A Weekend O Shite

The Journey House has not been a happy one over the past few days.  JBB has been sick and so has Journey Man.  JBB has also been getting up at around 4am every morning for the last few months.  We put him back to his room whereupon he cries for around an hour because we then get up at the more ‘civilised’ time of 5am.  In addition to that, he has started to eschew his daily nap.  The result has been one very, very tired and grumpy little boy.

JourneyMan has also been very grumpy because he is sick as well and because he has not been wearing the CPAP machine for the past few nights, I haven’t been getting much sleep either.  On Saturday evening, things took a turn for the worse.  I was cutting up JBB’s dinner when I was doubled over with a pain in my side.  It kept on occurring for awhile and because it was similar to the pain that I had when I had the blood clot in my lung, I was worried.  I called the Nurses on Call, who immediately called the ambulance.  The ambulance people checked me out and said that I needed to go into emergency for further testing so we organised for JourneyMan’s Mum to have JBB for the night and I headed in to the hospital.

An emergency room on a Saturday night when the moon is full is not a particularly fun place to be.  We waited for a long time.  I felt pretty stupid because I didn’t really believe that it was a blood clot but we felt like it had to be ruled out for safety’s sake.  After about 3 hours of waiting, a blood test and a chest xray, I had some raised blood indicators that made them want me to stay in over night and get an MRI scan in the morning.  Until there were the raised indicators, I wasn’t really worried, I thought they would rule it out and then I would go home.

That gave me pause to think about the consequences of it being a clot.  I would have needed to have blood thinning therapy for approximately 12 months which would rule out the cycle in August or really any other cycles for at least a year.  This sent me reeling a bit because we had already determined that we would hopefully (worst case scenario) be finished with cycles by the end of 2013. 

Thankfully, we don’t have to consider the changes that this would have wreaked as the scan on Sunday turned out to be clear.  It turns out that I have some pleurisy in the lungs (Pleurisy is inflammation of the lining of the lungs and chest (the pleura) that leads to chest pain -usually sharp- when you take a breath or cough.) from a viral infection so apart from some pain killers to deal with the pain of it, there is nothing further that can be done.

Hopefully, the Journey house will return to good health and lots of sleeping soon (though I am thinking that we need a good plan for our rascally little JBB).

6 and a half weeks to go!!

14 Days to go - So Tired of Being Tired.....

Surely there is a point in which you reach peak tiredness and regardless of what happens, you don’t get any more tired? I have just found out that is not the case. After the horror of the hospital, there hasn’t really been a chance to recover, life still goes on and JBB still wakes up at 6am every day. The house still needs to be cleaned, the clothes still need to be washed, the dinner still needs to be cooked and there is money to earn to pay for everything. So, I have remained tired beyond words. In addition, there has been so much to do in the lead up to Christmas (which, yay – I am actually starting to look forward to, I mean, JBB is going to have an absolute ball on Christmas day and we are spoiling him rotten of course – how could we not, he is precious!!) and with these two weeks of full time work, I seem to be getting more tired as time goes on. Last night, I didn’t get to bed until after midnight only to be woken again and again after 3am with kicks, punches and headbuts from JBB – bloody painful and a shock when you are falling asleep. So this morning, I woke up even more tired than I already was – something that I really did not think was possible. The light at the end of the tunnel for me (if all goes according to plan) I will be able to do some serious sleeping in Thailand if the cycle goes ahead.

Speaking of the cycle, I can’t help but wonder whether this ultra stressful lead up to the cycle will be detrimental to it? I wonder whether this is to do with the ‘just relax and it will happen’ comments that can’t help but seep into my consciousness but really, what matters more, being relaxed or having a good quality embryo? I mean how long is a piece of string? I think that my biggest annoyance with the whole IF process is that nothing is really concrete – there is no ‘secret recipe’ that is guaranteed to give 100% success and that really drives me crazy, no doubt it is why I drive myself crazy doing all of these treatments and such, because I am trying to control something that I have not one iota of control over. The one thing that I actually do have control over, my weight, has gotten completely out of control so I have to ask myself whether I have been focussing on the wrong thing - a very depressing thought. The good news for those exponents of the ‘relax and it will just happen method’ will be happy to know that I will have 5 days in Bangkok on my own where I will be doing nothing but relaxing (getting massages every day, reading, swimming and most importantly of all, sleeping 18 hours a day!!) so will that be enough to mitigate the stress of the last couple of months? How long does it take to recover from excessive tiredness, and does excessive tiredness affect success rates anyway?

