Legacies

Woke up this morning convinced that this cycle is a bust. I just know it. And, I'm pissed about it.

I know that it's still early, I'm only 7dp3dt. I know that some women never experience any symptoms. I know other women experience symptoms and get BFNs. I know it's not over until the fat lady sings. And, I know I'd be telling anyone else in my shoes to try to stay neutral, if not positive.

But, none of that means a damn thing to me today. I just know deep down that this did not work, that we just blew $21k, that we aren't even any f*ing closer to knowing whether an embryo made of my H's sperm can make it to blast stage. F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! I want to call it quits. I'm so tired of the intense stress of cycling. I'm so tired of waiting. I'm so angry at the world. Yet, I'm terrified of giving up.

H was talking last night about how he's getting worried about being old when our kid is in high school. I appreciate his concern, but I am on a totally different wavelength. My concerns surround us never having a child, which is looking more and more likely. Neither of us has a career we love. H doesn't know what he wants to do, and I'll never have the financial backing to do what I want to do. We barely have any friends after the last two years of isolating ourselves. We've fallen out of touch with our families. All I can imagine when I think of the rest of my life without children is a lonely, miserable life. We'll leave no legacies. We'll have made no mark on this world. And, one of us could be very lonely with no one to care for him/her late in life. And, that makes me so unbelievably sad.

I don't understand what we did to deserve this. All of this. It sucks and it's so unfair.

Where to Begin?

It's been a busy and tough week. We headed down to NJ very early Monday morning for the dilapan treatment. DH started out driving, though I offered. I should have insisted because he started practically falling asleep at the wheel. So, I had to keep him awake until we got over the GW and I took over the driving.

The dilapan wasn't fun going in, but not too bad. And, during the four hours it was in, I could feel it, but not in a painful way. More of an odd, sometimes uncomfortable, sensation. Once it was in, and I had blood drawn, we were sent away. So, we went over to a nearby county park with stunning gardens and an arboretum. The weather wasn't great, but we walked around some, ate in the car, and then I walked around quite a bit more. We headed back to the clinic, the doctor quickly fished the dilapan out and showed it to me - not very impressive looking at all. I paid the bill and we were off thinking we might just beat rush hour on I-95 through Fairfield County. And, we might have, if a couple of belts and the alternator didn't go right after we reached CT. We ended up leaving the car at a service station, hopping on a train, calling one of my brothers and getting a ride home. This, of course, meant I had to tell a brother who claimed he knew nothing of our infertility pursuits a little bit about them. It also meant that the very next day, we had to make the trip back down to get the car, and pay that bill... Not a great start to the week.

Then, yesterday, was my lining check. I was so nervous about it, for no good reason other than everything single thing about this cycle has provoked high anxiety for me. Well, my lining checked out just fine - 9.7 when the clinic requires at least an 8. Nevertheless, I hit the car and had a breakdown. I had fought with DH the night before and just felt depleted, sad and scared. It only got worse after work. I called a very dear friend I've known since high school, who I'd been playing phone tag with for some weeks. She's a very busy college professor with two small children, so we hadn't spoken in quite some time. She knew we were exploring the DE route, but no details of where we were in the process. Turns out she's 6 months pregnant.

That news hit me like a ton of bricks. I started my big ugly, can't-breath sobbing immediately and tried to get off the phone with her, but she kept talking and crying about how she knew this would be hard for me to hear and how awful she felt, etc. I couldn't tell what hurt worse - that she hadn't told me such huge news (even though, I know she didn't for all the right reasons), or just the news itself. And, six months already! I ended up telling here just where we stand in our process, even though I haven't told anyone else. I told her I wished I could feel positive enough to think how fun it would be to be pregnant at the same time for a short period, but I just don't. All I feel is a horrible dread that this will not work for us, she will have another baby, and I will not be able to get over myself enough to be able to continue my friendship with her. I feel like a self-centered jerk about that, but i just can't see how any of this will ever feel OK to me if we can't have a baby.

Finally, where does one begin to write a thank-you card to a stranger who may forever be linked to you through the amazing gift of a life? That is tonight's task. I have a pretty good draft that I want DH to review. It's short, not overly gushing or informative about us, but very sincere in our appreciation. I haven't asked the clinic how she's doing. I'm not sure I want to know. I sort of just want to wait to hear the number of normally fertilized embryos we have. It's kind of nice to feel like our donor's response is so out of my control that I don't even want to know about it. When it was my own body, even though I knew logically it was out of my control, it didn't feel like it should be. It was my body, dammit, I wanted to control it. So, even though, I'm coming apart at the seams from anxiety and stress, I've at least relinquished that aspect of this cycle. 

