Infertility UGH

Closing

2010-12-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

so we got a terrible computer virus the other week, and it has taken a long time to get completely removed. It required reformatting our entire computer.

And now, we have crazy anti-virus and tracking software on our computer. What this means is that it is now completely impossible to keep Sweets from finding this blog.

And thus, I must stop writing. I just don't want to risk it. I promise, promise, promise that I will continue to read, and I will comment, but will be posting so no more.

So thank you ladies. Thank you for your support, and kind words, and for understanding when I most needed it.

2010-12-08T15:12:00.001-08:00

I heard a great comment the other day.

"There is no such thing as common sense. There is good sense, but it is not common."

Thought it was fitting.

A more well-rounded person

2010-11-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

I am always amazed at how going through IF, and getting my legs swept from underneath me in such a way, has made me a more "vocal" person to others going through terrible situations.   I was always one of those people that, while compassionate, I never knew what to say.   Or I'd say the REALLY WRONG thing.

Of course, I didn't realize how wrong those things were until I battled IF.

A friend that I've drifted apart from (after moving away from our last city) got some terrible news a couple of days ago.    We'll call him James. His partner and he lived long distance from one another, and James hadn't heard from him for a couple of days.   So, he sent a friend to check on him and he was found dead in his apartment. Now James is headed half way across the country to plan the funeral and bury his partner, completely unexpectedly.   It's awful, and I can't imagine going through it.

Previously, I'm sure that I would have sent a card, or flowers, and waited to hear more from James whenever he wanted to talk.    But that's not what people want when something like this happens, is it?   They don't want to call people, to have to make the effort.   I called and left James a message on his phone, just telling him that I was sorry and I was thinking of him.

It's so simple that it should be common sense, so why isn't it?

Baby update:

G is 5 weeks old now, and things are going really well. She has started to smile, and has learned that when she fusses, she gets attention.   For the past two days, I have been trying to get her to sleep in her crib (and out of her bassinet) but it's not going so hot.   She sleeps for 3 minutes and then jolts awake. There is something about the crib that just isn't comfortable.   Today, I'm waiting her out.   I will make it happen.

Picture of "G"

2010-10-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

So normally I try to exclude any sort of identifying information on my blog because of the sensitive nature to why it was started. Because so much of it includes Sweets, but he is not aware of the blog (to my knowledge anyway), I have tried to keep everything as anonymous as possible. So, I'll call the new little one "G", and here's a picture... Though I may remove this post in a few days after everyone has had a chance to view it :)

Birth Story!

2010-10-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

My apologies!   I wrote this a week and a half ago, and hit Save instead of Publish!    Erg!

So, the birth was basically 99% easy, and 1% sheer terror.

We went in to be induced because of late gestation (41 and a half weeks) on Sept 26th at 7:30. They called us in about 6:45, but by the time we got to the hospital it was apparent that every single pregnant woman in our city had gone into labor during the 45 minutes it took us to get in the car and get to the hospital. So, they sent us away to get a good breakfast and we went back around noon, when they hooked me up to all of the IVs, pitocin, etc.

Sweets and I played travel Scrabble (possibly the coolest game ever, I highly recommend it) until I was unable, and then I got an epidural, and we watched Avatar for a few hours. Epidurals are the most wonderful invention ever. EVER. I do not understand why a person would not want to get one, cause that's just crazy.

The baby had been GREAT and after two pushes the nurse called in the doctor because she was so close to being born. But, as the doctor walked in, her heart rate crashed, and then they actually couldn't even find it. As it turned out, she had the cord wrapped around her neck, and it didn't tighten until I started to push (but usually they can tell by the fetal monitor well in advance of pushing). SO, that called for a vacuum, and an episiotomy and her being born in a total of 15 minutes and 4 more pushes. I've never seen Sweets scared like that, and I was actually trying to calm him down.
She came out looking perfect (no cone head) because she was born so quickly, and none of that bruised look that some newborns have.   And, the speed of it saved me some swelling and I have recovered pretty well.

--

3 week update:

We continue to do well, and both Sweets and I feel extremely blessed.   Neither of us is taking any of it for granted, which is certainly a positive from experiencing IF.

Due date tomorrow. Terrible news about a friend.

2010-09-17T15:14:00.000-07:00

First, a quick update:
At my doctors appt on Wednesday I was dilated to 1.5 cm and 50% effaced.   This could mean that we may have an ontime departure tomorrow, or could mean that we'll be waiting another week for Baby Girl to make her appearance.

I'm feeling fine, been walking in the mornings to try to speed things along.   I woke up on Wednesday to huge purple marks on my sides, and needed Sweets to tell me that they were stretch marks. Hahahahaha. I couldn't believe that he had to tell me what they were, AND that they happened to appear so LATE in the game!   I almost made it scott-free.

--

On more somber news, we got some REALLY bad news about a couple that we know.   Apparently their baby (pregnant at 30 weeks or so) has a tumor.   They aren't telling people about it.   He told Sweets, and then they got interrupted, so he hasn't had a chance to follow up with them. It's pretty much bad news all around.   The baby could die at any second and really without warning.   If the baby does make it to delivery, it will have to go through surgery, and live its life without (some) major organs.

It makes me cry every time I think about it.  And I'm not a crier, except that this is so upsetting and I'm hormonal, and that's a recipe for crying.   I can't even imagine the type of stress and worry that would overshadow anything happy about a pregnancy like this. We worried so much that something would be wrong with our baby, and were relieved that the ultrasound was free of any large abnormalities.

And being pregnant, or soon to have a new baby, I'm nearly sure that the last thing they are going to want is to be around us.   At least, I know that's the last thing that I would want in their situations.   When dealing with IF, the last thing I wanted to do was to be around happy pregnant women. So I'm left trying to figure out what to do. Besides pray for them.

So, if you are a praying sort of person, I would ask that you throw a few up there for this couple. I'd appreciate it very much.

36 weeks

2010-08-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

My computer time has been hugely limited for the past month and a half due to VERY uncomfortable chairs in my house.   I don't have a single one that allows me to sit at the desk and type.   I realized today after my doctors appointment that it has been an insane amount of time since I posted, and that it makes me a terrible person.   I need to get a lap top, but it just isn't in the finances.

Things are still going well.   Baby Girl still doesn't have a name, and I don't think that she will until she actually makes it here.   Sweets is just too indecisive, won't pick names he actually likes, and doesn't like what I suggest.   So I'm just waiting it out for now.    All along, I have loved one specific name, which he has mocked and ridiculed until I no longer care for it.   The other day, he said that he'd be OK with it, because he'd rather I love the name, than pick something we were both ambivalent over.   I wanted to scream at him.   As it was, I just mentioned that I didn't like the name any more because of the way he'd been about it, so we'd have to find something else.   It's so frustrating.

But seriously, if this is the only thing we have to worry about, then things are good.

I feel pretty good. I move slow, and things hurt, and I'm REALLY ready to be able to move like I used to, but I really have nothing to complain about.    Baby Girl is measuring 2 weeks ahead of schedule at 38 weeks (by gross uterine measurement) and the doctor said that we'll be having an 8.5-10 pound baby if she makes it to 40 weeks.   If longer, then we'll do measurements to make sure that she'll fit.   Im pretty tall, so 8.5-9 pounds sounds ok to me, but 10 sounds excessive, and I would seriously consider C-section at that point.

I have gained 30 pounds, and have not gained anything in the past 4 weeks.   I'm hoping to stay right at 30, because I was about 10 pounds heavier than normal at conception.   It's much easier now because I can't eat the volumes that I was just 2 months ago, everything is so scrunched in there.

I am going to spend the next hour catching up on all your blogs!   I was reading religiously until about a month ago, so I have a lot of reading to do!

made it through

2010-07-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

So I made it through the vacation with my family.   It was tense, and I had to listen to a bunch of passive aggressive talk from my mother and sister (expected), but I got an unexpected ally in my SIL.   She was SUPER pissed at how my sister and mom treated me, and I pretty much had to tell her and my brother what happened because of all of it. (I had somewhat decided not to say anything to anyone, cause I didn't want it coming from me)

Though there were a few highlights.

1. My father must have felt awful about how he treated me because he spent the whole week sucking up.   I really would have liked it if he would have been straightforward, but I don't know if that will ever happen, so I'll take it how I can get it.
2. He told off my mother one night because she was trying to control how the rest of us cleaned the kitchen (it was priceless and she spent the rest of the night in her room)
3.  My brother had to put mom in her place because she was trying to control what people were keeping for food in the "second" condo we rented...   This also happened to be the condo that both pregnant women were in... she didn't want us having food over there at all!   Like that works with two pregnant women!    She ended up apologizing to brother the next day.
4.   After my brother yelled at my mom,  Dad pulled my brother aside and told him that "he didn't know what was going on with mom, but he'd appreciate some help in handling her."

After an entire week with them, my mom grabbed me as we were leaving for the airport and said two sentences about the two of us:

"I don't want to get into anything because your leaving for the airport, but I get it.   I get it."

So, not an apology, but a step in the right direction?

I've been praying a lot that my heart will soften again to the two of them, but it's hard.   I wonder if we'll ever make it back to how we were 3-5 years ago.

Thanks

2010-06-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you! It really helps to get other perspectives when stuck in a situation like this.

I think you're right, and that not attending the vacation (while very appealing) isn't really an option because it would be the nail in the coffin of my relationship with my parents. On the other hand, I have assessed the cost of leaving the vacation early, and it seems like it would only be a few hundred dollars. We don't really have any extra money laying around, but we could swing that if we had to. Really, can you put a price on your sanity?

I also think that you're right in that I should just ignore everything. I really don't want to talk about it, I don't think anything is going to be resolved, because my father will simply back up my mother regardless of how ridiculous she is. In turn, she's not going to admit that she had anything to do about the matter. Therefore, I lose regardless.

It's funny/ironic, because in all of the conversations that I had with my siblings, they counseled me to talk with her and deal with it. My response to them has always been that "this ends badly for me, I can see to the end of it, and I KNOW how it's going to turn out." Ick.

More Mama Drama

2010-06-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

I will try my hardest to make this story somewhat cohesive, but I warn all readers now that I'm still very upset, and this could result in quite a lot of rambling. I also apologize for the HUGE size of this post.

A little bit of backstory:

I have previously documented the problems that I've had with my mother and her gossiping. It was the reason that we didn't tell anyone in the family about our infertility struggles, and it has succeeded in really poisoning our relationship. The disintegration of our relationship is largely my fault. My inability to deal with her gossiping has resulted in me pulling away from her and having an EXTREMELY short fuse when it comes to just about anything she does. I tend to speak to her condescendingly and disrespectfully, and I have really been trying to work on it.

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had a chance to talk about things. I explained where I was coming from, and generally mentioned that there are things in my life that I couldn't/wouldn't talk about, but that I was sorry for how I'd been treating her, and I would work on it. She acknowledged that she needed to stop talking about people, and said she'd work on it.

Separately, I can now tell all of you that my brother and SIL are pregnant. She's 36, and can you guess how long it took them to get pregnant? You guessed it, FIRST TRY. Of course. Anyway, they were super worried about genetic testing because of her family history, and so asked us not to tell anyone, so I've kept it quiet, even here in blog-land.

During Memorial day weekend, I decided to extend and olive branch to my mother, and share with her our list of names we are considering for our baby. After hearing the list (of about 10), she told us that one of the names was my SIL's name that she's picked for a girl. She told us what it was, and I took it off the list, because I don't want to get into ANYTHING ABOUT IT. We had a similar problem when both my sisters were pregnant at the same time, and it nearly tore them apart.

We found out that SIL is having a boy, (ours is a girl).

So, I called my dad on father's day to make sure he got the present, and chat with him. Mom made sure to steal the phone away from him to chat with me (which kind of drives me crazy cause I don't really like talking on the phone, which is why I called HIS CELL PHONE). We talked for awhile, and then she tells me that she talked to my SIL. That one of her friends used her name, so now she wasn't sure she wanted to use it. She told me that she told SIL that "Nixy and Sweets have a list of names, and yours was on it, so I told them, and they took it off, so if you aren't going to use it..."

At which point I interrupted her, exclaiming. "Why are you getting INVOLVED IN THIS?!"

