If you never read my blog ever again...

You should at least go here and read hers.

I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it is.

What IF

This post is part of Project IF.



*Note: I have been working on this for days, so I'm sorry if it's disjointed or I'm rambling.

In the last six months, ever since we landed on this awful Infertile Island, there have only been about a million "What IFs" running through my head. They range from the silly:

OMG! What if the sperm donor has crazy messed-up eyebrows like the dude at the Chinese buffet last night? What if my children have crazy messed-up eyebrows like that?

to the serious:
What if there are problems with me too? It's beginning to look like there are. What if picking a donor wasn't the hardest part? What if I have to accept that both of us are infertile?

But there are two major "What IFs" that I keep coming back to. Two that plague me, that keep me awake at night, that keep me from following conversations and laughing at jokes. And because I can't get either of them to stop tearing through my mind, I'll explore both of them. The first one is easier for me to write about. The second one I have no words for, but I will try to find some.

WHAT IF infertility changes who I am?

The name I write my blog under is OnceIWas. You see, I was a super hero once.

That's right. Once, I was invincible. Once, I was ready to take on the world.

Once, I was confident. I was happy. I was goofy. I was laid-back and un-shakeable. I wasn't the kind of person to get worked up over anything.

I miss that person.

What IF I am stuck as this bitter, angry, jealous, depressed person? What IF I never go back to the way I was? What IF I spend the rest of my life constantly jealous of fertile couples? What IF every pregnancy announcement and growing baby bump brings back my anger towards God; towards life? What IF I can never do anything without this cloud of worry hanging over me? What IF, because of infertility, I am a shadow of who I used to be?

Now the hard one:

WHAT IF my husband wants to stop before I'm ready?

This particular fear of mine didn't actually occur to me until last Thursday. We had already gone from our RE thinking that I would get pregnant with no problems to him thinking that I wasn't going to ovulate on my own. We watched our unmedicated cycle triple in price as we added medicine and a trigger shot. Then, on Thursday afternoon, we were told by the doctor that the medicine wasn't doing the trick, and we would need to move on to injectables, which again tripled our costs. The first words out of my husband's mouth were "Sounds like it's time to look at adoption." I am fine with adoption, but all it took was one cycle that didn't work, and he was ready to stop everything.

That's just the way his brain operates. He has a budget and a time frame for everything. But, What IF his budget and time frame don't match mine?

There's one very important fact I've left out that makes this WHAT IF seem a little more imminent, and a little more real. To my 26 year old mind, we still have plenty of time. To my husband's 43 year old mind, we have less than 2 years. 45 is the age most adoption agencies seem to make the cut off. If we can't get pregnant, we'd like to adopt. But it would have to be in the next couple years. And, at this point, if we had a child in the next couple years, my husband would be in his 60's by the time the kid graduates.

My dreams of four children are gone. I know that. I know that right now, we'll be lucky to have one. But, What IF he wants to stop before that? What IF, at the age of 43 or 44 or 45, he decides he's done? What on Earth will I do then?


It's hard to think of any positive What IFs, but here are a few:


What IF this is all just a bad dream? (HA)
What IF it turns out I was just too stressed, and this month off gets everything back to normal, and we don't have to pay truckloads of money for each and every cycle?
What IF I get pregnant this summer?
What IF I have a beautiful baby next year?
What IF everything works out as it should, and all of my current fears become laughable?
What IF my sperm donor looks like Colin Firth, and I have gorgeous babies? (I still have a little goof-ball in me, I guess)

If you're new here, or just aren't sure what Project IF is:

For a basic understanding of infertility, click here.
To learn more about NIAW, click here.
To see Part One of Project IF, click here. I'm in there somewhere.

Well, Crap.

To be perfectly honest, the only thing I feel like saying is:

"Damn it. Damn it all."

But, I suppose it would be bad manners to say that and leave, so I'll explain.

I had my ultrasound w/Dr. Wiz today. We were supposed to be checking on follies for Saturday's IUI. (my second.)

I had 11. None of them were bigger than 10mm. Apparently, my body just doesn't respond to Clo.mid.

This cycle is a bust before it ever even really started.

Dr. Wiz thinks that next cycle, we should do injectables instead of clo.mid. Fine with me, but the cost goes up about $1300. We weren't prepared for that. Especially since the cryobank raised the price of sp.erm.

We're now looking at June for our next try. I start Pro.vera tomorrow. I told Dr. Wiz that if I was going to be paying so much more money, I wanted to do an HSG first. We're looking at doing that as soon as AF leaves.

