A plate of Zen, please....

FEELINGS:

I've been MIA a little lately. There are times that I just need to take some time away from blogs. Most of the time, this tight nit community helps me tremendously. You are all a wealth of information and so very loving and supportive. I can read your blogs and the comments you post and I feel a little less alone while I go through all of this. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

There are other times when I need a break...even if it's just a few days. I need to get away from the pain and hurt that is so abundant in this circle. Reading about negative beta's, miscarriages and broken hearts is gut wrenching and for my own health I have to separate myself before I crawl into a hole somewhere are just cry non-stop until the end of time (being dramatic :-) but I feel each of your losses so personally. Then there are the joys of positive's which are mixed in w/ continued fear. How cruel that when the miracle of life finally happens we infertiles continue to live on the edge…hanging on cautiously that this life will continue to hang on in our womb for 9 months. Infertiles can't enjoy their pregnancies like fertile couples do. We're so used to disappointment, failure and set-backs. There are times when I'm so happy for one of you when you get pregnant and then there are other times when I'm so envious. I wonder why I can't be you. This leads to guilt b/c I feel like I shouldn't have these feelings. I beat myself up for not being nicer and happier for all of you. I feel selfish. My logical side tells me I should rejoice every time I read about a positive b/c it means that these ART procedures work. The more they work, the better off my chances are. It's not like I don't want anyone to get pregnant. I don't want everyone to suffer as I am. This isn't a competition and I have to remind myself that there aren't an infinite number of babies in the world. Just b/c one person becomes blessed doesn't mean there are less chances for me. Does that make sense? I'm not sure what I'm trying to say...just that sometimes I have to step back and clear my head periodically before I dive back in and involve myself in all of your lives.

So please excuse my occasional absence and know that I do indeed hold much love for each of you. I care and I cry and I feel right along side each of you. I talk about each of you as if you’re my real life close friends. I appreciate your friendship and would miss you terribly if you were no longer around and visiting my blog. I keep my husband up on the latest :-) ...he actually knows most of you by your pen names and where you are in your journey.


TTC FRONT:

On Monday I was led into the u/s room and was told the nurse would be right w/ me. Imagine my surprise when DR. Hand’s off walked in. I almost fell off the table. I've seen this man at our initial consult back in Dec 05, and that's pretty much it except for one time when I saw him in the hallway. Dr Hand's off proceeded to do my u/s and I took this opportunity to shoot questions at him as fast as humanly possible. He was again very wishy-washy about saying anything concrete. We can do more IUI's...we can do them forever or we can move on to IVF... or we can do a lap and laser off my mild endo (but only if I am going to do more IUI's b/c mild endo won't affect the outcome of IVF...) Can I say UGH one more time. A little part of me likes that he's not forcing J and I into anything or telling us we only have one option but honestly a bigger part of me would like a take charge RE that tells me what it is I need to do. He was very pleasant and upbeat. He told me I had 6 mature follies between the sizes of 18mm and 22mm that looked great and my lining was absolutely thick and perfect. He said I have the same odds this month as our first IUI... WHAT? How can that be...? I really hate hearing that. I know different doctors have different opinions but they should keep some consistency within the same center. I've had one RE at this center tell me to do 4 and absolutely no more than 6. My RE (Dr. Hand's off) is telling me I can do them for over a year and have the same odds each month.. does that mean 0% odds each month since it's not working? Yeah...that has to be it... he likes my monthly $500 dollars for IUI's and wants us to do a zillion of them before we start in on the high dollar cash flow IVF's. Soak us for all we're worth.

Since I saw DR Hand's off and he was so positive it wore off on me. I left feeling hopeful. He actually hugged me and told me that he felt like we had a good shot this month. I was warned about multiples (HA HA... I stopped worrying about that some time ago... we'll worry about if and when that time comes). I'd probably still be willing to trigger if I had a dozen mature eggs. My estrodiol came back at 2500... Is that high for only six eggs? Is that a bad sign? I of course also got two different answers to this question at my clinic. One nurse said it was perfectly consistent w/ the number of eggs I have. And another nurse told me on the day of my IUI that it meant my body has to work harder than most people to achieve all of these eggs. I thought FSH and LH measures that type of thing... not estrogen... Isn’t estrogen produced by the follies and would have nothing to do w/ making the eggs? Any help or insight would be greatly helpful!

Anyway... IUI was yesterday. I had acupuncture beforehand and felt pretty Zen going in. That disappeared rather quickly when the nurse came in w/ the sample and told me we only had 7 million w/ 70% motility post wash. She said it was a low sample but could still work since she'd had a patient get pregnant on only 1 million sperm. She went on to say that we should consider moving on b/c 6 IUI's is a really good try. She then continued to go on and say what I mentioned in the above paragraph about my body working really hard to make these eggs (as seen with estrodiol number). This of course made me feel bad... like there is something else wrong w/ me. I had always thought a high estrodiol meant there were lots of mature eggs and the concern was when your level was too low or not increasing. She also finished by saying this could be a problem when we move on to IVF b/c I could end up w/ dangerous estrodiol levels.

Shouldn't nurses only say nice happy things on the day of IUI"s. Here I am w/ my legs in stirrups awaiting my husbands sample and she's projecting major negative karma. Doesn't she know I walked in w/ a Zen like state and she's ruining it!

She left the bill in the room when the nurses are supposed to give it to the clerk at the front counter so they can bill you. I was so tempted to walk out and not pay... really really tempted let me tell you. Did I? No... I couldn’t. But I sure thought about the new cute shoe shopping I could do w/ that money.

Now I’m in my 2WW and I’ll be spending most of that time and the upcoming month or two figuring out which IVF clinic we want to go to. By the way… we just secured our very large home equity loan for IVF so that’s now in place. OUCH! I need 24/7 acupuncture and massage to stay Zen with that one.