Wow, it's been quite a while since I felt I had anything to say on this blog that would be worth anyone's time to read about.
I guess the bad news is that nothing much has changed. IVF is still our only hope, and we still can't seem to commit to a plan for how to fund another try. I still feel like our time is running out. R turned 39 this month, which means I'm not very far from 38 now. Not the end of the world of course, doesn't mean pregnancy is impossible, but certainly doesn't do anything to improve our odds, either.
I suppose the good news is that I'm not as despondent about infertility on a daily basis as I have been in the past. I think that is because the longer we are stalled, the longer I allow myself to be apathetic about it, the easier it gets to....not do anything. I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to being embroiled in a treatment cycle again, taking the injections, conforming our daily lives around the cycle, opening my heart up to hope again, bracing for the inevitable crash....I'm really dreading having to go through that all over again, actually. But still, if a big pile of money fell out of the sky tomorrow, I'd haul it straight to the RE's office and plunk it down, sign up for another chance.
We entertained R's family this afternoon and evening....had our usual Sunday afternoon cookout, as we do most Sundays in the summer. Today there were 15 adults, 7 children, and 2 dogs running around in our little house. It was a madhouse, of course, but we loved it. At the end of the evening, R's cousin asked if her 3 kids could take a quick bath before they left. They had to drive at least 45 minutes to get home, and she knew all 3 would be conked out in the car and difficult to harangue into the bathtub once they got home.
The sight of those 3 precious and precocious little ones in my bathtub pulled at me in a way that seeing them run around all day had not. As I helped to dry them off and muscle them into their 3 sets of clean and color coordinated PJ's, my main thought, of course, is that I should have been bathing my own children in our bathtub, not someone else's. I should have been putting PJ's on kids in a room decorated with zoo animals and ABC's, not in the room that serves as our "extra den" instead.
But remarkably, bitterness and self pity did not overtake me tonight, as they so often have in similar situations in the past. I feel a sense of hope about it all....although I can't say I know exactly why. Maybe because after all this time I still believe in miracles. Because I think R and I are good people, and because I still believe that good things do happen to good people. For tonight, that's enough reason to keep hoping.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Still here.....
I confess that I have been avoiding this blog. And I have also been avoiding all of your blogs. I know, selfish, right? I can't help it. The IF blogosphere has really depressed me since the New Year.
We don't really have any concrete plans set in place in terms of 'trying' in the near future. My body has refused to cooperate with our desire to start a family for almost 3 and a half years now. Because of the PCOS, I don't ovulate, so there's no chance for us to turn up miraculously pregnant while trying on our own. For what it's worth however, I refuse to remain on birth control pills while in limbo. Instead, every 2 or so months I call my RE's office to get a prescription for progesterone to induce a period. For the privelege of this endometrial-cancer staver-offer I must submit to a pointless pregnancy test administered in the RE's office.
I went for one at the end of January. It was very, very strange. I felt like I didn't belong there, like everyone could see that I wasn't really trying and why was I wasting the time of the staff there. Just months before I had felt like that waiting area was my second home. I knew all the nurses by name. I felt productive and dedicated and hopeful when I was climbing in and out of the stirrups 4 and 5 times a week. When I went in January I felt like a fraud and an outsider. It was weird to feel so far removed from that whole 'sisterhood of cycling' thing.
I guess I was also feeling that way about this blogging community. I can't read the blogs of those who are pregnant. I know I don't have to justify that to anyone, even though it does feel really shitty to admit it right out loud. And for every happy preggy blogger, there seem to be as many heartwrenching losses in our community of late as well. Reading about the horrific pain that so many are in, particularly Mary Ellen and Steve after losing their triplets - it just makes me nauseous and sick. And in this limbo-land, reading all the other blogs of those who are back up in the saddle (and stirrups) and are earnestly, hopefully, dutifully trying again - those just make me feel like a lazy loser.
The fact is that our only, only, onliest hope is IVF. And we simply cannot afford it right now. Who knows when we will be able to do so? There's a potential recession coming. We've had unforeseen expenses over the last 6 months, smaller bonuses and tax returns than we were expecting, and the housing market continues to decline. So, I honestly don't know when the next opportunity might be for R's sperm to meet one of my eggs. Possibly not until next year, by which time R will be 39 and I will be 38. Lately I've allowed myself to think about the fact that it might just be too late for us. I have prayed and railed and asked God - are we not meant to be parents? I still have no answers of course.
I'm just trying to take things day by day. As of tonight, I'm caught up on all of your blogs, and although I probably won't be commenting as much as I have in the past, please know that I'm back and keeping up with all of you again.
For my own sanity, I'm going to try to post my thoughts more often here, and not just when I'm feeling particularly sad. I promise to blog some joyful things every once in a while, as I have SO many things to be thankful for. As melancholy as this post has come out - there is still much joy in my life. I'm trying very hard to concentrate on it!
We don't really have any concrete plans set in place in terms of 'trying' in the near future. My body has refused to cooperate with our desire to start a family for almost 3 and a half years now. Because of the PCOS, I don't ovulate, so there's no chance for us to turn up miraculously pregnant while trying on our own. For what it's worth however, I refuse to remain on birth control pills while in limbo. Instead, every 2 or so months I call my RE's office to get a prescription for progesterone to induce a period. For the privelege of this endometrial-cancer staver-offer I must submit to a pointless pregnancy test administered in the RE's office.
I went for one at the end of January. It was very, very strange. I felt like I didn't belong there, like everyone could see that I wasn't really trying and why was I wasting the time of the staff there. Just months before I had felt like that waiting area was my second home. I knew all the nurses by name. I felt productive and dedicated and hopeful when I was climbing in and out of the stirrups 4 and 5 times a week. When I went in January I felt like a fraud and an outsider. It was weird to feel so far removed from that whole 'sisterhood of cycling' thing.
I guess I was also feeling that way about this blogging community. I can't read the blogs of those who are pregnant. I know I don't have to justify that to anyone, even though it does feel really shitty to admit it right out loud. And for every happy preggy blogger, there seem to be as many heartwrenching losses in our community of late as well. Reading about the horrific pain that so many are in, particularly Mary Ellen and Steve after losing their triplets - it just makes me nauseous and sick. And in this limbo-land, reading all the other blogs of those who are back up in the saddle (and stirrups) and are earnestly, hopefully, dutifully trying again - those just make me feel like a lazy loser.
The fact is that our only, only, onliest hope is IVF. And we simply cannot afford it right now. Who knows when we will be able to do so? There's a potential recession coming. We've had unforeseen expenses over the last 6 months, smaller bonuses and tax returns than we were expecting, and the housing market continues to decline. So, I honestly don't know when the next opportunity might be for R's sperm to meet one of my eggs. Possibly not until next year, by which time R will be 39 and I will be 38. Lately I've allowed myself to think about the fact that it might just be too late for us. I have prayed and railed and asked God - are we not meant to be parents? I still have no answers of course.
I'm just trying to take things day by day. As of tonight, I'm caught up on all of your blogs, and although I probably won't be commenting as much as I have in the past, please know that I'm back and keeping up with all of you again.
For my own sanity, I'm going to try to post my thoughts more often here, and not just when I'm feeling particularly sad. I promise to blog some joyful things every once in a while, as I have SO many things to be thankful for. As melancholy as this post has come out - there is still much joy in my life. I'm trying very hard to concentrate on it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
