The Aftermath

When my first IUI failed I fell apart.  I had been keeping the hope this entire time that we just needed a little nudge, that this would be our answer.  But it wasn’t.  And the disappointment from that literally broke me down.  It did not help that the fertility doctor that we were seeing was playing around with new drugs and not getting the results from those drugs that he wanted to see.  When I questioned him on it he would get defensive or cut me off or flat out not give me an answer.  During the second IUI the nurse and the doctor started to discuss the position of my uterus.  They were using terms like “Retroverted Uterus” and they needed to use the ultrasound to inject the IUI.  When I questioned them about it I received no response.

They would not keep me informed about my own body.  He would also get annoyed when I wouldn’t understand his medical jargon.  During my first visit my ovarian reserve numbers were low which no one mentioned until a few visits after my blood draw.  When I asked what that would mean for me, he just repeated the medical definition for it.  There was not one time that I left his office that I didn’t have to get on WebMD and try to find out what the heck was happening.  My distrust in my doctor was one of the reasons why I hinted in my last post that I had doubts of trying a second IUI.

The day that Aunt Flo appeared after that second IUI was a rough day.  My Grandpa had just died that morning.  I spent 4 hours at my Grandma’s, comforting her and my Dad-helping them make phone calls, etc.  I met my husband for lunch when I finally left my Grandma’s house around noon.  Before we left the restaurant I used the restroom and found out I was not pregnant…again.  The feeling I had this time though was not sadness but extreme hot anger.  I walked back to our booth-steaming.  My husband asked if I was ok.  I told him no and promptly stormed out of the restaurant.  I was so angry.  I should have been focusing on the grief I was feeling for losing a man who had been such a huge part of my life.  And it was trumped by my grief for a pregnancy that I may never have.  And it made me angry.  And I was done.  And my husband was done (probably with dealing with my hormonal self).

I called the fertility clinic that week and told them that I would not be returning.  I thought I would feel better once I did that but I didn’t.  It was a terribly hard thing to do.  It almost felt like admitting defeat.  Maybe it meant that I didn’t want this enough.  Sometimes I worry about that.  If I wanted this enough it would happen.  I wouldn’t let something small knock me down.  I would find a way to afford IVF.  I would try natural therapies.  In fact it was this thought that led me into the natural section at a local market here and buy progesterone cream and red raspberry leaf tea.  It was this thought that still had me hooked to my fertility app on my phone.

I never ended up opening the progesterone cream or the tea.  I have to command myself not to track my temperatures.  And definitely not to google or look in my big scary book about “Taking Control of my Fertility”.  This cannot be the main focus of my life.  And I really am trying to move on.  In fact when I found out last week that I was again not pregnant I did not fall apart.  I did not cry or get angry.  I just thought “well at least it was on time”.

But I am still angry and at times I feel what I guess would be-grief.  There are fleeting moments when the thought of “what if I can’t have a child” looms in the back of my head.  It sits there like a dark cloud. The sadness is so profound that I can hardly breathe.  Can someone grieve over the loss of an idea of how their life should be?  That seems to be the only way I can describe this feeling.

Somedays I’m so bitter that I can’t speak to pregnant people.  My sister who is about ready to pop will go on and on about preparing for the new baby.  She’s understandably excited and I am excited for her.  But there are days where I want to scream “I don’t want to talk about your happiness right now!”  I feel like this is probably a normal thought.  But I don’t want to turn in to the type of person that other people feel like they can’t share their happy moments with.  I just try to swallow it down.

And then there are days where I don’t think about it at all.  And those are good days.  I’m hoping with time I can feel more at peace with the whole situation.  Most of all, I don’t want to give up hope.  I want to get back to feeling optimistic about my situation.  It will get there.  Just one day at a time.

Is it Time to Call it Quits?

The last time I wrote, I was lamenting about the side effects of Clomid.  Much has happened since that post was written.  I will give you the condensed version of events that have occurred.  In early November, we met with a fertility doctor who gave us great hope that IUI (intrauterine insemination) would be our solution.  In December, we again tried Clomid and no IUI to start.  Doctor moved me to Femara due to a short luteal phase.  We did our first IUI in January to start the new year out with a bang!

