No, not this kind (with all due respect to Dolly, I happen to like her very much).
We're talking double donor here.
It's been rolling around in my head for several months and I suppose I've gone through all of the "normal" stages that someone at this point of ttc-ing goes through. Disbelief, anger, denial, fear, shock then right back around to disbelief. How did I get here?
I suppose it doesn't matter at this point. I'm here.
I still have an IVF consult next week but I seriously doubt the good doctor is going to peer over his spectacles and give me and my decrepit eggs the same odds of success that donor eggs would get.
I want to be a mother. It's as basic as that.
"Find out who you are and do it on purpose." ~ Dolly Parton
Today's NaBloPoMo prompt made me think of the boxes upon boxes of photographs I have stuffed into bookcases, albums, bins and drawers around my apartment. These photos are reminders of all the old film-based cameras I had many years ago. For the last several years all my photos have been stored in digital files. I've always meant to scan the other photos but never have. Now I am reminded that I need to do this to gain the space and to keep the photos safe.
As a whole my photos are reminders of family, friends, trips, projects, jobs, activities and experiences that have made up my life. Although I do not look at them that often, I am sure I would be upset if I lost them.
This blog on the other hand, represents a part of my life that number one, I never thought I would experience and two, didn't begin until I reached a very dark place. It's brought me much comfort, community and reflection but I would not be as heartbroken if I lost it, rather than my photos.
Honestly, the only way this blog would become as valuable to me as my photos is if I am fortunate enough to bring home a baby. I think chronicling this journey is something I would want to eventually share with my child.
Now I suppose I should make a plan to get those photos scanned and uploaded!
I happened to glance at my desk calendar today and realized this time last year I was pregnant and somewhat hopeful.
I sit here now a different person, not just because of that experience, but others that followed and the aftermath of surviving it all. I am beginning to feel stronger, to feel that perhaps my life is going to move forward, that perhaps I do have something to move forward to.
But then I remember the time of year and I shrink in fear. All my life this time of year, Mach/April-ish has brought with it upheaval and crisis. This time also happens to be my birthday time so I often do not remember my birthdays but the events that overshadowed my birthday. Last year was my miscarriage and mother's death. I don't remember my 10th birthday, but I do remember it was the day my great grandmother died. The next year my birthday was the date of my maternal grandmother's funeral. Parents' divorce, mother's revelation I had two siblings I never knew about, moving schools, several other family deaths, and many other events, none of which were happy...all happened within these two months.
Now at almost 42 I've come to expect it and I'm scared shitless.
What else can the Universe throw my way? Should I consider last year the pinnacle of all that could have gone wrong and did?
Experience tells me I am nuts to feel positive and hopeful that I will make it to May unscathed. Part of me, the clinical, logical part that loves to dissect and assess, is loving this, sitting back and waiting to see exactly what will happen.
In a previous post I suggested I might have shot my foot off by telling my supervisor that I was not willing to work outside of my current job description and towards a promotion that was not on the horizon (I have been on this "work the job you want" plan for almost two years!).
Yesterday the director of my department let me know she was heavily advocating for my promotion and "changes were coming" although she could not make an offer yet. She also gave me this beautiful tulip plant and the card which read, "Singular Desire, Sometimes it's nice to know you are appreciated - I do appreciate you! Warmly, Boss Lady".
In a nutshell the powers that be are proposing to make changes to the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM) to amend the diagnosis of mental illness after loss. Currently the timeline is two months of "allowable grief time" before clinical depression is diagnosed. If this amendment is approved the "allowable grief time" will be TWO WEEKS.
Two weeks of grief and bereavement is apparently all the time one needs. After that, if you haven't snapped out of it you're mentally ill, clinically depressed and most likely in desperate need of meds. Ok, I admit it, the last one was a swipe a Big Pharma. Sorry.
Shocking! I had no idea that my grief was on such a tight schedule! Imagine what I could have been doing in the third week after my miscarriage and my mother's death. I could have been at Disneyland (or heavily medicated, which I suppose isn't a bad thing when one visits Disneyland).
