ah-ha

Okay, so first of all- I have lost my internets. I am hoping I get it back tomorrow. So, my dryer is broke and now our modem is broke- what's next? I think we have gremlins. Yeah.

Okay- so the appointment... it went well. We had a 19.4, a 20.4, and a 16.6. We triggered. I start progesterone on Sunday, and then we wait.

How do I feel about this?- glad this cycle is almost over. Other than that, pretty ambivalent and jaded. I don't feel excited and hopeful, I don't feel hopeless and convinced of a negative result- I just feel relieved that the wait to see if I responded is over.

I suppose that will do for now.

Testing in two weeks. Until then, battling the gremlins.

update-

Well, this appointment went a little better I guess, I wasn't expecting that. My ovaries are trying to respond to the 200mg, we've got a 16 and 14 on the right and a 12 on the left- I should be triggering on Thursday, I have another ultrasound scheduled to double check things, but it's optional.

No word yet on if we will do IUI, it would set us back this month since our dryer just suddenly broke (waiting to see if it can be repaired or needs replaced, grrr) and I don't know if it's worth it anyway. I left the option out there for my husband, and we'll decide depending on how things go this week.

More waiting-

moving on-

I'm feeling much better today.

The house is cleaner than it's been in years, it's been de-cluttered and scrubbed down. The yard is beautiful, the sun is shining, and I am okay. I sat down and re-visited our income versus spending ratio, and realized that if we would just stop buying impulsively, start buying more frugally, start using coupons and looking for deals, stop eating out so much, and just be over all more conscious about our choices- we should be fine. I am still thinking about a second job, or a new full-time position, and I will pursue this soon (working on the resume right now) but for now I am processing, planning, and keeping my eyes open.

I am feeling much better about adoption today- I think we can do this. I know we can. Somehow we can come up with the money for fees and everything else. Up until now, I have been feeling very weighed down by the overall cost of everything, and I realized that this is truly a major part of it all. It is far from the only thing, but it is the biggest thing. And I hate that.

I hate money. I grew up in poverty and I look at money differently than most people, I think. For me, it is the enemy. We never had enough, and everyone else did. I never wanted to be rich, I just wanted to be okay- to have what everyone else had. Sure, being well off would have been nice, but I was fine. We were fine. In the years after high school my husband and I lived on Ramen and canned soups, sometimes we didn't have much, we did without many things. But we didn't need much either.

Right now, we are doing better than I've ever lived in my life- I can buy new clothes from a store and not a thrift store, I can buy new shoes before the old ones soles break, I can buy movies, I can eat out, I don't worry about if the car breaks down because I know we can afford to get it fixed, I don't worry about where the next meal is coming from- we are middle class- I always dreamed of one day being middle class. That's not sarcasm- grow up in poverty, and middle class looks divine. But, as fine as that is, it holds no ground against infertility- and we'll have to live more like we did before to save the kind of money we'll need now.

It's a large chunk of money, an unfathomable amount for me after having lived the life I did- and we're going to have to pay at least part of it up front. That has been weighing heavily on me- but I stepped back the other day and started working on our budget, planning, and looking at our options. It may take years, but it's not as impossible as it feels. It will just take more time, more patience, more faith that it will happen. I will be a mother, and I can do this.

Bottom line, I feel better after deconstructing everything and putting it in a new forward motion.

We are finishing the Clomid today, and after this we will try the Femara. After that, back to birth control pills and a dead serious weight loss goal while we save for adoption.

Taking a break now seems silly- we were just on a break from November until mid March- I just want to get this over with, especially after the drilling. The benefits, if there are any, of ovarian drilling only last 3 months to a year at most. It didn't help me that much, if at all, so if I want to give the Clomid or Femara a chance I need to have at it now. I am not counting on them working, I am more seeking that knowledge that I did do everything I could- there won't be any regrets about trying longer, or trying Femara. I will have done everything in my power to have a biological child, and feel confident and at ease in that knowledge.

Also, I am just ready to be over with this chapter in my life. I have nothing left to give to this dream. I am tired of living on two week increments, on planning life one month at a time. I am tired of putting things on hold. Now, I didn't put my whole life on hold, I earned a B.A. degree while going through this and spent time with good friends, and built a strong marriage- I have enjoyed life- but over everything there has been this pressing weight of infertility dictating what I could do and when. Missing classes because of appointments, missing school because of miscarriages, missing work because of appointments or miscarriages, getting work scheduled around various availabilities rather than when I actually wanted to work... it's draining.

