October 26, 2009
Hard knocks
I don’t think I was this blah even after the miscarriage last year. It may have something to do with the fact that we were a) preventing pregnancy (or at least thought that’s what BCP would do), and b) I didn’t know about it until after it was over; while it was hard and I was angry and sad and upset about the whole thing, I don’t think it truly brought me down like this. We haven’t had sex in 2 full weeks. I think this is the only time that’s happened since P was born. And truly? I just can’t seem to feel sexy to do anything. I just feel like my body has completely failed me.
I don’t even know what to call it. I never got an actual + test, so I don’t think it counts as a chemical pregnancy. Just “that cycle where I tried to convince myself that I was late on ovulation but really I am sure when I ovulated and my period was still 5 days late” seems a little burdensome. The “cycle that wasn’t”? Wasn’t what? Wasn’t positive? That describes all of them. So what made this one different?
It doesn’t make sense to me that this hit so hard. I’ve just been feeling so incredibly desperate lately. Like time is passing by and we’re no closer at all to having another child. That there’s someone just out of reach, and I don’t know who it is but I know they’re supposed to be here with our family. J keeps saying “Call, let’s at least do the Clomid cycle, we can do the IVF,” but he has no job and hasn’t since February. I know we’ve got the money that we conceivably could do those. But if in a few months he still doesn’t have a job, we’ll have spent the mortgage money on an IVF cycle that I’m fairly convinced isn’t going to work anyway. I certainly can’t justify that; truly, I don’t think J really could justify it but he wants me to be happy.
I honestly feel like I want to do IVF just to get through it. If it works, that would be lovely. If not, I want to know that we tried rather than wondering forever. I certainly would absolutely love to carry a child again, to give birth and breastfeed again. Those were incredibly special times for us and I’d love to do it again. And if IVF doesn’t work, I think I’ll be OK enough with that being the end of the fertility journey. We’ll move onto adoption again without the uncertainty that I feel right now.
We started talking about IVF seriously when I was 28. I’m almost 32 now. We adopted in the meantime and it was most certainly the right decision for us then. Right now, it doesn’t feel like the right decision yet. I have no doubt that we will adopt again, regardless of IVF success or failure, but it doesn’t feel like we should move on before doing IVF this time.
My babies are getting so big. K, sweet little K, turns 3 in 3 weeks. He was just a tiny baby of 1 year old when we first saw his picture on P’s 4th birthday. Now he’s almost 3. He talks so much and we can have real conversations now. He has the most adorable sense of humor and loves to laugh. He’s almost as big as P, who will turn 6 just 2 weeks after K’s birthday. My oldest baby is in kindergarten. He’s starting to read on his own. He’s so creative and bright and smart.
How can they be so big? Right around the time that P turned 3, we moved on to pursuing adoption. We had a plan in mind and the means to pursue it. I think this hit me so hard because I know that we can’t afford to do either of our plans right now and if I were to just “get pregnant”, we wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. Ironically, we can afford a child even without J working full-time. We just can’t afford to get pregnant. It seems like the opposite problem that a lot of people have.
I’m going to be writing some password-protected posts soon. If you’d like the password, leave me a comment and/or e-mail me at pcosbaby at gmail dot com.
October 19, 2009
And there we have it
Spotting. I’m still delusional and trying to convince myself that since it’s only internal and not external, I’ve somehow irritated my cervix or it’s just the same spotting I had when first pregnant with P. In my heart, I know I’m deluding msyelf. I also know I always start spotting by 12dpo at the absolute latest and even if I was COMPLETELY not paying attention, I should be at least 14dpo today (I think it’s more like 16 in reality).
Something tried to make it.
Once hope is out of the box, she’s a bitch to put away.
October 17, 2009
Prayers of an infertile
I’m 14dpo but I could be a couple of days off on that. I mean, I wasn’t completely paying attention and could potentially be only 12dpo. So I will probably start spotting sometime today.
I felt kind of light headed for a while earlier. But I’m probably just coming down with something.
I’m really tired and could easily have taken a nap at noon today. I know I got 8 1/2 hours of sleep last night, but I’m probably just tired from the whole week.
I took a prenatal and my metformin this morning even though I’ve been really sporadic about taking them in the last two months. I should be taking them anyway, so there wasn’t a special reason to take them.
I bought the EPT because I was at the store anyway. It wasn’t a special trip to the store to buy it.
A fertile who wants to get pregnant might say “I really hope I”m pregnant.”
A jaded, cynical infertile, already in a bad place after August, prays instead: “Dear G-d, please let me start spotting before I take out that test tomorrow morning. Please, just let me keep some of my heart intact. Don’t give me this hope just to dash my dreams.”
October 16, 2009
How to lose readers in one easy post…
Start writing about your most bizarre dreams.
So last night, I had this really strange dream.
J and I had decided to adopt again and we had chosen an agency that for some reason didn’t send out referrals of the children before travel (not sure how this worked with courts and all, but it was a dream). We were in Ethiopia with P and K, as well as my dad. J and I were meeting the little girl who would be our daughter when the agency asked if we would be interested in also adopting a sibling set of a baby boy and a little girl, and the little boy was HIV+. This is something that J and I have talked about in the past (in reality, not in the dream) but J isn’t comfortable with it and yet somehow in the dream, he jumped on the opportunity and before I knew it, I was a mom to 5.
We were apparently living there short-term in some house and the agency asked if we wouldn’t mind fostering a sibling set of 5 before we left: a boy of about 17, twin boys around 10, another boy around 5, and a girl around 3. We agreed to do so and after a few days, the agency came back and said that we were eligible to adopt them all if we were interested. Somehow we agreed to this and I was a mom of 10: 7 boys and 3 girls.
I was just wondering how exactly we would fit all of these children into our 3-bedroom house when I woke up, with J on one side and K cuddled up under my chin. And I smiled because I have the best family already.
October 13, 2009
A new method of charting cycles
This is a new possibility that has come to light in the last few cycles. Hear me out:
Now this method may or may not be appropriate for you. Are you in the mindset of “I want to get pregnant”? This method is not for you. It won’t help in the slightest. But for the rest of you, read on!
Have you given up hope of getting pregnant? Have you accepted that the only way a child will grow within you is with thousands of dollars and the help of near-strangers looking at your lady bits? Are you in the mindset of “I only want to know when I’m about to get my period so I don’t ruin that favorite pair of panties”? Then this may be perfect!
It’s free! It’s very regular! It will make you look 15 years younger!
I call it…the “zit” method. You simply count zits to find out how close you are to the end of my cycle.
But wait, you say! I don’t normally break out when the progesterone pony comes cantering up to my body, so what am I to do? You’re in luck! Here’s a testimonial from Erin*:
“I never used to break out at the end of my cycles either. In fact, I never really broke out much as a teen, let alone as an infertile adult woman. But after almost 5 straight years of trying to have another child, I started breaking out a week after ovulation. And it’s not just a zit or two. Right now I have 5, all clustered right around my chin and nose! It’s unmistakable. I look younger than the 18-year-olds in my class, at least in that way. Don’t give up hope, you too might start breaking out later in life and then this method is a great indicator!”
We’re not asking for you to send a dime. Not a dime. We’re giving this method to you, free-of-charge, out of the goodness of our hearts.
You can thank us later.
*Names not changed to protect the person because really, what’s the point.
PCOS Baby 