I have found it very hard not knowing whether I am going to be able to go Thailand – it is hard to get myself ready and to push through all of the crap to realise that we are so lucky to even have the opportunity for me to go back, we have never had any bubsicles before, so it is a rare treat for us to not have to go through the whole shebang of a fresh donor cycle.

You know, what? I have felt lost these last couple of months. I have felt myself back drowning in the sea of IF but not really part of the IF camp either because we have been blessed with our darling boy JBB. The shock of JBB getting so seriously ill has really knocked me around and I find myself on the verge of tears all the time and I really don’t want to be around people because I am scared that they are going to say something that will have me sobbing – I just don’t want to be out in public sobbing. Now sitting at home watching a children’s show (for the Australians – it was High-5 – what the!??!) sobbing is a whole different animal, I seem to be able to do that fine.

I think that the biggest thing is that I just don’t have enough room in my body for all of the massive emotions that I am feeling, shock, relief, gratefulness, apprehension, worry, happiness, grief, excitement – you name it, it is going on here. Today, though for the first time in a while, I feel like I might be getting back to myself. Not so much that I should be let out on an unsuspecting public, mind but definitely, a little better.

14 Days to go - So Tired of Being Tired.....

Surely there is a point in which you reach peak tiredness and regardless of what happens, you don’t get any more tired? I have just found out that is not the case. After the horror of the hospital, there hasn’t really been a chance to recover, life still goes on and JBB still wakes up at 6am every day. The house still needs to be cleaned, the clothes still need to be washed, the dinner still needs to be cooked and there is money to earn to pay for everything. So, I have remained tired beyond words. In addition, there has been so much to do in the lead up to Christmas (which, yay – I am actually starting to look forward to, I mean, JBB is going to have an absolute ball on Christmas day and we are spoiling him rotten of course – how could we not, he is precious!!) and with these two weeks of full time work, I seem to be getting more tired as time goes on. Last night, I didn’t get to bed until after midnight only to be woken again and again after 3am with kicks, punches and headbuts from JBB – bloody painful and a shock when you are falling asleep. So this morning, I woke up even more tired than I already was – something that I really did not think was possible. The light at the end of the tunnel for me (if all goes according to plan) I will be able to do some serious sleeping in Thailand if the cycle goes ahead.

Speaking of the cycle, I can’t help but wonder whether this ultra stressful lead up to the cycle will be detrimental to it? I wonder whether this is to do with the ‘just relax and it will happen’ comments that can’t help but seep into my consciousness but really, what matters more, being relaxed or having a good quality embryo? I mean how long is a piece of string? I think that my biggest annoyance with the whole IF process is that nothing is really concrete – there is no ‘secret recipe’ that is guaranteed to give 100% success and that really drives me crazy, no doubt it is why I drive myself crazy doing all of these treatments and such, because I am trying to control something that I have not one iota of control over. The one thing that I actually do have control over, my weight, has gotten completely out of control so I have to ask myself whether I have been focussing on the wrong thing - a very depressing thought. I am also not cheered by the fact that

The good news for those exponents of the ‘relax and it will just happen method’ will be happy to know that I will have 5 days in Bangkok on my own where I will be doing nothing but relaxing (getting massages every day, reading, swimming and most importantly of all, sleeping 18 hours a day!!) so will that be enough to mitigate the stress of the last couple of months? How long does it take to recover from excessive tiredness, and does excessive tiredness affect success rates anyway?

I have found it very hard not knowing whether I am going to be able to go Thailand – it is hard to get myself ready and to push through all of the crap to realise that we are so lucky to even have the opportunity for me to go back, we have never had any bubsicles before, so it is a rare treat for us to not have to go through the whole shebang of a fresh donor cycle.

You know, what? I have felt lost these last couple of months. I have felt myself back drowning in the sea of IF but not really part of the IF camp either because we have been blessed with our darling boy JBB. The shock of JBB getting so seriously ill has really knocked me around and I find myself on the verge of tears all the time and I really don’t want to be around people because I am scared that they are going to say something that will have me sobbing – I just don’t want to be out in public sobbing. Now sitting at home watching a children’s show (for the Australians – it was High-5 – what the!??!) sobbing is a whole different animal, I seem to be able to do that fine.

I think that the biggest thing is that I just don’t have enough room in my body for all of the massive emotions that I am feeling, shock, relief, gratefulness, apprehension, worry, happiness, grief, excitement – you name it, it is going on here. Today, though for the first time in a while, I feel like I might be getting back to myself. Not so much that I should be let out on an unsuspecting public, mind but definitely, a little better.