And she freaked. Freaked. Completely decompensated. She flipped from yelling, to crying, to telling me that I didn't even let her finish. She personally attacked me, and in response I got more calm, and condescending and had to repeatedly threaten to hang up the phone if she didn't calm down. This only made things worse.

I told her that it didn't MATTER about the story, it mattered that we only talked about this WEEKS ago, and she was already talking about things I'd told her that she shouldn't be talking about. She didn't want to hear it. Told me that I was only going to the bottom line, and that after pressing SIL about the name, SIL said that she still liked the name and would probably use it if they have a girl next. The truth came out that she really WANTED us to use the name, because it was her grandmothers. This to me just showed that she was doing this for her own personal reasons. She said that she considered not saying anything, but in the end did anyway.

To Mom, the ends justify the means. To me, it does not. Especially after what we just talked about a few weeks ago and her promise to stop repeating the things I tell her.

And so it continued. Around and around.

Until my father took the phone from her and said (I paraphrase except for the first sentence):

THIS IS YOUR FATHER. I have been listening to you talk to your mother and it is unacceptable. Your mother deserves kindness and understanding. Over the past couple of years, I have been watching how you treat her, and haven't said anything. I've been waiting for a time when we could get over it, but you have irreparably damaged our relationship and I don't know if we'll be able to get over it. You have ruined my Father's Day.

I acknowledged that I don't speak to her respectfully, I also asked him how long he'd been listening to the conversation, and he admitted that it hadn't been that long. I told him she'd been personally attacking me, and I told him that what little respect I could muster was shown in the fact that I did not hang up on her despite the abuse that she had been throwing, and that my tone of voice was DIRECTLY related to that abuse. That I had refrained from using personal attacks, and at this point, that was all that could be expected of me. I apologized for ruining his Fathers day and asked to speak to my mother again. He repeated that I should be treating my mother with kindness and respect (I refrained from telling him that I did as well, and that gossiping about people was disrespectful).

She was much calmer, and we somewhat resolved things. I apologized for speaking to her in a disrespectful manner, but she REFUSED to admit she had done anything wrong. Which, in the long run is fine, because I can just stop telling her anything to prevent that.

What I have a SERIOUS problem with is my father thinking that after YEARS of this going on, that he feels he has the right to step in to the middle of a fight and "lay down the law" and "put me in my place." My father is the most non-communicative person on the planet. He stays out of everything, and always has. I have no idea if he's got the whole story, or even cares to.

We are supposed to be going on vacation with the whole family (except for my oldest sister, who my mother also has problems with and didn't invite) this Saturday for a week. Of course my mom will have called the rest of the family and cried and blubbered and tried to get them on her side. The only person who will not fall for this is my brother.

I don't know what to do. My father is never involved in ANYTHING with my life. He's like a silent partner in everything interpersonally related. Therefore, I tread into uncharted waters. I don't feel like talking to him. I feel like cutting him out of my life. I don't feel that he had the right to overtake a situation and then say such strong things that can't be taken back, and that will probably change our relationship forever.

He had no interest in hearing my side of anything, which is fine, except that he then chose to get involved.

Sweets listened to quite a lot of the conversation and (kind of) surprisingly came out on my side of everything. We have a relationship where we pretty much tell the other person if they are wrong, and he felt that while I was condescending and not respectful, that the situation definitely warranted it. And that my father was out of line. It makes me feel better that someone else thinks I'm being somewhat rational about the situation.

I could use any advice people might have. I know I'm going to have to deal with this in a few short days and I'm really dreading it. Ugh.

wrapping things up

2010-06-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

I am on the 2 week home stretch for my job. I really can't wait to be done, but it's also going to mean that I no longer have a personal computer.

We had originally thought that I would buy myself a laptop when I left work, but I just don't see it as a financial possibility. We're going to end up dropping so much money on baby type gear that I think a computer will be at the bottom of the list for awhile.

This will probably mean that my posting (as terrible has it has been lately) and my commenting will get even worse. I apologize for that, but will try to make a concerted effort to keep up with everyone's blogs and comment as much as possible! I'll also try to post a few times before I have to give my computer back.

The big talk

2010-06-02T09:44:00.000-07:00

So, Sweets and I traveled to my parents' house this weekend. I got a chance to briefly talk to my mom about everything, and we took a baby step to getting things figured out.

To make a long story short, she recognizes that her mouth gets her in trouble, and she's going to work on it. It wasn't an earth shattering conversation, but we got a chance to talk about it, and hopefully it'll help both of us get over our issues.

I know this sounds vague, but now that I look back on the conversation, I realize that the conversation in itself was pretty vague. I got a chance to tell her that there have been things going on in my life that I didn't feel that I could share. That I was worried that it would get out, and that it made me angry I couldn't talk with her about it. That I let that anger taint my relationship with her, and that I was sorry for letting that happen.

I think that she took it well. She was defensive (of course, seriously who wouldn't be?) but I was able to not respond in kind, and keep it a conversation and not a fight.

So it went alright. And I breathe a sigh of relief.

____
Warning, baby talk below, so please click away if you are in a sensitive place right now...

24 weeks, we made it to "viability." I still cringe a little thinking in terms of that, but it's been a mark that we've had in our heads all along, and now we're finally in total baby-planning mode.

The nursery is coming along pretty well, but I don't want to post pics until it's done. We pulled out all my sister's saved baby clothes, and I'm sorting them to wash and fold. They are all so little! And EVERYTHING she bought was pink. It's kinda hilarious. I like pink, but holy cow, I would dress my kid in something else (except all of this was free, and so she'll be wearing it).

I feel great, finally. I can finish a whole work out without completely collapsing. I almost don't feel pregnant, except that my baby is a first-class prize fighter. I'm convinced she's hyperactive. She kicks me all the time, and you can actually see my belly jump she kicks/moves so hard. I'm wondering if that will calm down when she gets a little bit more squished in? I don't know, I guess we'll see.

I have gained a crap load of weight. I'm up 16 pounds, and have 16 more weeks to go. If I continue putting on weight at the rate I've been going, I'll gain a total of about 40 pounds. eeeek! I REALLY wanted to stay under 30, so I'm hoping that the gain slows a little bit. I haven't really been eating like crazy, and have been eating mostly healthy food, but I could definitely do better. My doctor told me that the biggest weight jump would be these weeks, so I'm really hoping that the gain will slow.

I do my glucose tolerance next week at my 25 week appointment, so hopefully that goes well.

I only have 4 more weeks of work, and I AM SO RELIEVED. It's been a rough couple of years on the professional front and I'm REALLY ready for a break. it's going to be awesome.

Ok, that's it for now. Will update with nursery pics next!

Finally, a belly pic

2010-05-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

This is me at 20 weeks. I don't have anything from the past two weeks, I'm just a little bigger. I spent the weekend painting the nursery and will post pictures when I finally get all the furniture in and in place.

A more comprehensive update

2010-05-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the short update this weekend, but I wanted to post, and Sweets was around all weekend. Usually, he works at least one weekend day, and I have some time to myself, but that was not the case.

So, as I said before, it's a girl! I found out that Sweets REALLY doesn't want the room for her painted pink (not too shocking, but I was a little surprised that he cared). So, we're going to do one accent wall in a light green, and I'll decorate with pink things. I must say, I LURVE pink.

This weekend was the "dreaded Mother's day" for everyone battling IF. I thought of all my IF buddies frequently through out the day, and did a lot of reflection on where I have been the past few years. I half-jokingly asked Sweets where my mothers day gift was, and was surprised when he responded that he's bought me a mother's day card for the past few years, and hasn't been able to give them to me, and now that I AM pregnant, he doesn't want to jinx it. It kind of made me sad.

We're at 21.5 weeks now, so just another month until we hit "viability." It's never ceases to amaze me how IF stays with a person. We're both getting excited now that the ultrasound showed she's healthy, but it's still reserved and punctuated with these moments of doubt and foreboding. It's really unfair that even when we GET what we've hoped, prayed, and begged for, that we still feel so damn helpless about it all. ick.

We cleared out the office to make it the nursery, and I'll post pictures when we get it set up (or at least mostly set up).

---

My replacement for my job started last week, and I only have 7 more weeks of work! I'm so excited, and a little scared to stop working with 10-12 weeks left to sit around and do nothing, but it wasn't exactly up to me (stupid boss isn't being so nice these days). So I'm definitely just trying to look at all the great things I'm going to be able to do with my time. Sew! Read! Sleep! Clean! Garden!

---

Things with my mother are getting more crazy, and I'm going to have to talk with her. I want to do it in person because it's going to be a long involved conversation, but we live 3.5 hours away from each other, so my chances to do that are limited. We are going to visit for Memorial day, but there is a chance my sister and her family will be there as well, so it may not happen then, either.

Basically, she's blaming my oldest sister for the problems that we are having. (They have their own separate issues.) She thinks that my sister has "turned me against her." Not only is that completely wrong in its own right, but she's also trying to "recruit" my new SIL to "her side." It's a completely RIDICULOUS situation, and it's being completely fabricated by herself.

The funny thing is that all she's done is made my brother and SIL realize that she's being CRAZY. They totally see through the BS, and it's having the adverse effect from what my mother wants. It's almost sweet justice, really.

Erg, so I have to talk with her, and set her straight about my side of the situation, and I'm fully prepared for it to not go well. I'm also realizing recently that she must have been including my father in on all these discussions (usually he keeps out of the gossip), but he's been acting weird around me. So that basically means that I need to talk with both of them. I've never had to do anything like this with my parents, and it's just a little daunting, to say the least.

This is all compounded by the fact that I am incapable of using any amount of TACT. I fight it, and I'm aware of it, but I swear that things fly out of my mouth that sound so damn rational when I say them, and then I look back and think "what was I THINKING?!?"

I'll let you all know how it goes... :)

---

Also, I owe you all pictures, and I will get to them soon.

PINK

2010-05-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

It's a girl. And healthy from what they can tell. Time to actually start some planning!

A Serious Case of the Blahs.

2010-04-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

Alright, so it's been a SHAMEFUL amount of time since I last posted, and I completely understand if I have no more readers. I have been reading and commenting, but I just. can't. bring. myself to put together a post.

I'll be 20 weeks tomorrow, and we have our large ultrasound next Friday. It'll be the one where they check all the organs and can tell us pink or blue for the nursery. I've DEFINITELY got a belly, and had the first person ask me just yesterday (who didn't already know) if I was pregnant. But I still feel bad about getting excited. It's very surreal.

I suppose have a general apathy around the pregnancy.

People ask:

Have you decided on a nursery theme? No.
Have you bought anything for the baby? No.
Have you picked talked about names? Not really.
Have you started a registry? No.

Actually, what I say is: "We're just waiting to find out if it's a boy/girl." Because that's more socially acceptable than saying: "We're just really worried that the 20 week ultrasound will show us something terrible, and so we're just waiting for the all clear before we get excited." Actually, I'm just hoping that is the reason, because I really WANT to start getting excited.

We opted out of all genetic testing because we wouldn't terminate regardless of the problem. I think that it's actually caused me to have a little anxiety over this next ultrasound because there really could be something wrong. But the tests are expensive, and lost of them aren't covered by our insurance, so we opted out of them.

----
Quick notes to catch up:

I have 8 more weeks of work before I'm done. I'm starting to get excited and scared that I'm going to be bored
my weight: Initial loss=3 (maybe more? I didn't weigh myself at the beginning so this is just an estimate), total gain=8.5 pound, net gain=5.5
Silly fact: My butt is exactly the same size as my belly right now, it grew over night on Monday night (I'm serious, I woke up and had a ba-dunk-a-dunk butt). I'm VERY symmetrical, and it looks HILARIOUS. I love it, and it makes me giggle. Sweets is putting together a picture where he's actually going to measure. I will post it.

I'm alive, I swear

2010-03-31T18:59:00.000-07:00

Oh jeez, it's been a rough couple of weeks. I'm finally getting to the point where I have far more good days than bad, and I really haven't wanted to get all whiny on here, so I've just kind of been staying away.

I have been bleeding off and on for most of the pregnancy. I went in last week to see my doctor about it, and he doesn't really seem concerned at all (it's usually just a brown spotting, and was only red once at about 13.5 weeks). I hadn't worried about it after the first freak out (at 6 weeks) because I was still in my first trimester, but now that I'm in my second, I can't help but worry about why it's still happening. Sweets and I have all but ceased our *ahem* bedroom fun because both of us are a little wary.

