Nice April 21, 2008

I had a nice weekend in Michigan with my family and some old friends.  Friday I left after my monitoring ultrasound and drove to my dad’s house.  He and my stepmom live on the corner of 80 acres of woods, in the middle of nowhere – or at least it feels like the middle of nowhere.  They have racoons that come and eat out of your hand, four cute cats to pet, deer that come eat their plants, and walking trails through the woods.  I don’t think I could live there as an adult, but it is nice to escape the city briefly to the peacefulness at their house. 

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about my Friday shot – because I either had to have someone give me the shot in the butt or do it myself awkwardly or do it in the stomach, which hurts more.  I ended up telling them that I am in the middle of a cycle and asking my stepmom to do it, which she did without a problem – I think she was a little nervous, but she did fine and didn’t hurt me.  I haven’t really wanted to talk to them about it because I felt like they would always want to know what’s the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing and I didn’t want to always be telling them everything.  But, they were good about it – asked a couple quetions and I told them that I would know something mid-May, so that gives me a little cushion after knowing what happens before they will be really wondering.

I forget how much I like road trips.  This is the first time in a long time that I have gone on a road trip by myself.  I got to drive the new car, which was fun.  But it was also just nice to have that quiet time by myself and be able to go where I wanted when I wanted to.  Freedom. 

I listened to the A New Earth web classes that Oprah and Eckhart Tolle have been conducting all the way home and all the way back (they’d been backing up on my iPod).  In some way I am a little embarrased that I am listening to them – they are pretty new-age-y, but I think what he says is really interesting too.  There is a lot of crossover between his teachings and principles of yoga and meditation – especially about being present in the moment, which I have found beneficial even just so far – and especially now as I am in the thick of this IVF cycle.  They are helping me realize/remember that no matter what happens with this cycle, I will be okay.  Sometimes that is hard to beleive, but I am working on it.  Rather than giving myself a pep-talk and telling myself that this time it is going to work, I am trying to just breathe and come back to the present moment – walking on the lakefront, doing yoga, cooking, whatever that might be.  The future is unknown and unknowable and it doesn’t help anything at all for all the chatter in my head to continue – whether it is worrying about whether it will work or trying to think of reasons that it will. 

Tomorrow I have another monitoring ultrasound and they measure my E2.  They will also schedule the egg retreival tomorrow.  My best guess is that it will be this Friday.  That means transfer either next Monday or Wednesday.  Time has passed faster this time – I think just because I have been busier with work and travel.  But the really mentally/emotionally-challenging part is yet to come as we wait to find out whether it worked and then deal with whatever that brings.  For now, I’ll just take a deep breath and go get ready to head over to book club – tonight we are discussing The Omnivore’s Dilemma – another book that changed the way I relate to the world.