Does anyone else find it interesting that the numbers for Bullying are the same as the numbers for people dealing with Infertility? By interesting, I mean so incredibly sad. Both destroy you in many ways. It’s hard to listen to the news without hearing about another horrible act of violence perpetrated by a bully or for those getting bullied to take matters into their own hands. Those individuals that choose to end their lives because of all their suffering are even more tragic because many of their parents probably had trouble conceiving them. I’ll come right out and say that I’m a Pro Choice kind of girl, but dealing with infertility does make you value human life even more than you did before.
We had an interesting conversation and initial meeting with our Reproductive Endocrinologist last week. She said it’s really hard on couples to keep trying the same thing over and over again each month hoping for a different outcome. I sarcastically asked: “Isn’t that the definition of insanity?” Not sure she really liked that...
It’s very hard to have humor be a part of your life during all these struggles. The hormones are making me act so different than normal…or maybe they are just exaggerating things in me that were always there. I have hot flashes randomly and then I’ll be freezing not too long after. My headaches are back and more frequent. I’m a lot more emotional that I typically am…granted I’m a Cancer, so being emotional is kinda something I’m good at. However, I have never been one to cry at commercials or show a lot of emotion during movies. Sure, when I’m alone watching The Notebook, I might cry, but typically not in front of my husband. Before it was just because I never really saw the point…you always feel gross afterwards. Now I try not to cry so my husband doesn’t have to feel bad.
After our appointment with the RE, my husband decided to inform me that he no longer wanted to do any “Dr. stuff.” He felt that the appointment was a waste of time and that each new appointment just sets us up for more failure. We decided on a new course of action. I’ll get some blood work and an ultrasound done on the third day of my cycle. This will test my hormone levels and see how many viable follicles I have. I’ll have to take Clomid again, and then they will do another ultrasound around day 11 of my cycle. If my follicles are big enough then I’ll have to give myself a shot that will drop the eggs and start my ovulation process. If the follicles aren’t big enough yet, I’ll have to keep coming back until they are big enough. The thing I’m really looking forward to with all of this, besides having a plan, because if you know me, you know that I love planning…I’m excited about not having to buy and deal with any ovulation predictor kits. That is such a sense of freedom; I can’t even begin to explain. When you are peeing on a stick every morning at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning around the middle of your cycle, the idea of not even having to look at another one of those sticks is so nice.
Can I also just say that I’m so tired of filling out new patient forms at doctor’s offices? Not only do they ask totally personal questions about me and my husband, such as “are you able to ejaculate in your partner’s vagina” to what is the medical history of your fourth cousin once removed and did they have trouble conceiving…ok I’m exaggerating about that last question, but really. Not only do they ask these crazy personal questions, but then they only give you about half a centimeter to answer the question. I was also greatly disturbed that they asked a little bit about my habits, i.e. do I smoke and drink like a sailor, but they never asked about my emotional well being or what I ate. They asked about activities that I did as hobbies, but again not specifically about things I was doing to potentially help fertility. I really wanted to write, haven’t been drinking for months, but all I can think about after I get my period is a nice glass of wine. My husband thinks I’m crazy and that I should drink if and when I want to, until we know for sure that I’m not preggers, but I just can’t do it yet.
I’m concerned that my husband isn’t totally on board with the next phase of testing and our next plan of attack for the whole baby making thing. We got an estimate of what our costs would be to do an IVF session, and it is not cheap. Not to mention we have school loans, tuition, a new car, plus all of our normal monthly expenses. I’m going to have to do a lot more consulting if I want to pay for a round of this, and I’ll probably have to start taking out loans for school, instead of paying for it out of pocket, like I had wanted to. It’s so sad that a lot of the time a couple’s happiness and the success of starting a family are contingent upon finances. Neither of our parents would be able to help us out financially with this…I guess you could call it a burden. It’s sad to think of a potential life being a burden or at least a strain.
I texted my husband today to say that if we felt like it after our crazy day at work, after I get done with Yoga and Pilates, after we finish with our run to Target, and then after we try and fit dinner in there somewhere that we should play some Kinect. His response was, “what about your business, do you think you should be jumping?” Seriously, there are so many things wrong with this statement. First, since when is this whole baby thing my business only. Secondly, since when did trying to make a baby become a business and finally, you’d think after 21 months of trying (I had to figure that out for my appointment with the RE last week) that jumping would be the least of our concerns?
My family is coming to town tomorrow, and I already got asked by my sister why I’m not drinking. This only came up because I offered to drive the fam to and from trivia tomorrow night. For quite a while now, my husband, his brother and his brother’s wife and I have been going to trivia on Wednesday nights. I haven’t been going as much because you typically don’t get home until almost midnight, and it just wasn’t allowing me to get enough beauty sleep. Seeing as how none of us have to work on Thursday we are all planning on going to trivia tomorrow night and since my family will be here we thought they’d like to come along too since my dad is a little obsessed with trivia. Anyway, my family has seen me not drink around them many times before, since for some reason I’m usually in my holding pattern when we see them. So she wasn’t too surprised when I told her I just don’t drink anymore. There are a lot of other reasons for me not drink, not only because it really isn’t that great for you, but also because not drinking has helped me keep off a few of the pounds I lost this past year. I was also starting to notice that I would tend to drink a little more than I should after I got my period each month, so I just thought that it was in my best interest to avoid it all together. It also does say that drinking while taking Clomid might not be such a great idea, and since I’m already having some of the 1% chance symptoms, I kinda figured I didn’t need to test it and see if alcohol would give me any further side effects. Overall, I’m excited to see my family (not so excited about the $200 grocery bill we had last night) but excited none the less. I hope that we don’t get on the baby topic, because I just don’t even know how to start to tell them about everything. I know I’ll start crying, which will make them cry and feel bad. Honestly, there really isn’t anything they can do, and they don’t know what to say or how to say it. The joys of being the only infertile in the family-gotta love it!
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