I also have a cardiology appointment on Friday. I've been having a really crazy heart rate since about 7 weeks. Sitting my heart rate is 90, standing 120 and walking it can hit over 160 (which is what someone would be while working out very hard). It has started to seriously freak out my personal trainer, so I pressed my doctor the last time I saw him, and he admitted that it wasn't normal, and he had no idea what was going on with me. So off to the heart doctor I go. I'm assuming that it's going to be nothing, or at least nothing that will be fixable. So I have my fingers crossed that it just goes away and hopefully soon.

---

I'm now having some serious problems with my mother. I have mentioned several times about how her gossiping was getting in the way of our relationship, and that I was totally sick of it. Not only that, but that I was purposely separating myself from her so because of it.

Well, it's now all coming down to a confrontation.

My sister and I had a talk last week about how Mom doesn't understand what I don't seem to want to be around her, and why I have drifted away from her in the past two years. Quite frankly, it's because of all the IF problems, and me not feeling like I could share any of it with her because she would blab it to everyone on the planet. As all of you ladies know, dealing with IF has a tendency to become your ENTIRE life. And I don't plan on sharing any of that with her, and so I'm left skirting around the issues.

My sister told her that her gossiping is hard for me (something I'd already told her), and that Mom should stop talking to me about everyone else. But it's really the flip side of the equation that bothers me the most. I don't feel like I want to tell her anything about me, for fear that it will be spread all over the place.

Now, there is another factor to this kerfaffle. My mother happens to be the absolute, MOST defensive person in the country, if not the world. That coupled with the fact that I have very little tact is a recipe for disaster.

We are going to have to talk about this at some point, and I'm seriously worried that it will completely end our relationship. Sigh. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

13w1d

2010-03-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

I actually made it to my second trimester!!! I am feeling sooo much better, it's unbelievable. Evenings are a little iffy, but I've been able to return to most of my normal activities.

I spotted off and on until about my 10th week of pregnancy. And it started again on Friday, and I can't quite figure out what the heck is going on. The doctor's office didn't seem that concerned, and just told me to watch it over the weekend. From what I've read, you shouldn't bleed at ALL in your second trimester. I don't see my doctor for a scheduled appointment for another 3 weeks, so I may have to schedule an appointment this week to see if everything is ok.

I've also been having a hard time regulating my heart rate. My resting (sitting) rate is about 90, and my standing is about 120. Walking, or jogging will get me up to 140-160 in no time. I mentioned this at my last doctors appointment, and they are checking my thyroid and hemoglobin. I may have low iron because I donated blood two weeks before I got pregnant (but it was great when I donated, so that shouldn't be it).

We've finally started telling people, and it's so weird that people get more excited than I am. I just can't seem to believe that this is real, or that it's going to work out ok. I somewhat expected this from reading other blogs in the community, but it's still an odd feeling to try to fake enthusiasm for something like this. (I mean, I'm happy, and excited, but not like I thought I'd be...)

So all in all, things are looking pretty good. No complaints out of me, and hopefully we will get these little speed bumps figured out and taken care of soon.

An update with my friend with the preemie: the baby continues to progress and will likely be on track to go home on his due date. So that's all good news, and hopefully it keeps getting better. Thanks for all of the prayers along the way for them.

Still here, and a my marriage in a short essay.

2010-03-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

I'm still alive, I promise. I have been commenting here and there (definitely reading) but I haven't wanted to post because I was feeling terrible and didn't want to whine.

I am now feeling about 60% human, the past two days have been a lot better. Still with the pukey-pukey, but less nausea and more productivity.

Sweets has been out of town on business this whole week, and doesn't get back for a couple of more days. As he has been functioning as both cook and waiter for the past 6 or so weeks, in his absence I have been eating a few *ahem* creative dinners. For example: half a sleeve of saltines with peanut butter, or two cans of pears, or a bowl of cereal. I actually convinced myself that the cereal was a good option because it's fortified with good vitamins (I haven't been able to take the prenatals because they make me so sick). Ha!

----

I have been thinking a lot lately about how much Sweets and my relationship has changed over the past six months. Near the 4th or 6th month of us TTC was when I started to worry about fertility. Given my past medical history, I think I made the leap a little faster than some others. I worried for a couple of months silently, and then I started to get really angry. At Sweets. And then our already cracking marriage started to seriously falter.

My only two non-negotiable life-style needs were children and living near my family. We have been together for 9 years, and married for 6, and I had been very vocal about these two points. I had also told him that I wanted kids at 26 or 28, and did not want to wait until I was 30 (which was something that I ended up having to let go of because he just wasn't ready).

As the months wore on and on, I became more and more angry. What if we could never have kids? What if it was because we waited so long (er, or because he made me wait so long)? These thoughts were ever-present in my head. I remember thinking that I didn't know if I'd ever be able to forgive him for doing this to me. How could I forgive him for being so damn selfish? For putting his job above his family?

Then something happened.

I hit rock-bottom.

Over the span of a couple of months I/we seriously discussed ending our marriage, and giving up. We screamed and yelled, and picked fights and cried. And I started this blog as an outlet. And we started counseling.

I don't know how Sweets feels about all of this, but I finally felt that he heard and understood why I was so upset. And then we both made the decision to fight for our marriage.

For the next few weeks/months we still fought, and picked and cried. But we also healed, and grew closer and reconnected. And I think that in the end, we came out stronger because of the heartache.

It amazes me that in 6 short years of marriage, I could have forgotten how wonderful marriage really is, but I'm so very happy to be reminded.

More human

2010-02-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

A huge thank you to Chelle for the Pre.ggie Pop suggestion! I'm feeling a bit more human, and was able to have a productive work day yesterday. I'm still loosing a lot of what I eat, but I just feel a whole lot better in general. It's so wonderful.

The list of goodies

2010-02-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

So sorry not to include in the last post a description of what I sent! Here it is:

for baby:

Two cute outfits for a 5 pounder (what they expect him to be when he can go home/wear clothes)
a couple of new born pacifiers
a pack of receiving blankets
one nice snuggly blanket
one small security type blanket
small packets of dreft to get them started

for parents:

an assortment of magazines. (I think People, Elle, cosmo, time, men's heatlh and parents)
one trashy vampire romance novel from the Black Dagger Brotherhood (to see if she likes the series. If so, I'll send her the rest)
an assortment of protein bars (lara, cliff and power) for them to munch on
a travel Scrabble game with snap in pieces that they can easily pass around
a Snu.ggie, and eye cover for naps
hand lotion

So I think I'm missing a couple of things, but can't remember what. I wasn't feeling great as I was running around, so some of those (the Snu.ggie and the Scrabble game) were DEFINITE impulse buys. I put all that stuff in a diaper bag and sent it off.

Care pkg and etc

2010-02-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for your wonderful suggestions on the care package. They were all really helpful.

I ended up buying a nice Eddie Bauer diaper bag and filling it with all of the goodies. I think that it turned out pretty well, and I'm just now realizing I should have taken a picture of it all to show you! (I'm a bad blogger...) The post office lady positively giggled at how heavy it was, and it cost me over 30 bucks to ship. Since when did shipping stuff cost so dang much?

---

Sweets told his mom this weekend (against my wishes because everyone knows she can't keep her mouth shut). She called me right away to tell me how happy she was, and repeated OVER AND OVER that she wouldn't tell a SOUL. She acknowledged that she knew I'd be angry, and she promised not to say anything.

Then Sweets talked to his sister the next day and asked if MIL had told her. She said yes.

This infuriates me. First, IT ISN'T HER NEWS TO TELL. Sweets should be able to tell the people in his family! Also, did she think that not telling anyone excluded family?

Sweets just laughs it off, because there isn't anything he can do about it. But I am livid. At both him for telling her and her for not keeping her mouth shut. Seriously, it's just TWO more weeks!

It also makes me mad, because Sweets went on and on that my mom wouldn't be able to stay quiet after we told her. I had to defend her time and again, because she IS good with baby news, despite her other tendencies to gossip. And she didn't say a damn thing. We saw my sisters and brother this past weekend and HAD to tell them because I'm already showing, and my boobs are noticeably pregnanty. They were shocked and excited.

I think that possibly Sweets was just feeling out of the loop, but it doesn't excuse him doing something that I specifically requested that he not do, for VERY good reason (and now is completely justified).

I have half a mind in my hormone crazed state to write his mother an email about how her actions are/were completely innapropriate. I won't do it, because I'll become rational in another couple of days, but I want. to. write. it.

-----

Warning: pregnancy related talk below... IFers feel free to stop reading here.

So my morning sickness has been getting worse and worse for the past few weeks and it's actually getting hard to work. I have been throwing up at least twice a day after breakfast and dinner, with near constant nausea in between. I had to tell my boss that I wasn't being very productive, and he was good about it. I said that I was still getting stuff done, but slowly, and he asked me if "I was able to keep working" as if he was totally ok with me taking time off. I was kind of floored. I actually WANT to keep working, because when I'm at home, I just lay in bed and think about how I don't feel well. I'm HAPPY that I don't feel well because I would worry if I felt alright, but it's definitely affecting my work and life considerably.

I've found that mint tea really helps me make it through the day but I'm really hoping that I'm not one of those women that is sick through my entire pregnancy. Has anyone out there tried acupuncture for morning sickness? I'm seriously considering it.

Ideas?

2010-02-18T15:29:00.000-08:00

I am going to put together a care package for my friend and her baby for their 6-8 week stay in the NICU. (The baby seems to be doing ok but is still very far from being out of the woods, and apparently they aren't even allowed to hold him. Also, they have transferred him to a larger hospital that is better equipped for premies.)

But I need ideas. I don't really know anyone first-hand who has gone through this before and I could really use some suggestions. I got a really brief email from her today and she said that they have NOTHING yet besides furniture.

Here's what I have so far:

1. premie clothes (around 5 pounds because some nicu places don't let them wear anything prior to that) and a couple of receiving blankets.
2. Hand lotion for all the hand washing in the hospital.
3. Magazines/Books to read while she's bed-side.
4. Sleep mask in case she wants to nap next to the baby.
5. Gift certificates to near by restaurants (this might take some research)

Can you think of anything else?

Not much

2010-02-17T16:10:00.000-08:00

Not much is going on around here.

I told my boss so that he could start figuring out project related plans. In the field that I work in, this is very necessary, as long term planning is a necessity. I asked him not to say anything else, and I think that he'll keep his mouth shut. He also gave me a book of baby names that he and his wife had used (their done having kids), so that was really cute.

I have been utterly useless at work. Productivity now=10%. My job requires much standing and moving, and thinking during the day, and I just haven't been up to it. I basically sit at my desk with my head on my arms all day long. I'm wondering how long this will go unnoticed. (not very long, I'm sure).

Part of me is totally over it all, and doesn't care what people think about me, but part of me is dreadfully scared that everyone is thinking that I'm a slacker. But seriously, I'm spending most of my time trying not to vomit on people, so they should be thanking me. :)

On the plus side, I have been continuing my personal training, though cannot bring myself to go to the gym by myself. I just don't have the energy, so I'm really glad I'm paying someone so that I'm going at least 1 time a week to get a good work out. It actually does make me feel better while I'm there, also.

-------

No word yet on my friend's baby. I haven't wanted to call because it's only been a day, and I'm sure that they are:
1. freaking the hell out.
2. fielding other calls from people
3. trying to figure out when their parents can visit.

If I haven't had an update by the weekend I'll give her a call, cause I'm sure she'll be out of the hospital by then and may have some time.

This current situation really hits home for me because my husband was born at 30 weeks. Back in the 1970's it was a little bit more serious than it is now (yea modern medicine!), and Sweets has cerebral palsy. I have not mentioned this fact about us before because I never really think about it. It's just how he is. His case is mild, and many people don't even realize that there is anything wrong with him. In addition, his cognition was not affected, or at least not that we can tell, cause he's a super-smart-genius-guy. So impact on our day to day is little, and since it's not supposed to be genetic (or affect my pregnancy in anyway) I don't really think about it.

Sweets has been a little crazy about us planning trips at the end of my pregnancy (anything 3rd trimester). Our doctor does not restrict travel until 35 weeks, (32 for flying) and so that's what I'm going with. Sweets is convinced that we're going to have an early baby, and that if we go on one specific trip with my family, planned for my 28th week, that we're going to have our baby in the middle of nowhere, in some ramshackle hospital without a NICU.

