Slowly getting better

No worries--I didn't jump off the deep end or do something stupid over here. I'm still hanging on and I actually feel like I might be doing a little better.

DH and I sat down a couple weeks ago and had a big discussion about how we are feeling and how we are going to get past this. He admitted that he put up a big wall with this last cycle, hoping that by not getting too hopeful or attached to our embryos that he wouldn't be as heartbroken if it didn't work. Obviously, that plan failed as we were both devastated and the wall he built up ended up dividing the two of us as well. He was able to see how hard that made everything for me and we are working on moving forward together. He has been home a bit more, so that is helping us as well. He tells me that starting next week he should be home for almost a month, but I'm sure that will change (it always does).

He actually had to stay home last week while I went back to visit my family (he had work to do and he stayed so we didn't have to kennel the dogs). My cousin from GA and her family were up there for the week and it has been almost 4 years since I last saw them. We had a great week together and, despite 8 children under 12 years old, I barely thought about my IF at all. I visited a college friend who has a 7 week old daughter, and that was a bit tough. She was very understanding though, which I knew she would be. She asked sensitive questions and just listened--no platitudes, no assvice--just listened. She is a great friend and getting together was so much fun. I got to see my in-laws as well and eat lots of yummy can-only-get-it-back-home food.

But now I'm home and back to the daily grind. Well, OK, I don't have much of a grind during the week when I'm off work. I had a doctor's appointment, a job interview, a therapy appointment, and dinner with a friend, so I've kept myself occupied for much of the week. DH comes home late tonight and I think I will make tomorrow date night. I've even got a cute new outfit to wear!

AZ trip

I'm back from Arizona and didn't even get too sunburnt despite the crazy-hot weather. It was in the 90's every day on my trip, with little relief from gentle breezes. I went to two spring training games, which is something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Of course, AF arrived and tried to ruin the trip with her cramping and heavy bleeding, but I was prepared for her arrival and didn't let it get me down too much.

I only had one incident with my littlest nephew. On the last day I was there, he made a comment that I was so fat that I should have a baby in my belly. I managed not to cry or yell at him, and just told him that it wasn't true. My sister didn't hear him say it and I really didn't feel like listening to her try to deal with it (though it might have been entertaining to hear try to explain infertility, coming from a fertile myrtle like her) so I didn't mention it. I did get the "maybe god has other plans for you" line from both my sister and my dad--ugh! It took everything I had not to fight back at those comments, but I didn't want to ruin a short trip with people I love and don't get to see nearly often enough, so I tried to let them go.

Now I'm home and some depression has set in. It's starting to sink in that this "decision break" that we are on may be permanent. Part of me is relieved to not have the stress of treatments at the moment, but part of me is still grieving the loss of that dream.

I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with going to work tonight and tomorrow. I think the people at work are just tired of hearing about all of it. When I posted about it on Facebook, I got very few comments from my work friends. With the failed IVF in the fall, I found that I was more upset by people not asking how I was doing than I was when I started to talk about it and cry. I guess I just want to know that people still care.

Thank you!

Thank you all so much for the support last week. It was one of the darkest days I've had in this journey and your messages of love and support helped me feel a little less alone. Every time I would check the computer, there seemed to be more comments to shed a little light on my day.

DH was able to catch an earlier flight home on Friday (he had offered to cancel the trip altogether and I told him to go). It was so healing to be able to fall into his arms and start to mourn this loss together. I called my boss and explained the situation and told her that I wasn't coming to work for the weekend. DH and I did a little retail therapy, but otherwise just relaxed together for the weekend.

The only decision that we have come to is not to decide anything for a while. We realized that we have been in the throes of this battle for 2.5 years and it's time to step away from it for a bit. When we've taken breaks in the past, it was always with the prospect of future treatments looming. Since there are no more treatments to do, that won't be an issue this time. We decided that we need to focus on our marriage and ourselves (and not just the broken reproductive parts of ourselves) before we can make a decision as to what's next.

