39WK3d - he's not here yet

We got the first sneak peek of our amazing maternity shoot with Briony Hope Photography. Turned out so pretty! I think this may be the most skin I've ever posted on the Internet, but oddly Briony made me feel prettier and sexier at eight months pregnant than I ever could have imagined. Really can't wait to see the rest of the pics from the set...

In the meantime, every day is a new strange grab bag of symptoms. My hands, particularly the first two fingers and thumb, go numb while I'm sleeping, so they've started to feel very swollen and the joints are sore, like arthritis. Baby Searc likes to wiggle around a lot, jamming his hands and elbows into my bladder and his feet and toes into my ribs. I have so little energy and even less mobility.  But it's kind of fun to watch my stomach squirming around as he moves. It's kind of hard to connect those sensations and movements with the fact that there's a real person, a tiny person inside my body right now. I think it may not end up feeling truly real until he's actually here.

I've had a ton of doctor appointments, every one shows he's doing well and on track, even on the big side (eep). At one of the appointments last week the doctor was checking my cervix and did some membrane clearing, which she said might induce labor, but no such luck. Made it through the weekend feeling uncomfortable and stiff and achy, but no contractions. And now it is 4 am and I am so congested I can't breathe or sleep. Drinking third trimester tea in the hope that it will get baby moving along. Since he didn't come this weekend, I have to go to work today... And I am not looking forward to the long commute or all the things I am responsible for doing up to the point when labor starts and I can finally go on leave.

From what I can find on the Internet, the congestion is supposed to go away within a couple weeks of delivery. I really hope that's true because now that the nasal sprays no longer really work, the one thing I haven't tried yet is Sudafed. Once it gets late enough this morning I'm going to go to the drug store for some, but I'm not holding out much hope - Sudafed has never worked very well for me.

If baby doesn't come today or tomorrow, I have my next appointment tomorrow afternoon. Last week the doctor mentioned that they could let me go as much as a week overdue, but when we hit the due date we could also induce. My doctor's office measured the due date as April 6, even though I happen to know it's April 8th based on the date of conception. At this point though I don't want to quibble... If they're willing to induce me on Wednesday or Thursday I'll take it.

I'm pretty terrified of the birth and delivery process. Had a meltdown when I started thinking seriously about the IV they're going to give me... I have a phobia of needles but it's really a phobia of foreign objects stuck in my skin, and IVs go in and just... Hang out there, being foreign. *shudder* not as worried about the epidural because once the medicine starts the epidural site also goes numb. Nothing's going to make the IV sit numb, though. And of course then I have all the other normal anxieties about birthing... How will I manage the pain when I have no pain tolerance, what if I tear, what if they have to cut me, what if I end up with a c-section (recovery sounds horrible), how will I be able to go to the bathroom after? All these totally unglamorous things that I just have to keep reminding myself if other women survive them, often repeatedly, then I'm going to make it through ok. And I'm only doing it once, and everybody promises me it will be worth it in the end... I know I must believe that because I wouldn't have fought so long to make this baby otherwise.

Deep breath. Truly, pregnancy has upped my anxiety levels to preposterous proportions. I've been on a crazy hormone trip for so many years now that sometimes I'm not even sure who I'll end up being once this roller coaster comes to a stop. :/

Anyway. I've been feeling so crummy between pregnancy discomforts and work stress that I haven't felt much like blogging, even though we have the nursery mural done and I'm super excited with how it turned out. I'll get around to blogging the pictures soon, promise. Right now, literally just trying to make it through the next couple hours of congested hell so that I can get ready for the work day and get to the drug store. I have the sad feeling that there will be no more sleep for me tonight :(

37WK4D - Home Stretch

Less than three weeks from baby boy's due date, and so many developments I will basically have to list them in bullets:

Symptoms (I have, like, everything right now)

• I sleep for maybe 5 hours a night until the congestion keeps me from being able to go back to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. Also, my first two fingers and thumb on each hand go numb after I've been laying down for a while, which is distracting.
• Excessively thirsty. Can't seem to drink enough water.
• Swelling in my ankles and hands has actually gone down. Still a little bit going on but nowhere near as painful or crippling as a couple weeks ago. Very, very grateful for the relief from this one.
• Congestion is increasingly worse, and harder to manage even with nasal spray... It wears off too fast.
• Tired. Nauseous, especially in the morning. Heightened anxiety.
• Belly button is almost flat with the rest of my stomach now.
• Swollen, uncomfortable girly bits. Oh, and hemorrhoids. Fun.

Last week's Doctor checkup:

• I lost two pounds (I think because the swelling has reduced) and belly didn't seem to be measuring any bigger than two weeks prior.
• They did a cervical exam, which hurt because my cervix is wayyyy high. She said it was still closed and firm, but about 66% effaced, and baby is head down.
• Baby's heart rate was in the 160's
• They ordered an ultrasound so we got to see him again. It was harder to get good image because he's big now. They estimated he was 7lbs, 8oz.... Gah!!! All his parts are in the right place and doing what they're supposed to, though. He keeps his hands up by his face, and his face mooshed into the placenta, so it was hard to get a good look at him.

Last night's developments:

• Pretty sure I had my first Braxton Hicks contraction (s). Bent down to pick up some laundry and when I straightened my whole belly felt tight, like I was trying to hold a sit-up. Stayed that way for a while. Seemed to get better when I sat down, but resumed when I got back up. There was no real beginning or end to the feeling, like I'd expected... It just was tight, then wasn't anymore. Weird.
• Also pretty sure I lost the mucus plug last night as I was peeing for the hundred millionth time. Wasn't as much as I expected and no blood or blood streaks. Just like a dime's worth of very clotted, shiny EWCM, kind of light yellow. Yay mucus. :P

Work:

• Oh, work. What a huge ball of crazy. My boss announced she is moving on to another job and her last day is 3 days before I'm due. She has always been very, very difficult to work with and I'm a little relieved to have the chance to be answerable to someone else, but the timing means my maternity coverage plan is out the window and my staff are pretty vulnerable for the next few weeks.
• One member of my staff resigned with no notice last week. Probably also a change for the better, though she was a good caseworker and her shoes will be hard to fill. We're getting to hire two contractors to replace her FTE, but I don't know if I'll be around long enough to interview and onboard them... And definitely not to train them. That means my one remaining experienced enforcement worker, who is already covering the majority of my duties because she's the only one who can, is the only resource for three newbie workers once I'm out.
• We're creating a team lead position in order to promote one of my remaining three seasoned workers into a position of more leadership (and higher pay.) but once the position posts there's a hiring process for that, too. Will I be there long enough to see it through?
• Our unit is being moved under the eligibility manager, Erin. I like her and I think it will be a nice change to report to her. In addition, they are going to hire a child support/customer service manager to report directly to her and oversee our unit. I thought I might have caught hints that Erin and our director, Dan, want me to apply for it.  I know that my soon to be former boss had no such intention and had a different person in mind for the job. Not sure if she will be part of the hiring process. Not sure if I would be screwing the team over if I apply, since if they picked me I couldn't step into the role until after maternity leave. Pretty sure that if I did apply and got the job, they would hire a new supervisor for the unit through our contract company. Also not sure how that would work but maybe it would actually be the best way to give my team the leadership they need while I'm out?
• Either way, that job is supposed to be posted in the next couple days. I am waiting for it to come out so I can read it before I decide whether to apply or not. If it does look like something I want, I have to figure out if I should talk to Erin or Dan first about whether I should apply,or just send in an app and see what they do with it, or chicken out because I don't want to see the look on my former boss' face or answer her snarky questions if she decides to be hard on me in the interview.
• All of that is, of course, assuming I don't go into labor first.