I have been telling him he's ridiculous, and refusing to acknowledge his "crazy" about the situation.

So, you might imagine the "I told you so" speech that I got last night after telling him about friend's baby.

So now I'm left to wonder if I'm wrong about the whole thing? I mean, I worry SO MUCH about something terrible happening (as most IFers do), that I just really don't want to GIVE IN to it. I don't want the worry to win. So I ignore it. Maybe that's stupid, but it's my coping mechanism. Otherwise, I wouldn't get out of bed.

Prayers, please

2010-02-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

So I mentioned a few months ago about the friend of mine who got pregnant after starting to try long after we did. She had her baby last night at 29 weeks, and could use any prayers that people are willing to send up. She is doing well, but the baby is a little touch-and-go right now.

Dodging a Bullet

2010-02-11T16:16:00.000-08:00

So I mentioned this briefly on a post at Womb for Improvement, but I thought that I'd elaborate.

My Brother married a wonderful woman this past September. They made no secret of the fact that they were going to start trying right away, and tried to recruit us into it as well, "So that our kids could grow up together." Part of me was PETRIFIED that they would get pregnant right away (she's already 35), and leave us with another slap to the face.

There are two reasons that this dynamic is continuing to make me a little uncomfortable around my family even though I'm pregnant now. First off, we are planning on telling my brother, SIL, sister and BIL at an extended family get together next weekend (I'll be 10 weeks along). I'm trying to figure out a nice way to tell my brother and SIL. I do NOT want to be responsible for causing them hurt. I can just imagine the "frozen faced smile" that I've given to so many people upon hearing their own good news. I'm left to wonder if I should call them before-hand? Wait until we're alone? Do it in a big group so that they don't feel the need to celebrate with us? I don't know, but it's a subject of some anxiety on my part.

Secondly, my mother will not shut up about them trying. Apparently my sister in law is worried about autism because of her age, and because her sister has a severely autistic son. She made the mistake of telling my mom about it, and now that's the only thing my mom will talk about. Everything from just telling people around her that SIL is worried, to contemplating whether or not SIL and brother should go straight to IVF, and chose female embies because girls have a lower risk of autism. I mean, seriously, who does that?

It literally makes me want to scream at her. As it is, I try to shut down her conversations in other ways so I don't have to listen to it (if I stick my head in the sand, then no one can see me, right?), but that really doesn't stop her.

This situation makes me incredibly happy about two things:
1. That I've been distancing myself from my mother, thus lowering the chance that I have to talk to her about anything, let alone this.

2. That we didn't tell her about our own IF. I would be contemplating murder/suicide right now if I was the one that she was talking about. I can only hope that SIL doesn't realize that this is happening.

---

I'm headed to a funeral this weekend, and thus will be MIA for the next few days. I'll catch up when I make it back!

Wow!

2010-02-11T12:46:00.000-08:00

So, I've received my very first blogging award from Jane at TTC Hopeful! She's super tremendous, and has only been blogging for a short while. Thanks Jane!

This post is so very late because of my blogging snafu last week, but better late than never, right?

The rules of this award are:

Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
Copy the award and place it in your blog.
Link the person who nominated you for this award.
Tell us 7 interesting things about you.
Nominate 7 bloggers.
Post the links to the 7 bloggers you nominate.

So, just to jump right in with 7 interesting things about me:

1. I find things like this incredibly difficult. I started a post of 100 things about me about 3 months ago, and I'm only half way through. I'm pretty sure that means I'm not very interesting. :) (or creative...)

2. I ALWAYS misspell "receive" when I type it. I always spell it recieve. yea for spell check!

3. I am the youngest of four kids. I have the personality to match. I still talk in a baby voice when I want something, and it drives me CRAZY. Note: I am 30 years old and find this unacceptable. I cringe every time I realize I'm doing it. Why my parents allowed such an insane habit is beyond me. I am fortunate that my husband finds it endearing. (I really fight it, but it still slips out occasionally. At least I can laugh at myself)

4. I love to travel, and have been to Europe three times. I have visited all but 9 or 10 states in this great nation. It's my goal to visit them all.

5. I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom, but now when confronted with it, I'm scared to death at how difficult it's going to be to give up my professional life.

6. I LOVE to read. I welcome any suggestions for wonderful books. Also, I suggest to the blog-o-sphere: The Red Tent by Anita Dia.mant, The Alchemist by Paulo Coehl.o, and Travelling Mercies by Anne Lamott. They are all wonderful books, and beautifully written.

7. The only game I can beat my husband at is Scrabble. He is a game-board wizard. It's insanity. But my love of reading helps me in the Scrabble department. :)

On to the Seven Bloggers! It's so hard to just pick 7! I think that I'm currently following about 20 blogs, and that most of them have already been nominated for this particular award. These lovely ladies have helped me through some seriously difficult times:

Jo at Mojo working. She's been going through a terrible time lately, and still finds the time to make the rounds and give support. She's a really lovely person, who is in my thoughts and prayers continuously.

Michelle over at No, I'm not pregnant, just fat. Michelle has such a wonderful snarky attitude, and alot of what she's saying sounds like it's directly out of my head.

Which Box at Which Box? was one of the first bloggers that I ever communicated with (before even starting a blog). She also blogs openly about her marriage, and trouble with in laws, and I have found a lot of comfort from her story.

Susie over at Six Months (at A Time) is in the middle of a cycle right now (I think her third IVF). She has a great attitude, and I have my fingers crossed for her!

Nicole over at Anonymous Infertility Confessions (password protected). Nicole has been incredibly supportive and seems to know just what to say to make someone feel better. I'm so happy that she is expecting after so many years of TTC!

And also (even though I know they've already been nominated before) I must shout out to Katie at from If to When and Fertility Chick because they have both made me laugh, cry and ponder with their insight, creativity and wonderful blogging. Thanks ladies!

My apologies

2010-02-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

So last week, I accidentally posted on a friend's IRL blog with my anonymous blogger-log in. While I quickly deleted the comment, it still linked to my profile, which linked to my blog. I asked her to delete and resubmit the post, but she was traveling unexpectedly until last night and couldn't get to it.

So, I'm back, I've been staying up with people's blogs, and I apologize for the quick drop off without explanation.

---

And better news, we had our 8 week appointment yesterday morning, and everything looks perfect so far!

Moving on?

2010-02-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

Katie at From IF to When has a really great post today about what she calls "Infertility Amnesia." Basically, the phenomena that some IFers tend to completely forget about their struggles after finally conceiving. That they drop off the face of the earth, and no longer support all of the wonderful women that have helped them through their struggle.

I've been thinking about this from the other side for the past couple of weeks. It is very much part of my thoughts in thinking about what to do with my own blog. I like blogging a lot more than I thought I would. When I first started this, it was very much something that I needed to do for my own sanity. I didn't have anyone that understood, and I found all of these wonderful, loving, caring women to get me through it. This blog was very much a cry for help, and the community that it brought me into was a savior of my mental well being.

Now that I'm (barely) on the other side, I'm left figuring out how best to transition and how to do it and not be offensive to those women that I've come to love and respect so much. I haven't had much time to think about it after getting sick this week (seriously, I haven't been this sick in ages), but little bits have been swirling in my sickened haze.

I'm far from perfect. Really, hugely far from perfect, but I want to be sure that I do this transition in a thoughtful, and purposeful way. This preoccupation with "doing right" probably stems from the fact that I am typically a tactless and insensitive person, and I care about all the ladies here so very much.

I think I'm going to continue blogging. I think it might be neat (and therapeutic for me) to continue a blog from the IF affects on marriage post conception.

___

On a happy note, the illness is fading, though I'm home from work sick today. I hope to be back to normal in the next couple of days.

Oh! and I don't have a scanner, so I can't scan my U/S pics. bummer!

Really Sick

2010-01-31T15:51:00.001-08:00

So I've been MIA because I caught a cold from my dad last weekend and have barely been able to get out of bed. I've been reading everyone else's blogs, but haven't really been commenting cause I'm so tired. I'll have a lot of catching up to do next week.

And thanks again to all of you and your kind words. You are all wonderful.

Poser

2010-01-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

I have been reluctant over the past couple of weeks to post anything substantial. After all the crap "trying naturally" (with opks, etc etc), the idiopathic IF diagnosis, two IUIs: To finally get pregnant on an off cycle makes me feel like a bit of a sham in this community.

I remember not being able to visit blogs where the person was a parent, or was expecting, and because of this, I will not make this blog about my pregnancy. In fact, I'm considering moving to a different blog, with just a link to this one, or even quitting the blog altogether and just becoming a commenter.

Before this Hail Mary pregnancy, I had a few more posts that have been swirling in my head that I wanted to write about the state of my marriage. I think that in the next couple of weeks, I will try to pound those out, and then let this blog wind down. But I haven't decided for sure just yet, but it's on the horizon.

6w2d

2010-01-25T11:03:00.000-08:00

Had a follow up ultrasound with new OB/GYN (who we both REALLY liked) and there was a heartbeat, and the baby is measuring on target! Yea!

Thanks for all of your support the past few weeks, ladies.

Beta

2010-01-20T14:38:00.000-08:00

So the Beta from Monday was 1294. So it looks good, and they will retest on Monday to make sure it is rising accordingly.

And on another positive note, nausea set in yesterday. So hopefully this all means good things.

We've decided to tell my parents this weekend, and I'll keep everyone posted as to what happens on Monday.

Thank you all SO MUCH for the kind words and support. I really appreciate it. You're all wonderful.

5w2d Ultrasound due to spotting

2010-01-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

The update:
So after spotting on Saturday and Sunday, I called our new OB's office on Sunday afternoon and talked to the doctor on call. She told me to come in and get an ultrasound, that 50% of women spot during the first trimester.

So Sweets and I went in today. The gestational sac is measuring on target at 5w2d, but that's about all they can see. They are a little concerned because most of my symptoms have disappeared, and so they drew a beta. I should get the results to that by the end of the day, and I go in for a repeat in two days. Then I go in one week for another ultrasound so they can check for a heartbeat/flutter.

__

We were planning on telling my parents this weekend, because we are headed to their house (a few hours away). We will probably only do this if the betas come back with hopeful numbers.

__

Both Sweets and I are taking pessimistic views on this it seems. I guess we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and we're already discussing contingency plans of IUIs etc. It's just what IF does to us, isn't it?

--

We ran into one of Sweets' coworkers at the dr's office. She immediately asked "So is there some good news??" To which Sweets replied a quick "No." Erg. I hope that she doesn't go spreading around that she saw us there. I really hope not, especially if this ends poorly.

Spotting

2010-01-16T11:59:00.000-08:00

I can't say that I'm totally surprised, as my congestion resolved last night, but this morning I'm spotting. Not a lot, but it's pink. I know that this is not cause for total alarm, but I'm 5 weeks today, and I know that I've already implanted (there was brown spotting then).

And, of course it happens on a Saturday, and while Sweets is at work and my regular doctor isn't working. Sweets' supposed to be on his way home shortly and I guess we'll discuss whether or not to go to the RE's office to pay (out of pocket) for an ultrasound.

Really, there isn't anything they can do if it IS miscarriage, so I don't know what we'll do.

Hopefully it's nothing.

When Life Hands You Lemons... Squirt them in the Eyes!

2010-01-15T17:28:00.000-08:00

I have actually been thinking about this for the last few months, and have started a few posts that haven't worked out too well and deleted them.

Infertility has done a lot of horrible things to myself and my marriage, but it has done my husband and me one gigantic favor:

It forced us to work through our issues before having children, and brought us closer together.

We are certainly still a work in progress (just see the last post), but we are getting there. If we had easily gotten pregnant and had a baby by now, we certainly wouldn't have as strong a marriage as we do today. I might even go so far as to say that we'd probably be headed down the road to divorce within the next year or two.

My favorite key chain is from David and Goliath and says "When life hands you lemons... squirt them in the eyes!!" I tend to be that sarcastic, high strung type of personality that fights back fire with fire and doesn't back down. But, at some point in the past 2 or 3 years, I stopped fighting for my marriage. Life with my husband was just too hard with us both having stressful careers, and him working 100+ hours a week. We really let our relationship sit on the back burner. I don't know when it started, but the degradation was slow but steady and it continued until we didn't recognize each other any more.

