Nothing good to say – should have said nothing at all July 31, 2008

Today for lunch I ate a bag of Doritos and half a box of Dots candy.  Mmmm.  Healthy lunch.  I can’t seem to stay away from the crap.  I am sure it is a stress-coping mechanism…but I wish I could get back to my healthier-eating patterns. 

Last week was draining, and this week isn’t getting a whole lot better.  Before I headed up to Traverse City (almost two weeks ago now) I had a call from the RE saying they needed to talk to me about the genetic test that we were planning on doing for this cycle.  That Monday I found out that the test is “not available”.  Apparently there is some problem with the technology or something, and they are implying that no doctors are able to do this test at the moment, and even if we pushed this cycle off to November or December it probably still wouldn’t be available. 

So, that means that at the end of this cycle, whether it works or fails, we won’t have any additional information about WHY these embryos are not implanting.  When I found this out, I seriously considered scrapping this cycle and trying to find a new doctor, but that process seemed SO overwhelming – I don’t even know where we would start with finding a new doctor – and long – could set us back 6 months to a year – that I just couldn’t do it. 

So here I am on Day 4 of the Lupron shots once again.  I took my last BCP a couple of hours ago and am waiting for my period over the weekend.

After this snafu, I just didn’t feel like doing anything last week after I did what I had to do (cooking for clients).  I didn’t run a single day, and I just laid on the couch and ate crap and didn’t get anything done.  Then we went back to Michigan this past weekend too for a family reunion, so I didn’t get anything done over the weekend either.  Fortunately I wasn’t cooking Monday or Wednesday this week, so I had those days to catch up on things like accounting and other computer-based things that I had promised to other people. 

This week I forced myself to run on Monday, and I was going to today, but I just don’t feel like it.  I don’t feel like doing much.  I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but got woken up by the phone twice.

Part of why I am so exhausted today, I think, is dealing with this newest client this morning, who has turned out to be a huge challenge.  Not only does he only have certain things that he likes and is on an extremely limited diet anyway due to medical reasons, but he (an 80 year old overweight man) sits in the kitchen while I am cooking with his robe open wide and no underwear on – yes, I horrifyingly saw everything this morning – and watches me work.  It is in no way threatening – he just does not understand that this is unacceptable.  He is something else.  So, I had to e-mail his daughter-in-law who hired me today and see what she can do to improve this situation.  If it doesn’t get a lot better in a hurry, I think I am going to have to fire them as clients.  I can’t work like that.

One of my friends had a baby three weeks ago and I haven’t been able to bring myself to call her.  She gave birth at home (I can’t IMAGINE trusting that your body is going to work the way it is supposed to enough to try that), and seems blissful in her e-mails and pictures.  I feel really bad about it, but I just can’t hear it right now.  I can’t hear it if she is blissfully happy and I can’t hear it if she has complaints.  I just can’t do it.  I hope to god I don’t come out of this horrible period of infertility in two years or five years or ten and have no friends because I can’t bring myself to call them when they have children…

So here I am procrastinating again.  I need to make some reheating labels for next week’s client, then I’ll make some Pad Thai out of a box for us for dinner.  Maybe in the meantime, before Mike gets home, I’ll be motivated enough to cross a couple more things off my growing to-do list…

Almost 10 years ago July 16, 2008

Wow.  A whole 17 people have read my blog today.  : )  I don’t know who most of you are, but I appreciate you sticking with me through my journey.

I’ve been going through some of my old books so that I can sell them on half.com.  I have decided that I am hanging onto a lot of stuff that I really don’t need to.  So, books were the first thing to get weeded out because it was easy (actually, some clothes went first, but that is a twice-yearly ritual for me.  I hardly ever get rid of books.  Anyway, I posted the books on Monday and have already sold 14 of them (out of about 75 or so).  So, I am doing well, even if it isn’t going to pay for a round of IVF or anything.

But, I did find a receipt in one of the books from December 14, 1998 from Busch’s Valu Land.  I could not get myself back to that grocery store without looking it up online, but I remember it was my favorite one in Ann Arbor.  It had good produce and was well laid-out with wide aisles.  Even back then I was kind of a grocery-store snob – willing to travel a little further for a better grocery shopping experience.

I wonder what I was doing still in Ann Arbor on December 14.  It seems like exams were usually over before then.  It is maybe not a typical college student grocery receipt: cottage cheese, yogurt, broccoli-cheddar soup cup, broccoli-pasta cup, corn chowder soup cup, tostitos with lime (were my favorite!), honeydew chunks, bananas, dried cherries, oranges, and fresca.  It’s just funny to look back at this specific moment in time (9:18 pm on December 14, 1998) and wonder what was going through my mind.  Worried about exams, had just found out that May died, about to graduate in May 1999, living on Fifth Avenue with two girls I am still good friends with and one that I haven’t spoken to since we moved out, anxious to get out into the “real world”.  I am throwing away the recipt, but it was kind of fun to find it and think back.  Who knew that less than ten years later I’d be a chef!

I didn’t cook today, so I had a chance to go to Target, get an oil change, go on a bike ride and stop at the farmer’s market, and get myself ready for the rest of this week’s cook dates and next week’s too. 

I think Mike and I are going to go out to dinner tonight (it is WAY TOO HOT to cook here – 92 degrees and no air conditioning in the kitchen), and maybe meet a friend out for drinks afterwards.  I think I need to get a few things cleaned up around here first.  Then maybe I’ll have time to rip out the knitting I did last night and start again.  I bought some really pretty green yarn to make a sweater for myself, and started out making the size medium.  But, based on the size of the back of the sweater so far (one skien in) I think that is going to be too big, so I am going to start over with size small.

Hanging in there July 14, 2008

Still two weeks until I start the shots for the next round of IVF.  Still not holding out a TON or hope that this one is going to work.  Still feeling mildly obsessed with the option of adoption and reading a lot about it.  I think I have already decided which agency we’ll go with when the time comes.  It is seeming more like a ‘when’ and not an ‘if’ at this point with the last insurance-funded IVF around the corner.  Even if this does work, I think it is likely that we would still adopt a child to build our family rather than spending tons of money on medical procedures that may or may not work.  Maybe I’ll feel differently if this one works…but I am fairly convinced at this point.

It’s funny, becuase before I wrote to my friend (well, acquantaince) who adopted two little boys, and told her that we were exploring adoption as the possible next step, it was not really the next step in my mind.  But, just putting that out there to the universe made it really solidify as what I wanted to do next if this doesn’t work.  I just feel like I can’t keep waiting and waiting and waiting as all of my friends pop out more and more kids.  I read different things about the length of time it takes to adopt a child too.  I wish it was a quick process, but it clearly is not.  I have read that domestic adoption can take up to 7 years to be placed with a child, and that since China is cracking down somewhat on adoptions it can take up to 3 years.  I CAN NOT wait 3 or 7 years without a major depressive episode.  This could be a tough road too.   It has been 2 years since we started trying to have a baby, and already it seems like an eternity.

Watching and listening to the news makes me realize how caught up I am in my own little world.  While I am sitting home wishing for children and feeling sorry for myself at a friend’s house over the weekend when all the women had little babies on their laps except me, there are people with nothing – who lost everything in the earthquake in China, the Sudanese genocide, famine in west Africa, a hurricaine, a typhoon – it goes on and on.  A lot of the time I am sad about this major obstacle in my life, but sometimes I am able to step back a little to appreciate all the good things that I do have – a wonderful husband, finances to pursue IVF or adoption, a job that I actually enjoy, and good friends and a nice place to live.  Sometimes it is hard to remember how lucky I am in the midst of all of this, but I am trying.