All around the mulberry bush...

I wrote a whole post about how my marriage is falling apart, and we're doing IVF anyway, but decided that it was too depressing, and rambling and not at all funny.  Given the subject, I wonder why...

SO on the sunnier side of things.  My meds are here, I had my first cycle ultrasound this morning, and I think I had 10 antral follicles.(I'll get more accurate numbers when the nurse calls with my labs later today.)

I'm on a microdose Lupron flare protocol again this time, because it worked pretty well the last time. 

I'm feeling relaxed, and positive about this cycle.  Not positive as in I'm sure it's going to work (I'm thinking we're probably throwing money into a pit - it might throw up a baby in return, but it'll probably grin and belch instead) but positive as in, this is going to be okay.

Just to fill you in on details - and there's a bunch because I haven't been posting as frequently as I meant to.

My last Day 3 labs - May 9th:

• Estradiol 41.9
• FSH 7.6 
• LH 3.5
• FSH/LH ratio 2.1:1
• TSH 1.22

My first labs from this cycle (before I stopped the BCP) - August 6th

• Estradiol: 27.6
• Progrsterone: 0.3
• LH 3.5

Jakobe's Semen Analysis - end of July, results received August 7th

• Total Count: 17 Million
• Morphology: 3% (strict)
• Motile Percentage: 18%
• Motile count: 3 Million
• 100% lack good forward progression

So - not a whole lot has changed since our last cycle almost 2 years ago - You know, other than my eggs getting older and more stale.  I'll post today's lab values a bit later.

One quick comment about the thing that makes this whole process a lot less stressful:

Isn't she adorable?

Summertime

It’s amazing how quickly time passes.  One day flows into the next and then here we are, it’s August. Well, it'll be August in an hour and a half!

I have been enjoying my mommyhood very much.  Every day is slightly different than the last.  It’s a good thing.  We’ve been making an effort to do something interesting (or at least something, period) every day.  I walk, a trip to the park.  My in-laws have been visiting for the last week, so we’ve headed out to the lake every day.  Swimming and barbeque - summer all wrapped up into a nice little package.  When they come, they call themselves the “Nana and Dieda Entertainment Show.”

They left for home this morning.  It’s bittersweet.  We don’t get to see enough of them, and at the same time, at the end of a visit, it feels like we got to see too much of them.  I think that if we could see them more frequently, but for shorter periods, we’d all enjoy one another better.  I wish I could work out a better way to do that, but we all live about 7 hours apart, so frequent visiting is a difficult proposition.  I think we will get to see them a bit more often in the future, as Dieda is retiring the middle of next month.

It always takes Niko a little while to warm up to them when they get here, or we get to them, and I always feel a little bit bad about it, but I can’t see that there’s anything we can really do about it (Skype isn’t really an effective option for a 15 month old, although I can see including it as she gets older.)  Otherwise, this visit was great for her.  she got to spend her days with family, and she got to go swimming at the lake pretty much every day.  That’s heaven for our little water baby.  I could wish that she was a little more cautious around water, but I just keep letting her go under for a bit hoping she realizes that she can’t breathe under there.  (for those without a sense of humor - yes I’m watching, prepared and willing to lift her back up, and no, I won’t let her drown.)

Juggling the demands of extended family is something I’m still trying to work out.  I come from a large, connected family.  Not that my immediate family is huge, but I’m pretty close with most of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. as well.  And it’s a family that really believes in being there for eachother.  Jakobe’s family is smaller, farther away, and he has a lot less contact with his extended family.  Most of mine lives within 50 miles of us.

Sometimes we end up doing quite a bit with my family:

• I have a sister who is struggling with an addiction, and has a daughter younger than Niko.
• My parents got divorced two weeks before Jakobe and I married, and my family is still trying to work out how to make that family dynamic work.
• My dad struggles mightily with depression, and is only barely able to take care of himself, as much as we want to wish otherwise.

Recently, my family has been needy.  I know it, and I can wish otherwise.  I've more than once had to drop my plans, and deal with a family crisis (mostly my sister) in the past 3 months.  But - I feel like it’s what family does.  If we needed them, they would be there for us just as fast. Jakobe sometimes feels like I’m being taken advantage of.  That and sometimes I think he wishes I had less(or was not as close to) my family.

I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with his most recent request.  My parents don’t have holidays together anymore, you know, being divorced and all, and Jakobe doesn’t want to do the multiple holiday thing anymore.  I would understand it better if we had been trying to do both holidays on the same day, 50 miles apart, but my mom has been really careful to try and pick a different day to have everyone over to celebrate the holiday with her.  I found it incredibly frustrating that he requested it, as it’s usually only one holiday a year, either Thanksgiving or Christmas (the other one is spent with his family).  My current feeling is “Fine then, you can stay home, and we’ll go.”  Anyone have any insight on how to wiggle my way into a more satisfactory solution? this compromise of him staying home and me doing things without him seems to be expanding by the day.