I don't know what to do with this blog anymore, because I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I'm at an odd transitional stage. I've watched blogs continue moving on with more treatments, move on to new mommy blogs, blogs move from treatments to living child free, read blogs that started with the adoption process and finish it, but honestly I don't think I've never followed a blog where someone stops treatments and starts focusing on adoption solely. Adoption blogs, yes, but not the transition in-between. Right now, I don't know where I am- finishing treatments, starting to move on to adoption, wondering if I should keep posting here or move on to a new blog, or stop blogging all together.

I guess we'll see where it goes in the coming months, and take it from there.



Oh, sister-in-law found out she's having a boy. It kind of makes it easier. Good thing I was working on a blue baby blanket already- it's a nice shell cluster pattern, and it's working out well.

It's turning out very pretty, I think.

It's a new day-

Sunday I fought all the sadness inside me while I listened to my in-laws harp over pregnant-sister-in-law.

Monday I cried all day over other things- my failure to respond to the medicine, my bad appointment, my lack of options, the knowledge that we are looking at adoption now and we are looking at years and a sum of money that is hard to fathom, for all the children I lost, and all the children I will never have, for the end of an era.

Tuesday, the two year (*sigh*) anniversary of my first miscarriage rolled by- but I had spent all my tears the day before, I had nothing left to give.


Today is a new day.


Today I will polish up my resume, and I will start looking for a better job. I love my current one, but it's minimum wage and part-time. I'll never be able to afford the life I want staying here, as much as I would love to.

Today I will reevaluate our life and start cutting unnecessary spending like a queen.

Today I will take my goal of losing weight more seriously.

Today I will get rid of my last pregnancy book.

a big fat no-

No follicles, just the pissy-polycystic-norm. Thin lining. No response.

Options:

A) Treat today as CD3 since I am at a baseline state due to no response, and start 200mg Clomid.

B) Treat today as CD3 and try Femara this time

C) Consider going back to injects

The last one isn't an option due to the cost out of pocket and our outcomes with experience there- the cost would add further insult to injury if we ended up with another miscarriage.

Option B is possible, but I don't know what it would cost out of pocket and don't think I'm up to trying it this week. We decided to go with option A because of cost, timing, experience, etc... but if it fails, I will try Femara as my final attempt.

There is of course always option D- say screw it all, accept that this is something I can not change, and start saving and planning for adoption with all our resources and hearts. I don't think I'm ready to commit to adoption alone just yet- and I need to grieve this loss of biological children and pregnancy before I can. I mean truly grieve it, acknowledge it, and accept it. I hope I can get to that place in the near future. Until then, I will continue to nurture the idea in my heart, research more, plan more, try to save money, and hope that when the time is right I will be ready. No matter what now, I still hope to adopt someday... but that time just isn't quite yet.

On the way home from the doctors I cried my eyes out in the car.

Not just because hope had somehow snuck back in and been ripped out, but because I realized that this was it- or should be- the end. Three years, three miscarriages, hundreds of pills, injections, numerous procedures, surgery... and for what? To be told yet again that there is no response? To go home to my empty house and crawl into my bed- to listen to the silence night after night. I should focus on getting a full time job, I should focus on saving money for a new house and adoption, I should focus on today and plan for the coming years instead of focusing on the coming days and planning life in 2 week increments. I'm tired of having this tunnel vision. I'm tired of the tunnel getting darker and darker as the lights go out around me.

I'm feeling out of sorts and sad, and so many other things.

I better get some sleep- I worked the graveyard shift last night, and I haven't went to sleep yet. I don't know if I can sleep now though. I just... I don't know anymore.

Just like it's one thing to say three years and actually see it, it's also another to say "this is the end" and to actual see that this is the end.

Oh, and tomorrow is also the two year anniversary of my first miscarriage.
I am just a bowl of sunshine, aren't I?

I want to scream, "I don't fucking care anymore!"
but that would be a lie, because the problem isn't that I don't care, but that I care too much, and I just don't have anything left to give.

the best laid plans-

I thought I was in the clear about the birthday party- but they ended up having it at father-in-law's instead.

I feel whiny and selfish for ranting on like this, but my god- today of all days.

A- did not believe my words of warning when I told him they would talk non-stop about pregnant sister-in-law. He thought it would maybe be mentioned and then passed over in conversation- he is obviously not weathered in the ways of family expanding. My family is already pretty expanded, having been a youngest child for 10 years I have watched my older siblings reproduce. A- is an older sibling, second eldest. This is only A-s second biological niece or nephew- of course they don't have anything else to talk about at the nephews birthday party. Just, oh my god, her freaking ultrasound tomorrow when they'll find out the gender and how she's feeling movement, 5 months today, look how cute she is, blah blah blah.

