Great Post O Whinging (read at own risk)

It is a sad fact that I am feeling pretty miserable at the moment.  The weather for one is really getting me down.  I have been getting up at 5am a few times a week to go running and it is very cold and it’s raining so much. This morning, I just couldn’t face getting out of bed and going for a run in the rain again today – yesterday, I was saturated when I got home and I felt cold for the rest of the day.  The building at work is also cold so I am sitting at my desk all day freezing, my bestie and I go for a walk at lunch time and because of the rain, we walk up and down the mulit level car park (so that we don’t get wet) for an hour – it is hardly inspirational scenery., the concrete jungle of a car park.  I am also pretty strictly dieting so that I can lose as much weight as possible before I go to Thailand for the cycle.  Basically I feel like I am in ‘Survivor’, I am cold and hungry (and sometimes battling the elements in physical challenges) most of the time.

To add to my misery this past week, the cramps have come back.  The past few months I have been relatively cramp free – this is a huge improvement from the 3 weeks per month of cramping that I had been having previously but now they are back again and with a vengeance!!  I think probably because I am on the pill it is throwing my hormones out again.  It is exhausting to be in pain all the time, I hope that it won’t be the whole time until I go to Thailand.

I also must say that I am tired of this journey.  Just bone tired.  I was reading through my blog yesterday and I realised that we are actually coming up on our six year anniversary of dealing with infertility and cycles.  In all of that 6 years the only time that I haven’t been considering a cycle, preparing for a cycle or going through a cycle was during the time that I was pregnant with JBB.  Even then I was calculating how long we would need before we could go back and try again.  The mental, physical and emotional energy needed to go through a cycle is phenomenal.  To keep fronting up cycle after cycle takes a monumental effort.  In the beginning, we were in a huge hurry because I was 35 and the clock was ticking ominously.  In a few weeks, I am going to be turning 41 – nuff said.

I know that it is our choice to try for another child, I don’t need any well meaning friends or relatives to tell me how lucky I am to have JBB and that I should be satisfied with our success (if you are looking for a really great article about what to say and what not to say to someone who is experiencing infertility – go here).  I absolutely 100% realise how lucky that I am and since I am his mother, I want the best for him and I want him to have a sibling to go through life with.  I don’t think that it’s too much to ask for our son to grow up with a sibling.  I will do as much as I possibly can to make this happen (which is why I will continue to walk in the concrete jungle and run in the rain and diet until I go).

Unless you’ve been through it, most people don’t understand just how much planning cycles, preparing for cycles, going through cycles and recovering from cycles infiltrates every part of your life.  From the moment I wake up in the morning to the time I go to bed at night – every decision that I make is considered with the cycle in mind.  Even something so simple as getting the timing of medications, supplements and Chinese herbs right takes a good plan to make sure that there are no contraindications etc.

I know that I am just having a down day, I know that I am lucky and that many others are still battling in the trenches without any success.  I know that I am a big whinger.  I will not be angry if you have skipped over this post – there is only so much whinging anyone can take.

There is no possibility of a time warp, right - seriously, I feel as if time is going in super slow motion right now.  I usually would never say this but I really wish it would speed up a bit.

I am sure that the sun will come out tomorrow – right?!?!?

Irked by the Fertiles

Some days I don't feel like I have dealt with the infertile in me all, some days the things that Fertiles say, no matter how innocuous, feel like they are stabbing my heart. I know that it is my own issue to deal with, I know that I should probably have gotten over it by now but just when I think my infertile heart has the armour to withstand the things people say, an arrow gets through.

During the week, I went to a doctor to get some blood tests done that the naturopath had recommended. I was in the waiting room and there was another woman in there is a couple of months old baby. She annoyed me right off the bat because she talked about everything in a loud voice for everyone to hear, I really don't like that, I like to keep myself to myself and don't want to be forced to listen to other people's issues. I heard all about their trip to Fiji and how the baby needed immunisations (and perhaps a boat considering the country is flooded right now - meee-ow!) I heard how her husband is away and she was having to get up to the baby and the toddler on her own at night. I could have also marked down when her next appointment with the doctor was, it was a 10 minute discussion to get the date correct. Then I found out that they had to 'hurry up and have their third baby very soon because the doctor was retiring'.

This was at the point in which I did a mental double take. I mean, doesn't she have to plan for a year to start trying, go back to work early, save up money, lose weight, remove all chemicals fro her life, go to counseling, see her acupuncturist each week, do yoga every day, do detox hydrotherapies every day, only eat organically, buy air purifiers, vitamin supplements, organic cotton sheets and pj's, have fertility tea every day, listen to subliminals, do hypnosis, they to get her whole family to send positive thoughts via elephant key rings, find time to meditate, do positive imaging exercises, make up a mind map and find a way to remove all stress. No, apparently all she needs to do is to get her husband to free up a day or two in the next month and she will be knocked up again and able to have her doctor of choice for her third pregnancy because God forbid, she wouldnt want to have to **gasp** find another doctor for her pregnancy, that would be way too hard.

Okay, whinge over, I'm off to have a clay bath.

The Rollercoaster.....

So, we all know that IF is a rollercoaster and I have definitely paid my ticket and am back on the ride right now.