Niko Update:

In the past couple of months we've been through walking, and we’re really starting to see the beginning of talking.  On Saturday, Niko said her first phrase: “Hi, Daddy!”  I missed it, but I’m so glad that Jakobe didn't.  Mostly what we get from here is the words Juice (synonymous with anything in a sippy cup that isn't milk),  Doggy, and Kitty (which are almost exactly the same (doddi) and meows  - much closer to squeaks, but the squeaks sound a lot closer to what our cat actually sounds like than the word meow does!  She also gave me a kiss completely on her own initiative this week.  Which, since she’s recently been having a reluctance to give mama any kisses at all, seemed like something huge.

Infertility Update:

I’m currently on the pill in preparation for doing another Round of IVF in August.  It will be interesting to see how different it all is financially since Insurance is covering it this time.  I talked to the pharmacy this morning, and then had them run the scrips past my secondary insurance (having been denied by the first because my work doesn't provide infertility coverage) and they were supposed to call me back today, but haven't yet. We're back on the roller coaster... and I wonder what the ride will be like this time.

Depression: or the State of my Kitchen

This could also be titled the State of My Marriage.  Jakobe and I are both depressed, and if you know anyone who likes to clean when they're depressed, the certainly don't live in our house.  Jakobe and I may deal with depression in different ways, but neither one of us has learned to channel it into housework.  He plays video games, avoids me, and sinks ever deeper into his world of Role Playing games.

I - I get irritable, I want Jakobe to spend more time with me - distracting me from the fact that I feel like shit about the universe, and I read (mostly extremely crappy romance novels - a large number of which are available for free on the kindle at the moment.)

Neither of us cleans.  this means that until today - our kitchen was approaching the definition of national disaster zone, and in fact, while trying to unload the dishwasher, I brushed a box of random crap, that was stacked on top of an empty box, that was in turn stacked on top of a chair.  Yep - all over the floor.  That that sent me into a cupboard door slamming, cleaning, swearing, completely unreasonable rage.  Thankfully - I get home about an hour before he does, and although he may not realize it, the worst of the rage had passed well before he got home.

Unfortunately, I feel a little bit like our marriage is in the same state that the kitchen was in - sadly in need of basic maintenance and care.  We've been trying, both of us, but it's like we just can't quite bridge the gap.  We've had some really good moments, but they're much farther apart than is good for us, and the rest of the time is like right now - he's hiding in the bedroom, and I'm letting him.  Also - going into a crazy rage is certainly not going to fix whatever apathy and depression has done to our relationship, it's just going to make it even worse.

Plus - we have this conversation hanging over our heads.  A conversation about IVF and our next attempt.  I'm trying not to assume I know what Jakobe is going to have to say, but I have this feeling in my gut that it's going to be the same song and dance all over again.  Mostly, that feeling cones from how he told me we needed to talk, but that he didn't want to do it right now.  Since I'm coping with this failure better than he is (and I'm not doing that great) I don't think that he wants to try again any time soon.  I don't want to wait too long.  I'm also falling out of love with our RE - but since he's the only option within 300 miles, and we paid to try three times with him, we're just going to have to keep with the plan.  Yay.

I'm still putting off the conversation.  I don't think we're ready yet.  and I certainly can do without the crying that will almost certainly result.  It never gets easier.  It never gets better.  It just keeps going on, hurting like hell and finding new ways to make us unhappy.

This is us - warts and all.  And I may have cleaned the kitchen in a fit today - but there's still the whole rest of the house looming.

Beads and Bitchiness

I think Jakobe deserves a medal, not just for putting up with me right now, but for the fact that somehow he managed to fall in love with me while I was on the pill.  I think that the only thing take saved me was the whole new love thing - which makes everyone happy and sappy, because let me tell you, the pill makes me the most crazy bitch on the planet.  I'm all over the place, and I have almost no control. 

It's like without the pill, sometimes I get a fairly mild bout of PMS - with the pill, I get full on, holy shit, did you see her head turn around, and there goes the split pea soup PMS.  

We're in the middle of it right now, and it's longer and more drawn out, because my body has been trying to have a period since Friday, and so I've been a nut-job since before then.  It's not even like we get much of a break, because Aunt Flo is going to keep yelling through the chain on the door until I'm allowed to let her in this weekend, and then - I only have a couple of days until I start stims.  May the gods help us.  

As a result, we spent most of the weekend apart doing our own separate things, somehow I can manage to be civil with other people, but Jakobe gets the brunt of the abuse.  So I went to my sister's on Saturday, and took my nephew out to be spoiled (ice cream).  I also told her that we would be finding out if the IVF worked right at the beginning of May, and that if it did, she's probably be hearing from me, and if it didn't I'd probably rather she didn't call to ask.  Seems kind of blunt, but I think I needed to be specific.

