Saturday, April 30, 2011

Peppy

Peppy plagued me last night. I tossed and turned wondering if the whole cycle would be jinxed. So unrealistic; I know. 

So I hit the blogs for inspiration, I've been blog hopping and found hundreds of others telling their stories too. It is rather amazing to me that we are not alone. It is also a God send to read about other people's feelings about the mundane and they travel this road, because your feelings about things really do change. Although it is a little strange to see a stranger's personal thoughts - I figure if I could help someone feel that they are not alone by reading my ramblings than I'd want that - so maybe we are all in the same boat. Anyway about the mundane:

One fellow blogger wrote about a pair of high heels that were absolutely to die for - she even provided a pictures, my point, even buying a pair of heels had something to do with the whole infertility road. On anyone's blog about any little thing we are all either saying what we are doing to make it work or throwing caution to the wind and living a little and we've all done all that all in the same day. The whole thing consumes us.

Huh, I am now enlightened and slightly inspired. Feeling better about Peppy. Although I know she has a monitoring appointment tomorrow - her and I are on the same day ... she'll be my buddy again tomorrow - Oh Lord help me, I sure attract them.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Keeping Positive, to the Extreme

Holy Crapolla. (Yes I understand that Crapolla isn't actaully a word)

This morning I sat in the IVF clinic with about 35 other women waiting to have our ultrasounds and blood work, since these appointments are first come first serve everyone get's there wicked early and then waits around so they can be the first ones in line. I have a different theory in round 3, go as late as possible and wait the shortest amount of time. It is working like a charm. Anyway back to the 35 and waiting, I pick up my number (not too unlike the deli counter) and address the crowd "Can anyone act as my sponsor, or does anyone else need one?" You always have to have an extra person with you and S couldn't make this one. So a young girl volunteers and we buddy up. She is super sweet and is the first positive person I've met this time. After our labs we head back to the exam rooms and have the wonderful magic wands do their magic. (On a side note, I had 23 eggs today that the doc could see - that is pretty good, and my E2 which was too high the other night is now stable) Then both of us meet with the doc -separately - and are told to proceed to pre-op.

Pre-op is a joke. You get your vitals taken, verify your address and religion, tell the head nurse you don't have any allergies to Latex, and then tell the Anesthesiologist all the same crap. But I digress, Pre-op at Walter Reed takes 2-3 hours. Seriously. So were back in another waiting room with about half of the women from the first one. And my peppy little sidekick pulls out her knitting bag and proceeds to knit a baby blanket. No kidding. She also manages to squeeze into our conversation that her husband is away right now, me and another lady both acknowlege that it is tough to go "it" alone, but peepy just smiles and says well, the baby will probably be due such and such a date so it is better if he is here for the birth. Me and 17.5 other women gasped.

It is like a groom seeing the bride before the wedding, counting your eggs before they surgically hatch them and shove them back in, Stepping on a crack and breaking God knows what.

A baby blanket, really.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Antisocial Mommy?

So there is one little boy in the neighborhood that sort of bugs me. Sort of is actaully a pretty light description. The problem isn't exactly the young man, just that he is always outside and rings the bell like clock work. And God forbid if C says he doesn't want to play, then the doorbell rings every ten minutes. To top it off the child's English is garbled at best. If I tell him something, anything he just babbles away. Anyway, normally we invite anyone and everyone into our home, but for some reason I have neglected to invite this little one in. This afternoon is the first time ever that he has been inside. (Please note he is 5 and rode his bike here with no helmet and didn't ask his mom if he could come in. - Justification for my antisocial behavior -probably) To my surprise the boys are playing nicely and seem very content. 

Last year around this time I had a lot of trouble with some other neighborhood kids always being here and not listening. This year I have really tightened up the ship. If kids are misbehaving I let them know and ask for them to change their behavior as nice as possible. If they keep it up I send them home, one time I asked a little girl age 10,  "A would you do that if your mother was here?" She turned a bright shade of pink and said "gotcha". It was actaully kind of cute. But now the group is all a little older and seem to play great together for the most part which is so nice. But this year we also have a newbie to the group, the little guy.

