much of my logical thinking skills and pretty much function on pure emotion now. I hope it's due to the meds and is not the 'new me'.





January 16, 2013

October 6, 2012

That was the date of my last post. I haven't been able to come back to my blog since then. I've considered deleting it altogether but my stubborn streak that always likes to finish things has prevented that from happening. I have to finish this at The End and not the next to the last chapter.

Due to holiday clinic closures in both countries I did not have the fet in December as I had hoped. It wouldn't have worked anyway as lining problems plague me still. Too thick. I've done two rounds of a drug called Ay.gestin but it had no impact. I'm now on a very low progesterone bcp but if history teaches me anything, my next scan will show little improvement. Too much progesterone, too little progesterone. Both logical approaches to thinning the lining out. Unless it's mine and knows no other growth pattern than DefCom 4.

My emotional state has been dark. I am approaching 43, have been at this since 2009 and am approaching the point where my shattered bits blow away. I never ever thought I would not be a mother. The concept I have of my self, the core of my being and my reason for being a part of humanity has always had motherhood as a central component. I cannot fathom moving forward with what is quite plainly, a totally new identity.

I watched a PBS show a month or so ago that explored the meaning of human happiness. One of the scientists found that once the expectation or hope for something has been removed, the human brain "accepts" this new altered reality and the brain can search for and latch on to another concept that allows for happiness. Watching this show ironically brought me the exact opposite of happiness but the science and facts presented made logical sense.

I wish I could turn off my brain and disconnect my heart. I'd gladly live out the rest of my life working and contributing to society. I'd be a good citizen, I'd pay my taxes and I'd recycle and compost. To live out the rest of my life never having what most have, what some take for granted or don't appreciate, to be the embarrassment of the family, the one to be pitied and to know that I tried so very hard yet failed time and time again? I just don't think I can do it.