I found it.....

I found it. The bottom of my soul. It isn’t pretty here at all. There is no light, no sunshine, no dreams to look forward to. Nothing. No happiness in everyday actions. There is nothing but heartbreak, sadness, and an overwhelming sense of loss. I woke up this morning to a cloudy and gray day, and it didn’t matter to me that I couldn’t see the sun, because I don’t want to see it anymore. The sun represents something I can’t feel anymore. It represents light, warmth, and hope, and frankly here at the bottom of my soul there is none of that. There is no waking up from this dream and finding everything is going to be ok. It isn’t ok, and it never will be ok. I cannot decide if I am mourning for the loss of my fertility, the loss of my will, or just because I have finally realized that I have been lying to myself all these years. A baby will make me whole, that is the lie. Will it really, or will it just be one more thing in this life that will unsettle me. Have I spent so long fighting for this one thing because I HAD to do it, it was something that was the one thing I had lost control over. Control, is that what this is all about? Not the actual longing for a child like most women, but just the control?? I don’t know anymore. I used to, or I think I used to. Now I am just worried that a new life will upset what I have right now, the things that I can control. And that makes me angry. It makes me see just what a selfish person I am. It makes me sick that I have put myself and Clark through all of this, when deep down inside it was all about control. At least that is what I think it was about. See losing that control completely has forced me to step back and wonder what in the hell I was thinking. I can’t beat my own body anymore, it has showed me that, it has control, not me. It runs me, it rules me, and once again it has shown me who is the boss. I just live here in my brain and have the hopes and dreams, but that body has to want to fulfill them, and I can see now that it doesn’t want to. It isn’t going to give me an inch. And, I honestly doubt if I can find the strength to fight it, or even if I want to. There has to be a reason that my body fights me so, it must know something that I either cannot see, or refuse to accept. Will this body even allow an IVF to work?? It has already stopped me in my tracks with the last attempt, and if I manage to get over on it and actually make it to a retrieval will I get any eggs, and if that happens, and God willing we actually have embryo’s to put back, what will my body do to those embryo’s?? I am so scared that my body will not allow me to get pregnant, that I am to the point of not even giving my body the chance to hurt me like that. I know that when I do a transfer I am putting our children back inside me, and that my body will control what comes next. I am scared to death of what my body will do with those little babies, and what my heart will be able to handle, if my body makes a bad choice. Or, will it be the right choice? Does my body know what my heart, brain, and soul are so totally unwilling to accept?? I don’t even know anymore, and I am scared, so freaking scared. God, I would give anything for things to be simple again. To be 23 and have the next 10 years to be unaware of what my body held for me at 33, how it was going to let me down, and erase every bit of sanity I thought I had. That is a struggle that is already hard enough for me. Sanity. Trying to keep it together everyday, is hard enough already, I didn’t need to know that my body has plotted against me to make that one task even harder then it already was. It is all so tiring that I can’t even get going during the day. I just want to sleep, and sit in front of the TV where I can watch other peoples lives, and not be bothered with living my own. I have to make no decisions when I do this, no doctors appointments, except therapy, even that is a struggle. She forces me to talk about all of this and makes it so real to me, when all I want to do is forget about it. But I go, and I get up everyday to, not that it matters much to anyone but me. I don’t have to get up at all, I really don’t. That is where I am right now. I haven’t had a shower in days, I don’t care either. I haven’t brushed my hair or my teeth in days. I haven’t changed my clothes in days. And I don’t care. I just don’t care.

Not Much Going On......

Well, not much is going on here. We had a quiet weekend just the 3 of us. Clark had Jury Duty on Monday so he got most of the day off. I had to go out to get some stuff taken care of, and remember why I moved to the country!!! The traffic up there is horrible!!! Those people cannot drive. I had to go to DSS to turn in some paperwork for our adoption subsidy, and while I was there I talked to our old worker. Then it was home and that took forever!!

