From Sixty To Zero In 5.2 Seconds

This was supposed to be a joyous Show and Tell post where I flash pictures of my new car- the nicest one I've had in my entire life- as well as the picture of the four leaf clover I found on Saint Patrick's Day. Lucky, right?

But it ain't.

Yesterday I started to have abdominal pain. Sharp, evil, tender-as-hell pain. I waited overnight to see if it would dissipate, and it kept me up all night. Finally called off sick and went to the Dr this morning. It did not feel ovarian, otherwise I would have called Dr A. I know what ovary pain feels like, thankyouverymuch. This felt GI to me.

Family doc checked my ovaries- nope, they were the right size and not the tenderest bits. The right lower quadrant was the worst spot. Because I'm PUPO right now, a CT scan was out of the question, and she decided to send me to ultrasound to check out the right ovary and the appendix. She was thinking appendix vs. ovary vs. worst IBS flare I've had in the 10 years I've lived with IBS.

Went to get the ultrasound, and had to have a full bladder, a la IVF, in order to visualize the ovary. The 45 minute drive there was sheer torture, with an overly full bladder pressing on my tender abdomen. I cried and nearly shrieked the whole way, and forced Mr S to pull over at Wendy's to pee. I chugged 16 oz of water a mere 30 minutes before the test, and guess what? My bladder was full damn enough.

And then came Chris, the ultrasound tech from hell. She saw the words "infertility treatment" on my order, and that is all she saw. She kept asking me when we would have a child again, and was not satisfied when I said "It's not easy for us." and tried to leave it at that. "You should have another, it's time for another" came out of her mouth at least 3 times. Thank you for doing your best to pierce me to the heart, you insensitive cow.

And then, of course, she says "It's happen so fast next time."

Thanks, ignorant bitch, but it's been 15 months now. That doesn't sound particularly fast to me. I don't recall asking for your opinion.

She decided to whip out the Wonder Wand and just look at my ovaries. Which were fine and normal, by the way. I've seen my own ovaries on a screen often enough to tell if there's a giant cyst growing. I asked her when she would look at my appendix. She said it wasn't necessary.

I almost blew a gasket. I don't expect to see anything- in fact, I don't expect to learn why I am having pain or to find out there is actually something I can do about it, cynical bitch that I am, but I sure as hell expect some fucking ultrasound tech with an associate's degree to defer to a physician's orders. If I thought my damn ovaries were hurting, I'd have called Dr A in the first place, and spared myself driving all over the damn city. She very reluctantly did a half-assed scan of the appendix area.

I was so furious, and felt terrible from being in pain for two days, and hadn't eaten for almost 24 hours, that I slammed around the linen cart in the ultrasound room, stomped off, and burst into tears the minute we reached the hallway. I sobbed so hard the way home, that I almost threw up in my new car. Did I mention that Mr S was supposed to leave for a hockey tournament, and because of my body drama, he is missing it? Add a heaping helping of guilt to this already fucked up day.

Off And Running

Up at the sparrow's fart yesterday (yes, I stole that phrase from Geohde) to start work at 7am and gain a little flex time for my ultrasound. I think we found a good dose for me. 5 mg of Femara resulted in 4 follicles, two little 13x 13 follies that will likely result in nothing, one 17x18, and one 20 x 24. Dr A was happy with that, and my lining was 9.4, so my friend Nurse A came over after work to trigger me. Dr A was pretty optimistic for this month. Let's cross our fingers! I plan on starting to test at 10dpo, which is the 26th.

I went test driving last night, and tried a Fusion (ok), Accord (good but boring), CR-V (myeh), and an Escape (wonderful!). I am leaning toward the 2008 Escape with a V6 engine and moonroof. Mr S and I are heading back after work tonight to check it out and maybe talk turkey. We shall see!

Week From Hades

I've had a few projects percolating, and I planned on posting them last week- but they will have a to wait a few more days. Let's just say I had the chance to interview someone very knowledgeable about infertility, and I think you might enjoy it.

But that has to wait.

This week has sucked, and has been full to the brim. It is so very hard sometimes to work 40 hours a week, try to keep our family fed with healthy food, clip coupons and search for deals to pinch pennies, give my son the attention he deserves, maintain relationships with friends, and still be the writer I would like to be.

So far, since last Sunday:
* My son has had two GI bugs with buku vomiting (Sunday, and then again Friday). This past Friday at 9PM, he fell asleep on my chest, then sat up, yelled, "Tummy hurt!" and proceeded to projectile vomit all over my chest. I was literally soaked to my socks in puke. He then looked at the carnage he caused and said, "Oh yuck! Boobies a mess!"