IF brought us back into the foreground and made us work on ourselves again, and for that I am grateful. So thanks, IF, for giving me at least one good thing.

No snappy title

2010-01-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

Nicole at anonymousinfertilityconfessions hit the nail on the head this week when she said that "there's been a lot of horrible news in IF blogland" over the past couple of weeks.

Like her, I'd like to say that I completely understand if there are those of you who can't keep up on my blog now that I'm pregnant. I totally get it, as I was just there also.

____

I stayed home from work sick yesterday so that I could catch up on some sleep. I realized about three weeks ago that I have a huge amount of sick time banked up, and I won't be able to take it with me when I leave my job. So I'm planning on using it.

I got some Breathe Right Strips, and they've helped a lot. I have no idea why this is happening. It may be some weird pregnancy thing, or allergies. But it's not an illness, which I was hoping (so that it would just go away).

___

Sweets and I have been doing very well since the "realization." He's been incredibly attentive and sweet, and it's been really nice.

Then, two nights ago, we got into a huge fight about our OB/GYN. So, I've mentioned before that we had a bad experience during our HSG. (this was done by our regular OB/GYN). She botched the procedure twice, was late to the appointment, and then called me TWICE to give me the results, because she had forgotten that she already talked to me the day before.

But when I found out I was pregnant, I called and scheduled an appointment with her, because she's my regular doctor, and it was the easiest thing. She's very highly ranked, and came with good recommendations on the whole "giving birth thing." Which is frankly number one in my book.

Sweets would prefer that I go to another doctor at the practice (who he got to meet because she did one of our weekend IUIs, I'll call her Dr C). But I'm uncomfortable switching to another doctor in the same practice... Frankly, I just think that it's rude. Plus, there is a 30% chance that the old doctor would end up delivering us, because of how they work the call schedule. Talk about an awkward moment if she showed up to deliver the baby after we'd switched doctors!

So I decided to call my sister's doctor. She LOVES this man. And she had delivered two kids before hand, so she knew what to look for. I take that recommendation seriously, even though I always said that I would NEVER go to a male doctor. Now I'm certainly eating my words.

Sweets, on the other hand, was very comfortable with Dr C and didn't want to deal with a whole new doctor. Finally, after rounds and rounds of rounds of it, I had to say that it's my body and me going through labor, so I get to choose the doctor. I made an appointment with the male doc (Dr. L) and I'll see him right at 8 weeks for my first visit.

Surprisingly, Sweets calmed down a lot and I think he realized that he was being irrational. I realize that I got way more angry than I should have (yea hormones!), but still think that it should be mainly my call when it comes to this. Maybe I'm being irrational? Does anyone else have husbands that feel like they should have a say in the OB/GYN?

Anyhoo, so we resolved things well, and have moved on nicely. We've come a long way from where we were 6 months ago, that's for sure.

Sawing Wood

2010-01-13T13:57:00.000-08:00

I have started snoring, and I'm not a snorer. For the past three nights, I have kept myself awake nearly all night because I snore as soon as I get into a deep sleep. It's the funniest thing! It doesn't matter what position I'm in, I just snore.

And I end up having a sore throat at work the next day. I can't tell if I'm getting sick, or if it's some sort of weird symptom.

Weird, and a little bit hilarious.

Blog-tracking

2010-01-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

I have a computer question, at the risk of sounding ridiculous. I have to ask all yall, because this is a "secret" blog IRL, so I can't ask those that I normally would. I googled it, but didn't find what I would consider "reliable" websites.

Mel over at Stirrup Queens has a HILARIOUS post about tracking how people find her blog.

How does one go about doing this?

Thanks much for any help!

Wisdom, or lack of it

2010-01-11T17:46:00.000-08:00

I was reading a blog a few days ago by Mo (who I referenced in a previous post and who just experience a devastating loss). She was listing the absolutely insensitive things that people say to someone who has just lost a baby. Instead of simply saying "I'm Sorry" people feel the need to give reasons WHY the pregnancy didn't work out. I think back on my life, and all wonder about the people that I have interacted with that knew to say "I'm Sorry" to those who needed it. I can't think of very many (which I'm sure is due to my poor memory and not because it didn't happen more frequently), but I do remember qualifying those people as "compassionate" or "wise." They were the people that many asked for advice or that were chosen to be confided in with sensitive news.

Does knowing this mark a person as one who has suffered? Is wisdom and compassion in cases such as these an acquired personality trait?

Perhaps not always, but I think back on those people, and wonder what terrible things happened in their life. What awful things did they go through? And I'm flabbergasted that I didn't notice before...

No AF!

2010-01-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I'm a full 36 hours from when AF should have shown, so I'm pretty sure that this isn't a chemical pregnancy. Symptoms are very light, but I have sore boobs and light cramping and some serious bloating. I kind of expected to really FEEL pregnant at this point, though.

I was scared enough that I've taken like 5 HPTs over the past 36 hours to make sure that the line is actually increasing in strength and not decreasing. (it looks like it is.)

I'm going to call my doctor(s) tomorrow and ask what the procedure is. See, if we go to our RE, we'll have an easy time getting an appointment, but we'll have to pay for everything. If I call my regular OB/GYN, then I'll probably be told to wait until 6 weeks, and go in and have all the pre-natal stuff done. (At no cost to us.) I guess I'm not sure if they do a 6 week ultrasound in a regular OB's office, but I'll ask on the phone tomorrow.

Part of me is just thinking that I'll wait and see the regular OB. If something goes poorly, there isn't really anything that my RE could do about it anyway, right? Anyone have any advice about this? It might be nice to know what the beta is, but we pay for everything out of pocket, and money is a little tight. (Especially now that I think my working days are numbered.)

-----

I can't stop smiling. Sweets and I are both so happy. But is SO WEIRD, because both of us are already coming up with contingency plans. We're so shocked that it worked, and so beaten down by the IF, that I think both of us are expecting the worst. This is normal pessimism for me, but Sweets is ever an optimist, so it's weird to hear it coming from his mouth, too. We've both had to stop ourselves and just say "one day at a time."

I'm still in shock. very very good shock.

holy crap - BFP

2010-01-08T10:32:00.000-08:00

First off, I'd like everyone that can to send some good thoughts/prayers over to Jo (and Mo) at MoJo Working. She has had an extremely crazy past 48 hours and could use some support.

----

So, remember how we took off last cycle because of the holidays?

I tested today (AF should show tomorrow). I stopped testing somewhere in the middle of last year...

But today?

BFP

I called Sweets immediately and told him, and my next reaction was to call my mom. But I stopped myself because part of me is convinced that it's not going to work out. I'll give it a few days.

We had been worried that our problem was that fertilization was not occurring at all. Maybe this has been happening all along and I just haven't caught it? I don't know.

Holding on to hope for now, though. :)

Coming Out

2010-01-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking more and more about coming out of the IF "closet" to my family. While I absolutely DREAD the actual conversation, I am thinking more and more that it would be easier to be around them if they knew the whole truth.

I know that my silence about this is creating problems between myself an my mother. I'm sure that it's also seeping into my other family relationships but I'm so caught up in it that I can't currently figure out how much.

I'd also feel better with my husband telling his sister (which he's been wanting to do for awhile) once my family knows first. yes, I know this is petty... I can't help it. can't. help. it. I'm a terrible person. I just dislike her SO MUCH. But he really wants to tell her and I feel bad keeping him from doing it. Though quite honestly some of the ways she and her sister were acting at Christmas make me wonder if he has already told her. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I worry, however, that the absolute opposite could happen. What if they then feel the need to ask me how it's going all the time? I think that this would be logical once they know. I also feel like they might then stare at my belly critically and try to figure out when I actually do become pregnant. This would also be natural (I currently do it to my brother's new wife because I know that they are trying).

Maybe I'll give it 6 more months. I have mentally prepared myself that negative results in six months would mean that we move on to making the decision to live child-free or adopt. At that point, we will have exhausted our natural IUI, and (possible) medicated IUI cycles.

It's such a difficult decision! And so much harder because you can't fix it if it turns out to be an awful choice. Once it's out, it's out, and there isn't anything you can do about it.

Erg, I guess I'll keep mulling it over. Has anyone out here told people and then wished that they hadn't?

Resolutions

2010-01-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

Ahh, I have so many resolutions for this year! I am going to list them out so that I am accountable.

1. The ever present "lose 10-20 pounds." While I have been working with a trainer one day a week to increase my strength (due to a back injury and a connective tissue problem that I have), I have not been doing my best to do cardio and regular work outs. I started this weekend working out with my Wii fitness trainer. (I'm on day 3, yea!)

2. Lengthen my temper "fuse", especially in regards to my husband. The both of us have gotten so sick of each other that we nip, and nag about the STUPIDEST things. We are both going to work on this. (this one is actually the most important in the list)

3. Find a new job. I am determined to pursue all my avenues of job hunting this year to try to make it out of my current position.

4. Enjoy my life day to day, and the blessings that God has given me. I'm finally coming to acceptance of this whole IF thing, I think. I have good days, and bad days, but I'm definitely on an upswing. I'm becoming able to enjoy life despite the IF, and I think that this is also helping my marriage.

5. Learn to cook more than the 4 dishes that I already know. Sweets usually does the cooking, and I'd like to give him a break on this.

So there are certainly more than this, but these are the big ones. Bring it on, New Year!

New Year

2009-12-31T11:01:00.000-08:00

2009 has been a rough one for our marriage. It has seen me at my angriest, my saddest and my most broken.

I left my husband this year. It was for a very short time (a matter of hours), but I did it. One summer night after a huge fight, I packed the car, left a note (because he'd gone off in a huff and I couldn't get ahold of him for hours) and drove away thinking that I was done. I felt that he didn't want children, or the marriage and so I'd finally had enough. I didn't think that I could live the relationship for the both of us any more. I drove and drove and drove, and finally ended up turning around and coming back.

That was certainly the low point.

Funny to say it now, but I think that was what it took to shake him out of whatever hole he'd been hiding in. I don't think that he had realized how far at the end of my rope I had been. Even though I had been telling him, and screaming at him, it took that act for him to get it. He finally understood that I'd leave if things didn't change.

Afterwards, I fully expected a backlash from my actions and wondered if we'd ever get over it. I understood the breach that it was. But he only ever mentioned it one other time. I think he actually gets "it" now.

It was shortly after this that I found the blog-o-sphere and started thinking about writing my own blog. Several months later and I actually started this one. Now we are in therapy. We are starting to heal.

Good bye 2009, and here's to hoping that 2010 continues to bring healing and hope.

We Survived

2009-12-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

As we waited to be picked up from the airport last night I turned to Sweets and sighed "well, we survived it."

He asked "so was it worth all the anxiety?"

I asked for clarification "Do you mean, was it bad enough to warrant said anxiety?"

He nods.

"Oh yes, it was worse than I thought."

----

We arrived on the 23rd, chatted with MIL and step FIL for a little while, but mainly about Fiona (younger SIL) who is still living at home, and causing WWIII type arguments with the parents. It's been bad, and she's only been living with them since October. I'll save that story for another time.

We drove out to Sasha's house the next day, and the trip that should have taken us 2 hours, took 3 plus with all of the traffic that we hit. We checked into the hotel, and then made it over to Sasha's house. Sasha is due in early April with her fourth child, and it took my about an hour to get comfortable enough to look at her. I distracted myself by playing with her DARLING three other children (who are all wonderful and under the age of 6) and chatting with other people. She was constantly rubbing her belly and while I had to choke back tears a couple of times, I don't think that anyone noticed.

We hung out there with the whole family until they went to bed, and then let everyone know that we'd be by about 10 am the next morning. Sasha's hasband exclaimed "You aren't coming over to watch the kids open presents?!?" We responded "Nope, because 6 am is 3 am for us, and we just can't do that." I should add that we had told both MIL and Sasha that this was our plan WEEKS ago.

That night, for the first time EVER, Sweets asked me how I was feeling. And I broke down into tears, which shocked him because I'd apparently been doing a very good job of hiding it. So I had a good cry and we went to sleep.

We got up the next morning at 9 am (6 am our time, which is extremely early for the two of us), got up and dressed and got over there just after 10 am.

And everyone was so mad at us that non of them would even look at us. I thought it was just me, and spent the entire day acting like nothing was wrong, forcing myself into conversations, playing with children, helping in the kitchen and acting like everything was fine.