Other Developments:

Nursery painting is finally done and so, so cute. We have to wait for a chance to take pics in the daylight before we can share them, though. 

House is a wreck. I have so little mobility and energy and haven't been able to clean much. Thinking about hiring someone to do some chores as I think it would make me feel a little better.

Feeling more and more apprehensive about labor the closer we get. Labor has always been the scariest part of this whole thing for me. And of course, the closer you get the more people want to tell you their horror stories about how awful it is. What if i poop on the delivery table? What if I tear, or have to be cut? (I think I'd almost prefer a C-section, ugh.)  what if I throw up? What if the epidural doesn't work, or wears off? What if it's just horrific pain that there's nothing anybody can do anything about? Honestly I'm more scared of labor than anything else right now. Not worried for baby, I feel like he's going to be fine. Not worried for the exhaustion of a newborn's "schedule", that I can roll with the flow on. Not worried about diapers or even breastfeeding. Right now those things sound pretty manageable, in the face of pushing an eight (ten?) pound watermelon out of my body. I told Kaitlin that if I am in pain, if it's not going well, if I'm pooping or tearing or have to be cut, that I want all grandparents shooed out of the room. I'm ok with them being in there if the epidural is making things calm and bearable, but I really don't want to be self-conscious of my parents and hers looking on while I'm in bad shape.

So anyway. That's where life is right now. Still can't post pictures to this blog with my iPad, I'm going to have to find a solution to that eventually. In the meantime I've managed to kill the hour of not being able to sleep before my alarm goes off. Time to get up and head back to work...

33 WEEKS - Feeling Crappy

Glad to be at 33 weeks today - only 7 more to go!

Unfortunately I'm in one of those slumps where I feel like crap. I've had a chronic headache for three days and I'm starting to develop a cough. I had a low fever last night, too, which meant both chills and feeling overheated at the same time, and I didn't end up sleeping very well. I may be fighting off the super nasty bug that Kaitlin had a couple weeks ago. Trying to keep the vitamin C and water flowing and just make it through the next five minutes, and then the next five...

I'm at work today but only barely. My head hurts and my eyes hurt and my stomach hurts and I want to sleep so much... But I can't go home sick, because today we have an interview for our open position and it's pretty vital, and besides, I don't want to use my leave time before my maternity leave. So I'm going to stick it out until after the interview ends at 4:30, then I'm going home, and I'll make up the last couple hours I need to do either tonight or this weekend. 

Just have to make it a few more hours.

NINETEEN WEEKS

Well, the last couple weeks have been so chaotic I actually missed posting on our 18-week milestone. But we did manage to take an 18-week belly picture: 

In a nutshell, there has been chaos at work, in which not only are annual performance evaluations due for all of my staff (which are lengthy, difficult writing projects requiring a lot of time and attention) but I also made a mistake that ended up getting me in some disciplinary hot water and I was worried for a time for the safety of my job. There has also been chaos at home, in which Kaitlin's car has broken down and will require $2000+ to fix, which is money she just doesn't have; so we had to borrow a car temporarily from my family while we figured out options to fix or sell. Sounds like we're going to sell it, and borrow a car from a friend for a few months while we save very hard in order to buy her another one. Of course it had to happen just before winter, when she cannot take her motorcycle to work safely, and she's facing a gap in pay during schools' Christmas breaks. 

On top of all that, I caught a cold. Not a major one, the primary lingering symptom is congestion, but I was still feeling pretty low and tired and overwhelmed for a while.

I've been really, really stressed as a result, and eating regular meals ends up falling by the wayside when I'm stressed, so of course there was additional worry that I was harming baby in addition to everything else. But, as of last night baby is still wiggling like crazy. And my appetite is slowly returning. I indulged last month in a lot - and I mean a LOT - of eating out. Way more than I should have, mostly because it was so hard to think of anything that was appetizing to eat, and especially at work - by the time I would prepare food I was grossed out by it and didn't want to eat it, whereas if I went someplace and had food plopped in front of me I could usually eat at least half of it. Anyway, the amount I ended up spending on eating out was pretty shameful, so I'm glad that this month I'm able to eat more regular groceries. 

I still haven't gained much weight, and for coming up on halfway through the pregnancy, I'm not really showing much either. Going to enjoy it while I can, since it sounds like the second half of pregnancy is when the bump really starts getting impressive. :P

Sleeping has been a challenge too, though I think it's more stress- related than anything else. There are some pregnancy-related difficulties; lying on my back is less comfortable and my hips get sore after too much side-sleeping. And, of course, most nights I have to get up at least once to pee. 

Anyway, all of that aside, I'm really really grateful that at least with everything else that's not going right the baby and pregnancy seem to be doing pretty much fine. We'll have our next appointment on December 4th, around the 22-week mark, for the "big" anatomy scan.

In the meantime, the 19 week BabyCenter pic:

11WK3D - Diclegis

Well, today is my fourth day on Diclegis. The exhaustion, especially over the weekend, has been pretty crippling. I literally laid in bed or on the couch the entire weekend. I had to come back to work today, and *knock on wood* seem to have a bit more energy in comparison to this weekend, but that's not saying a whole lot.

I am starting to feel like I'm being pretty whiny and negative, which is not at all what I had envisioned or wanted for pregnancy. It's not like pregnancy sucks in every way, either - I sort of enjoy the changes in my body, the little pangs and stretches in my belly, and my hair and nails have never looked so good. :P But the sick-and-tired part of pregnancy is so pervasive that it's difficult to brush aside in favor of the more positive things. Literally every day I'm googling "when will morning sickness end" and "when does pregnancy fatigue end". The answers tend to be not-terribly-comforting at this stage. I'm 11 1/2 weeks into this, and the internet says you start feeling better at around 14 - 16 weeks. That means at least two and a half more weeks before it gets better. Right now it's hard to imagine how I'm going to make it until 5 PM, let alone through the rest of this week, and next week, and the week after that at work.

So the first day I was on Diclegis the zombie-like tiredness was as bad as the nausea had been... and while the nausea was reduced, it still came back that afternoon/evening. The second day I had no nausea, just felt like I'd been running a marathon for two days, and I could barely get out of bed. Same thing on the third day. Today is day four, and the nausea is still at bay (thank heavens) and I seem to have a smidge more energy. Still would trade just about anything to be able to go back to bed. Except the one thing I'd have to trade, which would be a shorter maternity leave once baby actually arrives - I'm toughing it out right now because I want a FULL twelve week leave. I want every last hour of not-being-at-work that I can squeeze in with our new little one, and if I eat up my sick days now I won't have enough leave time to cover it.

Still, I am wondering if I might work some half days, take my computer home, and do some work from home between naps instead of trying to power through all of it here. I think I can probably get away with that about one day a week. Also planning on taking lunch breaks to nap in my office, even if the floor is hard and cold and uncomfortable.