The BCP's are killing me, I am so tired, and sick to my stomach all freaking day long, that it is getting old really fast!! Another thing I am concerned about it the schedual for this IVF. I printed out some blank calanders for Oct., Nov., and Dec. and if I go the full 28 day cycle, I will not be able to retrieve before they close the lab for the end of the year, not to mention that my transfer will be on Christmas Day. So I am hoping like hell that I don't take the full 28 days on this pack of pills so that this schedual will be a few days sooner then I have it right now. This is really driving me nutso!!! The one thing that has been helping is that I have stuck with seeing my therapist every week, and even though she might not know how I feel, she really gets me to talk about things and see them in a constructive way.

I am still working desperiatly on trying to quit smoking, and if I can't do it by the 2nd then I am going to either see a hypnotist, or ask the doc for some Zyban, cuz I hear that works good... but hey maybe the hypnotist will help with the stress of this IVF to... never know....

Oh well, I am off to bed, I have a quiet cleaning day planned for tomorrow, so no driving or stress for me!! LOL!! Goodnight.

I forgot.....

I forgot about something that the RE told me yesterday... she said that she was glad that my right ovary kept up with the left one, even though I had cysts. She was worried that with all the adhesions and the fact that it was "deformed" that it might not even work at all. I guess that is a good thing that came out of this, or at least that is how I am going to try to see it!! LOL I am worried though because by my math, I won't start stims early enough to miss the cut off for the end of the year lab closure. I am not sure though, it just seems like I am cutting it really close!!!
But anyway, I am off to bed, had a nap today and it threw me all of!! Oh yeah, and the Birth Control Pills SUCK!!!!!!!!!! That has got to be what is making me so sick to my freaking stomach!! GEEZ!!!

Just call me Murphy!!!

Well I woke up yesterday to one of the worst AF's ever!! So I go up to the Clinic, and ended up waiting over an hour, in which I worked on my journal. When the RE finally came in, she asked me what I was trying to do to her??!! LOL, I told her she was the one that put me on the Lupron. She had been out of town, and was reviewing the charts Thursday night for the next day when she saw my E2 level she said the first thought that she had was that it was a great number for a viable pregnancy and that she thought maybe I snuck one in there before we started the Lupron (not possible at all due to my tubes) and then she saw that Beta was Neg, so she was very worried. My E2 was 1700, so all those cysts/follies were cysts, and there wouldn't have been any eggs to retrieve. That is why they didn't call me back. She said that they call what happened a Lupron Flare, and that it is Very Rare, and usually never seen with PCOS patients, color me special!! She did another U/S and 2 of the cysts had ruptured, hence all my pain. My ovaries were still "kissing, but she said they had shrunk since Monday, so that was good. She said she was sorry that all this had happened, but she really didn't think that I would pull this on her!! So, I started BCP's yesterday, wait for AF, start a new pack, and then on day 21 of the pills we will add back the Luporn and pray for the best. So, if all goes well, I should be doing an actual ret. sometime mid December.

So that was my day... UGH I am so tired of this, and just want to sleep through the next month and a half!! At least I have Clark and Kent to distract me!! We picked Kent up from his school dance tonight, and then went out to eat at our favorite spot. I got sick as a dog, and after we came home I still was pretty ill. I am not sure if it is just nerves, or the Tylenol-3 the RE gave me for pain, but I spent half the night hung over the toilet heaving so hard I popped a rib... ugh now that is a whole new kind of pain let me tell you!!! I also think I blew another cyst this morning, that freaking hurt to!!! Good lord I feel like I am falling apart at the seams!!!! I guess this is the crap we do to ourselves in the pursuit of our dreams!! Oh well, til next time!!!

Sinking....

