Okay, do I appreciate these words from folks? Sometimes.
But not usually and I'll tell you why. People are so fucking uncomfortable with just saying, Hey, I'm sorry, that doesn't sound good but I'm here for you if you want to talk. So they blurt out ridiculous bullshit that has not an ounce of truth and it's more than annoying to me.
Case and point. I was reading one of the infertility boards and a woman just went in for her ultrasound at nearly 7 weeks and the doctor still can't see the heartbeat (incidentally, I knew it wasn't cool when no heartbeat was seen at 6 weeks but hey, I was still thinking "positively."). What brought her in for ultrasound a week later was red spotting. Okay, so far I'm still on board with the positive thoughts. But then she drops the bomb - the beta bomb! The number should have been in the range of....oh....say 500-350,000. Listen, it's a range, right? Yeah, I get it and though I'm not a rocket scientist, I know somehow that being much closer to the top end is a good thing.
When I experienced my chemical pregnancy last month, my beta level was 15.5 on d12po. If you look at the "range" on the beta sites, I was "in range." But I didn't ignore (and you'd have to IGNORE) the other stats - the ones about 90% of pregnancies with betas under 100 at 14dpo being doomed (okay, I'm not exact on those stats, but close enough and you get the gist). So, yeah, I knew the fat lady was just behind the curtain, ready to belt one out.
So the woman on the board tells the others that the beta is around 15,000 and in 2 days only jumped to 18,000. I felt awful for her, crushed - it was heartbreaking - I recognized the familiar sound of that obnoxious behemoth of a woman about to sing her sad song.
You know what the women on the forum did? They did the predictable. They ignored the pathetic beta results (which were pretty dismal) and focused instead - AND SOLELY - on the spotting and the lack of seeing a heartbeat at nearly 7 weeks. They reminded her how many women in the group had spotting and went on to deliver healthy babies. They assured her that a heartbeat would be seen a few days later, that it was still too soon. But not one of them said "Hey, don't worry about that beta, my beta got to 15,000 and then increased by only 20% in 2 days vs. 100% and I had a beautiful healthy child." Nope, not one of them told stories of how betas so early on in the pregnancy increased by 80% less than expected and all turned out well.
Why? These ladies aren't stupid - often times, they're more educated than the health professionals themselves. If I'd posted a secured $50,000 bet to each of them with the right answer and asked "will she go on to have a successful pregnancy or not?" Every one of those women would have suddenly said, Nope - not with that beta problem.
But instead, they insisted it would all be okay and deflected from the BIG FAT ELEPHANT in the room which was NOT the spotting and NOT even the missing heartbeat. IT WAS THE BETA!
How is it helpful to try to build false hope in someone, knowing the situation is most likely doomed? Why do that? When people do that to me, I don't appreciate it, I resent it. I feel like they're mocking me.
Why must it be so difficult to say to someone, I'm sorry, That sounds difficult, My heart goes out to you, I'm here to talk, Be well?! Why must we go out on a limb and encourage others to believe it'll all be okay, when we know it won't be.
Ironically, my way is perceived as cruel. Lying and providing false hope and encouragement is kind.
What a fucked up social structure we've embraced.
(yeah, I've been in a bad mood for days - work is unbearable, my boss is a mess (when she's even in) and I'm just down and out!)
8/18/08
Salpingectomy
Oh yeah baby, they're coming out! Woo Hoo!
So, back to my earlier post when CCRM told me I needed an HSG and I asked, "Why?" Because from my perspective, what did it matter when I wouldn't be needing tubes - who cares if they were blocked. Then came the education - blocked fallopian tubes collect fluid which can not only inhibit implantation but proves toxic to embryos and causes miscarriage. Then Dr. Success proceeds to tell me about a study that was done on two groups of women undergoing IVF - one with blocked fallopian tubes, one with clear tubes. The women with clear tubes had the highest success rate for IVF recorded at that time (around 30%). The women with the blocked fallopian tubes had a significantly diminished success rate of around 6-8%. Researchers knew the fluid inside the tubes was to blame but weren't sure to what capacity. Did the fluid harm the embryo or did the fluid harm the uterine cavity, causing permanent damage? So they took a group of women with blocked tubes, removed their tubes and subjected them to a round of IVF. Voila! Success rates jumped to same as women with clear tubes.