Anyway, whine, whine, whine. I really wasn't expecting to be this down in the dumps when we've finally, FINALLY managed to get pregnant after all this time! I just have to keep reminding myself that as miserable as it physically feels right now, our dream of being moms is coming true at last... and keep hanging in there. <3

5WK4D – I Guess I’ll Go Eat Worms

So yesterday, just as I was leaving work to come home, I went to the bathroom and found that the spotting had returned.  Still dark brown, still little enough to call spotting, but UGH!!!!

So I drove home, got into bed, had Kaitlin make dinner for me, and pretty much did not get out of bed until I had to get up for work this morning. I took an extra 100mg of progesterone last night, too, per our Greek coordinator’s instructions.  I’m still spotting today, and thankful that it’s staying dark brown and light in quantity, but ohhhhh, I really don’t want to be at work right now. Trying to prop my feet up when I can and make it through the day.

I’m tired, and lightly nauseous, and breasts were very sore last night. But this is the most awful waiting-week ever, so much worse than the usual TWW. It occurred to me that even our ultrasound next week, which right now I am clinging to anxiously, isn’t going to “fix” anything. It will give us some more information on what’s going on, but it’s not going to have any actual effect on the outcome one way or the other, any more than a pregnancy test does.  It’s just a way of finding out more. But what will be is going to be, regardless of whether we know about it as it happens or not.

Trying to find some measure of zen in all of this, but it’s really hard. I still have the gut feeling that  things are going to be okay this time, but it’s not easy to tune out the naysaying spots on the toilet paper.  And in the meantime, I am feeling a lack of energy, a lot of frustration – not just about the spotting but that I can’t keep up with the house when I really shouldn’t be walking/moving around much – and a lot of just glum, pessimistic thoughts about our capability to even be parents if one anxious week of early pregnancy makes the house this much of a mess, whether the universe intends to snatch this away like last time, etc. I guess I’ll go eat worms. :P

 (Whenever I was feeling sorry for myself as a kid my dad would always sing “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I guess I’ll go eat worms…” I hated it. But it was, I admit, an effective way of pointing out just how whiny and ridiculously exaggerating I was being.)

The dumb thing is I really don’t have any reason to be letting my brain wander off in such self-pitying doomsday directions, because so far Dr. Google says that the type of spotting I’m experiencing is completely and utterly normal and not really anything to worry about. It’s like I have some sort of PTSD after our first loss and can’t dig my little brain out of its Eeyore-hole. Seriously. I’m automatically assuming and fearing the worst possible outcome, when a great possible outcome is equally possible. So basically, I am totally discounting the glass as half empty, because I fear unpreparedness if I choose to view it as half full and turn out to be wrong.

Which is worse… to be disappointed because I believed something good would happen and it didn’t, or to be disappointed because I believed something bad would happen and was proven right? There’s really no difference between the two, other than that the first scenario has an added layer of self-flagellation for being arrogant, foolish, blind, etc. etc. But either way, the ultimate result is the same: that I didn’t get what I wanted. And being able to say “I knew it!” doesn’t really make me feel any better.

I am also betting that a good amount of this poo-pooing is medication-induced, because I only seem to be this stubbornly negative when I’m on these crazy hormones.  I *could* be enjoying this time, focusing on how grateful I am that the spotting is still in the “safe” zone, even that spotting is a clear indicator that I’ve got a pregnancy really and truly going on in there, or that the spotting has increased my bonding with our little shrimp (he/she apparently looks a lot like a tiny shrimp at the moment) because I keep having long talks with them about all the wonderful things they should really consider sticking around for.  I *could* be floating around the office with a little secret smile, because I know I’m pregnant and nobody else does, and it’s kind of fun.

I really need to stop choosing to stare at the darkness instead of the stars, and give myself an attitude adjustment. :P

I Would Die For That

Someone posted this song on the NorthWest Andrology forums and I basically had to close my office door and take a moment to bawl my eyes out. This is basically my heart song at the moment.

So not a whole lot of exciting updates right now. We were supposed to go hiking for my birthday, but after driving the three hours into the mountains it turned out that the trail was flooded due to all the rain and they wouldn't let us up. So we kept going into Glenwood Springs instead, and went to the Glenwood Cavern Adventure Park. It cost a lot more than what I was planning to spend on my birthday, but we did have a good time - took a cave tour, and rode a couple of the rides, and generally just acted goofy.

Since the hiking trail we planned for today was closed, we're on a team headed for Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park instead. Kaitlin is very excited.

A photo posted by Meg (@meghannmccall) on Jun 14, 2015 at 11:12am PDT

Also confirmed that we start Lupron on the 21st, which is this coming Sunday. Pride is this weekend, and I'll be there at a booth with my books and some of the other authors from my publishing house. It should be a good time, even if I do have to start getting shots again. I got my updated social security card, and went to the DMV last week, but haven't gotten my new driver's license in the mail yet - once that comes in I can actually start changing my name on everything, especially at work. Since work is where I spend the vast majority of my life, I think it will feel a lot more like a "real" change once I'm able to use my name there...

Anyway, we're doing okay in terms of savings for our third round. Trying to think positive... the odds are that it should really, really work this time. But it's also hard to think about what we'll do next if it doesn't. Since thinking about getting pregnant is way more fun, I'm trying to focus on dreaming about that instead. But dreaming is dangerous. *Sigh* Still, I only have two choices: spend the next few weeks anxious, or spend them excited. Neither one will have any effect on the outcome, most likely, but they'll have a big effect on our quality of life.

So, excited it is. :P

I have a baby shower to attend for a friend next weekend. I'm halfway SUPER excited, and halfway nervous. On the one hand, I get to hold a tiny baby (SQUEE) and see my friends and congratulate them. On the other (insert major selfishness) they have a baby and I don't, and I am jealous. I have a big mouth, and it's going to be really hard to not blurt out to everybody that we're trying to have a baby too and it's been so hard and expensive and taken so much time and wah, wah, wah, me, me, me when it's THEIR party for their new little family. So I'm doing my best to focus on being happy for THEM (because I am!) without making it about myself.

So yeah... that's where we're at right now. Lupron, then the start of my next AF, then another $500 ultrasound / bloodwork, then weeks more of Lupron while we wait for Embio to tell us when we should plan to be there and when the transfer date will be... waiting and waiting and more waiting...

IVF Barbie, Not Giving Up And Other Fun

Found this post today that made me laugh: IVF Barbie

I definitely remember being Newbie Barbie, and Joiner Barbie too. And I am reminded, as I stare down my 36th birthday this month, my pregnant friends and family, friends with newborns, and pictures of babies all over my facebook feed, that technically I haven't actually reached full on Veteran Barbie status yet. I've gained weight from all the meds - about 15 pounds - and I do have some gray hair (which I keep colored.) My poor tummy has had its moments of bruises and puncture marks so bad that it looks diseased. But in the grand scheme of things, I've got time. So many folks on various boards are 38, 40, 42 and are still trying. Even if I decided to try up until my 40th birthday I'd still have four more years of attempts left. So far I've done 4 ICIs, 3 Clomid IUIs, 3 injectable IUIs, transferred five donor embryos, made two trips to Greece, and endured one six week miscarriage. That's actually only twelve cycles, total, even if they were spread out over the course of five years. Pretty sure there are an awful lot of veteran ladies who would shake their heads at all my angst and think "Girl, you ain't seen nothing yet."

And though I eye my bank account, our budgets, and the HELOC slapped against my house, the truth is that four years is a good long time. I could pay the entire HELOC off almost twice over in that time. So if a July attempt doesn't work and we have to take a 7-8 month break, is it really that big of a deal?