I understand she deserves such joy- we all do- but what I heard was the silence. The asking her and her sister about their children, and all they said to me was why we would plant a cherry tree and what kind of fruit it has... I did not tell them the real reason we planted the cherry tree. I didn't feel like exposing myself so openly at a gathering on today of all days, in such an atmosphere.

So the conversation turned from the nephew who is now 3, and the baby on the way, and how exciting that is and how eager everyone is. On the other side of the room, my husband sat with me and my brother and gave me this sad little look like he couldn't wait to be out of that room. My little brother was clenching his leg because his stitches were bothering him- perfect excuse to book it. So we did... abruptly. I don't even really care what they may have said after we left.

- Today is International Babylost Mama Day. I miss my babies- I have done so much to have them, to bring them into the world, and none of it worked. I have loved them even though I barely knew them. I don't feel like a mother- I feel like a failure with a perpetual broken heart. But I have loved these embryos more than some women love their actual children, done more for them than some women did for their living children... but does any of that make me a mother? I don't know. I do know this- coming home to this empty house day after day, remembering how I almost had something before it slipped away, how almosts are not definites- I do not feel like a mother. No one calls me a mother. No one acknowledges what I have lost.

- I have my mid-cycle ultrasound tomorrow. Not expecting much, and feeling listless in my despondence.

- Then Tuesday I have to face the fact that it's been two years since I lost the first pregnancy. Two years... where did the time go?

Project IF- What if?

Visit Mel at Stirrup Queens for more details about this project, it ends today at midnight.

On the past three years I have had to ask myself many hard questions, explored scenarios I never thought I would have to. It starts with a why me, and expands to the 'what if's. What if I never get pregnant? What if I never get to be a mother? What if my husband never gets to be a father? What if we can't adopt? What if I have a miscarriage? What if I keep having miscarriages? What if the treatments don't work? What is we never get any answers? What if we spend a long time pursuing this dream that just might not be feasible? What is having a biological child just isn't meant to be? What if adopting isn't either?

Many of those scenarios came true... we tried treatments that failed, had miscarriage after miscarriages, and we are still not parents. But we survived, if barely. I doubt I could survive many more years like this, and I don't intend to.

Of course, that brings it's own thoughts into mind. If we move on to adoption we will be forced to take many more years in pursuit of being a parent- whereas with trying biologically we were able to take things a month or two at a time.

What if something happens to me or my husband during that time? I ask this even now, what would happen to me if something happened to my husband? I would be more alone than I've ever been in my life. I would face the fact that I lost all my babies, and I lost my husband. After each miscarriage that was the thing that made my chest squeeze shut and feel like the vice-grips were shattering my core- what if he left the house and never came back. How could I survive that? How could I survive losing absolutely everything I wanted, needed, in this life?

What if something happened to me? I like to imagine that my husband would move on, I like to imagine he would eventually find him a new wife, and he would have all the beautiful children he deserves and would otherwise be able to have had if he hadn't married me. But I know it wouldn't be that easy for him, I just like to imagine it would. My husband loves me, and watching me suffer hurts him. What would me dying do?

The loneliness of being infertile, of having had all those miscarriages, has never been so profound as when I look back and wonder what will happen if fate has yet other plans. Life is fragile, car accidents happen all the time, household accidents, fires, underlying medical conditions... What if we put everything on hold for the next few years, save to adopt, and then before we begin the journey something happens to him? Or me? Or after we begin the process, what if we get in a fatal accident? What if one of us doesn't die, but ends up paralyzed?

There are so many unknowns about the future, that it stifles me to even try to imagine how we will get from here to a few years from now. Yet we just spent three years of our life, quite without thought, pursuing a biological child. We took that one day at a time, one cycle at a time, one year at a time... it didn't seem so overwhelming. In retrospect... my god. But to plan that out, to say "Yes, I am going to devote the next three years of my life to this goal and this goal alone... and hope it works out." It's a lot to face, especially knowing that there are so many unknowns.

But then again... what if it works out? What if we do start saving now, what if in three years we planned it out just right and three years from now we bring home a honest to goodness child? Everything we wanted, in our arms? There would be no words for the depth of such an emotion, of such love and devotion. I would finally be able to say that all these years of pain and grief were worth it.

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For a basic understanding of IF, please visit Resolve.org And more information about National Infertility Awareness Week visit here.