So Friday night I was reading through the operative notes from my laparoscopic surgery last year (before undergoing IVF). Now, mind you, my former RE has these notes, and it clearly says that I had a hydrosalpinx and that it was cleared and that a fimbrioplasty (plastic surgery to the end of the fallopian tube to fix the delicate fingers that grab the egg from the ovary) was performed. Well, one thing I know is that a hydrosalpinx nearly always recurs and within a relatively short period of time. I quickly drafted an email fax to my Gyn (who I am developing a major crush on - how pathetic!) with a copy of his operative notes and asked to bypass the HSG completely and just have my fallopian tubes removed. Thirty minutes after I faxed over the note, he called in complete agreement.
Of course, my first RE NEVER asked me to have an HSG in the first place and I underwent an IUI (converted from an IVF 'cause of my poor response and few follicles) which ended in BFN. And a donor frozen embryo transfer which ended in a chemical pregnancy last month. Don't think for a second I'm not wondering....hmm....did that have anything to do with that fluid? Hmm.....I'm bitter about that, let me tell you. And I deliberately went to a very reputable IF clinic in NJ with a huge staff of doctors so this very kind of thing did NOT happen!
I'm nearly 42 years, my highest known FSH is 22 AND at least one of my fallopian tubes is blocked. The chances of my having a natural pregnancy with my own egg is, umm, well, statistically close to zero. And EVEN if I could find an RE who would attempt to do IVF on my eggs (the 2-3 that heavy stimulation drugs could cajole), the stupid fluid in the blocked tube(s) could kill the embryo. I mean, c'mon here!
So don't cry for me Argentina - I'm having these puppies cut right out and I'm never going to worry about this again!
September 9th is the big day. I just pray it goes smoothly and that I get a nice report that everything went great and that my fallopian tubes are no longer an obstacle for my future donor egg cycle with CCRM.
Man! I don't know how my future child is going to receive the information that we're not genetically related - but one thing I don't fear is there being any validity to the words "you never wanted me!"
8/15/08
Celebrating the miracle of life for others
Leah posted about an open letter from one "infertile" sister to "expectant mothers" in her life. And maybe because it's CD1 for me (not that it means a hoot this month; nothing's going on!) and I'm overly emotional, it rang so true and touching.
No one in my office knows I've spent nearly 8 months trying to get pregnant, a drop in the bucket next to most women in my shoes. I don't share it with them because A) if it never works, I don't want pity, B) I don't want people whispering, "she's never been right since she couldn't have that baby," C) This is hard enough without having people I am not close with ask me every other week "so, you pregnant yet?," D) My job is stressful enough without worrying that they might be making plans for me without my knowledge based on their perceptions of what I'll do if/when I deliver, E) WHEN I am 4 months pregnant with a healthy little munchkin, the rumor mill will be ripe enough with questions like "she's not even dating anyone, is she?" and, finally, F) It's none of their f-en business! So there!
But I'm blessed - in ways most people I know aren't. Same as I was blessed with the ability to genuinely accept what I cannot change (eggs are bad, need donor eggs), I am also blessed with having not one shred of envy in my soul WHATSOEVER. In fact, sometimes I think that's why I've never been good at competition - I just don't care enough to "win."
I am the girl who is enormously happy for another girl who landed some wonderful Mr. Right. I am the girl who is so tickled to hear that the old factory worker from Wisconsin won the 320M lottery. There isn't an envious bone in my body, truly. I always want the best for everyone and am thrilled when they get it. (disclaimer: if you're a rapist, pedophile, scumbag, I want very BAD things for you!)
There are 3 women in my department alone who are pregnant (1 with twins, IVF of course!). And then my counterpart (who works off-site in Atlanta) announced in April that she was pregnant and due in November. We had a shower for her last month when she was at the office. I COULD NOT have been any happier for her, truly, and if ever there was a time for me to feel bitter.......last month, you see, I was pregnant - for a few days. On July 2nd I was implanted with 2 donor frozen embryos and on July 7-8 I got that elusive 2nd line on the EPT. It's a beautiful thing I tell ya! Well, my beta was very low and it was clear within a couple of days that it was over.
