Another IF Coping Attempt

Yep, I bought the Circle + Bloom IVF Program. A little relaxation can’t hurt and I honestly I think I need something to tie me closer to my upcoming cycle. I have so much hope but at the same time I am having trouble picturing success. I know it will happen, I just want to spend more time thinking about the potential success instead of not thinking about it at all. I feel too removed, and I’m not just saying that because we’re on a break.

I’ll let you know how I like it! So far, so good.

OpCOOTIC Part 3

(OpCOOTIC Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.)

Well telling my parents didn’t go very well. Before I get to that part, let me give you a little background on my mom. I can do this because I’m anonymous on this blog. Whew – because I really need to get this off my chest. Deep breaths. Here we go….

My mom makes life very difficult for herself. Something has changed in her over the last year or so. I can’t figure it out. My dad can’t figure it out. It’s not menopause because she’s been going through that for many years already. I don’t know. Anyway, she is a total worrier by nature but she finds ways to worry about things that shouldn’t even be worried about. She worries about things that may not even ever come true. She takes work home with her and let’s it effect her relationship with my dad. (My dad almost walked out on her earlier this year.)

Her anxiety level is through the roof. She let’s the simplest things completely set her off. She told me she needed a new life because a piece of hair wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ear. She had a meltdown because she couldn’t find the right watch to wear. She freaked out and stopped talking to my dad and I because she thought we made a plan to take the subway and then the bus without telling her. She lost it when she couldn’t get everything to fit into her purse the right way. She was very angry when she couldn’t post to her Facebook wall from her phone. (This all seems so ridiculous to type out, but I am not kidding you. These simple things created much havoc.)

She also has a crappy family relationship with her parents and siblings. She had a hard life as a child. She’s had bad things happen to her as a young adult (her marriage to her first husband was abusive). Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s had it hard. (I don’t mean to sound insensitive but I’m a believer in getting over things and moving on. We all had crappy things happen to us in life. If you let it eat away at you, then you lose.)

But in my opinion, the worst part is that she’s an over-medicator. She’s a nurse and I think she learned to take a pill for any ailment – no matter how big or small. Well my mom really took that to heart. She pops high dosage Xanax like it’s candy. She takes pain medication for the slightest irritation. She has a terrible stomach issue that I personally think is caused by all worrying compounded with all the meds she takes, but of course she takes even more meds. She doesn’t eat right for fear of upsetting her stomach. It’s all totally exhausting. You should see the pile of pills she takes every day.

My mom and I don’t have the closest relationship because she’s pretty walled off. It’s hard to be close to someone when they don’t really let you in. Besides, she’s spends so much time focusing on herself and her worries and her ailments that she honestly has a very narrow view. Everything is about her, how she’s feeling, how she’s doing. It totally sucks you in. I can feel my stress levels rise when she is having one of her little worry/stress fits. I hate it. I want my mom to be my mom and my friend. (I believe she thinks things are wonderful between us and they are except I don’t think she even realizes that I wish we were closer. I think she thinks we are close as can be.)

Anyway, let me get to the OpCOOTIC part. So I’m gearing up to tell my parents. I was a little nervous about finding the right way to start the conversation because as I mentioned above, we’re not as close as I wish we were. (I am super close with my dad, though.) Bringing up a very personal, painful issue that doesn’t have anything to do with my mom’s narrow view of life is a big deal.

So she wasn’t feeling well the other day while we were out and about so she took I don’t know how many Darvocets. I decided it was probably a good idea to head home to meet up with my dad. So we get home, my mom goes to the bathroom, and I’m shooting the shit with my dad. So now I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, now is the perfect time to tell them. As soon as mom gets out of the bathroom.”. At this point my phone rings and I had to take the call in another room. When I hang up, my parents are both in the living room. I’m just about to spill my guts and my dad says to my mom, “How’s your head?”. So I ask, “What happened to her head?”. My dad explained that when my mom was in the bathroom and she fell asleep while sitting on the toilet and banged her head on the sink. WTF?! Too many drugs!*

My plan was foiled. You can’t tell a drugged up person your deepest, most personal, painful secret. Sigh.

So since my mom was feeling under the weather, we left her home and went out to dinner without her – my dad, my husband and I. At dinner, I told my dad that I have a bomb to drop on mom and I told him what we’ve been going through. He is a softy but also kinda tough on the outside so he didn’t really know how to react to the information, but he was adamant that we NOT tell my mom. He thinks that she’s so on the edge of a breakdown that she wouldn’t be able to take the news. Plus he said that she wouldn’t be able to resist offering me lots of assvice, which as you all know is not really welcome at this stage in the game. Besides, I (we!) know a hell of a lot more about ART and IVF than most medical professionals so what assvice could she really offer?!

So yeah, we’re not telling my mom. My dad is right – it will do more harm than good and I don’t need any more stress piled on me at this point.

But it absolutely breaks my heart to not let my mom in. Why can’t she just be normal? I hate her stupid pills, her stupid stomach issues, her stupid job, her stupid pain. I hate her emotional explosions, which always seem to be taken out on my dad. I hate how self-absorbed she is. I hate that she lacks the ability to be introspective and grow from her experiences that excessive worrying doesn’t help anything. I hate that my mom can’t be my mom. Right now I need my mom to hug me and tell me everything’s going to be all right. I hate her for not being able to do that.