  

Sunday morning I want to a class on beginning lampwork bead-making.  I had an absolute blast, and I made several cool beads.  I thought I'd share them with you all.  I'm pretty damn sure that I'm hooked, and that I'm going to have to buy myself some supplies so that I can work on more beads.  This was an SCA based class, so I also reinforced some good info about which beads and types of beads would have been appropriate to my persona.  Now all I have to do is find out what's appropriate for Jakobe, oh, and buy some tools.

All of the beads that I made while in class

My one and only barrel bead, and with layered dots even!

Practicing dots more,  I wish that I had made more
 beads in this green color, I really really like it.

News!

I actually have News....  It's amazing.  My nurse, Debbie, called me this afternoon because she noticed that we hadn't talked to the doctor since our appointment in June.  Apparently, a lot of changes happened around that time and she wanted to be sure that we understood what those changes meant.

The gist:

1. The doctor now only does Day 5 transfers.  
1. If nothing makes it to Day 5 - no transfer.
2. IF the blasts haven't expanded on day 5 and he wants to wait until day 6 - No transfer
3. I asked about what percentage of patients got to have a transfer on Day 5 - About 50%
2. They're now using vitrification.  This I knew, but it was nice to hear.

Also, things I learned.  I will be on an antagonist protocol with Follistim and Ganirelix.  This is the time when I want to jump up and down and say "Yay, no Lupron!!!"  Lupron and I have a storied past, and I still deal with a couple of side effects from when I was on it 10 years ago.  The pharmacy should be calling me within a couple of days to arrange to send me my drugs.  (She also made sure to remind me that they cost a couple of thousand dollars so I probably don't want them sitting on my porch in 31 degree weather)

She'll be mailing me my calendar either today or tomorrow so that I can have it before the injection class, and because I think she can tell that I'm one hell of an impatient bitch woman.  In any case.  Baby steps closer, but still closer.  I know when my first couple of appointments are going to be.

• 1 April - first blood draw and Ultrasound, also the day I should be stopping BCPs (this can't come soon enough, especially for Jakobe)
• 6 April - first check, this should also be the day that I start stims, assuming everything else goes according to plan.

It's good to have an idea where I'm headed.  I suppose now I have to talk to work again (I'm thinking next week) because I still don't know if they're going to be doing something with my schedule or not.  Good going work.

I tried to tell Jakobe what was going on, and to get him to evidence at least some of the excitement that I feel (and that he so easily expresses about star wars books, and WoW, and just about anything that doesn't involve me - sorry, crabby bitchy moment there - I'm irritated because he told me he was too tired to process what I was trying to tell him, but at the same time, he's now totally involved and gung ho about playing WoW with his friends.  Cue approach of hormonal tears, that will not be shed.)

In any case.  I'm excited to be moving forward.  I just wish that I felt like Jakobe cared.

Quick Notes:  Today was the last day of the quarter, so now I'm officially on spring break.  This is an awesome thing, and may actually mean that I get to spend more time at the gym - which we have actually been going to.

I'll post the calendar when it comes in (I may even scan it in to share).

Mommy-in-waiting and Definitely-TTC got their BFP!  I am so excited and happy for them, and I have to say that her positivity these past couple of months has really been an inspiration.

urgent care

On Sunday morning Jakobe woke up with this terrible rash on his arm.  It didn't hurt, but it was swollen, and I hadn't really ever seen anything like it...  It looked kind of like rug-burn, or something, but we couldn't tell what had caused it.  Anyway, since we didn't like the look of it, we decided that our best course of action was to make our way down to the urgent care center to have it looked at.  

There are some things about urgent care on Sunday morning you should be aware of:

• it's really busy
• for some reason, Jakobe's insurance thinks that they need a $75 co-pay
• almost everyone waiting to be seen is a small child, under the age of 4
• you have to wait forever to be seen
• there are babies everywhere, or cute toddlers with gorgeous ringlets
• so, not really the place for an infertile couple...

But anyway, we get there about 9 am, and then we wait for a long time to be seen, and because I'm just getting over the plague (fever, coughing, sore throat, utter yuckiness) and I'm still coughing, and slightly contagious, I get to wear the oh, so sexy, yellow face mask. (did I mention that I have this little claustrophobia problem, that I absolutely hate having anything over my nose and mouth, and that I have to move the blankets on our bed or when we cuddling so that there is absolutely nothing covering my nose and mouth?  Well, I do.)  In any case, when we finally get back to see a doctor I have come up with a laundry list of things that Jakobe should have checked out, or at least discuss, since we're already there.  Like his arm, his cough, his sore throat, his stuffy ears, and oh yeah - his frequent vomiting.