Loribeth's post is linked to Dr. Joan's blog, who provides an in depth look at the implications of such a change. In her words, "This change occurs against a historical DSM backdrop of salient criticism relative to themedicalizationof normal human emotion, clinical hubris, cultural incompetence and insensitivity, and ethical misuse of suchnosological systems."
Loss is hard enough to bear. Are we now to be forced adhere to a timeline, and if we don't do so, bury it deeply so we won't be seen as mentally ill?
My trip last fall was the best of my life. I went with my bestie since the fourth grade and we spent a week in London, a week in Paris and one week split between Madrid & Barcelona. The highlight was having the opportunity to see G.eorge Michael twice, including a black tie charity show at the Royal Opera House in London. This was just before he became ill and nearly died so this experience will always be dear to my heart.
On this trip I "came back to myself". I don't know how else to explain it. I had been so beaten down, so exhausted and so damn sad that I did not resemble the person I used to be. Perhaps my "other" self had been somewhere there, wandering the continent and found me when I landed? Maybe all the candles I lit in those Gothic cathedrals worked? I don't know how it happened but it did and although I am still a somewhat fragile person, I feel more whole than I have felt in years.
In November I began taking classes at a local B.ar M.ethod studio. The results have been phenomenal, physically and mentally. I've never been one for yoga or Pilates, always thought that if I wasn't gasping for breath and running around the exercise wasn't "good enough". Ha! I still gasp for breath, but the overall mindfulness and strength I've built is greater than any boot camp I've ever done.
I received a generous bonus at work this year. I know nowdays just having a job is the new bonus so I am very grateful for the additional funds.
I turned down an offer to teach in Korea this fall (after going through the application process!). I put this under the "good" section because I took care of myself, realizing that emotionally I am not in a good place to move clear across the globe and set up a new life in such a different place.
The Bad
Since my last BFN I have done several more IUIs (all back-to-back), all BFNs. In between each one I've had breaks due to cysts, including one stable cyst that has evidently camped out for good.
My RE asked me if I watched the tv show "Parenthood". Really?
Two years ago I was promised a promotion at work. Six months later I was then told I "wasn't ready" and that I needed to "work the job I wanted". About three months after that someone from another site was transferred in and promoted above me. A week ago I had enough and told my supervisor I was not comfortable working outside of my job description, especially towards a promotion I was likely never to get. Yeah, makes it a bit awkward now. Could have shot myself in the foot here.
Since the death of my mother almost a year ago, my realtionship with my brother has not improved as I had hoped. I don't know what to do about this.
The Ugly
I have an IVF consult on March 22. I turn 42 in April and I am sure the doctor is going to bring up donor eggs. I don't know how I feel about that and I hate myself for feeling that way, however way that is (I know, confusing to me too).
I flat out have a sugar addition. As I type this I am eating mini Twix straight from the bag. I think I've been using sugar to cope and I don't know what to do about this either. Each day I try to stop but the abstinance lasts until oh, about 10am.
There's been a few new blogs lately, authored by women my age (I suppose those catch my eye first when the weekly blog list comes out from Stirrup Queen). I find myself being "scoff-y", if that's a word. It's certainly an attitude and I hate it. I feel impatient and jaded at their words of hope and excitement. This is an ugly part of me I do not like. I should be offering words of support but I cannot.
A few days after my miscarriage last year a good friend of over 20 years who had been through her own IF hell, had twins. In an email she said something like, "I shouldn't say this so feel free to kick me if it's insensitive but..." and proceded to tell me all about her aches and pains and lack of milk supply. I told her I needed a break and would contact her when I could. I never have.
*blows smoke from the business end of her six shooter*
Thank you fireworksandrainbows for prompting me to give an update. I felt very shy about coming back into the blogging arena after all of this time, not sure that I could convey all that I've had knocking about it my head. There's more of course, but that's another blog or fifty!