The same blogger has another post that really hit home: When Is It Time To Stop Trying?

I will admit, I've had moments of "Why am I even doing this? Maybe all this failure is a sign from the universe that I am not meant to be a mom. Should I be investing this energy into acceptance of a childfree life?"

And then I feel guilty. If I'm considering giving up, then I must not want it badly enough. Quitters are just people who aren't adequately motivated, aren't they? It's hard not to believe, in my weakest and most discouraged moments, that there really is some entity outside myself - the universe, fate, God - that is actively denying me a baby. The really ironic thing is that no one's actually SAID that to me, but I have this overwhelming suspicion that if the rest of the world knew everything we'd done up to this point to try and get pregnant, they'd all be thinking it... "Sheesh, obviously you're not meant to be a mom, get over it." I am projecting my own mean little inner voice onto my friends and family, the assumption that they would all dismiss my repeated failures as God's plan for my life.

And I know that this comes from my childhood, the way that I was raised in an ultra-religious bubble and taught to be judgy and condescending and superior when others were going through crises. Must be God's plan for your life, dear, be content with it...

It's those naysaying thoughts... the idea that a higher power wants to prevent me from being a mom, combined with the guilt that entertaining that thought means I don't want this badly enough, that are probably the most powerful depressants in this whole infertility war. And they battle it out with the  surviving vestiges of my NewbieBarbie self, who is still stubbornly popping up in the corner (albeit her glitter makeup is starting to look a little worse for wear) and cheerily shouting "Baby dust! Power of positive thinking! If I can do it so can you! Success stories! Pregnancy magic! Still plenty of time and money, where there's a will there's a way! Winners never quit!"

I wish there was a way I could live as NewbieBarbie. Literally choose not to acknowledge failure, to keep my eye on the prize with confidence every second of the day, spread nothing but encouragement and positivity, and live my life in between cycles with joy and carefreeness and the certainty that my baby's coming eventually. There are a few people in this world who are able to live that way. My inner judgy self usually decides they're ditzes. So unconnected with reality, maddeningly lost in fantasy, irresponsible, taking each day as it comes and never concerning themselves with how it will affect tomorrow. Romantical and ridiculous. Today I envy them. Today I think there's something I could probably learn from that kind of attitude.

In other news, my new name is now on file with the DMV. Waiting to get my social security and DMV cards in the mail, and then I can change my name here at work and on all my other stuff...

Oh, and I still haven't heard back from the Greek clinic to confirm when I'm supposed to start Lupron injections. Finally just went ahead and emailed the doctor today. Hopefully that will get me an answer...

IVF#2 12DP5DT - Beta Day

Another BFN on the HPT last night. Got up early this morning, let Kaitlin give me my heparin shot, took my meds, and went to the doctor's office for the blood draw. Just waiting to get the results this afternoon so that I can stop taking the medication. I have never wanted confirmation of a BFN more than I do right now. I know that we failed. But I wish I was wrong, so badly, that I am desperate for that piece of paper that tells me I can stop going through the motions. Stop taking the medication, stop wondering about every little twinge, stop worrying about cold medicine and coffee and alcohol and just get on with my still-childless life.

I don't remember the other BFNs being this hard. I don't remember being in this much pain while at work even during the miscarriage... probably because in that case, I took days off through the worst of it. I don't feel like I deserve days off for just another BFN. It's not like my life is over. I'm not even physically as uncomfortable as I am during a normal AF. I just feel a whole lot of nothing. A whole lot of empty. My emotions are on overdrive because of the estrogen, and I can't wait to be able to stop taking it.

My heart is so broken. I feel so broken. Thirty thousand dollars later, we are no closer to having a baby in our arms than we were when we started. I am tired and bitter and more sad than I know how to put into words. I don't know how to give up on this. Yet I don't know how I can keep going, either. How do people do this? How do they get through years and years of this? How do they AFFORD it?

All I want right now is retail therapy. After months of scrimping and saving and forgoing every little thing I wanted in order to add pennies to our TTC savings account, all I want is to buy anything that seems like it might make me feel better. And it's probably the worst and most self-destructive thing I can do, because money is what makes the TTC journey go round. I'm going to be paying off the debt we're already in for the next ten years, and we didn't even get a baby out of it.

Today is a sucktacular day, and all I can think about is getting to that test result - just a few more hours now, I can make it that long, right? - so that I can go home, hate my life, drink a bottle of wine, cry until I can't think anymore, and wake up tomorrow without meds, without injections, without hope. Right now the greatest happiness available to me will be hopelessness. At least if there's no hope, it doesn't hurt so much.

So I realize that writing all of this out, the fact that this is the way my heart really feels, the fact that this is, I guess, the whiny, bitter, self-centered person I actually am, is pretty revealing, isn't it? I don't like the person that I am right now. I don't want to be this negative. I don't want to be this angry.  I don't want to be such a diva about things that aren't going right in my life. After all, the world doesn't revolve around me. And I should be spending this time caring for other people's problems and sadness instead of wallowing in my own. One of the girls at the RE's office today called me a "trooper." I wanted to hug her and punch her at the same time. It's nice that someone might think of me that way, but I know it's a lie. Because I'm not trooping, I'm drowning in self-pity and failure and pain and jealousy and anger and tears.

I want to be a strong person, a courageous person who faces disappointment with love and kindness and selflessness and grace, but I'm not. I'm tapped out, I've got nothing left. Today it's all about surviving through the next ten seconds. And then the next ten seconds. And then the next. Until life has moved on enough that I can move on too.

So.

Once I get the results I'm not waiting for the Greek clinic to tell me to stop the meds, I'm just stopping. When I send them the results, I'll ask them for another Lupron prescription, so that I can order the meds again  - it will take a month or more to get them so I might as well get them ordered now. That will be another $537. I'll also ask her to tell me how long they would recommend I wait before trying again, and how much their fee will be for a third attempt. Then I spend the next couple of weekends selling everything possible on Ebay and Craigslist. I avoid driving anywhere I don't have to drive, I eat as little as possible and avoid grocery shopping for as long as possible. I don't buy anything else for my little doll or sewing supplies. When I get my next royalty check the whole thing goes into the TTC savings account. I just literally don't spend ANYTHING, don't buy ANYTHING, that is not absolutely necessary. I avoid seeing my family, especially my pregnant SIL, as much as humanly possible - which is going to be really difficult over the summer, since that's the time when we all have birthdays and get together monthly, and I don't know how I'm going to get out of all of them.

And maybe, just MAYBE, we'll be able to take another stab at this in July or August. It will be the last. If it doesn't work... It will be a year before I can even begin to hope to have enough money to do anything else. Of course, I keep saying that, and as soon as failure strikes I seem to come up with another way to find money. I suppose a fourth try could go entirely on a credit card, but that just seems really stupid. Though adoption fees... If I spent money on an adoption and home study before the end of this year, I think I could get it all pretty much back in taxes next year. So maybe that's what we'll have to do... try one more IVF, and if it doesn't work, sign up with an adoption agency, charge the whole fee to a credit card, then write it off on taxes so that we get it refunded... and wait to see if there's any birth mother out there who will choose us.