I am so pissed at myself. My body was supposed to work. This was the part that was supposed to go right. Instead, I have a body that apparently can't produce quality follicles and can't ovulate on it's own. I wonder what else is wrong.

Please keep me in your prayers. I can feel my optimism leaking away. The future is looming, dark and childless, and I can't seem to make my view of it change.

2 things

Two things made me extremely excited today. Maybe a little too excited...

Our school book-fair preview was today, and as I was picking books for my wishlist, I stumbled across a PIRATE POETRY BOOK!!!!!!!!

Yes, I yelled that in my head as I typed it. You see, I have a pirate themed classroom. No joke. I have the Jolly Roger flying in a corner. And, I am the UIL Poetry coach at our school. Combine the two things I love, and what do you get? PIRATE POETRY BOOKS, that's what!

Also, as I was opening windows upstairs for the sister-in-law's visit today, I discovered a bird's nest on the window ledge, with two eggs in it! Too cool!

That is all.

God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle

Dear God,

I appreciate your faith in me, even though I don't always have that much faith in you. I am grateful that you think that I have strength. But God? I don't particularly want to be this strong. Truth be told, I don't want to at all. And I don't think I am. This is changing me Lord, in a way I don't like to see. I used to be level-headed, laid-back, happy. Now, I worry all the time, cry at the smallest things, and am truly afraid I have hit a level of depression I can't handle on my own. I feel like I use all the strength I have trying to be strong in front of other people. It takes all my energy to be optimistic for my husband, to be cheerful for my students, to be calm for my mom. There's nothing left for me. I am left scared and defeated.

If you don't mind, I would really appreciate it if you could stop testing me, just for a little while. I'm not asking for a miracle. Just a break. Thanks.

Love,
Julie

New cycle

I had my baseline yesterday. I was told that everything is "behaving as it should." So I'm excited about that. Dr. Wiz is doubling my Clo.mid dosage for the month. I guess that will be interesting. It didn't really affect me too much last month, so hopefully it won't be too bad again. I go back in on the 22nd to check on my follies, and should have the dIUI that Saturday, provided everything looks good. So here's hoping.



Now I get to go through the fun of ordering sp.erm again. It's almost worth the $50 storage fee a month to have the peace of mind knowing that it's here. Maybe I can call them and just tell them it needs to be here by the 22nd. They can ship it whenever they feel like it.



Doubtful. I'll probably have to call and stress and worry until it gets here. Grrrr...

I'm excited about this cycle though.

Timing

Wow. You wanna talk about crappy timing? I got it.

I POAS on Friday morning, cause AF still hadn't arrived. Still negative. Got to school. An hour later, emails start flying back and forth about our computer teacher. You guessed it...Pregnant. An hour later, AF arrived.

Now let me break this down for you. Any pregnancy announcement is sure to send me into tears lately. But this one sent me over the edge. Our computer teacher is a wonderful woman. She and I were going through TTC together. She and her husband have been trying for 8 months (not long, I know) but were going in for infertility testing this month if they didn't get pregnant. Instead, she got a positive test.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am thrilled for her. I am happy she got what she wanted and that she doesn't have to go through all this bullshit. But at the same time...she's now the one "expecting an early Christmas present" as she put it. And I am so jealous. If our IUI had worked, we too would be expecting an early Christmas present.

I don't understand it. Did she deserve it more this month? Did she pray harder? Eat better? What makes her a better choice than me?

I guess it's time.

I was waiting for this post until I knew something definite. I decided that 6 negatives are pretty definite.

I lost all will power and wound up testing on Friday. I knew it was too early and expected it to come up negative. It did. So did Saturday's and Sunday's. Monday (yesterday? is that all?) was the day AF was supposed to start, so I took two, a cheapie from the dollar store and one that came with a box of OPKs. The cheapie came up negative. The other one had TWO lines. I couldn't believe it. I was laughing and crying. I was so excited! But, being the obsessive person IF has made me, I drove to wal.mart at 6:30 that morning to buy more that I could take at work.

Then, on my drive in, I started thinking that the positive test looked an awful lot like the actual OPK test. In fact, it looked just like it. My wonderful mood completely deflated. I got to school dejected and hopeless. I took two more tests at work, both negative.

AF still hasn't come. It's only two days late though. My mom keeps reminding me that there's still a chance, that home tests can be wrong. I guess we'll see. The doctor said to call when I got a positive for a beta test or when AF started. No sense in calling them yet.

I think I could have handled the 6 negatives. But for 15 minutes, I thought I was pregnant. That has made it so much harder.

because I'm teaching Haiku today...

The white space is the
most horrible thing I've seen.
It just ruined my day.

More later.