Picnik will be ending its services on April 19th. Fortunately Premium Services are FREE until the site shuts down. I thought this edit nicely summed up my feelings about my life as of late...
Today's NaBloPoMo prompt is Would you rather make your own choices or have someone make them for you?
Sometimes I think it would be nice to have someone to make decisions for me. Passing along the responsibility would certainly reduce the toll on my already overtaxed brain and relieve some of the agony of making a choice.
All good things EXCEPT when it comes to my hairdresser. For way too long he had made the choice of what my hair was going to look like (even when I asked for something quite unlike what he did). I took that power back today and tried out someone new.
I won't pretend to swagger when I say that. I was a cowering and quivering ball of angst for about five months, trying to build up the confidence to make an appointment with someone new. On my way to my appointment today I actually had a tummy ache. What a wimp!
This afternoon when I looked into the mirror as the final touches were put on my hair, I met my own eyes and smiled. I loved my hair but better yet, I loved the fact that I made the choice.
...or not I would return to my blog was never a question. It was a matter of when I would return to it. When I could return to it. When I saw this month's NaBloPoMo prompt, I was motivated and willing to not only revisit my past words but to move in a forward direction with new ones.
PS. I was incredibly touched by those who left comments and wished me well during my absence. Thank you.
I can't help it. Everything I read, watch or experience (at least in the last two years or so) is done so through IF colored glasses. For better or worse it seems IF has just become part of me, part of my perception of the world.
I've recently been watching the English show "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding", a pseudo documentary on the Traveller/Gypsy culture in Great Britain. There are arguments on either side about the focus and clarity of the show and even some in the Traveller and Gypsy community are not supportive of the program. As a lover of sociology and anything remotely different from my own culture, I am eating this show up!
For the most part the episodes I've watched are about Irish Travellers. Although historically they have had a nomadic lifestyle, the 21st Century has begun to impact their culture and change their way of life. Several aspects however have not changed; the duties and status of men and women, the celebrations of life's milestones (birth, marriage, death) and the exclusion of the outside world from their lives.
In the episode "Desperate Housewives" the women (teenagers really) explain that their role in life, their purpose for being, is to get married and have babies. Period. In between those events they are expected to take care of their husbands, clean the family caravan (trailer) and look back on their wedding day as The Most Important Day of their life.
As an American (ok, older and single) woman I cannot relate to marriage aspect of this culture but I sure can relate to the producing babies part. For some reason I felt intense anxiety at the producing babies part of this episode. Not the usual "OMG, pregnancy and babies are being mentioned" stuff but anxiety over what a Traveller or Gypsy woman would do if she encountered fertility issues. To whom would she turn? Would she be shunned? How would the community and culture handle this diagnosis? What would their support (or lack of) look like? On and on and on went the questions in my head.
I doubt very much the show would ever wade into these very personal waters but as someone already five nautical miles out in the IF sea, I could not help but factor this into my viewing experience. Funny, hearing that the teens drop out of school at 11 or 12 did not bother me at all.
After the sting of the post-miscarriage bfn in May I decided to take June off. I felt it wasn't even worth going in for a baseline as I was sure there would be a cyst.
Fast forward to CD3 on July 5th. I felt so confident as I strolled into the exam room, head on straight and positive attitude affixed to my being....however July wasn't meant to be. I have two cysts, one on each side with the largest measuring 15. I didn't cry, pout or otherwise feel defeated. I figured my body must need some more time. Maybe my body is manifesting the needs of my mind and heart?
It's all I can do/feel/think at this point. To allow any negativity would put me back on a pretty dark path, one I am really not wanting to experience again.
So, I've committed to being healthier this month, cleaning up my eating behaviors and picking up my regular workout routine. If I am being handed this "off" month I figure I had better use it for something good.
I use several brands from which I will never ever stray:
For making my own (decaf) skinny vanilla lattes at home.
I attribute my lack of crow's feet to this eye makeup remover.
To hermetically seal my ears so I can sleep at night.