Well, after trying for the last 2 days to get someone at the clinic on the phone, I got a tad indignant, and finally got my nurse to call me back. I go in to see MY RE tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully get some questions answered about what went wrong. I started spotting today and it was really odd looking, not to mention the pain I have been having in my pelvic area, and Midol has done nothing for that at all!! UGH, so I will see what she has to say.... I have a list of questions to ask her, and this time I wrote them all down so that I don't forget them. I have been sitting in the house for 2 days now trying to figure out what to do, and if I really even want to keep on this road.... I know that sounds a little premature since we just started IVF, but it has been 14 years of dealing with this shit, and I am not sure just how much more I want to put myself through at this point. With the last 2 months being so heartbreaking finding out all that is wrong with BabyCentral, I just feel so fucking beat down, and the kicks just keep coming!! I am frankly not sure just how much more I can take without cracking wide open. I want to have a baby, but I am so tired of dealing with the fact that MY OWN BODY keeps betraying me at every freaking turn. I am just so tired of being at the mercy of a disfunctional reproductive system that I could PUKE!! I pray every night that something will give, that I will either get over my baby lust and move on, or that God will find me worthy of giving birth. I am sick of beating myself up everyday for not being able to control my own body enough to accomplish this one goal. I cannot believe that something like this consumes my every waking thought, and that I let it.... maybe that should show me just how sad this whole thing has become, it is an addiction, and I am a junkie. I can't even remember a time when I wasn't obsessed with getting pregnant, that is how bad it is!!! Christ I sound like a freaking lunatic.
Well I guess I better go crawl into bed and get ready for yet another day in my life...

I HATE MY OVARIES!!!!!!!!!!

So, it seems that every time I have an update it is always bad news… maybe I should just give up the chase for motherhood, and be happy with what I have!!! I am so sick of the bullshit of infertility that I want to just scream… what the hell is wrong with me that I can’t even get past the first step of anything without the world I live in collapsing?? Well, I guess you will want to know what this rant is about…

I started the Lupron (Ovarian Suppressant) on the 2nd of this month, and should have started my period within 10 to 14 days of starting the shots… well this weekend rolls around, and still no visit from the old hag, not to mention that I gained almost 15 pounds, my boobs are huge, and I have to pee every 5 minutes. My pelvis is so swollen and painful that sex was unbearable by last Saturday night. I was having all kinds of cervical mucus, and that didn’t seem odd to me at first, until an innocent comment from a friend who has done this about that meaning that my ovaries were working… uh wait, they aren’t supposed to be working right now, they are supposed to be resting…. Hmmm. So when there was no sigh of AF by Sunday night I called the IVF nurse and left a message, then called again Monday AM… well she finally called me back, and said that they needed to draw blood work, and do and U/S to see what was up. Well I had Clark and the in laws with me because we had been to lunch, and I was a little apprehensive to go with all of them with me. So, I get there, and after about 20 minutes they called me back, drew the blood, and put me in the U/S room. Well, in walks Dr. NoPersonalityOrSenseOfHumor who assisted on my surgery, he didn’t even know who I was, made me feel important!! LOL So, in goes DildoCam. Next thing I hear is Dr. NoPersonalityOrSenseOfHumor says “Holy Cow”, I asked what, and he turns the screen to face me, and there in all of their glory were my ovaries, Huge, full of cysts, and literally touching each other because they were so swollen. There were at least 10 huge cysts/follies on each ovary. We were both stunned. He looks at me and asks me when was the last time I was on clomid, I told him like 3 years ago. Well, his next questions is “Have you been taking your Stims already?? I told him no, in fact I hadn’t even picked them up from the pharmacy because I didn’t want to jinx myself. So he prints the pictures of HugeOvaries out, tells me to get dressed, and that he would see me outside. So, he lets me sit there for 10 minutes stewing in my own juices, and then tells me that he has to talk to the other clinic doctor. Well, Clark comes back, just as the two of them walk up, and Dr. S tells asks me if I am sure that I haven’t taken any stims… so I tell her no, and repeat the jinx thing. I did tell her about the mucus, and the boobs, and she said to me well these ovaries look like the ovaries of a person who has been on stims for at least 7 days and is ready for egg retrieval. Hmm, well nope I have only been on the Lupron so far, for 14 days, and nothing else. Then I think she said something about if I wanted to do a retrieval and see what we get, but in the back of my mind I remembered someone who had done that and got no eggs at all, so I said no, and then I knew what was coming next…. Well, then you are CANCELLED for the rest of this cycle… I just knew that one was coming, it had to be, because that is how things work in my life, NOTHING goes right, NOTHING. So she says we have 2 options, Birth control pills when AF finally comes for 3 weeks, and then the Lupron again, or wait 2 cycles, and then do the BC pills with the Lupron, but either way I can’t finish this cycle. I don’t remember much of what happened next because Clark just walked me through the office, got my pack of pills, and led me out the door, right in to the waiting room to face the in-laws. How humiliating. That is when the tears fell… I must have sobbed for 10 minutes before I could get it back together, the whole time apologizing to the 3 of them for the state of my emotions. Clark kept telling me it was ok, and this is just a little setback, but frankly I am so sick of the setbacks that I wanted to tell him to shut the hell up, but I couldn’t do that in front of his mom and dad. The rest of the day was a blur, and I am still trying to process what the hell went wrong. The beating up on myself has begun, and it will continue I am sure for weeks. I am sure that it has to be something that I did or didn’t do since this side effect is so freaking rare, but then that is the story of my damn life!! I even told my friend a few days ago about how weak I feel for not being able to want a baby bad enough to quit smoking. I have tried, I really have, but it just seems like no matter what I do those damn things are just to fucking important, more so then the one thing I have wanted the most for the last 20 years of my life. I am weak, and I know that, I have no willpower. So that ishow my first attempt at IVF will end, CANCELLED. What a feeling, didn’t even get halfway through it, and I am already done.

