Tilling the Soil of My Uterus

I met Carolyn today. She came into the store where I work and ended up being one of those women who makes you just start spilling your guts. I don't really remember how it started, but all of a sudden I found myself telling her (the edited version) of our IF story.

I guess it started when she asked me if I was a mom. All I could muster was a small shake of my head. Anything more would have started the roller coaster of emotion that I have been avoiding all week.

She told me that I will make a wonderful mom some day (I helped her with a small thing and she said she was really appreciative of my patience) and I started talking about how I just found out this week that our first IVF didn't work. She asked intelligent questions and made a point that stuck with me.

She said she was a gardener. She showed me pictures of her garden. She then looked at me with all seriousness and said she felt confident that one of our cycles would work. She believed that this cycle tilled the soil of my uterus and that new life would be started in there.

As goofy as it sounds, it works for me. I told my hubby and it rang true with him too. We have plans to do some landscaping outside this weekend. Tilling the soil inside and out.

It Helps to Know We Are Not Alone

http://www.stirrup-queens.com/2010/04/bloggers-unite-project-if/

Telling The People You Love

Staying busy is the only way for me to survive this. The moment I get too much time to think, all the what ifs and whys start hitting me in the chest.

I am working on a project for a friend right now and took all the extra shifts I could at work this week. I made a few fun plans with girlfriends and already have a new painting project lined up (for some reason infertility makes me want to paint rooms in my house).

There is one part I am dreading.

Most everyone in our family and friend circle knows our first IVF didn't work. The only people who don't know are going to be the hardest to tell. My mom and dad have been away on a cruise this week (with my mom's siblings). They left before we knew anything and we said we wouldn't try to contact them on the ship because I knew they couldn't keep a secret from the rest of the family if it was good news and I didn't want to make them sad on their trip if it was bad news.

Since we found out this past Monday, we took a day or two to come to terms with it ourselves and then slowly told the people who needed to know. I know that the first call my parents make off the ship will be to me. I know that before they left they were talking like I was already pregnant because they were so confident that all the hard work we did couldn't possibly not work (so did we) and I know that they will be the two most sympathetic and understanding people you ever met.

Why am I dreading it? I think it is just because it is my parents. Always the cheerleaders for me and my brothers, but always the ones to take it so hard when something bad happens to one of us. I don't want to be the one who makes them sad and I really don't want to get all the questions that I don't have answers to.

Its Surprising What Gets You

The expiration date on the milk got the tears going today. So did a text message from my brother. Then more tears when my hubby was brushing his teeth and put his arm around me in front of the mirror and said through a mouth full of toothpaste, "We are a cute couple."

I told my MIL that our IVF didn't work and I didn't cry. When I spoke to my brother, I didn't cry either. Sometimes I wonder if I am faking my positive attitude, because just a few minutes earlier I was crying in front of an open fridge. It was the date on the milk. I bought the milk just after the transfer. I vividly remember looking at the date and saying to myself, by the time this milk expires I will know whether we will be parents.

The text message from my youngest brother was so hard. I hadn't told him yet and he was sending me a note to wish me luck at our beta tomorrow. It would have been tomorrow.

Ugh. I just want to change the calendar ahead to next month. I want to start fresh with new dates. I am the kind of person who loves to start new. Blank slate. Spring cleaning. I don't want to go through this process of every little thing reminding me of what could have been. Having to make all the phone calls and face to face talks with all the people who were pulling for us.

I just want to start new. But, I can't yet. I have to wait and go through the process. Right now, it feels like the process is going through me. I'm still floaty.

How long until I feel like myself again?

Overwhelmed

I'm overwhelmed by the outpouring of support on my last post. I'm still pretty new to this community and it felt amazing to post my story and have people immediately understand. There were no questions. I didn't have to re-explain or give reasons. I could just tell the truth and you all nodded and understood and opened your arms. That understanding picked me up on a very dark day.

We haven't told our parents yet. Everyone thinks we were going to get the definite news by Thursday, so we are taking these days for us. We WERE going to find out on Thursday. We WERE going to have a beta Tuesday and Thursday because we were SUPPOSED to be out of town on Monday (the first day we could get the beta according to the doctor).

But we WERE NOT and we DID NOT.

Easter was interrupted by growing dread. We left early. The focus became survival. What did we need to do to survive possible bad news? We needed to obsess over Dr. Google (check), we needed to leave the family party early (check), we needed to inspect toilet tissue right up until the phone call (double check). We talked about our feelings. My gut reaction was "NO! I can't do this again!!" I said that to my hubby and he just looked at me with love and sympathy. He knows how hard the shots were for me. He asked me if I could do it if he came home early everyday to give me the shots. When he said that I realized I could do it. We both have made sacrifices, we are in this together and it was enough for me that he offered to do that that I realized I could (and will) do this all over again.

