IUI#4 CD6 – First Progress Ultrasound

My shipment of Follistim arrived okay yesterday – when I pulled it off my porch that evening the cold packs were still cold, so I popped it in the refrigerator until injection time. After three nights in a row of injections (and last night Kaitlin hit a blood vessel so I ended up with a little more blood than usual) I went in this morning for our first in-progress ultrasound. So far there are 5 follies, with one at 11mm and one at 13mm – it sounds good to me, but I don’t really know if that’s what they’re expecting or not. They also drew blood, so I’m expecting a call this afternoon to let me know if my doses should change. I have another ultrasound appointment on Sunday morning at 8:20 – not super thrilled about getting up that early on a weekend, but it’s still better than having to come into work late.

My boss was on vacation for this past week, which was really great. For some reason, even when she’s being relatively un-scary, I still feel so much more relaxed and de-stressed when she is out. And of course, the day she got back and I started receiving emails from her again my stress level went back up. Also, I should be getting my 6-month performance review any time now, and I fully expect to take a hit because my staff have been requesting more overtime – that’s shown up as a negative on my last several reviews, with the accompanying comment that if I was better at guiding staff to work more efficiently they would not need OT (never mind the fact that their caseloads are twice the size of what can be worked in 40-hour weeks). And, we had a big client complaint earlier this year because one of my staff dropped the ball on a case, and I expect I’ll have to take a hit over that, too. I just keep trying to remind myself that as long as my overall score is above a 3, I’m okay – no matter what things my boss asks me to improve, or even whether or not they’re achievable, as long as the review doesn’t come back that I suck at my job (like that awful, awful one in 2012) then I’m okay.

I just wish that “good” would be satisfactory. And it never will be, because the folks I work for believe in constantly pushing for “better”. It’s exhausting, and while I realize I’m supposed to find it inspirational, challenging and exciting, it really just feels stressful, discouraging and impossible. They’ll never be content or let things lie. The bar is always going to be just out of reach. The older I get, the shittier that feels. I guess the only day I’ll actually feel like I can relax, that I have “arrived”, is the day that I retire. Since that day is thirty years down the road… well, it’s a little depressing.

Okay, done bitching. Back to eating the elephant one bite at a time… someday retirement will find me. Or I’ll get really, really lucky and win the lottery, write a runaway best-seller or Kaitlin will get some ridiculously high-paying job – and I can blow this pop stand and live happily as a stay-at-home mom and work-from-home fiction writer.

A girl can dream, right?