Funny, how all the IVF bloggers I've found and followed never really seem to talk much about the money part of their attempts. Maybe they have insurance covering them, or have a partner who's footing the bills, or someone lending it to them, I don't know. But I don't have any of that, and it's maybe the biggest stressor of this entire process, worse even than the hormones and the injections and the TWW.

And the only thing that keeps me going right now is knowing that if we ever DO get a baby out of all of this, it will all suddenly seem more than worth it. It would be something I would do over again without question, if I KNEW the outcome was going to be eventual success. But right now we're in that uncertain limbo where never-succeeding is still a very real possibility, and then all of this is going to be the biggest waste, the biggest losing bet, of my life.

Break's over. Have to get started on some actual work now... the last thing I need is to get fired on top of everything else.

IVF#2 11DP5DT - Still negative

Got another BFN last night and didn't even bother testing this morning. I'll probably test once more tonight but I know there isn't much point. Also, the Greek clinic hasn't sent me the letter I need to even have the blood beta tomorrow. I've asked for it three times. So I'm going to have to ask the doctor himself, because I can't actually even be seen by my doctor without it, and I can't stop taking the meds until the Greek clinic says so, and I really don't want to do any more injections.

Kaitlin and I are talking about pulling out all the stops... and by that I mean maxing out the HELOC and selling everything we possibly can and maybe floating the rest on a credit card... for one more shot over the summer. And if that doesn't work, I don't think we have any hope of getting pregnant. We can't afford to keep throwing money at this, at $8000 a pop. We may have to look into adoption - but I don't know if we'll have the money for it for a long time.

I'm going to work late tonight so that I don't have to go have dinner with my family. I just can't sit there with my pregnant SIL and pretend like I'm okay. I kind of don't want to see her, at least not for a little while... at least until I feel like I'll be able to do it without my heart shredding with envy and self-loathing.

Never in a million years, when we started this a year and a half ago, did I imagine it was going to come to this. I never thought I'd pour this much money and heart and time and physical bodily strain and stress into something and still come out of it as empty handed as when we began. Never did I imagine that I wouldn't be the first to give my parents a grandchild. It never occurred to me that we would actually FAIL. I guess I always thought at some point, somewhere down the line, we WOULD have a baby... we just had to keep trying.

But you can't make something happen just by trying. This is one of those times when the cheery "if you believe, you can achieve!!!" bullshit is exactly that. No amount of believing is going to give us a baby. Only money. Money, and luck. And even when I've been able to scrape one together, the other continues to ignore me.

Kaitlin's going to ask her Mom today to try and find out how serious this acquaintance of hers is about adoption. We would do it in a HEARTBEAT if she's serious, but it's such a delicate, uncertain thing that it doesn't seem possible it's going to pan out.

Anyway. That's where life is today. Empty, tapped out, and tired. But maybe we've got one more round in us. Just one...

IVF#2 CD14 - Name Change and Other Developments

I was supposed to get an email from my new IVF coordinator today with instructions about Estrogen (and hopefully some idea of the dates I have to be in Greece) but didn't hear anything. Sent an email, but won't get a reply until probably early tomorrow morning because of the time difference. Here's hoping she gets in touch and we don't have another stressful period of silence...

I went to the bank today and finalized the transfer of 4800 Euro to the Greek clinic. Also hoping everything goes smoothly and that the 4800 is accepted, since that's what they originally quoted me.

I finally, finally got my IRS background check back for my name change. You know, the paperwork I started right after I got my BFP in December. So I took a long lunch yesterday and went to the county courthouse, about 20 minutes and 20 miles from work, to file the paperwork. Got it filed and paid my $120, only to be told that the judges were on lunch and if I wanted to wait, I could get it signed. I couldn't wait, because I had a meeting at work I had to get back to. They said okay, if I could get back by 4:30 I could get it signed then.

Drove back to work, went to the meeting. Left the meeting a little early so I'd have time to drive BACK to the courthouse, where first the lady told me the judges had closed at 4, then the other lady said she might be able to squeeze me in. Sat there for about 15 minutes and the court clerk called me upstairs - judge signed my petition. They set a review hearing for 5/22, so I have to go back then to have the final order issued.

Drove home with my paperwork, ready to send it off to the publisher in order to meet the 3-weeks-of-published-notice requirement. Realized when I got home that they gave me only one of the two documents I need. So now I have to find another day when I can either come in late or leave early so that I can go back to the courthouse, pick up the second document, and fulfill the publication requirement before I leave the country. Ugh. Really annoyed, because it means a lot of gas and time away from work, and the courthouse is only open during the times I'm supposed to be at work.

In the meantime, I got a phone call yesterday morning that my sister-in-law is pregnant. She and my brother have only been trying for about 6 months. And while I am happy for them - I truly am - and I know they're super excited and they deserve to be, I had to retreat into my own space for a while to process. Twenty five grand we've spent on this. Pills, injections, more doctors' visits than I can count, being probed and stabbed over and over again. Flights and hotel and wiring money and ordering meds overseas and traveling halfway around the world... finally, FINALLY getting pregnant only to lose the baby... and we're no closer to our baby now than we were fifteen months ago when we started all this.  Yet after six months, my brother and his wife get pregnant, easy as that.

I know the world isn't always fair. I know that just because we're struggling with infertility doesn't mean the rest of the world should have to. And I don't wish this awfulness and stress on anybody. But it does make me rage at the universe, a little. I want a baby so badly. I feel, though I know it's ridiculous and irrelevant, that surely we've "earned" pregnancy by now. Surely it should be our "turn". Surely the world should be more fair than this.

I wish I was a stronger person. I wish I was a bigger person. I wish I was graceful and kind and loving and generous and selfless. I want to be joyful and patient through all of this, to just sit back and enjoy the adventure, the mystery, the anticipation, the exotic foreign travel. Yet I'm mad, and I don't even have anyone to be mad AT.

But there is a silver lining. If this next round works my SIL and I can be pregnancy buddies... we can share our experiences throughout the stages of pregnancy, and have our babies at almost the same time, and end up with cousins super close in age. That would make for a fun time at family gatherings, since they'd have automatic playmates. I might even allow myself to believe, if this next round is successful, that that's how it was meant to be.... that maybe the REASON I miscarried, the reason we've had to wait so long, is because fate always meant for us to have babies at the same time.

It's just really hard to keep up hope right now. I'm so afraid of hoping. I'm so afraid of giving up. I'm so tired, tired, tired of the nonstop uncertainty. I'm afraid that all this fear is going to keep me from getting pregnant, in and of itself. Getting pregnant was supposed to be fun. Changing my name was supposed to be fun (it's high time I got rid of my ex's last name and moved on with my life.) Having my next book published was supposed to be fun, but somehow I think my skin has gotten thinner, because every negative comment is getting to me and they never used to before.  Not good. You can't be any sort of creative professional and be that sensitive.

My self-confidence is taking such a beating these last few days, and I just want to curl up and hide until it's over. I need something good to happen. I need some success to come at me and reassure me that I don't suck as a human being. Of course, I'd be more than content to continue to let the world keep beating me up in exchange for a sticky BFP this time.  I could take anything the world throws at me with a happy heart, if only I could just get pregnant again and get to keep it.

If I hadn't lost my baby, I'd be at nineteen weeks or so right now. Almost halfway there. It's hard to imagine. Is it normal that the more time goes by, the MORE you miss a baby that you were barely even pregnant with?