So, the whole week last week, I went nuts cleaning my house cuz the in-laws were coming, so that is why I just didn’t have time to update before now, not to mention the fact that I went to the Toby Keith concert on Friday night, and had a blast despite the discomfort in my pelvis. Saturday we cleaned and waited for them to come, but they got lost and got into town so late that we just decided to meet them for breakfast the next morning. We got up, go meet them at the hotel in town, and went to Golden Coral. Well, 10 minutes into our visit, out comes the News. Clark’s niece is pregnant again, and they weren’t even trying. Weren’t going to start until November or December, but got surprised a little early. GREAT, just what I needed. They just had a baby a little over a year ago. So the Blurt caught me totally off guard, and I looked at Clark, he just rolled his eyes. Breakfast went ok after that, and we all came out to our house, then decided to go to and visit the Aquarium. That was great, and we all had a blast, it was really nice. D (MIL) rode with me all day, and we had a good time talking. We had dinner at a place on the Beach, and it was really nice. After that the in-laws went back to their hotel, and we drove home. Well, on the way home I broached the subject of his niece being pregnant again, and Clark said that he was sorry, but that he had hoped that his mom wouldn’t say anything… uh huh?? Yeah he already knew, and didn’t have the heart to tell me knowing that it would hurt my feelings. I asked him how long he had known, and he said about 3 weeks. Nice. I told him that I loved him for trying to protect me, but that it would have been nice to have a heads up on that one!! What a man, I knew there was a reason I loved him so much… he never fails to amaze me with how much he tries to protect me!!

Well, you know about most of Monday already… the day from Hell… but that night we all had dinner here, and MIL was very impressed with my cooking, that made me feel really good!!!
Tuesday we decided to keep Kent out of school and Clark stayed home from work so that we could spend time with the In-Laws. We went bowling, which was so fun, then out to lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s, where I had one to many Mojotio’s, which were FANTASTIC by the way.

(Note to self… try not to get smashed the next time your in-laws are sitting there watching ya!!! )

Then it was off to Wal-Mart, and the excuse they call a mall here, where MIL and I bonded over shopping in JCPenney’s, then we rented Click, and came back to the house. What a cute movie that was, funny and sad all at the same time. Then we took a few pictures, printed them out, and said farewell to the In-Laws. I have to admit I actually enjoyed having them here, I really did. It seems so different from a few years back when I felt like they were always judging me. Besides that, I realized that Clark and I are a family, and they are a part of that family, but that I cannot let them determine my relationship with him by how they feel about me. I think that the general attitude towards me has changed to since Clark and I have been together for almost 14 years now, and we are still so very much in love. I hope that they saw just how much I love him to. Kent had a ball meeting them, and really likes his Grandma!!! He had a great time.