When we started this journey, we had said that we wanted to be parents to expand our love and not because we needed to have a child to feel whole. During the infertility process, it became much more of a "need" than a "want" and I, at least, got caught up in it. It almost became competitive for me--I refused to fail this challenge, so I kept trying whatever was suggested to win. Now doesn't that sound like a healthy atmosphere to create a child? I hope that by focusing our attention on other things, we will have the clarity we need to decide if moving forward with adoption or egg donation is the right step for us.

As the first part of taking this break, I'm heading to Phoenix today to visit with my family while they are there for spring break. My dad and stepmom have been there for over a week, scouting out things to do and soaking up the sun. My sister, brother-in-law, and their four boys (ages 6-12, so no babies to pine for) arrived over the weekend. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving, so it will be good to visit. We are going to take in a couple spring training games (Go Cubbies!) and just relax together. The only concern I have about this trip lies with my youngest nephew. The last few times I've seen him, he has said to me, "Auntie Cortney, you have two babies in your belly." I think he's just saying it cuz I'm fat, and in the past I have just been able to tell him no and laugh it off. Obviously that will be a bit tough to do right now. I've thought about saying something to my sis, but I think that her saying something to him about it will actually make him more likely to say it--he's just that kind of little boy. I was tempted to threaten my sis with the "if he says it, I'll tell him that mommy has to explain sex and infertility to him." Anybody have any other brilliant ideas?

Big Update

Wow! Has it really been almost 3 weeks since I posted? I've been a bit busy with Wrigley as she tends to demand as much attention as I can possibly give her. We started obedience classes and she is doing very well. I think she is very smart, and I'm only a little biased. ;-) She is quickly learning our household rules and routines. She is getting along so well with Rufus--in fact, they are cuddled on the couch sleeping as I write this. She is still quite a challenge though. DH has been gone quite a bit with work, leaving me to deal with all her puppy energy, neediness, and general untrained behavior. I found myself getting very frustrated by the end of the day, so I enrolled her in puppy daycare to get some time to myself on my days off. She loves it there and the staff seem to love her too! In order to keep her well socialized (something we didn't do with Rufus and we truly regret) we are going to take her there once a week or so. It gives Rufus a break from all her puppy zoomies as well!

Last week we took our annual trip to Mexico for our anniversary. It was sunny and beautiful the whole week. We spent most of it at the beach, just reading and relaxing and playing in the water. We did have a bit of a rough patch when we realized that we have spent so much time apart lately that we aren't quite sure how to spend that much time together. We talked about a lot of ways to change that, primarily being our work schedules. So, I might be looking for a new job soon, but I'm not sure yet. DH is going to try to stay home more when it's possible, and I might try to take some trips with him.

I did come back from Mexico with a surprise--well, two surprises really--pneumonia and an E. coli infection. I started wheezing and coughing a bit last weekend while we were there, but didn't really think much of it since we stepped up our exercise a bit (to battle some of the damage from the all-inclusive food and lovely beverages) and I've been known to wheeze after overexertion in the past. When it continued on for the rest of the trip, I figured it would get better when we got home and back to drier air. Then, the day before we were due to come home, I spent the day in bed with what I figured was an upset stomach (diarrhea and nausea, but fortunately no vomiting) from something I ate or drank the night before. I was achy and feverish and slept for most of the day. It continued the next day for the trip home, but at least I could eat again, so I figured it was getting better. When both problems persisted the next morning, I gave in and went to the ER for confirmation of what I had already diagnosed as aspiration pneumonia from sea water and Montezuma's revenge. The chest x-ray showed pneumonia (he wouldn't say whether it was aspiration via the x-ray but admitted the possibility) and he diagnosed my tummy issues as E. coli infection from the water. The good news is that both infections can be treated with the same antibiotic--the bad news is that it's $173 for 5 pills since we haven't met our annual deductible yet. I started the meds on Thursday and I wish I could say I was feeling better, but I'm not there yet. I'm struggling to sleep since any position short of vertical causes coughing fits.