TMI

Funny but true TMI incidents in the last 24 hours:

  1. While getting ready for bed last night and taking off my bra, a piece of popcorn fell out. It had been hours since I ate.
  2. While in the bath last night thunder rocked the house at the same moment I farted. The water shook...
  3. I had a dream last night that I having fantastic sex and then all of the sudden I was saying "wait, I can't do this without Cotton Candy". This I ask you: Who is Cotton Candy? Or better yet, What the heck did I plan on doing with Cotton Candy candy?
  4. This morning while getting dressed I thought about the dream and started to laugh, thus picking out a pair of pink panties to wear. 
  5. I noticed while putting on said panties, that they were too small. Errr, IVF. Thank goodness Cotton stretches. 
  6. And on a more random note, I just downloaded Sarah Palin's Book. God only knows why. I actaully don't care for the lady, but there is something sort of intriguing there. Like is she really that dumb? I sure hope that is just a media representation. 

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Introducing The Real Slim Shady

This morning I had an IVF monitoring appointment. I arrived without incident and took a seat in the waiting room. When an extra seat opened up I switched over because the one I was in had a wayward spring that was being a little to friendly with my ass. OUCH. Anyway when I moved, I got talking with another patient and was so surprised at how negative and stressed out she was. Then I realized, she is me; or better yet, I was her. I offered as much encouragement and support as I could in the hour I spent with her but upon leaving I felt so drained and really sorry for her. Not me ... her. I don't feel sorry for me. Imagine that!

And now I get something a friend said to me a few years back. She explained that when she was going through the process she got to a point where she was more or less freed and felt that if it will happen; it will happen. She joked about giving herself shots in a restaurant while her and her husband drank margaritas with another IVF couple. At the time I remember thinking "really, I cannot do that, this has to work NOW!" although I think it came out something like "I am trying to relax" or something equally as phony. Thank God she is still my friend.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Whole Again

I am such a dork. Seriously, I really missed my blog. Facebook, I joked caused withdraw symptoms, but was actaully easy, the blog not so much. For a few day I was emailing myself posts and then I realized that wasn't helping me. Just finding a loop hole in which turned my personal "sacrifice" into a personal pain in the ass wasn't my intention. The problem with emails was the negative attitude that was attached and since my goal was to find a positive mindset it was painfully obvious that the entire idea of saving posts for later was completely self sabotaging. All that being said; I missed my cynical self ... sort of.

My Lenten promise really did work. I found all these great tools for relaxing and staying in a positive mindset. The self help section of the library became a regular stop in my weekly visits. I read books upon books of finding calm in chaos. I dove into multiple books on the success boosters of IVF and dealing the hard part of infertility and the joys. Round 3 is going to be so much better.

Here are a few little tidbits I didn't even know about myself. I cry for happy stuff but hardly ever for sad. When things are tough I make a list and stick to it, not looking up, left or right until I am at the end. I don't really deal with the issue on an emotional level; instead I clean, I blog about hating Walmart, or update myself on TV that I've already watched. Until I began making an effort to learn a better way of handling the tough stuff I had no idea how clueless I really was.

Case in point: We've been through IVF Two different times so far (we're on round 3 now) and I had  NEVER read one pamphlet, book, email, blog, or medical handout about it. I am good with the medical part of it, I know what it is and how it works and from there I just figured it is what it is and just trudged through process like a robot, only doing what the nurses and doctors said. I had one really good friend going through it too and we did talk to each other about it, I had a few other friends that knew, but that was it. We kept it to ourselves and just hoped and prayed. Basically I isolated myself not necessarily from all people but also from the information that was available; the idea that there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of woman who have been there and know.

This time is different. It is more stressful; life is just generally more hectic; but I am okay with. Over all I think I lost the HUGE chip on my shoulder that was IVF. Looking back it seems like I was on that path but by making time and effort to circumvent the negativity I made huge strides.

Cynical self: That's hope it stays that way :)

Sunday, April 24, 2011

HE HAS RISEN!

And so has the blog... :) Happy Easter.