When we got into the car that night to go home, I expressed to Sweets that everyone was acting weird, and he said "yeah, they were all mad at us, and wouldn't even look at us." This made me angry. I would much prefer them mad at me, and ruin my day, then make Sweets feel bad. I mean, they are his FAMILY. He's supposed to ENJOY being with them. It was awful.

We both agreed that at least we'd put in our time and wouldn't have to do this for many years, though.

MIL had told us that they were going to leave the next day at 11 am (they had their own car), so we got up early again, got ready and headed over to SILs house. AND THEY HAD ALREADY LEFT. literally 5 minutes before we showed up. We actually asked Sasha what the deal was, and she lied through her teeth and said nothing was wrong.

For the next two days, we managed to avoid MIL and step FIL for the most part (who went back to acting like nothing was wrong) and mainly just hung out with Fiona. Fiona is currently involved in some personal drama which is all self inflicted, but it kept us busy (if not exhausted).

It was bad. It is over. I won't have to deal with that for at least another 5 years. Hopefully by that time we'll have kids and we can use it as an excuse not to travel. :)

On the plus side, this drew Sweets and I back together. We kept commenting that we were so glad that we were together, and that's all that really mattered, and that the whole rest of the world could all just go to hell. We were the calm in the storm for each other. Isn't that what marriage is supposed to be like?

Even Better

2009-12-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

I got a big fat apology last night. He cried, and told me that he never wanted to upset me like that again. He acknowledged how I was feeling and realizes that he hasn't been helping matters.

For a guy who never apologizes, he did a pretty darn good job.

I may be MIA for the next week while we travel (though I'll try to be around because our hotel should have WIFI).

Here's to hoping everyone travels safely and has a good holiday.

Better Today

2009-12-21T15:04:00.000-08:00

So I'm feeling much better today. I still don't know where Sweets and I "are" in all of this. I'm pretty much just sort of numb about it.

I've realized by some of the responses that I wasn't exactly clear on a few things (it was the middle of the night when I pounded that off last night, I just really needed to get it off my chest).

1. Sweet's fat comment was said in a very mocking tone. He will also say to me "stop eating!" and the like. It was a "joke" but it was mean spirited and very pointed. It's his way of communicating a dislike. I normally ignore them, or tell him to F off. One of the reasons that I really didn't appreciate it is because I'm pretty sure it's medication induced. I mean, I have never before gained 5 pounds in a month, directly in my stomach. I also feel somewhat helpless to do anything about it. I work out, and I don't eat terribly. I'm not going to starve myself.

2. I'm off the progesterone and have been for two weeks. I can't think of any reason why I'd be having mental or physical side effects from it still. (Although I guess I could be...?) I won't be taking it this month anyway, because of the holiday break we are instituting. I'm crossing my fingers that my belly distention, constipation and early satiety all go away soon.

--
On dreading the holidays:

We had several conversations yesterday about the holidays. I reiterated to him that it was going to be a difficult time for me, and that I was going to need him to step in and deflect comments from his family. Typically he just leaves me to hang when someone brings up kids, if I'm pregnant, etc. Literally he'll just sit there like he's deaf and dumb and stare at me. I told him that if he expects me to be able to hold it together in front of his family, that he'd better be jumping in and not acting like a dumbass. Hopefully he took this to heart.

--

More In Law Crazy:

His mother has finally fessed up to the fact that bowling on Saturday is NOT necessary for their league. IN FACT, the other team isn't even going to be there. When Sweets got off the phone with her, I could only stare at him incredulously. I specifically asked him if he thought I was being unreasonable and how he felt about the entire thing. He basically said that he thought it sucked, and that he was really disappointed. Apparently her new excuse is that "for the next two months, people have things going on, and a wedding, etc, etc" so they want to all get together anyway. He wanted to say to her "yeah, well you have us in town that Saturday, why aren't we good enough to reschedule for?" But of course he didn't.

He seems to miss the point that you can be straightforward with people, and non confrontational. Him just ignoring the situations will just make it worse. He can tell her how he feels, and then at least she won't be able to ignore how we feel. (Because it was obvious by her guilty-speech that she KNOWS she's doing something wrong here.)

Whoa (much swearing in this post)

2009-12-20T21:43:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been busy with last minute errands for both Christmas and traveling. I also still have not recovered from taking the Pro.metrium, and it's been getting a little worrying. (TMI to follow...) While the bloating has subsided, I'm still extremely stopped up. I went to the drug store and got some Mira.lax and fiber supplements, but they still haven't helped. If this continues through the next day, I'll call the doctor and see if there is anything that I can do.

So I was sitting on the couch, grabbing at my belly-fat (which also increased and has not subsided in the past two weeks). And Sweets says "I don't think THAT'S gonna go away when you pooh." To which I respond "I'm a little worried about it, I don't think it's going to either" and he bursts out laughing. He says "Yeah, I know, cause it's all fat." So starts the tears. I pick up my laptop to give myself a distraction, and he murmurs an I'm Sorry under his breath and then ignores me. Pretty much for the rest of the night. And I ignore him. I go about the rest of the things that I need to do around the house. In doing this, I walk repeatedly past the pills of selenium and zinc that I bought him last week.

They are still sitting unopened on the kitchen counter.

And I get more. and more. angry.

[Note: Sweets has never treated me like an attractive person. He's always been a little critical of me (even though I'm all-right attractive, and up until recently quite slender.) It's only been over the past three years or so that I've put on a little bit more pudge, but I'm still within a healthy weight/BMI, and I go to the gym and have a personal trainer. ]

Then Sweets decides to put on a movie. I was sitting on the couch, and he decides to join me. I tell him that I don't want to snuggle, and he can sit on the other side if he wants. But he tries to force his way next to me. I got up directly and went into the bedroom to get away from him. He instantly knew something was wrong and followed me. And wouldn't leave even though I alternated between ignoring him and asking him to leave. and he kept asking what he did, and if I was "still mad about the fat comment."

I finally exploded. I screamed so loud that my voice was almost unrecognizable, and my throat is now sore. Why do you THINK I'm mad?!? he said "because of the fat comment, it was just a joke." .... AND THEN WHAT DID YOU SAY!?!? "nothing, i didn't say anything else" Exactly you selfish son of a bitch! Even after you could SEE what you said did, and how it made me feel, you STILL COULDN'T GIVE A REAL APOLOGY! you reflexively gave a sorry and then you just SAT there! I'm the one taking the damn medications, gaining the weight, getting bloated and constipated and you can even TAKE A FUCKING VITAMIN.

"So this is what this is about? the vitamins? I'm not even sure they're going to work"

NOT SURE THEY ARE GOING TO WORK?!?!?! Get OUT GET OUT GET OUT. (I threw his pillow into the hallway) IF YOU VALUE this marriage and don't want a fucking divorce you will get out and sleep on the damn couch! (This continued for several rounds)

I finally stopped talking, and got into bed and ignored him. He stood in the room for a good 20 minutes watching me sob before he left the room.

For the first time in 9 years, he is sleeping on the couch. Mind you, this is not the first time I've asked him to sleep on the couch, and I have slept on the couch a handful of times, but never the other way around.

He doesn't care as much as I do. I cannot believe that he would mock my weight after all this. And not give an apology. I have never been so angry in my life. I literally saw red, and before this, I thought that was just a saying. (It's not) I wanted to hit him. I wanted to throw things at him. I have never been so angry. I never could have imagined that I would feel that way about someone that I loved.

I fear that this may be the beginning of the end for us. Maybe it's good that we didn't have a baby.

I don't know if I can handle going to the in-laws for the holidays. I'm thinking about the logistics of all of it. I'm open to any suggestions to get out of this without alerting both sides of my family.

To and Fro

2009-12-17T17:34:00.000-08:00

Sweets and I have been on a bit of a truce for the past week or so. I think that both of us are pretty sick of everything and so we are just existing for the moment.

When we met with the RE several weeks ago, she suggested that Sweets start taking some Zinc and Selenium (or multi vitamin) for general sperm quality purposes. I figured that this was his deal, and he should be able to make it to the drug store to pick some up. Which, of course, he did not.

So last night, I swung by the drug store and pick up a bottle of zinc, and one of selenium for him. I consider getting him a multi-vitamin, but I know that he does not really like taking vitamins because he took a class in college on them and the professor harped a lot about how they are unnecessary. He has, for the past 10 years, refused to take vitamins for this reason.

When I give him the bottles, he says "but the RE said I could just take a multi-vitamin" to which I explain why I bought the separate bottles. He just repeats himself, and I just screamed "DONT F#@KING ARGUE WITH ME ABOUT THIS!" and he just repeats himself again. Because he has to have the last word.

I mean seriously, what the hell is his problem?!? If he wanted a damn multivitamin, he could have bought them HIMSELF. Why DIDN'T he buy them himself? Is he incapable? Does he not care? Did he just forget? Is he arguing with me because he's mad at himself for not remembering?

What scares me a little bit is that instead of forcing him to see what he was doing (which is what I normally do with his crazy), I just let it go. I withdrew into myself like I was doing 6 months ago. 6 months ago was a really bad time for me. I don't think I can take more of his crap until the holidays are over.

Just 12 more days, and we'll be back from crazy land. Maybe I should start an advent calendar or a paper chain for that. :)

Holiday Blues

2009-12-16T17:49:00.001-08:00

So, my MIL has now made it impossible for us to go into the big city while we are visiting over Christmas. (back story here) She has now told Sweets that she wants us to go bowling with her on Saturday night so that she can "show us off."

The real reason is that she doesn't want to be put out by driving us 20 minutes out of her way to get us to the subway/train/bus. It's so frustrating. However, I'm starting to get very relaxed about the entire thing. It's not making me angry anymore, just sad. I would really like to have one of those relationships with my in laws that I looked forward to seeing them. Now I just really see it as a duty, but maybe that's ok for now.

I think the holiday blues are setting in. I've been awfully sad today for no real reason. Or I should say, no particular reasons (there are a ton of "real" ones for any IFer, right?) It never ceases to amaze me how quickly this can come upon me, and without a trigger that I can tell.

Now, I've been trying to figure out the easiest way to "medicate" (read; drink) at my SIL's house over Christmas. She and her husband do not drink because of religious reasons, but the rest of the family does. Is it too trashy to show up at her house with a couple nice bottles of wine, and insist that they get opened? Normally, I wouldn't do this, but I'm actually seriously considering it for my sanity.

New job?

2009-12-14T16:40:00.000-08:00

So, I have been keeping my eye out for new jobs for a number of reasons.

1. I don't get paid very much for my job right now. It was always supposed to be a temporary type thing until I had kids, and that certainly isn't happening.

2. My boss, while EXTREMELY nice, keeps pestering me about if I'm pregnant, and it's depressing. I've mentioned this before, but for those that don't read regularly, here's the back story: I turned down the job with this boss after a re-organization of my department because we were trying to get pregnant, and I told him that was the reason. He begged me to work for him for as long as I wanted, so I thought it was a perfect place for me for a few short months! (har har har). Unfortunately, now he feels like he can ask me if I'm already preggers, which I don't exactly appreciate.

3. Our insurance doesn't cover IF treatments. or testing. or any of it. I believe that we have spent about 3500-4000 dollars out of pocket for testing and treatments. Actually, I don't know the total, and I don't want to, so I'm just estimating here.

Coupling the poor insurance with the poor pay is a double whammy to our savings account. I'm getting to the point where I just can't afford to work this job any more.

So, I've just applied to a new job, at a company where I have a connection. I think that I would be a good fit, and I'm sure that it will pay more than where I'm at currently. I also am pretty sure that the insurance will be better, but I'm not sure if it will cover IF or not. It certainly couldn't be any worse than what I have now.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

2009-12-13T17:58:00.000-08:00

First off, thanks to both Jo and Nicole for taking the time to write such thoughtful responses to my last post. I personally think this is going to take a lot of prayer for me, and some serious time before it all gets figured out.

I got to spend some quality time this weekend with my best friend (who lives in another city) and it was quite therapeutic for me. We haven't had too much opportunity for me to fill her in on the IF stuff, or the problems with Sweets, and we talked a lot about it this weekend. I really needed to talk about it with someone.