So - His arm turns out to be petechiae (broken blood vessels in the skin) and he somehow scraped himself or did something else like that to his arm while he was sleeping.  Unless it shows up somewhere else on his body, the verdict is that he somehow did it to himself in his sleep, and that it's nothing to worry about.

His cough - well his lungs sounded fine, so they didn't worry about it at all. His sore throat - got a strep culture - negative.  His stuffy ears - he's got fluid behind his eardrums, and one of them looks a little pink.  Normally, they wouldn't do much of anything for something that mild, but at one point, Jakobe had the both of his inner ears completely rebuilt surgically, and since there aren't bones in there anymore (just shaped pieces of cartilage) he has to be really careful to not get a bad ear infection, or he could maybe go deaf again.  So he gets to go on kick-ass antibiotics.

The vomiting - I finally got some backup on the fact that he really really needs to go to the doctor on this one. It wasn't until I had bugged him about going several times that he explained that he was vomiting up black stuff when he get's these attacks, stuff that maybe looks like coffee grounds.  The Urgent Care doc didn't do anything about it today, but really stressed that Jakobe needs to have it checked out and make sure that something serious isn't going on - because he could be vomiting blood.  Now maybe he'll actually make an appointment.

Gratitude & Secrets

Right now I am overwhelmed with gratitude, so much that it was impossible to find the words to properly express it.  It starts with me accidentally outing myself in facebook (not this blog, but our infertility)  and the responses were overwhelmingly positive.  Everyone said the right things.

After I outed myself on Tuesday one of my very good friends who doesn't live nearby anymore called me.  She wanted to cover our shortfall becasue of the change in price, as a gift.  But, she also wanted to be sure that the gift was welcome and it wouldn't make either of us uncomfortable.  I was floored/ flabbergasted/ completely astonished.  It never occurred to me that someone would do something like that for us, it certainly wasn't why I post on facebook.  I was just being emotional, and frustrated, and venting.  Wow.

I went home and discussed it with Jakobe, but he wasn't comfortable with it.  It wasn't someone that he knew as well, and he just wouldn't feel right about it.  As part of that conversation he told me it would be different if it had been one of my best friends that he knows well and that we spend a lot of time with. 

Which leads into the next thing.  While we were out at the convention this weekend, one of our close friends pulled me aside and handed me an envelope with $1000 in it, because they wanted to help.  Again, floored/flabbergasted/astonished/ in tears.  None of our close friends here at home have enough money to make a gift like that something easy for them to do.  I know how hard a decision like that would have been, and I couldn't push it back and say, no thank you, we don't really need it, because we do, and because they know it.  Their one stipulation was that I not tell Jakobe.  They felt that he would feel obligated, and that he wouldn't be able to accept it.  Since this was almost exactly what Jakobe told me, I knew they were right, but Yikes!  I am not good with secrets (at least keeping them from Jakobe), and I'm guaranteed to do something to sabotage my secret keeping.

It ate me alive all weekend.  I couldn't figure out how to explain the extra money, and I couldn't figure out how to tell him about it.  At one point I came up with a hare-brained scheme to be able to hide it from him, but I was also aware that it would mean that I would have to keep the secret forever.  That sounded really hard, so after I had lunch with my sisters, I spent my whole drive home in the car trying to think of how I could keep my promise not to tell him, and how I could tell him about the money and not have to hide it from him.  In the end I decided I would ask him to not try and figure out who it was from. 

Turns out, I had already sabotaged myself.  I left the envelope of money on the table in the front room, and he was supposed to be picking up around the house while I was at lunch.  He found the money.  Unfortunately, I think that part of him believes that I was never going to tell him.  He's wrong,  it was so hard to keep that secret for a few days, I don't know how I could have done it for any length of time.  The only secrets I successfully keep are what his birthday and Christmas presents are going to be, and those are surprises (and good ones) and not really secrets..

I want to say thank you, and thank you isn't enough, I want to say that the giving of this gift has changed my life, not because I couldn't have found a way without it, but because it makes me look at the world in a different way, because it makes me realize that people are even better than I gave them credit for.  Thank you for making me feel like I am one of the luckiest people in the world, and one of the richest, with a wealth beyond words or explanation.  Thank you.

Anniversary

And a good one at that - two years ago today I got to marry the most wonderful man ever.  I may bitch and complain about him from time to time, but I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.  He is my one and only.

To celebrate - I'll share a couple of pictures of us from that day.