Funny side story here.  For anyone who is on a similar journey to myself you know that with an IUI comes an HCG trigger shot 36 hours before the procedure.  We go in to see the doctor in January and he tells me I am right on time for ovulation.  When we saw the nurse on the way out, I still thought in my pretty little head that they would do the shot for me.  The first thing out of the nurse’s mouth is “have you ever given yourself a shot before?”.  “No…”, I answered tentatively, still not sure what she is getting at.  “Oh it’s easy, I will give you a brief tutorial”.  “Are you really sure you trust me to do that?” I demanded of her.  Listen, I know what you are thinking, but my Mom did not even trust me with sharp knives until I was 19.  I’m accident prone!  I can somehow sabotage the easiest thing.  The first time my Mom trusted me to light a match: I lit the match on fire but the head broke off and flung right into the crease of her pant leg.  See?  A walking disaster.

The nurse showed me what to do, how to get rid of the air bubble and where to insert the needle.  But that night I was still really nervous.  My Mom has diabetes and has to give herself a shot everyday, so I called her first for help.  She had plans that night.  Then I called my mother-in-law, who has MS.  She said she would come over and help.  But it turns out my father in law was always the one to give her the shot because she could never do it.  So here we all were standing in my kitchen: my husband, my mother-in-law, and father-in-law crowding all around me staring at my bare stomach and watching me with anticipation.  It was an odd first self shot experience.

Anyways, the first IUI failed.  I was a hot mess about it.  Even up to the day of the second IUI I had doubts of doing a second round.  But I went through with it.  But I was so heartbroken that this time I didn’t track my temps, take any ovulation tests, and pretty much didn’t let my husband touch me all month.  Doesn’t sound like a great set up of a second try does it?  So when I found out on Thursday that our second IUI failed my husband and I both said no more.  I feel so relieved and yet so guilt ridden.  I think I have experienced every emotion possible in the last few days.

My mind keeps going back this week to the conversation that I had with my husband in May, when this all first came to light.  What we would do, how far we would go, when we would just have to stop and walk away.  I never thought, during any point in that conversation, that we would actually reach the point of having to stop trying and pick up the pieces of our lives and move on.  And here we are, at the point where we agreed to do just that.  And I realized that I am torn.  I do want to walk away and piece my life back together.  I want to move on from this constant month to month heartbreak of numerous ultrasounds, blood draws, pumping myself full of hormones just to see a negative pregnancy test at the end. The other part of me says to not give up so easily.  But I think a break is definitely what we need at the moment.

I’m Sorry for What I Said When I Was on Clomid

Credit: http://www.someecards.com

To catch you up to speed in my last post I talked about my struggles with infertility-but I really didn’t get in to the nitty gritty details of my story.  I mentioned that my husband and I started trying to have a baby last December.  It was fun, it was stress free.  January, February, March passed.  No positive tests.  It was a little less fun, still stress free.  It doesn’t happen right away for everyone.  I went to my annual exam at the end of April.  The nurse practitioner said everything looked fine.  I quizzed her about why I only had three cycles in 2014 and why cystic acne had completely taken over my body when I quit the pill last year.  “Nothing to be worried about”, she replied.  “It takes a while for your body to adjust back from the pill”.  After a year and a half?  Hey, what do I know.

I get a call three days later from the nurse at my doctor’s office.  It’s 1 PM and she wants me to get to the closest lab to get some testing done.  “Everything closes by 4” I said to her.  She knows this, she says it’s urgent they need the blood work today.  She finds me the closest lab in the downtown area.  I’m shaking the whole way.  I don’t entirely get what’s happening but it doesn’t sound great.  Didn’t the Nurse Practioner just say three days ago that everything looked fine?  The next day, the nurse from the doctor’s office calls me again with the results.  My progesterone levels are pretty much non-existent, therefore I am not ovulating.  She told me that the doctor wanted to prescribe me a fertility drug called Clomid.  She told me to take a little time to think about it and call the office back when I was ready to move forward. So much for fun and stress free.

I still remember the conversation I had with the nurse when I called her back to tell her that we wanted to move forward.

Nurse: Great!  I will let Dr. P know to send the prescription to your local pharmacy.  You know…I used Clomid to conceive all three of my children.

Me: So it is pretty successful then?

Nurse: Typically yes.  However, I feel like I should tell you about the side effects that I got.  Have you ever heard of ovulation pains?

Me: Yeah.  But I’ve never had them.

Nurse: Same here but you may!  Oh and the hot flashes were bad.  But everyone has different experiences with it.  Just thought I should warn you.

