Just barely hanging on...

I'm really not doing very well lately. I think that's why I haven't been posting much. If I put into words how much my life sucks right now, I'll have to face the fact that I'm in a bad place and am at a loss as to how to make it better. I am fine with asking for help and support when there's something concrete (like a failed IVF) to cry over, but just the general "my life is crap" stuff isn't something anyone can help with right now. I need to make some changes, but I don't think I'm ready to face what those changes might be.

I've had way too much time on my hands lately--never a good thing. I work only on weekend nights, so I'm at home all week. My husband travels most of the time (OK, all the time for the past few months) so I sit at home and do a whole lot of nothing. I don't really have hobbies and it's been too cold and rainy to plant my garden. So, I sit at the computer or play stupid games on my phone or read. Or worse, I check out IF blogs and child-free blogs. Most of the IF blogs that I follow seem to have children or be pregnant now. I'm finding it very painful to follow along when I feel so lost and left behind. I started checking out some child-free blogs, using the blogroll at Stirrup Queens. Some of the ones I clicked on, however, haven't been updated, have gone private, or have been shut down. Of the ones that are still up and current, many have split with their partners. I'm looking for some hope and reassurance that it will be ok eventually, but I haven't found it yet in these blogs. Someone please tell me there are more out there, happy ones?

My marriage is in trouble. I always thought that the strength of our marriage would get us through all the heartbreak that TTC caused. We've been together through some tough times before and our friendship and love has always seen us through. I love my husband with all my heart and I still very much want to spend my life with him. But, between his crazy travel schedule, my work schedule, and our mutual grief over failing to conceive, we have drifted apart. We are very rarely home at the same time, and when we are, we are usually at opposite ends of the house doing our own thing. I know he buries himself in his work as a way to deal with his emotions, but I feel so very alone and lonely right now. When we are together, we never talk about the huge elephant in the room--where do we go from here? How do we survive this? How do we get back to being happy together? If we can't be happy together, would we be better off apart?

I need to figure out how to get back to the person I was before this journey started. I yearn to lose the bitterness, the loneliness, the anger, the sadness, the tears. I have to find the happy, laughing, joking girl I used to be. I just hope I haven't lost her forever.

I hate Fridays!

Well, at least I hate them on the weeks when I have to work Fridays. Sometimes I actually like Fridays because it means DH comes home after a business trip.

So, I head back to work tonight, which brings up a whole new set of issues. Last weekend at work, I was so raw and emotional from the BFN that I didn't really answer people's questions. I know that they were trying to be supportive, but I ended up getting lots of questions and assvice that I really couldn't deal with, so I walked away. I struggled with the fact that, while I was too raw to really talk about it, I was even more hurt when people didn't say anything or ask about it. This weekend I feel a little stronger and kind of need to talk about it more, but I'm sure people will have forgotten about it by now. So how can I handle it if I get the questions and assvice again? I'm not as easily weepy as I was last weekend, so getting all teary-eyed and walking away might not work.

Some people asked me about adoption. DH and I have discussed this and I don't really think either one of us wants to adopt. I know this sounds silly, but I've had some trouble with bonding with my adopted dogs and I'm afraid the same thing would happen. It would be totally unfair to whatever child we adopted if I felt like I couldn't bond with them because they aren't "mine". I would like to think that I would overcome that and love them just as much as if I gave birth to them, but I'm not willing to take that chance. There is also the money aspect of it--in many cases it can cost much more than trying IVF again. Plus, I often feel like I am not desperate for a child, so a prospective adoptive child would be better served by going to a family that will undoubtedly love them as their own.

Then I got questions about what went wrong. Now, I know that most people don't understand the whole process so they are just trying to ask questions and show support. But what it felt like was an accusation that I did something to cause the last one to fail, since the last time I saw most of them was right after retrieval and fert report and thought we had 8 great embryos. I would briefly explain that the embryos weren't as great as we thought originally and we put back the only 2 that survived. Of course, talking about that would bring me to tears and I would have to excuse myself. But how do I address this now? Sometimes it just doesn't work and there is no good answer. It's not like it's every time a fertile couple has sex that they get pregnant. I wish I had an answer as to why it didn't work so I would know where to go from here.