Uncertainty

It's hard to know exactly how I'm feeling right now.  Jakobe was really upset earlier today.  he is worried about the amount of money we are going to be spending on IVF and I can't say that I blame him.  At the same time, I am very irritated with him for a couple of reasons.  One, that he didn't bring up his money concerns until now.  I feel a little bit blindsided.  And two, that he has left all the money matter in what he calls my capable hands, but he doesn't trust me to do it right and keep us from gettting into trouble.  It is a lot of money,and we are behond where I hoped to be at this point, ut at the same time I don't think that it is way beyond our means or that we'll be making a big mistake.

I just don't know.  I don't think I can wait much longer than we had planned and keep my sanity.  Infertility is already costing us so much on an emotional level that i don't want those costs to continue to add up and then pile the costs of actually trying on top of them.  Instead of feeling like this obstacle is bringing us closer together, I feel like it'S turning into a wedge.  I find myself thinking that Jakobe doesn't want to have sex anymore because it won't have a chance of resulting in pregnancy...  or that he's thinking that he's lucked out and found a way to give me the kids I want without having to have sex.  And I know these thing are not true...  but I think them sometimes anyway.

I want to be past this, I want to know if it worked or if it didn't,  I want to leave all of this uncertainty and longing and fear behind,  I want to go back to a world where we don't have to fight so hard for each scrap of happiness.

4 million!!!

Jakobe had his repeat SA and the results showed marked improvement.  OTOH the nurse was quite surprised at my excitement - she kept saying "You know this isn't good, right?" and I had to tell her that it was so much better then before I had every right to be excited.

I don't have the full report, but here are the highlights:

Semen - Normal, no White blood cells, no agglutination, PH normal, liquefaction Normal

She didn't say anything about volume or concentration

And now for the good stuff!

Morphology: 3%
Motility (rapidly forward): 50%
Total Count (my guess): 8 million
Total Motile: 4 MILLION!!!!

That's a damn sight better than 20 thousand funny shaped sperm that sit there and wiggle.


Apparently the plan is still to continue with IVF with ICSI  - but when we get a little bit closer, I think it's something we'll want to talk about.  Is there a way to split the difference?


In other news:

• I decided against ICLW this month, September is always really busy for me, and my night classes start today.
• We now have about $7500 in savings, even after we had to put $1100 of work into Jakobe's car.  Oh well, you gotta know that things like that are going to happen.
• I'm still unmotivated and a little depressed - and what's worse, I can't seem to work up the motivation to do something about it either.
• We graduated from couples Counseling - at least until we start treatments, when we might need it again. 

And Then...

I discovered Jakobe's most recent blog post.

It just about made me cry...again.  But this time, in a good way.

Movie Mistake

Yesterday Jakobe and I went to the movies.  It was my turn to pick (last Sunday we saw The Sorcerer's Apprentice - fun, light, predictable) and I chose The Kids are All Right.  It got great reviews, and I wanted to see it.  For the most part - If I can't get Jakobe to watch something - I never get too either.

Anyway, I knew going in that part of the story line involved the kids connecting some with the Sperm donor who was their biological father.  I knew that it was a story about family, and coming through a rough patch.  I made sure that I told Jakobe about the movie, so that he wasn't going into it blind, and if he didn't want to see it/didn't feel up to it then we could choose a different movie.  I knew that the movie wasn't about infertility - so I thought that the sperm donor thing would be okay. What I didn't know before watching it was that the sperm donor was the wedge forced into every crack of a marriage that I think anyone could recognize some part of theirs in.  What I didn't know was that the movie would exploit every bad feeling or fear that Jakobe ever had about the idea of donor sperm.  It was an absolutely excellent movie, one that I enjoyed - and exactly the wrong one for us.

I guess what I can say is that if anyone is on the fence about Donor insemination - this might not be for them...

For us - that part didn't matter, the only way that a sperm donor is an option for us is if Jakobe decides that he's okay with it, and broaches the subject with me.  He's been so clear that this is something he absolutely does not want, that I've promised never to ask him for it - and I mean it.

In a funk

Bad Blogger!  No opposable thumbs for you. 


And now that we've finished with the yelling, I guess I'll say Hi, and I'm sorry I've been so quiet.  Jakobe and I went off for a long camping weekend last Friday, and we had a great time.  I spent *waaay* too much money on new fishing gear, determined that I can take the canoe out alone, and learned that the dog won't swamp us, even if she really doesn't like the boat that much!  I did catch a nice 14" trout Saturday night.  AND - I convinced Jakobe to eat it for dinner on Sunday.  It's wasn't poison, didn't kill him, and He's willing to eat my fish again.  That is a big win in my book.  Then on the way home Sunday afternoon, we were rear-ended by an 84 year old woman, and ended up being the middle car in a three car collision.  So, it's new bumpers for me.

That's me, trying on the frames for the new glasses
 that I bought.  Excuse the photo quality, my phone
does not the best camera make.