When I went out to the market on Saturday with my Mum and two sisters, everything annoyed me. Firstly, when we went to pick up my younger sister, I had to drag a massage table into their house for them, I wouldn’t have dreamed of her having to pick it up herself but it brought it sharply into focus, she is pregnant and I am not, when all going well, I should have been.

Then in the car she told of her boyfriends friends. My sister and her boyfriend were very concerned about telling some friends of his about their pregnancy because this friend couple had been trying for two years. Luckily, it all turned out well because when her boyfriend told his friends that they were having a baby, so the couple had found out they were too! Yay! Once again, annoyed the shit out of me, not because of the story, I am glad that these people who have struggled did not have to hear about a couple who ‘accidentally’ got pregnant but I was just annoyed because I think the story was told as a parable ‘good things come to those who wait’.

Then when we were at the market, we were discussing the horrible case here in Melbourne when a couple had made the heart wrenching decision that they would abort a sick twin at 32 weeks (heart defects) and the hospital terminated the wrong baby, so neither of the babies survived (I have too much to say about this but will not in this post, I may in another but it really is just too horrible to contemplate). My older sister made the comment that ‘she thought of me when she heard about this because I ‘could have had one of these babies’. I was pretty affronted by this, I don’t really know how I feel about her thinking that – I know that it came from a place of love but it was just so wrong!!

Then at breakfast, my younger sister told the story of how she told a few of her friends (who have actually become my friends as well over the years) about the pregnancy. She invited them over to make the announcement. It was a nice story and everyone was over the moon for her, which was really lovely. The thing that really pissed me off though was that in the past, I would have been invited to it and been able to share the joy. I don’t blame her for it, honestly, I wouldn’t have wanted me there either – I am a black freaking cloud and if she invited me, I probably wouldn’t have come. She is damned if she does invite me and damned if she doesn’t – I am not angry with her, she was between a rock and a hard place. What I was angry about is IF. It bloody shits me that people have to tip toe around me. It makes me want to scream that people think that I would want to take a baby, any baby. It makes me really sad that I am excluded from the joy. It makes me furious that I am seen as a cautionary tale (better get on to trying really quick, you don’t want to end up like JourneyGirl) and I want to tear my hair out to be seen as ‘the deformed girl who should be pitied’ – ‘shhh, don’t talk about the babies, she might cry (though then if I do cry, I get in trouble for not being happy for the person – I am also damned if I do and damned if I don’t).

It is very hard to be told that you are ‘becoming bitter’ – I challenge anyone to go through this and not have some measure of bitterness. It is very hard to be told ‘they are your issues’ when you absolutely realise that they are your issues but really only wanted to rail against the situation that you have found yourself in, not wanting solutions or advice but just an empathetic, open ear. It is agonisingly hurtful to be told that ‘you need to get over it’ or that ‘you need to prepare yourself that JBB might be your only child’ and that it ‘wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world’.

I didn’t ask to be put in this situation. I did not ask to have a physical deformity when I was born. I didn’t ask to be in pain nearly every day. I didn’t ask to not be able to respond to the IVF drugs. I didn’t ask for my eggs to be crap. I didn’t ask for any of these things but I haven’t hesitated in taking responsibility for it. I have picked myself up from every failed cycle. I have had operation after operation to see if I could improve my chances of having a family. I let nothing stop me in achieving my goal of having a child. I am proud that I was able to find a way that we could have our beautiful boy. I have relished joyously in every moment that he has been in our lives.

It makes me hate myself to whinge all the time and I think back to before IF and wonder – how different has this made me? How different has it made others toward me? Would I be happier or would I be less appreciative of what I have? Would I have more friends? Would JBB and I be in a mothers group? Would I be sweating more of the small stuff (uh oh, JBB has only 10 words in his vocabulary, shouldn’t he have 11?), would I have had a worry free pregnancy? Would I get invited to things again? Would I actually want to leave the house? Would we actually be in a house instead of a 2 bedroom unit? Would JourneyMan’s and my relationship be as strong?

I know that I would have been more involved in my friend’s children’s lives – as it is, I am in full shut down mode and have certainly decided the at for the next four weeks, I will only be seeing people out of absolute necessity. No work Christmas parties, no Christmas dinner with my girl friends, no more going to the market on Saturday with my Mum and sisters. I know that it is childish and weak but I am honestly done with any comments, regardless of how nice or ‘for my own good’ they are. Honestly, if anyone tells me to get over it or think positive or that it will all work out as it is meant to, I am fully going to freaking lose it.

I started spotting yesterday and panicked. Once again I thought that the whole thing was over, there was no chance of going in December. This also made me realise that all of the incidents beforehand that were pissing me off and making me angry was my old friend PMS. Then later on in the night, I remembered that the Melbourne FS said that there could be some breakthrough bleeding and that it would be okay, so I felt a bit better.

This morning I woke up and the cramps were way worse than normal, I took heaps of tablets to make sure I could get through the day (and thus felt guilty because I am putting extra chemicals in my body when I am trying to clear it all out for the cycle that might not exist **sigh**). Following the cramps came more spotting and more doubt about whether I would be able to go in December. If the spotting gets worse tomorrow, I am going to call my FS, I have been trawling Dr Google for solutions and want to run some by my FS (I will hear him rolling his eyes over the phone).
For the moment, I am hopeful but am sure the doubt will come back in 10 mins.

Two weeks until I find out whether the cycle is a go or not, another freaking 2WW.

Frick.