I took my first round of Clomid on days 3-7 of my cycle.  I remember idiotically thinking “Huh maybe I won’t get any side effects”, until about Day 15 when my ovaries literally felt like they were exploding.  I also thought I was pregnant that first month because I had some pretty intense nausea.  I could hardly even look at food. On the 4th cycle my OBGYN thought it was necessary to double the dosage as a last ditch effort.  Hot flash city.  I suddenly felt terrible for ever making fun of my Mom during Menopause.  It was just hot, it was fire ants crawling up your neck hot.  I would get so hot at work that I thought I was going to be sick. My coworkers probably thought I was nuts when I would start stripping off sweat soaked layers.

The worst part was my mood.  I was so up and down and easy to anger.  One time a customer at work yelled at me and I cried in our bathroom for 15 minutes.  I had massive sobbing fests.  My husband literally thought I was possessed. When I would get angry, I would literally throw a temper tantrum.  I would scream and punch pillows like a two year old.  I felt out of control. It hurt our marriage.  I even saw a therapist a few times.  The therapist gently suggested that we stop trying altogether.  “Your marriage is suffering” she told me.  “I think it’s time you guys took a break”.

This leads me back to the title of this blog post.  I saw this on the internet during a low time after I discovered last month that I was yet again not pregnant.  Just the fact that this existed out there made me feel 100 times better knowing that what I was going through was normal.  That there are other people out there that understand.  We start another round of Clomid again next in a few weeks after a few months off from my 4 round stint.  Wish me luck that the Clomid rage doesn’t strike again and if it does please disregard the crazy lady.

I Had a Bad Day Again

I’m one of those people that let’s my environment effect my mood.  If the people around me are calm, I am calm.  If the people around me are stressed, I am stressed.  It’s a terrible habit to have, letting your surroundings constantly sway your emotions.  I am an anxious person by nature but I try to fight that feeling to stay grounded in reality.  Other times though, I let my crazy escape.  For example, we all read those list articles on buzzfeed or hello giggles sites.  One that I recently read was titled “26 Problems Only Anxious People Will Understand” which include convincing yourself that if a person doesn’t respond to your text they might hate you (I do this all the time) or missing a call from an unknown number will ruin your day (but it could have been important).

Obviously I wrote a long time ago that I got a new job back in September.  I enjoy this new job.  I have more job responsibilities, better benefits, and a much more reasonable salary.  But I also deal more with people everyday.  I am in constant contact with taxpayers, attorneys, etc.  And most days it can be exhausting.  Especially when it’s a day like today when an attorney writes you a whole page on how much of an idiot you are in the most condescending email ever.  At first I laughed.  It was a ridiculous email response to my simple question of “do you have more documentation to submit to us”.  It did not warrant a whole 5 paragraphs of contempt.  My supervisor told me not to worry about it, that this attorney has short man syndrome.  And we laughed about it.

But now, my anxiety spiral is in full gear.  And this is the worst part of my job.  Because I blow things off until later and then I start to think about all the people in the last month who have ripped me a new one.  It’s a running joke in our office lately, “Nancy gets all the complicated people”.  My co-worker compared my lack of confidence with issues to an injured seal and the attorneys sense it and attack. What a vivid yet very true analogy.  And I’m letting it wear me down.  So I know that is a stupid thing to let happen, but sometimes you don’t even know something is really getting to you until you just snap at something else.

Lately it has been my poor husband who has gotten my quick blow ups.  Seth likes to push my buttons, ALOT.  He makes fun of everything I do and say.  It’s his weird way of flirting and playing around with me.  His favorite button to push is to tell me how gullible I am.  He loves to try to convince me that he doesn’t have the car keys or the cash that I knew I just handed him 5 minutes ago.  Even if I don’t fall for it he still says “OH you are so gullible”.  It annoys me to no end.  Tonight though I was feeling really bad about that email.  I let it sink in and really stick with me that the people that I deal with think I am incompetent.  And when you add a husband who keeps telling you how gullible you are, you may tend to blow like a volcano (which of course I did).

I am a reasonable person.  I know deep down that I should not let a man that I’ve never met, that has no idea who I am, get inside my head.  But it’s not just him.  He’s not an isolated incident at my job.  My confidence on the job is a problem and I need to really push through it or I will never move up.  It is in my opinion a huge weakness.  So after a few deep breaths and a small outburst I think I can put it behind me.  I just hope that I can get used to being in this sort of environment and not let it end up breaking me down or burning me out in the long run.