Sunday seems to have been a foreshadowing of my week, because after I got home I had absolutely no ambition to do anything at all, and that feeling continued until yesterday.  I did go in for an eye exam on Monday, and I'm ordering new glasses.  Unfortunately, I picked up pinkeye, so I lost yesterday to having to stay home and take care of that until I could get in to see the doctor.


And - Yesterday was CD1.  So, Yay! I finally got my period, and Boo! I hate my period.  Plus - Since I wasn't really temping, I didn't know exactly when it was due, and there was the smallest part of me that was hoping for a miracle, even if I didn't really think it could/would happen.  Nice to know I was right.  Not so nice to think that I just had a 50 day cycle for no real reason.  The doc has bumped up my Metformin dosage, I now get 1500mg a day, and can move up as high as 2500mg a day if I want.  We'll see.  I have a hard time remembering to take pills if they're not part of my night-time pill fest.


All in all I've felt extremely unmotivated this week, it felt like a gigantic accomplishment to take a shower, and if that doesn't say something about my mental state, nothing does.  I'm hoping that it was just PMS, and now I'll be back to normal, because I can't stand feeling like that for too long.

Jakobe got an interview for the new job - it's at 4:45 today.  I don't know when we'll know if he got the job or not, but I've got my fingers crossed.  More money and a happier husband can't be beat.

The only other news is that we're going to try going to the local infertility support group.  I'm a bit nervous, but I think it may be a good idea.  We'll see.  If we hate it, we just won't do it again, right?

Good Advice

My sisters are all younger than I am, but that doesn't mean that I ignore them, especially when they're giving really excellent advice.  Meg had some for me on Saturday, and I'm trying (albeit unsuccessfully) to take it more to heart.

For a little bit of background, my sister Meg is here on infertility island with us - over at RPL Bay, and she's been here about a year longer than I have.  In truth it's as much observation on her part as it is advice, but Here's my best approximation.

She thinks that part of our struggle is because I'm so goal oriented, and if I want something I make a plan, and figure out the steps needed to get there.  In terms of TTC, this meant that when we actually started trying, I jumped in headfirst.  Non of that easy, we won't prevent for a while and we'll see what happens for me.  I started charting, and planning, and generally doing my damnedest to get knocked up as fast as possible.  Some of that was fear, because I knew that things were probably not going to be as easy as they might have been because of my endometriosis.  Part of that was expediency - the endo makes having periods miserable, and I was sure that being off the pill was going to suck, I'd actually had a year an a half of periods that *didn't* suck.

Now that I've filled you in on my attitude, and my excuses explanations, we can get to her advice/commentary. She thinks that part of the reason that Jakobe may feel threatened by the idea of kids (yep, he thinks that he might lose me to the child, and I wouldn't have time for him anymore) is because I've been so focused on having them.  That maybe I've made him feel a bit like a means to an end.  That I should back off, and give him space.  That maybe what we need is some time to try living just the way we are.  And she might be right.

But...

...I'm 30.
...I don't want to miss out because we waited too long.
...I need to know what we choose so that I can do the right thing by my body.
...I can't seem to make myself stop wanting.
...I don't know how to let go of goals/dreams easily.
...I want that piece of *us* to carry us in to the future.
...I want to see Jakobe and our child together, someday.
...I want to try.

The Plan

I know - Sounds so good, but I'm really still in limbo, but it's about time I took charge of those things that I *can* control, so that's what I'm doing.  I guess you can say that I've already started some of this (like the chores list to keep the house up) but all the same - I think it's time for a coherent plan.

1. Actually exercise (and yes - going for a walk with Jakobe after dinner does count,  and so does energetic *Mmmph*)  I actually miss exercise.  I did triathlons in the none too distant past , and even though I was the epitome of the "Slow Fat, Triathlete" it was a blast, and I felt good both physically and about myself when I was doing it.
2. Keep a neat House.  This is where the chore list comes in, and we've been using it since Monday - so far it's working out well, although I feel bad, because I feel like Jakobe's been getting a lot more done than me.  I feel like we've got a week or two to play catch-up before we can reasonably be expected to do each day's list all at once, because I wrote it as a maintenance list, and not a "Holy shit, the house is out of control and we have to fix it" list.
3. Lose weight.  Somehow or another(we will not mention cheesecake, chocolates, cookies, or any of the other things I knew better than to eat, but consumed anyway), in the last couple of weeks I put back on 5-10 of the 30 lbs I lost last year, and I still needed to lose more, so that's definitely going in the wrong direction.  If we go the IVF route, it would be nice to lose some more of this extra weight before starting.  Jakobe needs to lose some too - We know because his endocrinologist yelled at him for putting on wight after he figured out how to eat potato chips again.
4. Get back to actually tracking our spending.  When I track - We usually spend less money.  In addition - we've got some outlays coming up, ophthalmologists, sheet-rock, whatever.