Anyway, I can't think about that for too long or I start crying again. Forward. Have to think forward. I will be in Greece in a week and a half or so. I'll have days to myself to loaf around a hotel, hopefully swim in a pool, read books, write, surf the internet, SLEEP - whatever I want. We have another chance, when I didn't think that we would for a long time. And nothing I do can change fate. I follow my med protocol, I get my butt to Greece, I show up to get my embryos, I stay healthy and hydrated and nutriented and restful. That's all I can do. The rest is just a roll of the dice and a prayer.

IVF#2 - Still waiting for AF

I am expecting AF today, but so far she hasn't showed. We've been doing Lupron shots for a week now, and we're opening up our second bottle of meds, and the bottle I ordered on 3/5 still hasn't arrived yet even though the USPS tracking says it was in Chicago on 3/16. Starting to get a little nervous. I have enough meds for two more weeks. SURELY the new bottle will arrive by then...??

Once AF shows I have to call my RE's office for an ultrasound and bloodwork. I'm not looking forward to explaining to them that I miscarried in January. I'm hoping, though, that AF is going to come today, because then I can get an appointment for Friday. If it doesn't come today I'll need a weekend appointment, and that's only going to make my already-somewhat-unfriendly RE even unfriendlier.

I am a blur of emotions right now (part of the reason I know AF is coming, LOL). I am excited and hopeful... even have moments where I'm absolutely certain that this is going to be it for us, that I'm going to have a few relaxing days in Greece, come home and get another string of positive pregnancy tests a couple weeks later, but this time NO BLEEDING, NO CRAMPING, NO SCARIES. Just two weeks, BFP, a couple positive betas, four weeks of excited bliss, a first ultrasound showing a perfectly normal developing sac (or two), and on to morning sickness, more ultrasounds, and relatively smooth sailing for the next nine months.

 But I am also still angry, maybe even a little in disbelief over January's loss. It still feels incomprehensible that I'm not pregnant anymore. I should have a baby the size of an avocado right now. I should be wearing maternity clothes, decorating a nursery, and heck... I might know the baby's gender by now. I should be posting weekly bump photos to Facebook and keeping a pregnancy journal and just... celebrating life.

Instead I'm planning another trip to Greece. Quietly, trying to keep it as short and low-key as possible. I'm trying to think of it as a nice little mini-vacation, a chance to read, work on my next book, rest - and not think of it as a long, exhausting, lonely, somewhat scary trip to a foreign country all alone where I don't speak the language and have to figure out how to call taxis by myself and whether it's safe to walk a few blocks from my hotel at night to eat dinner alone.  And in that sense I feel sad, and scared, and maybe a little depressed. While I do have moments where I'm certain it's going to work, there are just as many moments when the fatalist in me is equally sure that I'm going to go, force myself to stab my own stomach with a needle, go through the pinchy-pressure of the transfer all alone, fly for hours and hours and hours and hours, only to get a BFN two weeks later and be no closer to having a baby than I am right now and completely broke, with months and months and months to go before I can try for a third and final time. Or worse, I get pregnant and miscarry again. I keep thinking about that bitter Italian lady that I got stuck next to during the two hour recovery time at the clinic - how it was her second attempt and she spent most of the time talking about how she was sure it wasn't going to work. I hear a lot of her in my own thoughts right now and I don't like it. One resolution - I am for SURE not going to allow myself to burst the bubble of anybody else while I'm there. I may not be able to keep the negativity out of my own head, but I am sure as heck not going to plant it in anybody else's. That's just mean.

I want to cry. I also desperately want to hope, but only if this time is actually going to result in a baby. I'd rather not have any hope at all than go through that disappointment again. But it's not like I can really complain, since I'm the one who's choosing to stay in this game. That means I'm choosing to risk more disappointment, which is still more appealing right now than the thought of giving up. So I may be feeling bitter and disgusted with the universe, but I guess I still must have hope in there somewhere. As much as I'd like to throw my hands in the air and exclaim theatrically that I'm DONE, as much as I hate hate hate the idea of false hope, I must not have really given up yet... because I'm going back. That has to count for something, right?

The excitement of my new book launch has mostly worn off. In a sense it feels a little anticlimactic, actually, because it doesn't feel like I've gotten as much feedback as I guess I was expecting. I've been filling the time in the past few days with designing Disney-princess-themed work outfits on Polyvore and trying not to think too much. I'm taking my prenatal faithfully, along with a slew of other vitamins. I filled my mini-fridge at work with salad stuff. I'm trying to drink water, though I'm not very good at it. I'm trying to stay focused at work, though I'm not doing a good job of that this week either.

I'm tired today, and highly emotional, and also restless. So basically, PMSy. The one thing that I do know is that while right now the moment of truth feels so far away - end of April/beginning of May, probably, before I'll know if this round works - it will eventually get here. Time keeps marching on. Not as fast as I want it to, I'm still really wishing for that fast-forward button - but it will eventually get here, and I'll have my answer for better or worse.

If it works, the due date would be early January next year.

I just have to keep my eye on next month's calendar, and keep making it through the days. Someday when I'm old and gray I'll probably look back at this time and wish that I'd spent more time enjoying the days I did have instead of wishing they'd hurry by. Perspective is such a tricky thing.

HcG Drop

Got a voice mail from the doctor today with my HcG results from last Thursday:  477. Far lower than the 7900ish that it was just four days earlier. It was a miscarriage, all right. I have another blood draw scheduled for this coming Thursday. I don't know if it will be zero by then... I don't know how long it takes for these things to drop. But I'm kind of hoping it will be zero, or really close to zero. Then at least it will feel like this part of the nightmare is over. It will be easier to tell myself it was another BFN and move on.

The bleeding is pretty much gone now, just the faintest brown tinge. All my pregnancy symptoms are gone... everything I'm feeling is pretty much related to depression. And I haven't taken the hormone pills in four or five days, so I think my mood swings are adjusting. By adjusting, I mean that I feel crappy all the time instead of giddy/cranky/wistful/crying at commercials on TV. Instead I listen to co-workers talking about becoming grandmothers, and how their daughter/friend/acquaintance just had a C-section, and respond to emails about new babies just born that have to be added to our existing cases, and basically deal with babies and kids and pregnant women all day long... and I feel kind of like a hungry orphan peeking in the window on some rich kid's Christmas dinner.

The only person at work who knows about the miscarriage is my boss. She called me this morning and asked how I was. I told her I was feeling crummy, but I'll get over it. She asked if I should go home... but the thing is, I can't. If I take even more time off, I'll only be more stressed when I get back to work.

I don't want to live through the next three months of waiting. I am SO TIRED of waiting. Waiting for AF, waiting for insem/embryo transfer, waiting to POAS, waiting between ultrasounds for leftover cycts to go away after being on birth control. Waiting. Waiting. And waiting to get pregnant so that I can finally divert funds to the other things I want to do with my life, like getting married and changing my name and working on home improvement projects and basically getting back to having a life again, instead of living for each next-step in the TTC journey.

I can't get over how CLOSE we were to putting an end to the wait. So close I could taste it. I got two weeks of blissful hope, of happiness brighter than anything I’ve felt in years… only to have it taken away. Two weeks of joy, one week of horror, and four days – just four days – to process grief. To be followed by three months of nothingness, before there can be any attempt at renewed progress toward a dream that I may never achieve, because it isn’t something you can accomplish through hard work. There’s no magic formula that guarantees you’ll get pregnant by following the right steps, or surviving enough loss. I can’t earn this from the universe. All I can do is keep throwing the dice until the money runs out.