The only brand with a wide enough toe box for my Flintstone feet.
The only sunscreen that doesn't break me out. It also recently made the list of the top sunscreens by EWG
Cheap and in bulk. 'Nuff said.
See's scotchmallow, the only scotchmallow that will ever cross my lips.
A note about all of the warm and positive comments left on yesterday's post: I read and reread them throughout the day today. They are the only reason I made it through this particularly difficult CD1. A simple thank you is insufficient but I am writing it just the same.
Today during a first-thing-in-the-morning-on-a-Monday-meeting at work I was sitting in the back of a row looking around at everyone, wondering if they could tell my heart was hurting so bad I could barely keep it together.
As people chatted about their weekends, their kids and in one case, their new engagement ring, I felt like I must have missed jumping on the Train of Life at some point. Like I've been left at some out of the way depot, watching the train speed by, seeing all the people living typical lives in their little compartments and feeling like I forgot to get my ticket punched or something.
This post is more of a brain-pain dump than a real substantive post I suppose.
I tested bfn on Sunday and stopped the Prometrium and will most likely get AF tomorrow.
It hurts.
If I stop for a moment and look outside myself and see what I've lost this year already, my mother, my miscarriage, the family who had always been such a large part of my life, it's no wonder this bfn has been so hard to take.
I know I will be ok in a couple of days and by the next cycle will be ready to jump back into things, but for now? I look around at all the people I see and interact with and wonder if they know that inside, right now, I feel more dead than alive.
At 10dpiui I am feeling like this cycle is a bust. As a frenetic POASer I have tested out the trigger and am now looking at stark whiteness. My successful cycle gave me a bfp on 9dpiui and although part of me is whispering, "it's just too soon" the realistic side of me knows it's a done deal.
Moving on...
Next month:
Expected cyst(s) + mental fatigue x giant work project = break
Since I am traveling halfway across the world at the end of October to see him it's pretty clear my favorite musician is George Michael!
I fell in love with his voice from the first moment I heard him. His music kept me company, kept me sane and kept me moving forward during some very rough teenage and then adult times. Of course he is also easy on the eyes as my grandma would say.
I have received much ribbing throughout the years for my love of George. He may be self destructive, impulsive, addicted and/or power happy but his talent and appeal cannot be denied.
This is one of my favorite fan videos of his surprise appearance at Beyonce's London concert in July of 2009. Beyonce has been a George Michael fan for years as well.
Not only has it been over a week since I last blogged but I also failed miserably at May's ICLW. Even if Blogger didn't have a ghost in the machine screwing up the commenting feature, I am fairly certain I would have failed ICLW anyway.
Since my iui I have been held captive by and in my own mind. I became immobile, fully consumed with my thoughts of failure, or worse yet, success and then failure. True to form, instead of turning to blogging which I have found to be so helpful, I kept it all inside, the synapses of my mind firing roughly 24/7 with nothing but pure anxiety and let's face it, abject panic.
Rather than remaining trapped behind the curtain of my angst (why yes, I do love being melodramatic) *puts back of hand up to forehead*, I am jumping right back in and participating in NaBloPoMo, starting tomorrow.
Today though, I have to admit in this post that I have created a map in my mind akin to the footpath created by the comic strip character Billy in Family Circus.
Like Billy, my starting and ending points are quite linear but in my mind the twists and turns of the path have careened all over the map. So far I have decided that if I don't succeed in getting pregnant by the end of the year I will do one or more of the following:
quit my much-loathed job
sell everything I own
teach abroad
enlist in the Peace Corps
move across the country
keep my much-loathed job and get a weekend job to make more money to then quit my much-loathed job and do any or all of the above.
I am exhausted. I've researched my eyeballs out and am now sure that my life will be radically different if I do not reach my goal.
I haven't even begun to map out the donor egg or embryo option. I need to give my eyes time to heal. Oh, the other option? The two pink lines, big old Beta number and a take home baby option? I haven't let myself think too much about that. It's just a little too soon and a little too scary.