Realizations

As I turned the calendar page this morning, two things struck me. First, today marks two years since we first started trying to conceive. Second, our donor's retrieval should be in about two weeks (gasp)! Wow. How is it possible that I've spent the past two years so narrowly focused on this one goal? It's not quite like sitting down in front of the computer for a minute, and suddenly realizing an hour's gone by. I mean, my life has generally continued in spite of my devotion to the task at hand. But, this journey has certainly been my primary preoccupation while life moved on around me for the past two years. 

I have changed because of IF. I don't know that all of the changes are permanent - at least, I hope not. I have isolated myself, I have become self-centered, mean, angry, and alarmingly jealous. At the same time, I have been incredibly humbled. I cannot achieve anything I want by working very hard at it. That's been and continues to be such a hard pill for my Puritan work ethic to swallow. I cannot do everything by myself. That was a hard realization for my fierce independent streak. I need my husband. I need his help just to keep my head above water sometimes. And, this is OUR problem, so it's OK to be weak in front of him and tell him I need his help.

I hope I maintain some of the humility and patience I have gained through this process - regardless of whether we ever have a child. But, I really hope that I can find a way to shed some of this bitter anger, if we never do reach the goal. I believe that it will subside should we be successful. But, I fear it will never go away if we're not.

Now, onto the second realization. Holy crap, it's June! In less than a week, I'll know whether my lining is good. In two weeks, we'll know how many eggs we got and maybe a fertilization report. In three weeks, I hope we'll have transferred. And, in four weeks, we'll know if this whole complicated experiment has worked. I am scared out of my wits. I can't believe it's here already. I've been going through the motions of the cycle, but I have felt detached from it still. I am terrified to have hope, but it's within me nonetheless. I realized that today. 

Got Our Schedule!!!!!

I start Lupron (after a pregnancy blood test - HA!) on May 17th! Our donor's retrieval should be around June 13th, and transfer around June 18th.

Please, please, let us have good embryos to transfer.

I am in full-on anxious mode. I can't believe we're moving ahead. While I am still scared to death of this not working, and terrified of getting too hopeful, I keep finding myself thinking things like, I've got to get x, y, and z done now because I might not be able to come July - mostly things in the garden. Sometimes, I think I'm just jinxing myself by trying to set up a garden that can go without too much TLC for a few weeks. Other times, I say to myself, "you'll be glad you did this."

Please, universe, let this be the answer for us.

To try to calm my bugged-out head, I made a training plan to get me to transfer day. I wasn't able to do that half-marathon at the end of April because I sort of fell apart physically and mentally in the those last two weeks, but I did the 5k and I'm still running. So, I devised a training plan to keep me motivated and keep me feelng fit and healthy going into transfer.

And,Ii bought a bunch of relaxation and meditation MP3s that I've started to listen to. I used IVf-specific ones during my previous cycles. I think I will go back to those for transfer and beyond. but, this time, general relaxation and mindfulness programs are actually much more helpful for the myriad thoughts and anxieties coursing through my body.  Haven't gotten through all of them yet, but I'm liking them so far.

Only two more weeks of awful BCPs. Yippee!!!!

Please, please, please let all of this work...

We're Back in the Game

So, what's been going on since January? A lot, and not much. We went for our consult with an out-of-state clinic for DE, and liked the program. So, we decided to do a shared DE cycle with them. Our first meeting was Feb. 20th. I had some follow up things to do, like get a mammogram and make sure my annual is up to date. But, we knew that it was going to take some weeks to get matched with a donor, especially for a shared cycle. So, I scheduled things, but was in no hurry. We also were thrilled to find out that my H's numbers improved significantly in the SA he did with them. I hope that the combination of him having not touched a cigarette in many months, exercising more, and taking COq10 and a daily vitamin is paying off.

So, we waited. All through March, we waited. Work was thankfully very busy for me, so that helped keep my mind off things. And, we decided to try another half-marathon at the end of April, so training for that has kept me sane. Nevertheless, the wait was really starting to get to me. My anxiety level was sky high.

Then, on April 2nd, we received a donor profile. And, we both liked her a lot. I was so extremely relieved that it wasn't hard for either of us to say yes to her. She has had two previously successful cycles with our clinic, both of which resulted in frozen embryos, even though the clinic has very strict freezing standards. After our nurse and donor coordinator answered a couple of questions, we accepted her the next day. Unfortunately, we still have to wait. They were supposed to send her profile to another couple looking to do a shared cycle this week, but we haven't heard anything else. So, it may take a little while to get the other recipient matched.

Regardless, I feel like we have taken a HUGE step forward. We have a donor. I have hope that this could work. I'm terrified of the hope I have, but am going to go with it for now. And, things are falling into place. I started BCPs this week. I hate them because last time my adjustment to them was rough. But, I'm also sort of glad to have started them so that I know I won't have my period for the half-marathon coming up. My mammogram is a week from today. I am scared that some roadblock will present itself because of that, though I have no reason to think that. And, my annual is scheduled for next month, but I don't lapse until June anyway.
So, I'm back, and hope to keep updating this blog more frequently now, if only to keep a log for myself.