In the meantime it feels like all the color has gone out of the world. Oh, and did I mention that my little fish at work died on Tuesday last week? In all the chaos it seemed like such a small thing, but I'm sitting here staring at his empty tank and feeling like it is an overly dramatic metaphor for the current state of my soul.

I hate mornings

Today is my last day to sit at home and grieve naturally. Tomorrow I have to go to work and for nine hours, somehow pretend like nothing happened.

I start feeling more okay by the end of the day. I put off sleeping as long as possible. Because when I wake up in the morning it starts over again, that slow creeping awareness that I am alone, that the baby i want so much is leaking out of my body, that we got so close this time, so close, finally... And still failed. It's like the initial horror happens all over again.

Yesterday was almost a full day of heavy, bright bleeding. This morning it's dark brown smudges. I started spotting on New Year's Day and bleeding on 1/3, so as of today this has been going on for 11 days. I hope it stops this week. I'm tired of bleeding, I am tired of being sad. The idea that life goes on is not a comfort, it's a curse. I will never, ever use this phrase with someone who is grieving, from now on.

I cleaned the kitchen yesterday, and put our comforter in the wash, but that is as far as I got. Wasn't able to summon the energy to pack up our Christmas stuff or clean the floors or bathrooms. I already know I don't have it in me today either. At least there was some sun yesterday. It was still too cold, but the sunlight in the window made it possible to make believe that things could be a little cheerier than they were. Today it's back to grayness and clouds and cold.

I don't know how I'm going to make it through work this week. I'll have a three day weekend at the end of it, since next Monday is a holiday. But the idea of sitting at my desk, answering my staff and bosses and clients with a smile, cranking smoothly through the files and plans and emails and phone calls with the enthusiasm and positivity that's expected, makes me feel like I'm going to be sick. Somehow tomorrow I have to figure out how to bottle this pain up and shove it in the back of myself so that I can be what the taxpayers pay me to be... Which is a customer service machine.

Oddly, nothing is more inspirational for doing that than Korean drama, which I've been binge watching the last week. The characters are always going through some sort of horrible life thing that they keep to themselves. And it makes you, the viewer, (as well as the primary love interest character) fall for them even more. We love the nobility of self-sacrifice, don't we?

And the other thing Korean drama helps with is that everyone always gets their happy ending. It usually takes years... Years, which are conveniently skipped over in the last episode with one little subtitle at the bottom of the screen when the final scenes start - "Several years later..."

I want a screen cut like that in my life. Rather than having to live through the next few months, going back to work and saving my money and waiting for the bleeding to stop and HcG to drop and AF to come again, I want a fast-forward button, maybe a two minute montage that sums it all up and gets me to that moment when I'm stepping off the plane in Athens again, and then skips a little more to a couple weeks later when those two lines show up on a pregnancy test again, and then skips ahead to the day when we have a healthy baby in our arms. Basically, to not have to live through the next year of my life with this same anxiety filling every minute, and get to the part where our story actually begins.

Life doesn't work that way, of course. But the days are going by so slowly. It feels like our happy ending, and new beginning, may never come.

And that is your regularly scheduled grief dump for the day. I am going back to my bathrobe and coffee and electric blanket and mindless TV now. Have to make the most of this last day that I am free to feel crappy, since tomorrow I'll be back onstage and in the spotlight, putting on a show to reassure the people who pay my mortgage that I am worth my pay checks.

Maybe

My insomnia didn't take very long to come back... I didn't fall asleep at all last night. I am woozy and exhausted today. I finished my page proofs and emailed them in; also verified that my next book's cover and release date were launched on my publisher's website, so I'm finally able to announce them on my FB page. Took care of that this morning.

But I've realized that every book release I've ever had has occurred during a time of chaos in my life, a time when I didn't have the emotional energy to commit to promotion or psyching up my readers or anything else. And it's happening again this time. The book comes out in March... a while back I had made a long checklist of action items I was going to do in order to promote it - website updates, contests, surveys, some promotional giveaway items, a launch party and so on. Now I'm depressed. And I know that sounds stupid, but the joy just isn't there. I want it to be, but it feels hollow. Writing is the one dream that I have actually achieved in my life, the only one that hasn't been taken away from me. Yet I want a baby so much more that the whole book thing doesn't feel exciting, just tiresome. A big responsibility, that I had wanted to tackle with brightness and energy this time around, and instead just feels like a poor substitute for what I really wanted.

I was going to announce my pregnancy right around the book release date. March was going to be one of the most awesome months of my entire life. Now, I'll be lucky if I get to spend some of it in Greece, trying again.

I've been lying in bed for hours now, unable to sleep. Finished my page proofs super early this morning, so next on the list is house cleaning. There's tons to do. Kaitlin asked me to do one thing in particular, while she's out taking her PLACE exams today, and I can't remember what it was. And I don't want to lie in bed anymore, but I also don't feel like cleaning. I know, intrinsically, that if I force myself to do it I might feel a little better. Maybe I would feel like we were moving on. Like I'm hitting the reset button on life, getting to the acceptance phase of this whole grief process, and getting over it. It's not like there's any other choice. And that's what makes me angry, I guess, not having any other choices.

A clean house would be a start. But some part of me resents it, doesn't want to pack away Christmas and straighten the house and try to get back into life again, when it's not the life I wanted. Some part of me wants to sit and be angry. Some part of me is furious that I don't have the option to reject this, to declare it unacceptable, to wave a magic wand and be pregnant through sheer force of will. And that part of me is sitting sullenly in bed. As if, by boycotting life until it gives me what I want, I can somehow make the universe feel sorry for being so mean to me. Like some sort of whiny victim who imagines herself the Gandhi of miscarriage.

It doesn't get much more self-centered than that, does it? And if that's the attitude I'm going to have, my misery is self-inflicted and I don't have the right to complain.

Not sure which stage of grief you'd call this. Pretty sure Anger, mostly because Denial's not an option. Probably going to skip over Bargaining, because... well, I've got nothing to bargain with. And Depression's in there too. May even get worse BECAUSE I have to clean the house, and go back to work, and focus on money and my cycles and all of that again. And I have the uncomfortable feeling I'm not going to be able to achieve Acceptance until we are actually able to launch another round, and that it may be contingent on whether or not a second round is successful.

I am afraid of expecting too much from a second try. Google seems to think that a person is more fertile after miscarriage. That statistically I am unlikely to miscarry twice in a row. I find myself starting to feel pretty damn entitled - OF COURSE I will get pregnant right away on our next try, and OF COURSE I will get to keep it then, because I have most certainly earned it by now, right? I keep having to remind myself there's the chance I'll go back and not get pregnant at all. Or go back, get pregnant, and miscarry again. Not everybody gets a happy ending. And then what? How many times can I do this before the money runs out? Before I'm so deep in debt it will take me the rest of my career to pay it off? And what if I do get pregnant, after saddling us and our future child with so much debt that all the things I dreamed of being able to do with and for our child are now impossible?

I "what if" things to death. Right now March is my beacon of hope. We won't get to try in January. If I'm lucky this bleeding will stop soon and my HcG will zero out on its own. Then we have to skip February while I file my taxes and wait for an AF to come and go. And then, maybe, if those things will happen quickly enough, maybe we can take our next try in March. And maybe, if that goes right this time, I will still have a baby by Christmas. Maybe.