A week later I began to bleed and I mean bleed. Guess where I was standing when it was in full throttle? At BabiesRUs, buying my counterpart gifts from her registry for the shower the following week. And for the first time, I felt something. Not bitterness, not envy, no. I felt incredibly sad and hurt. I am just not an ultra sensitive person but I wanted to sit on one of the rockers in the store and cry my eyes out. Everywhere I looked, a crib, a stroller, diapers, dresses, bottles - all the reminders of the baby that my body was dutifully flushing from me at that moment.
And yet I sat 3 days later feeling so happy for her (it's her 2nd child, btw) and happier, still, that she liked my gifts. I picked things I would like to see my own baby in.
So I think back to that open letter and wonder why women blessed with a healthy little bean in their bellies without much effort at all sometimes don't have any understanding or compassion for those of us who can't. I don't think it's too hard to imagine for them. Picture your pregnant belly not there. Picture it not there next month or next year either. Picture trying to get it that way, month after month, and it doesn't happen. Not a nice picture at all.
I think if I can stick it out at BabiesRUs through a miscarriage to find gifts for my colleague and be so genuinely happy to watch her unwrap them, it shouldn't be too difficult for a woman blessed with a healthy pregnancy to extend a little bit of tenderness to women who aren't so lucky.
No one in my office knows I've spent nearly 8 months trying to get pregnant, a drop in the bucket next to most women in my shoes. I don't share it with them because A) if it never works, I don't want pity, B) I don't want people whispering, "she's never been right since she couldn't have that baby," C) This is hard enough without having people I am not close with ask me every other week "so, you pregnant yet?," D) My job is stressful enough without worrying that they might be making plans for me without my knowledge based on their perceptions of what I'll do if/when I deliver, E) WHEN I am 4 months pregnant with a healthy little munchkin, the rumor mill will be ripe enough with questions like "she's not even dating anyone, is she?" and, finally, F) It's none of their f-en business! So there!
But I'm blessed - in ways most people I know aren't. Same as I was blessed with the ability to genuinely accept what I cannot change (eggs are bad, need donor eggs), I am also blessed with having not one shred of envy in my soul WHATSOEVER. In fact, sometimes I think that's why I've never been good at competition - I just don't care enough to "win."
I am the girl who is enormously happy for another girl who landed some wonderful Mr. Right. I am the girl who is so tickled to hear that the old factory worker from Wisconsin won the 320M lottery. There isn't an envious bone in my body, truly. I always want the best for everyone and am thrilled when they get it. (disclaimer: if you're a rapist, pedophile, scumbag, I want very BAD things for you!)
There are 3 women in my department alone who are pregnant (1 with twins, IVF of course!). And then my counterpart (who works off-site in Atlanta) announced in April that she was pregnant and due in November. We had a shower for her last month when she was at the office. I COULD NOT have been any happier for her, truly, and if ever there was a time for me to feel bitter.......last month, you see, I was pregnant - for a few days. On July 2nd I was implanted with 2 donor frozen embryos and on July 7-8 I got that elusive 2nd line on the EPT. It's a beautiful thing I tell ya! Well, my beta was very low and it was clear within a couple of days that it was over.
A week later I began to bleed and I mean bleed. Guess where I was standing when it was in full throttle? At BabiesRUs, buying my counterpart gifts from her registry for the shower the following week. And for the first time, I felt something. Not bitterness, not envy, no. I felt incredibly sad and hurt. I am just not an ultra sensitive person but I wanted to sit on one of the rockers in the store and cry my eyes out. Everywhere I looked, a crib, a stroller, diapers, dresses, bottles - all the reminders of the baby that my body was dutifully flushing from me at that moment.
And yet I sat 3 days later feeling so happy for her (it's her 2nd child, btw) and happier, still, that she liked my gifts. I picked things I would like to see my own baby in.
So I think back to that open letter and wonder why women blessed with a healthy little bean in their bellies without much effort at all sometimes don't have any understanding or compassion for those of us who can't. I don't think it's too hard to imagine for them. Picture your pregnant belly not there. Picture it not there next month or next year either. Picture trying to get it that way, month after month, and it doesn't happen. Not a nice picture at all.
I think if I can stick it out at BabiesRUs through a miscarriage to find gifts for my colleague and be so genuinely happy to watch her unwrap them, it shouldn't be too difficult for a woman blessed with a healthy pregnancy to extend a little bit of tenderness to women who aren't so lucky.