BTW, we had a ball at the Lynyrd Skynyrd Concert with Kent and his friend, and his B-day sleep over and party was a lot of fun to!!!!

Today is Wednesday, and I spent the day waiting for the phone to ring from the RE’s office, doing laundry, and feeling sorry for myself. I am in a lot of pain, and keep getting terrible cramps in my pelvis, so that is driving me nuts, and being worried about one of these cysts/follies rupturing, and I know that will freaking hurt like a bitch!!! So that has been the last few days of my life in a nutshell, what a Wonderful Life!!!!

Life Goes On...

Well, I know I fell off the planet again, but it has been so hard to deal with reality the last few weeks that I needed to take a breath, step back and start over again.....

I started my Lupron shots this past Monday after much stress. I had my appt. with the IVF nurse on the 26th, and we went over all the info and consents for this cycle. You want to talk about a lot of info holy cow!! So then there was an issue with them not having our Marriage license, so I had to fax that to them that night, well it got done wrong, so I got it to her the morning of the 27th. I didn't hear from them Friday, so I tried again Monday, and still no answer, so I called the ins. co. and found out that we were approved for this IVF!!! YEAH!!! So I ran up to Norfolk to get part of the meds that I am going to need, and then had lunch with Clark. I am getting a little pissed though because I still as of this AM not heard back from anyone at the RE's office, so I am going to have to make a few calls. I am doing ok on the Lupron, not to many side effects yet, and I hope that it stays that way!! I am looking forward to getting this over with though, and if this cycle works, we should be having a little one in the middle of July of next year. I am staying very cautiously optimistic though. I did send an appeal letter to the ins. co. about the surgery though, and I will see what they say.
Clark is doing well, and so is Kent... in fact he made all A's and B's this time on his progress reports, so he got his TV and games back.... but I have caught him playing his GameBoy when he is supposed to be sleeping.. little turkey!!

My friend K moved back to MN, and I miss her something terrible already, but she needed surgery, and couldn't get the docs here to listen to her, so she needed to go. Kent and her son were friends to, so that has been hard on him. I spent all last week helping her hubby pack and move because she went home the week before. She was one of my closest friends, and now she is gone... I feel so alone for female friends now!!!

My family have all officially lost their minds... I won't go into details, but I swear I am the only sane adult in the freaking bunch, except for my middle brother, and they are driving me nuts. I am so sick and tired of being tossed in the middle of everything that happens, I wish they would all just get over the past and move the hell on with life. Who cares what happened 20 years ago??? Can't I just be allowed to love both my parents w/o having to feel like being forced to pick one or the other??? I don't need this shit right now, and the whole thing had me crying all day yesterday. I am so glad that I started seeing my therapist again because that is the only thing that held me together yesterday. Clark says that he wishes I would just cut them all loose, and not be so hurt every time something like this happens, but I love and feel with all my heart, and they are after all my family.... UGH I did tell Clark yesterday that I love him so much for always standing behind me and being my rock when stuff like this happens. He totally hates seeing me get hurt, and pretty much trys to keep it from happening, but I always go back and ask for more. I don't know why, but I guess it is because they are my family and they are all I have!!

My In Laws will be coming out here on the 14th of this month, and staying til the 16th or 17th, so I will be doing a lot of cleaning in the next week. I am not looking forward to this at all, we just don't get a long, and it was so last minute she just called me Monday night and told me....I honestly hope that it goes well, but I am not sure it will, not to mention I have no clue what we are going to do while they are here. Oh well we will see.....
I am gonna run for now, I have some calls to make, and I need to get some housework done.....