So - here's where you all come it to this - I think I should be keeping myself accountable by posting my progress on the plan as it occurs.  Maybe a weekly check in?  

In other news:

Jakobe applied for a different position where he works - less talking to brainless people on the phone, and more data entry.  I think that his employer thinks that it's a higher stress job, but we think the opposite.  Plus - it's a significant raise, which is all to the good.  The bad news - If he gets the job, then he can't go on vacation the week after his birthday, and we won't even know if he's really in the running until it's too late to cancel the condo...  So.  The backup plan for vacation is that I take my youngest sister with me for a week at the ocean, and he stays home and does the training for the new job.  Not ideal, but he'd be really pissed if we cancelled the condo, and then he didn't get the job.  As much as I really want him to be able to go on vacation with me - I hope he gets the job more - because I think he'll be a happier person in general.  I guess he'll go an vacation without me later.

The power of Words

As I finished yesterday's post, I started working on this one.  Realizing that I've gone back to an IF statement instead of a WHEN statement is a bit like admitting defeat.

I don't feel like I can be sure that we're going to try and make it happen.  In the meanwhile, while Jakobe is trying to figure out how he feels, I'm trying to figure out how to be happy - no matter what it comes down to.  It's tough.  I get stopped in my tracks at least a couple of times every day.  Sometimes it's little things - like the kids down the street riding their bikes.  Usually it's the everyday things that get me.

Our counselor thinks that Jakobe is mildly depressed - and probably has been for a long time.  She also thinks that he won't be able to make a decision, or be able to ferret out how he really feels without removing the depression from the equation.  She recommended an SSRI to help get him back onto an even keel, but cautioned that it takes a month to 6 weeks for it to really start working.  When he called his doctor - they wanted to see him in the office first, before prescribing it (and that I understand completely), but he doesn't seem to have much urgency himself.  What urgency he's expressing is because I haven't been as good at hiding my impatience as I should have been.

I hate being in limbo, and the more time I spend here, the less hopeful I feel.  I keep trying to take the pressure off, because I don't feel like Jakobe needs me breathing down his neck, he's got enough to deal with.  I wonder how other people have dealt with/are dealing with all of this, and feel like they must have figured it out better than we have.

Wonky Cycle Weirdness

I owe everyone an update, and an apology for being so quiet here for the last week.  My excuse - it's been a busy couple of days, and we weren't hanging around the house much.

So apparently the end result of seeing an RE for our fertility problems is that both maintenance, and ovulation have run for the hills.  Yep - that's right, I'm not having my period, but I'm not ovulating either.  My body has decided to hang out in limbo with my brain and emotions...

It's CD37 - I told Jakobe last night that maintenance was late, and he suggested that I take a HPT this morning because the irony would be just about perfect.  Then I told him I didn't think I'd ovulated yet.  He's chalking it up to stress.  Instead of going the HPT route, I decided to just take my temp this morning (I stopped temping after the visit to the RE - really, what's the point.  Well, okay, I was going to, because I like to know when to expect mainenance, but I guess I still can.) and I came in at a whopping 96.96, so I figure that a HPT would have been a wast of time.

It's nice to think that a miracle could have occurred, but they just don't happen to us.  Nope - the gods rain shit on us.  (The gods rain shit on other people too - if you're sitting in this shit-storm with us, I'm sorry, I still can't find an umbrella.  Maybe it'll stop raining soon?)


So, now I'm here, sharing.  We're still seeing the counselor, but it doesn't feel like we're going anywhere.  We've spent a whole lot of time talking about non-IF stuff.  Not that it isn't good to talk about, just that it feels like we went there for a reason, and there's all of these things and excuses that are keeping us from actually talking about that.  Jakobe managed to write in his blog (it's at the end of the post) what he was able to say in the counselors office two weeks ago, and other than that, nothing has changed. I'm sure that we're making incremental progress toward some kind of resolution, but it doesn't really feel that way.

I've gone back to saying "if we have kids someday, then..."

Counseling

I wasn't sure how I was going to write about this.  A lot of it isn't my story to tell, it's Jakobe's but I'm not sure that he's ready to tell it yet.  We've been to two counseling sessions now.  The second one was Sunday.  Every time we go I learn something about how Jakobe is feeling that I didn't really understand before.  And - our counselor is willing and able to ask questions that I can't, either because I'm afraid that they'll hurt him, or because I'm afraid that the answers will hurt me.

The one that stands out this week was the question of if, divorced from the infertility, and divorced from what I want, he wanted children.

He couldn't answer the question.


I don't know how this makes me feel.  Part of me feels like this is something I should have known, and part of me feels like this is something he should have told me.  But, I think that sometimes he tells me what he thinks I want to hear.  Sometimes I think I do the same to him.