* I can't even remember what day it was anymore- Tuesday, Wednesday?- he started breaking out in red, raised bumps that looked like insect bites. They were on his hands, face, and legs. They would appear, hang around for 10 minutes, then disappear. Day care called, and thought he had hives, so I flew from my Dr's appt 30 minutes away to get him. I took him to the Pedi and they said it was an allergic reaction to who the hell knows what. He had eaten nothing new, so we are stumped. He is still having this problem. The good news is his new diet of McDonald's Chicken Nuggets 3 days a week (don't hate- the child needs calories), plus soy based nutrition drinks and packing extra calories into everything we can has paid off. He's gained a pound! That brought him to the 12th percentile. "His weight is fine" we were told. Never mind we feed him a diet worthy of Jabba The Hut in order to gain weight. And that he's been flooding through his clothes again several days a week.

* I had a parent-teacher conference at day care. It was short and simple, with my main concern being monitoring him for allergies. They shared the results of the developmental assessment the county did on all the children. They scored gross motor, fine motor, social/emotional, and language skills. J scored far ahead for language and fine motor skills (3y 6m for both), and on target for the others. Go J!

* I had yet another day of going into the office for training. Every time I work in the office, I hear more scuttlebutt about the recent takeover. I am totally bummed. I'm pretty sure it won't be more than one more year of working this job. Layoffs for the entire nursing staff will be inevitable. Not sure what I'd do next, but one more nurse has jumped ship, and all the rest of us are keeping our eyes open.

* My best friend Val and I got mani/pedis for our birthdays yesterday afternoon,did some shopping, and in the evening we had our monthly Girl's Night. Great day, except...I left our friend Diane's house at 11pm. I was an hour south of home. I was super exhausted, and my muscles were overly fatigued. They were twitching tremendously and I felt like I was fumbling a lot. So, when I missed the turnoff to the highway, and then my car suddenly stopped working as I was driving it, it was probably a blessing in disguise. My reflex and reaction time was likely poor by then, and if I hadn't been so tired that I missed the entrance ramp, I would have been in the high-speed lane of a rainy, dark highway when my car lost power, and less able to deal with that emergency.

I ended up going kaput right outside a restaurant, and was able to just barely coast in. My friend Diane drove out and waited with me while AAA sent a tow truck, and offered to drive me home (thank you!). I decided to get a ride with the tow truck driver instead. He had some odd facial mannerisms that immediately made me think he was on some kind of antipsychotic. The conversation turned to my old work doing mental health outreach, and I ended up hearing his life story, and learned that yes, his facial tics were medication-induced, he worked the night shift because daytime crowds gave him anxiety, and that he hadn't been hospitalized in 15 years. Many of you might think, "Oh my God, you rode home with a psycho! Weren't you afraid?" And the truth is that, no, I wasn't because I know that people with mental illness are more likely to be the victim of a crime rather than a perpetrator. He was a very nice man, and actually a great example of recovery from mental illness. He used to be on SSI, he used to stop taking his medicine, but with some help, he has gained insight, and now faithfully takes his meds and has found a job that works with him and his symptoms. Kind of like me and my physical illness, eh?

* My little beloved Honda, however, is as dead as a doornail. Actual retail value = $1000. Estimated cost of repairs = $800. Not even worth doing. My plan is to sell it for parts tomorrow. I've rented a car for the time being, and will start looking in earnest in the evening. On my test drive list: Honda Accord, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Sonata, Ford Escape, Ford Fusion (my rental is a Focus, and I find it too small). No minivans. On the brighter side, my bonus check came in the very day my car died. How's that for timing?

* Day-12 ultrasound tomorrow, which means I have to start work at 6am in order to flex my time for the test, then have enough time to drive to the dealership and test drive cars. My ovaries ache, and I hope I will trigger in the next couple days.

Random

* It was almost 50 degrees outside today. J and I took two walks, and I let him play on the deck as I watched through the open door, riding his "choo-choo train" while I clipped coupons. I can't wait to see what my tulips and irises look like in a few weeks. And I have big plans for landscaping this year.

* Mr S bought me, I mean, himself, a new laptop. Very fancy with all sorts of new features. I already forced him to install my coupon clipping program, because we all know I can't miss out on a week of that. Last week, at my friend Diane's prompting, I used a coupon clipping serviuce on Ebay and scored 20 coupons for J's expensive almond milk. Sweet!

* J is very much starting to act like a 2-year old. He has very strong opinions about what is going on ("Hey you! Mommy! Hey! Get up! Go walk! "), is getting better every day at saying what he needs, ("Tummy hurt. " "NO eat muffin, eat banana."), and loves explosions, vacuuming, trains, Elmo, his best friend Lucas, and calling random strangers on the telephone.

*After two bouts of puking every 15 minutes in two weeks ( my reason for being a bit scarce lately), J has also lost the paltry amount of weight he's gained the past 4 months, and even dropped half a pound. That is probably putting him down to the 5th percentile. We're already supplementing with soy-based Pediasure, and he eats more than the other kids (1500cals/day). Not sure what will happen at the 2-yr visit, if she wants to watch him or if she'll be concerned. J's teacher has already mentioned that she can see his ribs even more now. I swear, we feed him. I'm thinking about asking if he needs celiac testing.