8/14/08
Japanese Hair Straightening
Five years ago I got fed up with my Rosanna-Rosanna-Dana-crazy-ass hair and decided to have it professionally straightened with a process that was all the rave - Japanese Hair Straightening, also called Thermal Reconditioning. Hey, I was scared, of course. If it went badly and my hair got fried, I just knew I couldn't pull off the Sinead O'Connor bald look.
Why did I do it? Because until you actually have curly/wavy/frizzy hair, you just don't get it. I have gotten outright FURIOUS when someone with perfectly straight hair tells me how beautiful my hair is because "it's so thick" and has "so much body." LISTEN, if I sat in a salon next to a girl with perfectly straight, limp hair and we both were given all of the tools and hair products to create an awesome up-do or any other look and two hours to do it in, I would win - hands down. There, I admit that much. I'll go one further, my hair would look better than 99.99% of women in existence. Okay, happy? BUT how many of us has 2 hours a day, the right tools, products and even the desire to dry, shape, pull, iron, curl, spray? Honestly, no one.
If I walk out of the shower after having shampooed and conditioned my hair and decided to let it dry naturally, it wouldn't just AUTOMATICALLY dry like Brooke Shield's beautiful locks. Heck, I'm sure her hair doesn't dry that way either. But people just can't get it through their thick skulls that it takes an ENORMOUS amount of work for it to look good and that if you "do nothing" to it, it'll look AWFUL. Conversely, if you do nothing to pin straight hair, it looks boring, flat, lifeless. Okay, so-fucking-what?! It sure as hell doesn't look CRAZED!
Don't you get it?! In my hair, some pieces dry like corkscrews, some pieces have tight waves (not curls), some pieces are loose waves, some pieces are pretty straight, some pieces have stubborn cow licks. Now put all of those textures together and add a layer of frizziness (an inherent condition of curly or wavy hair) and see what you get - A NEST, that's what you get!
So, I can't just comb my hair and go.
So we have two camps. Straight hair that's flat and lifeless if it's not "worked on" or curly/wavy hair that looks like the unruly mess of Gilda Radner's on Saturday Night Live if it's not "worked on." I say, crap, I'd rather have hair that looks flat and lifeless if I didn't bother with it over hair that looks like shit if I didn't bother with it. 'Cause let's face it, how many ladies out there has 2 hours/day to "work on it?"
The result of all this is that I spend more than 3/4 of the year with my hair pulled back into a tight wet bun out of the shower. Last month I had a meeting in the city with my agency and one of the account exec's said "hey, I didn't know your hair was long." This girl's seen me dozens of times but never with my hair down. Now what kind of an existence is that?!
So in 2003, I did it and whatever my best expectations were, the process surpassed them. My hair was smooth, silky, straight - beautiful, straight out of the shower. I could walk outside in 90% humidity with dry hair and not one single frizzy, not a one! Pure joy!
Today I went back - same guy, same salon but new location. They're Korean and barely speak English but who cares. $500, excluding tip. I left the salon and on my way home, driving on the NJ Turnpike I called my friend V. This is what I said:
V, no one told me how overwhelming and emotional I would feel when I saw two beautiful embryos up on the flat screen monitor being piped in from under the microscope. The feeling was magical. If it worked, I would have seen my baby at the cellular level. Pretty powerful stuff. I remember I had a lump in my throat when I saw those teeny tiny embryos. I wanted to cry. And when he dried my hair today and it was beautiful, pin straight, I had the same exact feeling.
Okay, don't get pissed that I just compared the potential precious life of my baby to hair straightening. But it needs to be said that it was an earth-moving moment for me. When you get used to living with your hair up 3/4 of the year because you just can't deal with the bullshit of trying to do something with it and then fight the rain/humidity and then you see it fresh from the sink, dripping wet and not curling up and doing its own dance, God it's a beautiful moment.
Like the cost of IVF, INSANELY expensive but the prize is OH SO WORTH IT!
Why did I do it? Because until you actually have curly/wavy/frizzy hair, you just don't get it. I have gotten outright FURIOUS when someone with perfectly straight hair tells me how beautiful my hair is because "it's so thick" and has "so much body." LISTEN, if I sat in a salon next to a girl with perfectly straight, limp hair and we both were given all of the tools and hair products to create an awesome up-do or any other look and two hours to do it in, I would win - hands down. There, I admit that much. I'll go one further, my hair would look better than 99.99% of women in existence. Okay, happy? BUT how many of us has 2 hours a day, the right tools, products and even the desire to dry, shape, pull, iron, curl, spray? Honestly, no one.