On Friday, when I told Sweets that AF had started, his only response was "Isn't it early??" And after I told him no, I got nothing. NOTHING from him. He stayed up late watching TV and working, went to work early the next morning, and hasn't acknowledged anything.

My friend asked me what Sweets thought about the entire thing. And my truthful response to her was that he doesn't talk about it. He's very uncommunicative, and unless we're fighting about something, I don't get anything from him. Her response "That must make you feel like you're doing this all alone." was really spot-on.

I've specifically told him that I need him to be sympathetic. I know that he can be, because he is with everyone else but me. I don't quite understand it (though I have been trying to figure out why) and it makes me pull away from him. It's kind of a slippery slope.

We don't see our counselor again until after the holidays, but I'm going to keep this in mind to bring up at the next session.

Rewards?

2009-12-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

So a couple of weeks ago in church there were baby dedications, and it was a difficult morning for me, sitting there, fighting back tears. Since then, I have been wrestling a bit about the whole thing. For those of you that have no idea what a "dedication" is, it's a brief ceremony done in lieu of infant baptism. Many modern Christian churches believe that you must be able to cognitively choose Christ as Savior to be baptized, and therefore won't do "infant baptisms."

So, our pastor called a few young families on stage to talk about the miracle of life, and what a blessing children are to the entire congregation. He specifically quoted Psalm 127:3 "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward."

So, for the first time, I started thinking about the faith-based confusion involving infertility. This particular bible quote, when reversed seems to imply that those who cannot have children, do not deserve the reward for some reason. I have heard the question posed by a woman "Is God punishing me with infertility because I had an abortion in college?" I understand that this is not a punishment from God, but a case of reaping what is sewn. Because if there is scar tissue that forms during the procedure, it's a logical side affect, right? It has nothing to do with blame, or fault, it just IS. But do these woman not deserve a reward?

I've lived life as a relatively "good" person. I've never thought that my infertility was a punishment from God for not doing things "right." I understand that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and that most times, we don't know the reasoning behind it. Still I wonder am I unworthy of a reward?

I am prolife. It is therefore hard for me to reconcile IVF treatments, picking and choosing blasts for transfer and hoping for implantation. Is there anyone else out there that is struggling with the same thing? I would love to hear what you have to say about the subject, or any book/article references on the subject. I'm seriously trying to figure things out.

CD1

2009-12-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

So, I started spotting today, and fully expect AF tomorrow morning. I fully expected to not be pregnant, as I haven't felt any different and had a BFN on Wednesday morning. I'm still on the progesterone, and Sweets had convinced me that I wouldn't get AF at all until I stopped it. (Side note: is it normal to still get your period normally on pro.metrium?) So I was a little surprised at work this afternoon when I noticed the spotting, and was very thankful that it was later in the day and all my coworkers were gone.

So, we'll be taking this next cycle off from ART, because of the holidays, and will do another IUI January.

On a positive note, we are headed to my boss's tomorrow night for a party celebrating the first night of Hanukah. About a year ago, I learned that my previous boss was being forced out of our department, and that I was pretty much out of a job. But this new guy was joining the department, and was going to need someone with my expertise. I thought about it for a couple of days, and then actually decided not to work for him, and to stop working altogether (because we'd be pregnant any second, right?) I told him that we were working on starting a family, and I turned him down for the job. But he BEGGED me to work for him, and told me he'd take me for as long as I could work for him. At the time I thought this was a god-send and signed on.

Needless to say, things didn't go according to plan. Not only that, but from about July to September, he asked me every month if I was pregnant yet. (More like "how are things going... personally???......) I would dodge the question, say "fine" or something like that. I have tried hard not to give him any opportunity to ask me again. He also asked me repeatedly to tell him "as soon as I find out" to give him every opportunity to find a replacement for me. It makes me want to quit every. single. day. I'm just waiting for an excuse.

Anyway, they have been asking and asking to have us over for dinner, etc, and I've been coming up with excuses, but I think that a party situation is the best way to handle it.

So the positive part about this is: I'll be drinking. Heavily. And I'll make sure he notices.

If I had children...

2009-12-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

I would want this for Christmas.

It's a heart necklace custom with two finger prints. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to publish the picture, so I've just linked to the etsy site.

I think it's beautiful.

A Better Person, Maybe

2009-12-08T14:01:00.001-08:00

For awhile I've been thinking about how how this battle with IF has made me a more considerate person. Prior to IF I was a judgmental, unsympathetic and over-all oblivious person who considered herself rational. I simply couldn't understand why people faced with decisions (like adopting, etc) couldn't make decisions based on fact. I wasn't a horrible and unfeeling person, but things just seemed really black and white to me.

I was that person. The one who would have said "Why don't you just adopt?" or "I have a friend who just stopped trying and poof! They got pregnant!" Now, thankfully, I was NEVER put into that position, because most of my friends married after us, and have not started trying to add to their families. I don't have to look back and regret actually doing that to someone, which I count as a blessing.

I think that in part, this is a large reason that I have trepidation about telling those in my life about our struggle with IF. And I really don't blame people who react with the "adoption" or "advice" type comments, because I can certainly relate. I just simply don't want to hear it, or come up with canned responses for them.

After going through this whole IF process I have developed a lot as a person. And I look at all the women who have been through so much more than I have and wonder how they do it. I have a lot more empathy for those around me, and bite my tongue on a regular basis. I still have a long way to go, but I'm more aware now of my words and advice. I pay attention to what is unsaid in addition to what is voiced.

I can't help but wonder if God has led me down this path as a way to make me realize my faults. To help me grow as a person. To help make my marriage stronger as a result.

At least I hope so.

Pro.gesterone makes me crazy

2009-12-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

So apparently, in addition to making me look 4 months pregnant, progesterone also makes me certifiably crazy. I'm now able to go from rational to absolutely nutters in 2.5 seconds!

This Saturday, Sweets dropped me off for my nine o'clock gym/training session and then took the car for the rest of the morning to work. He knew that this is my only weekend to complete all of our Xmas shopping, and that I'd do what shopping I could do around the house, but be waiting for the car to hit the mall when he made it home. I knew that he was bringing home a coworker to hang out for the rest of the day when they were both done at work.

I talked to him around 12:30 and he said he could bring the car home then, or wait for his other coworker to be ready which would take a couple of hours.

Now, Sweets has a SERIOUS problem making a decisions. He basically wants me to make decisions for everything from what we eat for dinner, etc. But in addition to this, he will tell me "no, I don't want that" as I suggest a hundred things. It drives me crazy on a normal day.

So, I tell him that he needs to make this decision. And he just repeats himself, "Well, I could come home if you want me to." Now, I'm sick of being the bad guy and making his decisions all the time. So I repeatedly tell him to make a decision, and when he doesn't, I get mad and hang up on him. (Childish, I know)

So I head out on the bus and hit a shopping area that is a mile or so away from my house. I did what shopping I could do, but after a few hours I was tired, and cranky and present laden. So I call Sweets and ask him if he's headed back any time soon because I'm tired, and cranky, the bus has been re-routed for construction and I'd have to walk about half way home to catch it. He tells me that he's on his way to lunch with a couple of coworkers so it might be awhile.

To which I FREAK. Completely, irrationally FREAK out. Crazy infertile comes out, screaming "NOW you're wasting your time going out to lunch with friends!?! While I'm running freaking errands and waiting for him to come back with the car?! You've got to be kidding me!"

And I tell him I'll find my own way home, and hang up on him. And refuse to pick up his phone calls, and start walking home. He texts me that he's on his way, and I tell him not to bother. I walked home (did I mention it was only 30 degrees?), and he came home anyway. And brings his coworker. I'm assuming as a buffer so that I wouldn't yell at him right then. Then his coworker stayed over for 6 freaking hours, basically right until I went to bed.

Now, I understand that I completely overreacted, and that this is not something I would have done with out the crazy hormones in my system. But I REALLY wanted him to pick me. To understand that I was doing something I HATE doing (Xmas shopping is evil) for the both of us, and the least he could have done was get me the car to make it easier. Or not planned to have lunch with his friends to drive me home.

Now I'm left wondering if I'll do the progesterone in subsequent cycles. I'm not sure if our relationship can handle me being so off kilter in addition to everything else.

---

I have too many posts in my head swimming around that I want to write about. It's actually been preventing me from writing the past couple of days. I'm going to try to get them all out this week.

More Holiday Crazy

2009-12-04T17:36:00.000-08:00

So, I was talking to Sweets last night and he mentioned that his mom has bowling on Saturday that we are there, and told us we were on our own for the night. (There is a possibility that she'll get out of it, but doesn't sound likely, or like she really wants to do that.)

So here's the timeline for our holiday.

W - 23rd - fly across country and arrive at 10 pm. drive 1 hour to MIL's house.

Th - 24th - Drive to SIL's house. Crazy will ensue.

F - 25th - Xmas

Sat - 26th - Drive back to MIL's house. She and (step) FIL will go out bowling

Sun - 27th - no plans, maybe extended family

Mon - fly home.

So I promptly tell Sweets that we should go into the large city that is ~ an hour away from MIL's house because we haven't been there in years. We can have a nice dinner or something, and just hang out together. He drags his feet about this because he doesn't want to get in the way of other peoples plans. (This, of course, makes me FREAK because of the way they are all behaving.)

I send MIL an email that says "Hey! Sweets just told me you're bowling on Saturday night, and I was thinking about hitting the big city. We haven't been there in years, and it would be so much fun. However, it doesn't make sense for us to drive all the way to your house just to double back to the big city, so would you mind dropping us off on the the way home? Not even all the way there, but to somewhere we could grab a train or bus would be great."

Her response? (paraphrase): " I mentioned to Sweets about bowling because I know it's your anniversary and maybe you'd like to do something together, so if you want to go into the city that day, that's fine with us. As for getting there, we will have our DOG WITH US, so we'll have to play it by ear. Maybe you'll have to get a ride from other SIL. Though there may be a bus right from SIL's small town. I'll figure out if there is a way to do it."

This has disaster written all over it. I read the email to Sweets and his response? "THAT'S not what she told me on the phone. She said that she has to play this game because of the way the league is run, and they've already missed too many games."

I wrote back a really nice email thanking her for being so thoughtful, and to let me know if she needs anything from us to make it happen. But I'm not counting on it. I also stated that we usually choose not to celebrate our anniversary because it's so close to Xmas, and we want to see the family. (Actually hadn't even known what day it was that weekend, because it's so not on my radar.)

The best part!?! I just realized that our anniversary is SUNDAY.

This is actually starting to be comical. It's making me laugh, which is a lot better than before. I never expect them to be something they aren't, and to not be selfish, but I'm working on getting Sweets on the same page, so that we can distance ourselves from the crazy at least a little bit.

huh?

2009-12-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

So today is day 4 on prometrium/progesterone. Due to my irregular bleeding, the RE thought it was worth a shot.

I woke up this morning and almost couldn't zip my fat jeans. Yesterday I was super comfy in my one size down, and feeling like I'd lost some weight, even.

This is unbelievable! Holy crap!

Does anyone have any suggestions for de-bloating? (i may have just made up that word. Just sayin')

Letter to my SIL

2009-12-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

When I wrote about the Christmas debacle of 2009, Michelle wisely suggested that I write out an email (and not send it) as a therapeutic exercise. I think it's a fabulous idea, so here goes.

Dear Sasha, (and MIL, and Fiona would be cc'd because they would get it forwarded to them anyway),

I am writing to share with you my feelings of frustration over the turn of events surrounding Christmas. I genuinely feel like you did not listen to Sweets' voiced concerns, and I would like to lay out our/my feelings on the subject. As all of you know, I am a straight forward person and while I have bit my tongue in the past, I feel like I need to get this out so that we are all on the same page.

In August, I sent an email asking you to pick a place for Christmas specifically to avoid this current scenario. As all of you know, traveling for long distances is hard on my back since I injured it working 4 years ago. Turning around to drive for at least three hours within 24 hours of flying across the country is difficult, and I was trying to avoid this. I knew that this was a possibility because we have routinely been forced to change our plans when we come to visit because of your change of plans, hence the email.

This is not to say that I do not understand your reason for wanting to meet at your house. I COMPLETELY get it. You have three kids, and it's difficult to travel with them. But NONE of this is new information from when we booked our tickets three months ago. NONE of it. I understand that your schedule had not been figured out, but a simple "I don't know my schedule. If I have time off, I'd like to do Xmas here, and if not, it would make sense for you to go to Mom's house" would have allowed us to make the decision to NOT travel for the holidays, and try again next year.