*We have parent-teacher conferences this week. For 2 year old kids. What in Hell's sake for? "Yes, Mrs Hovermom, little Johnny is pooping his pants at an 8th grade level. That little genius."

Sure, Why Not?

I've been feeling good the past week, and decided that I'd like to get one more Femara cycle out of the way. Yesterday was CD1 (28 days!), and I went in for a baseline ultrasound this morning.

The ovaries are good to go, with no cysts and a normal amount of antral follicles. My progesterone on that natural cycle last month, with a "normal" ovulation day and luteal length? It was 8.6. Totally crappy. So, plans are to do 5mg of Femara this time, from days 3-7 instead of 5-9, another ultrasound on Day 12, Novarel trigger again, and try another 7DPO progesterone, to see if it is decent enough on a medicated cycle.

I, of course, have no big expectations for success, but at the least, we will hopefully learn if our efforts can produce a decent ovulation and progesterone. I think I can be satisfied with that.

Three- A Magic Number?

Check out these nifty neato saddle-shoe-esque socks sent from the lovely jendeis. They remind me of my swing dancing days back in college.

Sock It To Me! is the brainchild of the kick-ass Kym at I'm a Smart One. If these socks don't bring a little luck, they at least bring a little love from a fellow infertility blogger. Be sure to pop over and see what other kooky socks my fellow bloggers will be displaying in the stirrups.


Today is my third blogaversary.

It amazes me that I've been blogging for three years. I guess in many ways I'm on "the other side". We have a child, he is living, and we are incredibly grateful. I'm sure I thought, back three years ago when I started this blog, that if I could only reach this place, the place where we became a family of three, that I would never dare ask for more. I'm sure I thought the lows would never feel as low as they did waiting, and not knowing, the first time.

To a certain extent, that is true. The desperation is not the same. An active toddler keeps you busy enough not to have time to sit and think of your situation. Once we started "trying" again, 13 months ago, the sense of failure - my personal failure-, set in again. It is as strong as it was three years ago. Now, it has the extra twist of failing my son as well as my husband.

This past week, some of the girls and I had our monthly gathering. My friend Lenny had her third child last year, and I asked if she was planning to have any more. Nope, she's done, the tubes are tied, and that is final.

I found that I was guilty of a sin- the sin of envy. What is it like, I wondered, to reach that magic number? What is it like to feel "done", to never worry about conceiving another child, to never live month to month again, to just move the eff on with life.

Sometimes I wish that my magic number was three. It would make my life so much easier. Mr S wants another child, enough to be very against trying to avoid pregnancy (ha!) until my vacation in September. But he also avows that, if I decide that I can't bear it anymore, that he would be perfectly content with being a family of three.

Try as I may, shrinking my ideal family size to three is like squeezing my big booty into my pre-pregnancy jeans. I can do it if I try, but there's going to be a hell of a lot of spillover. I'm a woman who thrives in the company of children. Coming from a large family myself, I envisioned my life to be filled with the shrieking, whooping, whining, laughing, teasing sounds of a half dozen children underfoot. I've been able to shrink that magic number over the past four years- but not to three.

Today I found myself having a good long cry. I think part of it is PMS (meaning, yet again, this will be a failure), but I at first couldn't quite put my finger on what's wrong.

J has been sick since Sunday, and I stayed home with him today. When Mr S came home, J was napping, and I was weeping. I had been reading adoption blogs, and I came across this post. The quote seemed familiar, and I found through Google that it was from one of my favorite authors, Joseph Campbell.

This quote has been sticking in my craw all evening:

"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."

We ended up having a long discussion about adoption, ideal family size, and how much is too much financially for us, physically for me, and emotionally for all three of us. In this decision, the limiting factor, as it always has been, is me. The decision is so difficult to make.

I know, without a doubt, that if I don't have another child, I will likely regret it. The great question is, how will that child join our family?

I've made a list of pros and cons. There is no "Aha!" moment after making this list, no magic arrow that says "The way lies here!", and I find myself trying to weigh each variable, yet still feeling uncertain of the answer. It is doubly difficult, as I am not in this decision alone, and Mr S may assign different importance to each pro and con. To me, the thought of putting away those maternity jeans for good fills me with sadness. To him- no biggie.

We already know a few things, though. I will never do an injectible/IUI cycle. I won't do more than 3 more Femara cycles. There is a limit to the number of surgeries I'd be willing to endure. If we decide to try IVF, we have a monetary limit, will not do more than two fresh cycles, and would never put back more than one embryo.

But this is only if I decide to try. To be honest, adding more physical pain to my already-pain-addled body is quite unappealing. I have reached a point where I have had it with uncertainty and dashed hopes. I want this issue to be resolved. I want to move the eff on.

I've been fantasizing about what it would be like to feel most of the pain in our savings account. About what our profile would look like. About whether we'd seem like great parents to a stranger, despite our heathenish and bookish ways. But still unsure if this is our resolution.

So yes, three years and one child later, I am still trying to answer the question, "What is the life that is waiting for us?"