If I walk out of the shower after having shampooed and conditioned my hair and decided to let it dry naturally, it wouldn't just AUTOMATICALLY dry like Brooke Shield's beautiful locks. Heck, I'm sure her hair doesn't dry that way either. But people just can't get it through their thick skulls that it takes an ENORMOUS amount of work for it to look good and that if you "do nothing" to it, it'll look AWFUL. Conversely, if you do nothing to pin straight hair, it looks boring, flat, lifeless. Okay, so-fucking-what?! It sure as hell doesn't look CRAZED!
Don't you get it?! In my hair, some pieces dry like corkscrews, some pieces have tight waves (not curls), some pieces are loose waves, some pieces are pretty straight, some pieces have stubborn cow licks. Now put all of those textures together and add a layer of frizziness (an inherent condition of curly or wavy hair) and see what you get - A NEST, that's what you get!
So, I can't just comb my hair and go.
So we have two camps. Straight hair that's flat and lifeless if it's not "worked on" or curly/wavy hair that looks like the unruly mess of Gilda Radner's on Saturday Night Live if it's not "worked on." I say, crap, I'd rather have hair that looks flat and lifeless if I didn't bother with it over hair that looks like shit if I didn't bother with it. 'Cause let's face it, how many ladies out there has 2 hours/day to "work on it?"
The result of all this is that I spend more than 3/4 of the year with my hair pulled back into a tight wet bun out of the shower. Last month I had a meeting in the city with my agency and one of the account exec's said "hey, I didn't know your hair was long." This girl's seen me dozens of times but never with my hair down. Now what kind of an existence is that?!
So in 2003, I did it and whatever my best expectations were, the process surpassed them. My hair was smooth, silky, straight - beautiful, straight out of the shower. I could walk outside in 90% humidity with dry hair and not one single frizzy, not a one! Pure joy!
Today I went back - same guy, same salon but new location. They're Korean and barely speak English but who cares. $500, excluding tip. I left the salon and on my way home, driving on the NJ Turnpike I called my friend V. This is what I said:
V, no one told me how overwhelming and emotional I would feel when I saw two beautiful embryos up on the flat screen monitor being piped in from under the microscope. The feeling was magical. If it worked, I would have seen my baby at the cellular level. Pretty powerful stuff. I remember I had a lump in my throat when I saw those teeny tiny embryos. I wanted to cry. And when he dried my hair today and it was beautiful, pin straight, I had the same exact feeling.
Okay, don't get pissed that I just compared the potential precious life of my baby to hair straightening. But it needs to be said that it was an earth-moving moment for me. When you get used to living with your hair up 3/4 of the year because you just can't deal with the bullshit of trying to do something with it and then fight the rain/humidity and then you see it fresh from the sink, dripping wet and not curling up and doing its own dance, God it's a beautiful moment.
Like the cost of IVF, INSANELY expensive but the prize is OH SO WORTH IT!
8/12/08
Genetics don't matter
Yeah, seems a convenient declaration from a woman whose eggs suck! Seems a no brainer I'm saying this with such careless conviction. But you might agree I thought this way before I was told to find eggs from someone else's basket.
When 3 days after my 41st birthday I received a call from my Gyn that my FSH was 12.8, I did fast homework on what that meant before seeing my first RE a month later.
I'll never forget it, I sat in bed on Friday night and consumed every shred of anecdotal and scientific material Google could conjure up on high FSH in women beyond 40 and it wasn't good. Within hours I decided I wouldn't even try with my eggs. Invest wisely, I thought, and go straight for the good eggs. I wanted a baby MUCH more than I wanted genetic offspring.
One month later I walked into my first RE appointment and declared that I was only there to discuss a donor egg cycle. She talked me out of it and I still don't know how I feel about that. Listen, if it worked, I would have been thrilled that one round and minimal cost (relative to IVF of course) later, I wound up with a health baby (and it didn't hurt that it was my genetic offspring).
Maybe it's because I am an only child. Maybe it's because my mother was raised in an orphanage and didn't have deep-seeded feelings about "family." I don't know but I have just never felt strongly about genetics.