I put a call into the RE office to make sure that this lovely combination of illness and the meds used to treat it wouldn't cause a problem with IVF 2.0, which is due to start next week. The nurse said that the meds won't be an issue, but I need to be healthy for my cycle. I go in for my CD2 baseline labs and u/s on Monday, so I'm hoping that I will feel better by then. I've called in sick to work for the weekend so that I can rest up and give myself the best chance to be healthier by the time I start shots on Tuesday.

All the meds arrived yesterday, after I gave Caremark a large chunk of my money. I thought we had a problem when they sent the Gonal-F pen rather than the multi-dose vial like last time. I'm going to be giving all of my meds IM again and the pen needles just aren't anywhere near long enough for that. So, I'll just have to inject from the pen into another syringe that I can attach a longer needle to for the actual IM injection. Crisis averted!

The Long and Rambling Road

We're back from vacation and much less stressed. We spent 3.5 glorious days doing a whole bunch of nothing. We camped in our lounge chairs, alternately poolside or on the beach, and soaked up the sun. I read one book and got a good start on another--DH is still finishing the 900-page monstrosity that he started in Cancun. I turned off facebook, ate lots of food, released baby sea turtles, and got a couple heavenly massages. We played in the ocean, floated in the pool, drank too many mojitos and did our darndest not to think about our IF. We were very fortunate in that the resort wasn't crawling with couples on their baby-moons, which was a big fear that I had going in.

But now we're back, and I feel like I need to make a decision about pursuing further treatment. We need to select our benefits for next year, and our IF decisions will play a large role in deciding which plan to choose. If we're not going to do anything further, we might as well go for the lowest deductible with higher co-pays since we are not going to be visiting doctors nearly as often. If we are going forward with another cycle, the plan with the high deductible then 100% coverage makes more sense because of the sheer number of visits involved. Both plans have the same IF coverage, which we are about to max out anyway.

So, I hope you will indulge me and allow me this space to work out some of my thoughts on the decision at hand. Since I haven't found a therapist that I want to work with yet (OK, I admit, I haven't tried again), I'm going to use this blog as a poor-man's therapist and bounce ideas off myself--and anyone else who cares to read them--in here. Please, please, please provide any feedback that strikes you--things I haven't thought of, things I'm thinking too much about, etc. Fresh perspective is enlightening and will help me along in my decision-making.

To be honest, my side of this is pretty easy--I want to try again. I really want to be pregnant and grow a baby within me. I want to know what it's like to have someone kick me from inside. I want to fall in love with my expanding belly, knowing how hard we worked to get to that point. I guess this is part of why I don't really want to adopt--I want to experience the whole gamut of pregnancy. I want to bond with someone before they are even born. I know it's not always sunshine and rainbows, but I'd happily take the bad and the good right now.

I'm not sure why, but I feel like we came close with our last IVF and that our next one would work. I mean, we really didn't come close at all--nothing implanted, but 8 of the 9 mature eggs fertilized normally. Yes, my egg quality isn't great, but it can't be that horrible either if so many were able to fertilize and grow. My DHEA levels were still low at my repeat test after 2 weeks on 75mg supplements, so my dosage has been increased. Heck, if that's the reason for the poor egg quality, then fixing it with supplements could make a huge difference. Plus, I'm taking other supplements that are supposed to help with egg quality (L-Arginine, Royal Jelly, CoQ-10, Maca, Inositol, Fish Oil, Wheatgrass, Melatonin) so something in there's got to help, right?

When it comes down to it, I guess I figured that I will know when I'm ready to stop and I don't feel that way yet. I know there are many negatives to consider, and DH's feelings play a huge role in this decision too.

I'll think about the negatives tomorrow--today it's a rare sunny warm fall day, so I want to get out and enjoy it!