He told me Sunday that he wished that we knew about this before we started dating.  I don't know how to tell him that there's no part of me that wishes the same thing.  I don't trust myself enough to think that I wouldn't have made one of the biggest mistakes of my life, and passed on the life I have with him.  And that makes me feel like a horrible person.  I know that he thinks that it just means that he would have had more time to deal with this - and that he wouldn't feel like he was letting me down because I would have known what we were getting in to.  I guess that's one way to look at it.  I can't look at it that way.  I'm glad that we didn't know, because I'm glad every day that I gave him a chance, I'm glad every day that I fell in love with him, and I'm glad every day that he felt the same way.  I am thankful every day that he loves me.

I don't know that I tell him that enough.  I know that I'm the one who needs to talk, but at the same time, I'm the one who has a hard time talking.  I'm an action person, I want to fix things, or deal with them.  I want to make a plan and move on - and right now, that's not what Jakobe needs.  He needs someone who can help him walk through the labyrinth of feelings and cultural values, someone who can help him avoid pitfalls and land mines, and come out whole on the other side.  I'm trying to be that person, and when I suck at it, I'm hoping that waiting, and letting the counselor help us will make up for my lack.

Just a quick Hello

I wasn't sure if I was going to do IComLeavWe this month.  I'm not sure of too much around here.  The last two weeks have been on the difficult side.  Jakobe and I really aren't talking much about infertility.  I can't say that we're spending much time talking about anything of importance, except for when we're with the counselor. So - I haven't necessarily had much to share.  For ICLW visitors - Welcome... Please check out the page I have just for you.

Last night was rough.  And I'm a bit stuck.  Jakobe doesn't want me to censor myself here, but at the same time, since I know he'll be reading, I've been holding back on a couple of posts.  Even posting feels like pushing the issue right now. I think that they'll be forthcoming anyway. As I was preparing this post last night, he came and read it over my shoulder..  He said we could talk, and we did, a little bit, but I'm still lost.  I guess I'll leave you all with a question, and hope that you can help me answer it.

How can I help him deal with what MFI means for him?

A year and a day

It's a little bit of a stretch to call it a year and a day, but it seems right.  One year ago Jakobe and I were starting on this journey.  We had thrown out the pills and were waiting (not so patiently) for our honeymoon.  We'd been married for 5 months, and were splitting the difference between how long I wanted to wait to start trying for a family (not at all) and how long he wanted to wait (one year).  Part of me was hoping that my worries and fears about my ability to get pregnant were unfounded - and we'd have a honeymoon baby.  I was hoping that my endometriosis hadn't screwed things up, but I felt like I was prepared for it to take a while. That was my whole argument for moving up the timetable: It probably won't happen right away or easily, so even if we start early we probably won't be pregnant before the 1 year mark anyway.  I really wanted to prove myself wrong.

I was happy and excited.  The idea of us starting a family that was larger than the two of us make me very happy.  I was tired of waiting, and thought that even if it wasn't easy, it wouldn't be that hard.  I went out and got a short term disability policy at work, confident that it would pay for itself even it it took us a year to conceive.

What has followed is a year of ups and downs.  I spent months hoping that I was pregnant, eating carefully, not drinking for two weeks a month, taking pregnancy tests from about 10-11 DPO onward.  Jakobe says that I spent the last part of every cycle looking like someone had kicked my puppy as I came to grudgingly accept that I wasn't pregnant, yet again.

In the middle of all of this, Jakobe was diagnosed with Diabetes.  and not just type two, you need to watch what you eat diabetes, but Insulin-dependent, give yourself 4 or more shots a day, and watch what you eat diabetes.  The kind that comes with lots of risks: short term ones like low blood sugar, and ketoacidosis, and long term ones like heart disease, stroke, and losing the feeling in your extremities.  Saying all of that makes it sound terrible, but it wasn't that bad.  He got right on top of it, and has it so under control that his doctor is very pleased with him every time he sees us.  We deal with the lows as they come, and even those are usually few and far between (except this weekend - he was low a lot!).

Then, after the holidays, when I was considering a laparoscopy because uncontrolled endo sucks, I asked Jakobe to get a SA.  I thought that we should know that there wasn't anything on his end to deal with before using up the post-lap fertility boost.  And we got knocked down again.

In some ways, it's been easier for me since we found out.  I don't spend every month hoping that I might be pregnant (at least I don't seriously entertain the thought), so I don't test, and I don't worry about making sure that I don't have a drink or two, and I think I get the "Kicked puppy" look a little less often.  BUT - It's also been harder.  I feel responsible for making Jakobe feel like it's all his fault.  I don't feel that way, in fact to some extent, I feel like it's my fault for wanting kids too so much.

One year later, and we're back to waiting, and wondering if it's something that will happen for us, at some time in the future.