Maybe the kid who grew up with 8 siblings and dozens of cousins feels differently. But I'm not that girl. I'm the girl who doesn't care about DNA. What can I say? I feel grateful for that.
And it's not to say I don't think there's a difference. Of course there is. But I am pretty analytical about this stuff. The difference is the child won't have my full lips. Too bad, oh well, who cares? Yeah, you can't believe it but I don't. I never shed a tear, not a single tear over the idea of a non-genetic child.
I can't explain it very well but I can sum it up like this. You're pregnant - Woo Hoo! And you pray for a girl who has your husband's Irish genes with blue eyes and curly red hair. Months later you birth a boy with your grandmother's olive complexion, brown eyes and brown hair. That sure wasn't your "first choice," but are you any less happy? Any less in love? Any less over the moon? Will you raise your son thinking, He was not my first choice? Doubt it.
And that's the only example I can provide of how "second choice" isn't exactly second, rather just different. :)
When 3 days after my 41st birthday I received a call from my Gyn that my FSH was 12.8, I did fast homework on what that meant before seeing my first RE a month later.
I'll never forget it, I sat in bed on Friday night and consumed every shred of anecdotal and scientific material Google could conjure up on high FSH in women beyond 40 and it wasn't good. Within hours I decided I wouldn't even try with my eggs. Invest wisely, I thought, and go straight for the good eggs. I wanted a baby MUCH more than I wanted genetic offspring.
One month later I walked into my first RE appointment and declared that I was only there to discuss a donor egg cycle. She talked me out of it and I still don't know how I feel about that. Listen, if it worked, I would have been thrilled that one round and minimal cost (relative to IVF of course) later, I wound up with a health baby (and it didn't hurt that it was my genetic offspring).
Maybe it's because I am an only child. Maybe it's because my mother was raised in an orphanage and didn't have deep-seeded feelings about "family." I don't know but I have just never felt strongly about genetics.
Maybe the kid who grew up with 8 siblings and dozens of cousins feels differently. But I'm not that girl. I'm the girl who doesn't care about DNA. What can I say? I feel grateful for that.
And it's not to say I don't think there's a difference. Of course there is. But I am pretty analytical about this stuff. The difference is the child won't have my full lips. Too bad, oh well, who cares? Yeah, you can't believe it but I don't. I never shed a tear, not a single tear over the idea of a non-genetic child.
I can't explain it very well but I can sum it up like this. You're pregnant - Woo Hoo! And you pray for a girl who has your husband's Irish genes with blue eyes and curly red hair. Months later you birth a boy with your grandmother's olive complexion, brown eyes and brown hair. That sure wasn't your "first choice," but are you any less happy? Any less in love? Any less over the moon? Will you raise your son thinking, He was not my first choice? Doubt it.
And that's the only example I can provide of how "second choice" isn't exactly second, rather just different. :)
I broke up with my NJ RE
Today was the day, it had to happen. I called my nurse who, of course, called me back 8 hours later (better than last time when it was 2 days later) - that kind of unprofessionalism just made me feel good about the break up.
I told her I was going to pursue an egg donor cycle with CCRM and that the reason was based purely on statistics. But that I would like for them to do the off-site monitoring and that I needed a copy of my entire patient file. So looks like we're good.
Now I'm ready for my CCRM work-up and though I thought I'd do it this cycle, I think I'll wait and though the thought of more waiting doesn't sit right with me, let me tell you what sits worse with me.
I need to have that HSG. And here's what I want to avoid. Let's say my tubes are blocked and that I need to have them removed, that will take me out of the running for a couple of months. Well, that will be time that ticks on the CCRM frontier and a bunch of diagnostic tests will have expired on their end that I would then have to repeat. Well no thank you. I'd rather get this god-awful HSG out of the way and if my tubes are blocked, schedule the laparoscopic surgery to remove them, wait a month and then have my CCRM work-up and get on "the list."
That way I'll know that once I've cleared the work-up, there is nothing but an available donor keeping me from starting that cycle. :)
Sound rational?
I told her I was going to pursue an egg donor cycle with CCRM and that the reason was based purely on statistics. But that I would like for them to do the off-site monitoring and that I needed a copy of my entire patient file. So looks like we're good.
Now I'm ready for my CCRM work-up and though I thought I'd do it this cycle, I think I'll wait and though the thought of more waiting doesn't sit right with me, let me tell you what sits worse with me.