I wondered today if I grieved enough. I told two of my work friends today. The two who were on the inside, knowing why I needed last minute days off and why I had to go to the bathroom everyday at 6pm on the dot (Oh...Lupron, I'll see you again soon enough). Their faces didn't reflect mine when I told them. They were shocked and obviously hurting for me. I just kept saying, "It's OK. I'm OK. We're OK."

I am OK. But sometimes I am not. Sometimes the last five minutes of Dancing With the Stars reduces me to hiccuping, unstoppable tears and I know that I am grieving in my own way.

I have a picture of two embryos. I didn't name them specifically, but I could see how some people could. I just called them The Future. And now that picture goes in between the pages of my bible (along with my college acceptance letter and one of the empty, flattened boxes of Accutane that I took in high school to clear up an acne mess and photos of my family, a copy of our marriage certificate and a few other mementos of things that are close to my heart. People and events that needed protection.

I need protection. I am fragile and sensitive. But, I am also smarter, braver and stronger than I was before and I will face another IVF head on. For now, the focus is getting all the medication out of my system so I can be myself for a little while. I feel like I am in recovery. But, I know what to expect now. I know that I will live through the shots. I know that the egg retrieval is painful, but that the swelling and constipation will go away. I know that I can survive bad news. I know how much I am loved.

I just never thought this would be my life. I never pictured this. I didn't know.

Me Neither

I got the call at 3:23pm today. It was Nurse Kim. "I'm so sorry honey, the test came back negative."

Negative.

I had a feeling. Yesterday I posted that I refused to POAS. As the afternoon went on the discharge got really dark. Black. So, so nasty. There were streaks of pink, then red. We spent Easter afternoon in a sea of google searches with no definitive answers.

I cried a little bit yesterday. More tears today. We left the family right after Easter dinner. I couldn't focus, I found myself comparing the color of my discharge to the middle of the cherry pie and realized I was no longer sitting at the table. I was floating above it, watching the family laugh and have a good time and all I wanted to do was leave. Come back to the security of our own home and agonize in peace.

There was more discharge this morning, but I went to get the Beta done. I half knew that I already knew the answer.

When the call came in, the discharge had already turned to straight up blood. I knew it was over.

The nurse was sweet. I know I will have more questions. Why? What happened? Did I do something wrong?

Right now, I just need a break. I was relieved when she said I could stop taking the progesterone and estrogen now. I need the break. I am ok. We are ok. If my body says this isn't right, then who am I to question it.

Sushi tonight. A few glasses of chardonnay. We are celebrating life. We are getting ours back after being so consumed with IVF for the past two months.

All is not lost.

Refusing to POAS

I am finding that refusing to POAS is helping my sanity. I am 11dp5dt. The family weekend is going well so far. Just MIL has asked a few considerate questions, but no big discussion in front of a group which I really appreciate.

I had a big day of waking around yesterday and was exhausted when I got home, slept for almost 12 hours(!) and feel better today. I couldn't help worrying that all that walking wasn't doing my 11 day old embies any favors, but aside from a few twinges (that could have been anything), I felt pretty good. I did NOT enjoy giving myself the suppository in the bathroom at a Mc.D.onalds, but that isn't the worst thing I have ever done (remind me to tell you about the time food poisoning kicked in on the side of the road in the desert in Arizona in the middle of the night - with the man who became my husband!).

I'm kind of bleary eyed today. I feel hungover, but haven't drank a drop since the transfer (I'll miss you New Castle Brown Ale, but I will be so happy to give you up for 9 months)

Come on Embies! First beta on Tuesday.

Nerves

...of steel? ...breaking down? ...non-existant? Yikes. I feel good. I am nervous. I am all over the map and I have only be awake for an hour. I'm barely halfway through my cup of coffee.

I don't know what it is today. Maybe it is the anticipation of family stuff this weekend... "How are YOU?" blah. Or maybe it is the estradiol giving me a (sometimes twice) daily run to the bathroom. Or it might be the Crinone discharge that is freaking me out! Or maybe it is that I am 9dp5dt and I have read other bloggers who have reached for a HPT at this point and I am afraid to do the same.

I just want to live in peaceful oblivion right now and get through the weekend without a vague HPT dictating how the next few days will go.