Or maybe I will be deleting this blog and giving up.

Working on gratitude

Made it through another day. No drinking this time. Took some cold medicine and felt guilty for it, even though there's no baby to worry about. Didn't take any meds today and felt guilty for that too.

I hate that there is no option other than to accept this. I hate that I was so happy, for such a short time, because it makes the sadness worse. And I am so angry that there's no one I can be mad at for this. There's nobody I can blame.

I thought I was almost out of the tunnel, and the lights went out again. We're right back in that long stretch of uncertain darkness, hoping to get lucky enough to find our way out again. And the only thing I have, the only thing that I can think about, is trying again. Going through all of it again, and back to the uncertainty of whether we'll get pregnant again, whether we'll end up with twins after all, whether we'll get to keep it this time. It's so depressing, and yet it's all the hope I have.

I feel like I'm living in a nightmare. Like I hadn't really realized just HOW stagnant and meaningless my day to day life was until I finally believed I'd broken through into a new life, with a real purpose...And now that I have to go back to the waiting and the gambling and the lostness of it all, it feels unbearable. Maybe that's really unhealthy, I don't know. Maybe I want this more than I'm supposed to. I have a really bad habit of letting myself be too invested in my dreams.

But I made it through today, and I'll make it through tomorrow, somehow. I have to finish page proofs tomorrow and then try to find it in me to clean... The house is a wreck and I need to put all the Christmas stuff away, but somehow it feels so depressing. Also, I'm bleeding pretty heavily today, and while it's not painful it feels like it ought to be. Like it's not right for this to be happening without physical agony to match the way my heart feels. This feels too quiet, too unremarkable. Too matter of fact.

In reality it's really nothing more than another BFN. The cruelest kind, but a BFN nonetheless. I've survived plenty of them before. I'll survive this one too. At least I don't have to give up yet. At least there's still one more try on the table. Right now that's  everything, it's all I've got, so I'm going to hold on to it and try to be more grateful. Self pity isn't going to make me feel better and will only add misery to my life. So be grateful to have a stable, good-paying job, a huge house that costs as much as my old one-bedroom apartment, a kind and patient fiancée who is willing to listen to all my blubbering and anger and bitterness and loves me anyway, and a sweet and precious tiny dog who is the closest thing to a child that I have right now. Be grateful to have the resources to try again. Be grateful to live in a day and age when donor egg IVF programs are a thing. Be grateful for clean water, and fresh air, and the luxury of living in a first world country. Be grateful, and let this make me more compassionate to others' pain, and find ways to bring joy to the world around me so that if I'm lucky enough to receive some joy myself someday, I will be worthy of it.

Good night, internet.

Waking up

And like I feared, it's the waking up that hurts most. Waking up and remembering that I'm not more pregnant today than yesterday, that there's no baby coming in September, that everything I have to do at work next week will not be underscored with the secret joy of pregnancy, that nothing is different between today and last year except that I'm $15k deeper in debt.

And to top it off I realized that somehow I have to learn how to give myself injections for the next round, because I have to travel alone. And while that may sound stupid, since I've been having daily injections for a year now, I am having a near panic attack. I have a needle phobia. It takes every ounce of willpower I have, every night, to brace myself for each injection.... And sometimes I am so scared I can't breathe. How am I ever going to be able to give the shot to myself??

Yet we will be scraping every penny just to be able to go back at all. We can't afford two plane tickets.

Am I insane to want to do this again? But when I think about giving up, I feel so depressed I can't stand it. I actually don't know what I will do with my life if I don't get pregnant. I don't know what will get me through the day, for the rest of my life, if I don't have that dream to hold on to. Like, what's the point of continuing to get out of bed in the morning...

I am hungover and wide awake and miserable and still bleeding. But woke up to an email that the Greek clinic will give me a second try for 4800 euro. The us dollar's stronger now too, so that makes the cost about $5700. I'll need $1300 for a plane ticket and probably $250 for hotel and $200ish for taxis and $200 ish for meds... $7650. If the dollar holds. It's still a lot of money but I can do this... I can do this.

Just have to stop bleeding first. And find the strength to get out of bed.

EDIT: and the meds I was so anxious about just arrived on my doorstep. I would have had them in time... If there was still a baby that needed them. But it's just as well that they got here today. Might as well get the loss over with all at once. Better to get the full beating right away than to drag it out over weeks and months. Life is going to move on whether I want it to or not.

My heart hurts so much

And I am afraid to sleep. Not so much of the dreams... I'm drunk enough to avoid those.... But of waking up and remembering that this wasn't a nightmare. It's real, my baby is gone. All I have left to wake up for is the hope that we might try again.  And that will be ten thousand dollars, please.

Hope is a spiteful bitch.

I hurt.

Somebody please give me my baby back.

6WK2D - and the pendulum keeps on swinging

Mood swings tonight. Feeling sorry for myself. Deleted a long and bitter post about why I'm down in the dumps again, but here's the gist: Yesterday evening and most of today I was feeling optimistic, even though I'm still bleeding lightly ( and now there's this weird clear EWCM texture to it, WTF.) But I just passed a weird dime-sized clot that I think had pinkish/yellowish tissue attached. So now I'm swinging the other way, feeling pretty sure we're done.

All this back and forth feels so self indulgent and whiny. All the pessimism and impatience are things I like least about myself. This is bringing out the worst in me, apparently. I would like to be that gracious, joyful, grateful person who hopes sweetly for good things and handles disappointment with gentleness and strength and the pluck to dust off her butt and hop right back on the horse that threw her. But I guess I'm too selfish and impatient to be able to pull it off.

I feel like I'm letting this bean down by feeling pessimistic, but I'm being arrogant if I'm optimistic. And I can't find a middle ground of zen-ness because I want this too much.

Tomorrow's scan cannot come fast enough. And neither pessimism nor optimism makes one bit of difference as to whether I stay pregnant. But oh HOW I wish there would be a heartbeat tomorrow.

In about twelve hours we'll see.

IVF#1 7DP5DT - No positive yet

I started testing a couple of days ago, at what would have been approximately 10 DPO in a regular cycle. Today would be about 12DPO. Nothing. All stark white negatives.

Our test date isn't for another five days. And I know I should be thinking positive. But I just don't know anymore. All along I've thought of this IVF donor egg transfer as our silver bullet -- our big guns, our best chance, maybe even our surest thing. It certainly cost the big money. And if it doesn't work I feel like my heart will break. We won't have the money to try again, at least not for probably another year.

And work is in this huge state of flux and change that is intimidating, and scary, and feels like it's going to be miserable and difficult in all new ways in the coming year.

Here's hoping my BSB checks arrive soon, and between those and the hopefully significant tax refund and the hopefully 3% raise starting next year and the $100 Christmas bonus from work I can take a good chunk out of the debt straightaway. Maybe, just maybe, if this round doesn't work I'd be able to afford another in June. I "just" need 10 grand. That's possible, right?

So yeah. Depressed and pessimistic and terrified today. But getting the negative POS tests is still better, I think, then being surprised with a negative on Christmas Eve. I'd rather be prepared. I'd rather go into it knowing that if it's positive it will be a Christmas miracle, rather than have hopes dashed all to pieces on the holiday.

I wish. I wish I wish I wish....