I need to have that HSG. And here's what I want to avoid. Let's say my tubes are blocked and that I need to have them removed, that will take me out of the running for a couple of months. Well, that will be time that ticks on the CCRM frontier and a bunch of diagnostic tests will have expired on their end that I would then have to repeat. Well no thank you. I'd rather get this god-awful HSG out of the way and if my tubes are blocked, schedule the laparoscopic surgery to remove them, wait a month and then have my CCRM work-up and get on "the list."
That way I'll know that once I've cleared the work-up, there is nothing but an available donor keeping me from starting that cycle. :)
Sound rational?
8/10/08
I miss you Mom!
Mom,
Today is the one year anniversary of your death. You died at 1:24 PM on August 10, 2007. You can't imagine how much I miss you.
Did you see me today? I planted the prettiest little flowers around the stone that marks your spot; I know you would have loved that. We had such a difficult relationship but I loved you and I took care of you in my home every moment of your last 3 months on earth - during all the hospice care.
Remember the last few days? There was one time I thought you might have been somewhat aware. I sat you up and I said "I love you, I looooooooooooove you" and in barely a whisper you tried to say it back to me and had a tear in your eye.
Did you hear me mom? I hope you did.
Mommy, if you know, if you're somewhere you can see me, I love you and I'm so sorry when I lost patience, I'm so sorry when you spent a week in hospice and I didn't go every single day. There is no good excuse but all I can say is that I was tired, that I truly needed a break and that I was bearing all of it alone. I hadn't slept an entire, uninterrupted night in months and the anxiety and tension from your ill health had plagued me for over a year at that point. I was barely able to keep it together.
Please forgive me if I was less than I wanted to be, but know I tried - even when I failed, I tried again.
I wish you were here right now for an hour - health and mentally clear. I wish I could tell you about my plans to have a baby and that you could give me your opinion; I so want to know. I wish I could hug you and kiss you and squeeze you 'til you said ouch. The pain of losing you is unbearable sometimes - today is one of those times.
I kept messages you left on my answering machine when you were well because I feared what's happening - that I'm forgetting the sound of your voice. Having been raised in an orphanage, you couldn't have ever imagined how badly I would miss - how searing the pain of losing a mother.
No one would believe how much I'd trade right this moment to have you back for 1 hour, just one. But if you're out there, you know it's true. Please come back to me in some way, even if only in a dream. Let me know you're there and that you hear me.
I will love you and miss you and cry for you until I'm gone too.
Today is the one year anniversary of your death. You died at 1:24 PM on August 10, 2007. You can't imagine how much I miss you.
Did you see me today? I planted the prettiest little flowers around the stone that marks your spot; I know you would have loved that. We had such a difficult relationship but I loved you and I took care of you in my home every moment of your last 3 months on earth - during all the hospice care.
Remember the last few days? There was one time I thought you might have been somewhat aware. I sat you up and I said "I love you, I looooooooooooove you" and in barely a whisper you tried to say it back to me and had a tear in your eye.
Did you hear me mom? I hope you did.
Mommy, if you know, if you're somewhere you can see me, I love you and I'm so sorry when I lost patience, I'm so sorry when you spent a week in hospice and I didn't go every single day. There is no good excuse but all I can say is that I was tired, that I truly needed a break and that I was bearing all of it alone. I hadn't slept an entire, uninterrupted night in months and the anxiety and tension from your ill health had plagued me for over a year at that point. I was barely able to keep it together.
Please forgive me if I was less than I wanted to be, but know I tried - even when I failed, I tried again.
I wish you were here right now for an hour - health and mentally clear. I wish I could tell you about my plans to have a baby and that you could give me your opinion; I so want to know. I wish I could hug you and kiss you and squeeze you 'til you said ouch. The pain of losing you is unbearable sometimes - today is one of those times.
I kept messages you left on my answering machine when you were well because I feared what's happening - that I'm forgetting the sound of your voice. Having been raised in an orphanage, you couldn't have ever imagined how badly I would miss - how searing the pain of losing a mother.
No one would believe how much I'd trade right this moment to have you back for 1 hour, just one. But if you're out there, you know it's true. Please come back to me in some way, even if only in a dream. Let me know you're there and that you hear me.
I will love you and miss you and cry for you until I'm gone too.
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