Oh, and here's the best one. My mom called this week with a great suggestion--why don't I talk to my older sister about using her eggs since she's obviously fertile (4 kids under 12)? "Honey, you've got the same DNA, and then you could use DH's sperm"? Really mom?!? OK, first of all, my biology background really wants to explain to you that we don't have the same exact DNA, despite having the same parents. Second, we don't know that it's my eggs that are the problem! It could be DH's sperm, it could be my uterus, it could be any number of other factors that are causing us to fail at conceiving--that's why they call it unexplained infertility! And finally, there is no way on earth that I am having that conversation with my sister. This is the same sister who used her entire matron of honor speech at our wedding to give us grief over not wanting kids at the time. She is a big part of the reason that we haven't been open about this struggle to the rest of the family.

So, how do I deal with it this weekend? People don't want to hear the raw, honest, crappy truth that I'm sad and scared and struggling with what direction my life will take now. They just want to hear the happy, unicorns-farting-glitter, everything is okay lies because it's easier for them.

Ohmmmm...

I had my first appointment with the therapist whose name I was given by the RE office. Eh, I'm not so sure about her. I mean, what I'm really looking for is someone to talk through what I'm feeling--sad, angry, scared, unsure of where to go from here. I did vent a little about that, but she seemed more interested in helping me with stress reduction. Umm, didn't I just get finished telling her what I do for a living?--I need stress! I don't function if I'm not stressed about something. If I don't have a deadline or something to put the pressure on, I will just vegetate. I've been this way forever and I've gotten quite adept at it, thankyouverymuch!

So, we tried a little guided visualization in the office which went about the same way as every other time I have tried it--I get distracted way too easily. During the "deep breath" part, I'm hearing the cars outside, the people in the waiting room, the clock ticking, etc. Then, when she tells me to hear the sounds and let them go, I can't seem to let them go. The body scan part usually goes OK (start at your feet, notice any areas of tension, then your ankles, etc) and I can focus on each body part. Then, when the visualization starts (this time it was a warm golden light) I lose it. I want to laugh at how stupid it makes me feel. I can't seem to keep focused on it, either. I know that this works for lots of people, and I really don't mean to offend anyone who uses this for relaxation, but it ends up making me more tense that I can't focus on it. When I was using these type of sessions on my phone during my IVF cycle, I usually ended up turning them off at this point as I would get more tense.

Since I was able to focus on the body scan portion, she thought that physical ways of being mindful might help. She recommended a daily walk outside, not necessarily for cardio exercise, but more as a way to relax. She also gave me a few stretches to do and I am supposed to try to quiet my mind while doing them, stopping when my mind starts to wander.

Oh yeah, and she wants me to write down on note cards all the thoughts that are causing me stress and put them into a box. Um, how big can this box be?

Can you tell I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about this? I will give it a couple sessions, and do the "homework" she has assigned me, but I'm generally not thrilled with it yet. Maybe if I were actively cycling and needed to reduce my stress, I would feel better about her and her methods. I'm really not looking for stress reduction--I need a sounding board for my decision-making process.

Boring

Not too much going on around here to write about lately.

I'm taking my BC pills without any major ill effects. I had my trial embryo transfer last Friday and it went well. The RE laughed when I told him I wasn't sure if my bladder was full. Heck, I'm an ER nurse--I can go a full 12-hour shift without a potty break if I have to! I'm not sure I know what a full bladder feels like anymore. Of course, when the u/s tech was pushing on it, I could tell just how full it really was. The trial transfer went fine--I didn't feel a thing internally and it was really cool to watch on the screen. I can't wait until there's a couple embies going in, not just an empty catheter.

I've got a pretty busy week ahead and DH will be out of town for most of it. Then Monday, a week from today, is the next big IVF related thing. We have our consult that morning with the business office, the embryologist, and the nurses. I'm hoping to have a much better handle on the potential schedule after that appointment. I've really been stressed lately about how this is going to effect my work contract in terms of missing too many days of work. My nursing supervisor suggested I look into doing an intermittent FMLA for the duration of the IVF (and hopefully, the subsequent pregnancy) so that they can't screw me over when I have to miss work. I'm going to go into HR tomorrow to look into that. If I could qualify for that, it would take a huge stressor off my shoulders.