In the Time Since

A bit over two years ago to be exact. Insert platitudes about time slipping away and life moving on.
My last post was a final point in my journey. Well, until I hit "publish" and then I decided to keep going. The blur between that time and now resulted a very energetic and sensitive now two year old conceived via donor egg.
I may continue blogging after this post, but for now, I felt I had to satisfy the nagging voice in my head that was urging me to "finish it", or at least reclaim that bit of undetermined energy from this important corner, yet neglected, corner of my world.
If anyone is still reading this, I sincerely hope this time has brought you peace and happiness.

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.

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'.

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.

Fact

My first DE IVF was a failure.

The official beta test day is tomorrow but it was clear to me that the trigger was turning into a negative and would remain a negative.  By 10dp5dt the trigger was totally gone and I knew it was over.  I arrived home Wednesday and asked my home RE for a beta test Thursday and she emailed me the results yesterday morning.  Gah.

I've had a couple of really rough moments but I haven't fully broken down or allowed myself to slip into the darkness that found me after my m/c and mother died.  I just cannot let that happen again.

I can't put off trying again for months on end.  The planning for this ivf took over 7 months.  Screw work, screw finances, screw personal commitments.  I'm planning for an fet in December.  My home RE will do the monitoring and I hope to be able to make an appointment for the transfer the third week of December.

My ivf consultant has asked if I want a post-cycle report from the CZ doctor with his suggestions for moving forward.  Absolutely!  I'm sure included will be my lining issues and a possible hormonal impact of that last minute D&C.  What do I know though?  Maybe even things that appear perfectly "perfect" do not work out.  I think I'd rather buy into that than feeling that my body failed again and/or that I did something wrong.

So, until I get my plans sorted out I'm on austerity measures to afford the trip back.  I suppose there are worse things than a Christmastime visit through Vienna again.

My return to life stateside, work especially, has been a little like death by a million cuts:

• cancelled flight home (without notice) which resulted in airport crying and many hours delay in getting home.
• emails to my personal email account from work two days before I was due back.
• a team meeting 4 hours after being in the office to detail my "top priorities" and a look at 2013's projects.
• people asking how many emails I had (you know, because the more emails you have that pile up in your absence, the greater your importance).
• my very pregnant coworker/friend bringing her 2 year old in to visit and playing in my cube (in all fairness, as she is the only one who knows what's going on, she asked me if it was ok first.  What could I say?  It just brought back the memories of when we were ttc-ing together and how now she has a 2 year old and one on the way).
• another coworker who left for another department coming to visit me yesterday and tell me all about her new baby and how I "HAVE to see the new show Call the Midwife".
• coming back to the same old shit and remembering how I felt all those months planning this and thinking I would come back pregnant.  

Obviously work figures prominently in my life and I think I've posted before about how this job is unfulfilling, brings me much stress and is soul sucking.  It's all that but it's also the instrument by which I've been able to do all that I have ttc-wise and that is what I must remember.  

I'm going to catch up on sleep today, unpack and try to let go of the rest of the sadness and anger that is bubbling below the surface. I'd rather hope be my driving force.  I have so little reserves left that I must purposely choose what keeps me going every day.  

Thank you all for being so supportive and helpful during this process.  Thousands of miles away I never felt alone.