*This is why I hate taking any kind of medicine. It kills me that I have to pump my body full of meds for an ART cycle. Please let this next cycle work.

OpCOOTIC Part 2

(OpCOOTIC = Operation Coming Out Of The IF Closet)

Earlier last month we decided that it was time to stop bottling this all up. So far, we are so glad that we’re starting to open up to friends and family. Every single person we’ve shared our news with thus far has been so understanding, so warm, so kind, so loving. We have no regrets (yet).

Here’s the latest on who we’ve spilled the beans to:

• My soon-to-give-birth to #2 BFF
• A co-worker and a dear friend mentioned in my original OpCOOTIC post
• Another dear friend who is actually a single mother of twins (she was rooting for triplets on our last FET)
• My boss – he cried when I told him and he hugged me for a long time. So touching. I had to come out of the closet to him since it will be more difficult to hide appointments with my new RE.
• My sister-in-law who’s currently 20+ weeks pregnant after several miscarriages

I’ve been doing all the spilling of the beans and I really wanted my husband to have a turn and that’s the best part: he got to tell his parents this past weekend! OMG, it was so special. His parents were so amazing. SO amazing. And hubby finally got to get it off of his chest. HE finally was able to talk about it. I’m so thankful that I have such an awesome husband and such fantastic in-laws. I’m truly a lucky, lucky girl.

Wanna know the next to best part? They’re insisting on paying for a portion of our cycle! I don’t even care about the money (I would personally pay for this cycle and many more to get our baby), but the gesture is just so completely moving. The thought that someone would want to go out of their way to help us realize our dreams of parenthood it just breathtaking to me. I am so so so grateful.

My parents are visiting this week so I plan to tell them as well. Might as well let the cat out of the bag to both sets of parents in one week! I think my parents will be shocked that we’ve even been trying. I think that they think we don’t want children. Little do they know. Wish me luck!

FAIL

We just left our WTF meeting with our old RE. I wasn’t expecting much but it’s now safe to say that he completely under delivered on our already low expectations. Kinda hard to do, if you ask me!

He had absolutely nothing to offer. He told the story again about a woman who had 6 failed fresh IVF cycles and one FET before she came to him and he saved the day by putting in 6 embryos. (Not convincing at all.) You can probably already tell where this is going (Sienna is probably seething at this point). Yep, we just need to be more aggressive with the number of embryos we put back. He did say that perhaps even though we make lots of perfect embryos, we may have many abnormal embryos and he walked us through PGD and I kinda got excited for a minute that he might have an idea that makes sense as it relates to actually getting us pregnant. But nooooo. He said he doesn’t recommend PGD because it “causes a 50% decrease in pregnancy rates” but if we’re interested, he can refer us to a different clinic.

Flabbergasted. No recommendations at all except more embryos.

Then he suggested we take a break (ah, you’re a little late smartypants) and he went so far as to suggest we take a vacation and “you might even get pregnant.”

He wrapped things up by saying that when we’re ready he’ll give us free stims. We did not tell him we have a new plan with a new doctor.

We practically ran out of there! Ahhhh, Calgon take me away!

Open for Business

Hellz yes ladies! MY VAGINA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS! Well, only for my husband. (And I guess my new RE.) Nothing like a little coital activity to make a girl feel better. Whew! Guess I better clean her up. Bikini wax this weekend, anyone?

Regarding you-know-what, I’m still pissed but there’s nothing I can do about it really. (Sex definitely helped.) Well, I guess I am doing something about it — I’m meeting with my new RE again tomorrow. I guess we’re going to do blood work and ultrasound, and then I’ll meet with the RE and then the financial coordinator. I’m excited. Hopefully he can order all of my tests so we can get this show on the road. I think the results take a good several weeks to come back. I wonder if he’ll start me on BCPs? Hmm, I guess we’ll find out. In about 24 hours a new dude will be checking out my lady bits.

When the nurse called yesterday to give me the BFN news, she said that old RE wants to meet with me next Friday. We’ll see what he has to say. I’m not expecting anything groundbreaking, but I am curious about what he’ll say. I also don’t think he can say anything to change our minds about our plan with the new RE but we’ll hear him out.

I dressed pretty again today, albeit all in black. (No, I’m not in mourning. I have a client meeting.) A pretty black dress, heels, and pretty earrings with pink flowers. For some reason, the financial coordinator at my old clinic mentioned something to me about being in heels when I went in for one of my betas for FET #2 (the one that miscarried). I think she actually said “GASP! You’re wearing HEELS?!” So yeah, she spooked me. I haven’t worn heels post-transfer since then. It’s probably ridiculous, I know, but you know where I’m coming from right? We’re at the point where we’ll try ANYthing to just get (and stay) pregnant. It’s kinda like the new version of elevating your hips.

Anyway,  I’m trying to get over being pissed. Trying to let go. I will. Maybe today will be the day. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow only looking ahead. Fingers crossed.

Xo,

R.