Quite frankly, it is incredibly selfish of you to do this to us time and time again. You suit yourself in absolutely every circumstance, and I am truly sick of it.

As Sweets hinted at on the phone with you, we do not want to spend a number of days crammed in a house with your children, who will be getting up at what would equal 3 or 4 am in the morning for us. We had this all decided at MIL's house, and had a cheap hotel room to go to. Now, we will be forced to spend 200+ dollars a night to stay in a hotel.

During your phone conversation with Sweets, you stated over and over again that this is the best way for everyone, and this was going to make for a better Christmas for all. Don't kid yourself. This makes for a better Christmas for YOU, and that's why you are rearranging everything this way. So own up to it.

Calling someone and asking them to change their plans NICELY, and ACKNOWLEDGING that you have screwed up is the way to handle a situation like this. It's common sense that you don't call them and tell them that this will be better for them, and try to convince them that you are right. You apologize, and ask nicely if they would consider rearranging all of their own plans. After all, you are the one imposing when you have already previously signed off on the plans. (OR in your case, ignored the email that I sent you and do whatever you want, which is what you always do.)

You have not once put yourself out to see us when we've come into town, and you certainly wouldn't travel to come and see us (though you don't mind making the cross country trip to your brother in law's house). For heaven's sake, you couldn't even make it to our wedding, bridal shower or stay for the entirety of our east coast reception.

After this holiday, we will no longer put ourselves out to accommodate you.

In addition, I have absolutely no desire to ride around with you on Christmas Eve to run errands and take your children to see Santa Claus. What would make you think that we would WANT to do that? We have no children, and this would be torture. I will be fine hanging out in our hotel room if that doesn't not work with your schedule.

Also, we will not be getting up at 6 am to watch your children open presents. As I have mentioned before, that's 3 am for us. I don't expect the kids to wait to open their gifts, but we don't need to be there for it. We can exchange with the family later in the morning.

I'm very sorry that it has come to this, but this was really the last straw for me.

Nixy

PS. "F" YOU YOU FERTILE, INSENSITIVE BITCH!

-----

If I was actually going to send this, I wouldn't have worded it quite so harshly. (I might be tactless, but I'm not stupid. :)) Actually, maybe the first half would stay the same.

I am teetering on whether or not to send the email or say something when we actually get there. I think that they need to know that this behavior is why we won't be traveling to see them for a holiday EVER again. I could just be passive aggressive like them and not mention it, and never bother to go, though.

Erg!

Counseling Session Number Two

2009-11-30T20:09:00.000-08:00

Sweets and I attended our second counseling session last night. Things have been really good the past two weeks since our last session. We talked about our problems with his family for the holiday season, and I talked about how great it was that Sweets and I are finally on the same page about the crazy that they throw at us.

It used to be that his family would do something like this (see previous post) and Sweets would try to defend their actions, or tell me that I was overreacting to the situation. But he told the counselor tonight that he "finally saw through their manipulations" and that helped him to be a little more straightforward with them. He wasn't super direct, but he let them know that he/we weren't happy about the whole situation, which is a HUGE step for him.

The counselor told us that she thought we were working with each other really well, and we scheduled our next appointment for AFTER the holidays.

Afterwards, we drove through to get some fast food (yuck, I know) and Sweets asked me "Is it helping you to talk to this woman? Are you getting something out of it?"

"Yeah, because it helps you to talk things through with out becoming a jerk."

This was far too straight forward. I have a serious problem with being too direct some times. One of the biggest problems that we have is that Sweets escalates perfectly rational conversations into all out debates nearly immediately. He feels the need to convince everyone he's right, even when there isn't a wrong/right side. This also goes hand in hand with his inability to apologize about ANYTHING. I meant to say this in a nicer way, and I failed miserably.

He didn't say anything about it, but then picked a fight with me when we got home about the curtains being open. Realizing that this was not actually about curtains, I told him to go stop picking a fight and come talk to me when he decided he wanted to have a real conversation.

Sigh. Two steps forward, one step back.

In laws and Holiday Crazy

2009-11-29T14:39:00.000-08:00

This morning, we got a call from Sweets' sister. She has decided that Christmas will now be held at her house, so that she doesn't have to travel with her three kids (and she's pregnant with #4) for 2 hours (4 in traffic) on Christmas.

Now, I believe that I have mentioned before that she is a selfish creature, and that she has done this to us before. Sweets' entire family is terrible at making plans, and that would all be fine, except that we have to fly across the country to get to them. Which means that we need to know months in advance WHERE the family is convening. It has routinely been a problem.

This year, I sent everyone an email in August saying that we'd really like to join them for one of the holidays this year, but tickets are expensive, so we'd like them to pick which of the holidays, and where it would be. I really thought that this would combat all of the problems that they had in the past.

The plan WAS that we fly to their mom's house, stay there for a night, and then in a hotel for a couple of nights when the sister comes down to invade the house with all of her children. I should add that we WANT to stay at a hotel for this time, because of a debacle a couple years ago where she dumped her kids off, and went to stay at a hotel herself, leaving us to watch her kids for her. (It was awful awful awful.)

We already have our tickets. To Sweets' mothers house. 150 miles away from his sister and in another state. But we're expected to have no problem getting in a car and driving all that way after flying across the country. Especially when we could have just bought tickets to her house in the first place.

-------

Spending the holiday with a pregnant person was going to be hard enough. But, she's already planned our Christmas Eve, which consists of following her around to drop off her Christmas presents to people, and take her children to see Santa Claus and get pictures of them. Who in their right mind thinks that other people want to do this with them? Do I have the right to refuse to do this with them?

We got online right away and booked a hotel room; which of course is now 230 bucks a night because it's so f-ing close to the day. I told him I would go, but I refused to stay at her house and Sweets firmly told them that we would not be staying with them. We'll be three hours behind them, and I'm not going to add sleep deprivation to the list of torture that week.

The icing on the cake is that we are SITTING OUT a cycle to be there with them on Christmas (because I should actually be ovulating on Xmas day).

I certainly feel like writing out an email to them all, which I know is probably a bad idea. I certainly know that we will NEVER plan another Christmas with them. I can deal with it (and should say that I normally do) during a normal vacation, but this is just too damn much. Maybe I'll wait until afterwards. I do know that I'm going to have a really hard time keeping my mouth shut about all of this, and am hoping the anger fades in the next four weeks.

Thanksgiving recap

2009-11-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

So lots of little things happened this Thanksgiving.

First, it was the 9th anniversary of Sweets and my first date. We have decided this year that we aren't giving each other presents for anything (holidays or anniversary) because the IF treatments are so expensive, and we have zero health insurance coverage. Now, we are lucky that we have no mortgage so that we can actually afford to pay the RE bills. I used to see NOT having a house as a major curse, and now I actually believe that G-d was preparing us for the whole IF journey.

Anyhoo, we woke up on Thursday morning to cook the turkey, and Sweets whips out a jewelry box. "Just a little something because your wonderful, and to remind you of me." He says. And I burst out crying. Inside was a delicate silver bracelet, one that I can wear all the time to remind me of him. I had gotten him a card, and written the ten reasons I was thankful for him in it. It felt woefully inadequate, but he got teary eyed reading it. It was a good morning.

------------

We cooked the turkey and transported it to my sister's house, where we ate a big meal, and played some games. We talked and laughed, and my sister in law was drinking, which means she's not pregnant yet, and I had half been expecting a pregnancy announcement from them.

My sister has a very bad habit of talking about the rest of the family in front of her kids. I have personally witnessed her two oldest children confronting other family members with things that they've heard their mom discussing. I usually keep my head down and off the radar, but I guess it was only a matter of time.

At some point, my 8 year old niece looked at me and asked "Are you ever going to have a baby?" I simply replied "Eventually."

This probably means that my mother and sister were talking about me during their preparations for the big dinner. It drives me crazy because I knew it was going to happen. I guess my REAL problem with the whole situation is that it's just disappointing that I wasn't wrong.

The up side of this, however, is that I think it means that they are going to stop pestering me about it. At least a girl can hope.

Ten

2009-11-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

Given the Holiday, and the nature of this blog, I've decided to list 10 reasons that I am thankful for my husband. I'm working hard to erase the negative influence of infertility on my marriage, and last night, I was lying awake and I realized number one on the list:

I am thankful...

1. that my husband lets me absolutely hog the bed. And the covers. He'll even lay stick straight all night long. I have no idea how he sleeps like that.

2. for my husband's blind faith in God. He reminds me to be a better Christian (without actually reminding me).

3. that he straightens the house. Because I HATE doing it. Hate hate hate it. But I LOVE having a neat house. (don't ask how that works, it doesn't make sense).

4. that he likes to cook, and is so very good at it.

5. that he doesn't worry about money like I do.

6. that he was alright settling thousands of miles away from his family, so that we could be close to mine.

7. for his musical talent. I love hearing him play the guitar.

8. for his abilities to do anything with electronic equipment or computers.

9. for his willingness to travel at my pace with this whole infertility craziness, even though he may not agree with it.

10. for the good times and bad times over the 9 years we've been together, and 6 married. As I look back on the years, it seems like the bad times have drawn us closer together, and I'm hoping that weathering the IF storm does the same.

No internet and new RE visit

2009-11-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

The internet has been down at my house, which is seriously cramping my ICLW and blogging this week. Hopefully we figure it out soon, so I can stop using my work hours to do this. tee hee.

We had our first in person visit with our RE yesterday. She did an ultrasound and says that my ovaries and lining look great, and that my antral follicles look good. She thinks I'll surge today and ovulate tomorrow (yeah turkey day). But my OPK this morning looked very low, so I'm thinking (and hoping) that the IUI won't be tomorrow so I won't have to worry about it on the holiday.

She also thinks that my spotting during luteal phase is due to low progesterone, and has prescribed Pro.metrium for this month. She seems knowledgeable, and is the first person to sound concerned at all about my spotting issues (which I have previously thought may be an issue).

We also learned something new about Sweets' SA. Turns out that his strict morphology is only 7% (Kruger score). This means that while he has tons of sperm, most of them aren't perfect. Apparently this is only a problem if he had a low sperm count, or if the percentage was less than 4. So he's a "borderline," but the Dr thinks that's probably not really going to hinder us because his other numbers look so good.

So, we're doing one more natural IUI, then a completely natural cycle due to my ovulation in December probably being smack dab on Xmas day. If neither of those work, we'll move on to Letra.zole in January.

Everything is still about as clear as mud, but I'm glad to have an action plan. At this point, I'd rather be doing and failing than wandering aimlessly like we have been for the past few months.

My first ICLW

2009-11-21T15:25:00.000-08:00

Hi ICLW ers!

Welcome to my blog. I started blogging just a few weeks ago, amid a serious marital crisis brought on by infertility. We are new to the infertility game, and are "only" starting our second IUI this week. Married for 6 years, and I have been pressuring Sweets for kids for about four or those years. I have past medical history of pelvic pain and irregular bleeding which led to an ultrasound "diagnosis" of adenomyosis (I have been told by subsequent OB/GYNs that this is not diagnosable via ultrasound). After that diagnosis, I had a complete breakdown and begged for kids, but Sweets said no.

That was the start of what I would consider the falling apart of our marriage. I was so hurt, and angry that he could be so selfish that I shut down a lot of myself. Now that we've been trying for over a year, and have a failed treatment under our belts, I have become MORE angry. I realize that this doesn't help matters, but I can't help it. He, on the other hand, has started to claim some responsibility, and understand how I've been feeling about all of this.

We started seeing a counselor last week, and things are finally looking up. I feel much better about everything than I did even two months ago. This is our road to recovery, whether it includes our own baby or not.

Silver Lining

2009-11-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I am going to a show. Not a Broadway show, but a small venue rock concert of one of my favorite bands. It's not a mainstream name, but they have been around (at least on my radar) for the last 10 years or so. I won't give their name for fear of being found out.

And tomorrow is New Moon!! (The new Twilight movie for those that don't know...) I'm one of THOSE people. I love the books. I've read them 6 times. I should qualify that I am a Reader. I'd rather read than watch TV, and I have several books that I can read over and over again and they comfort me. The Twilight series are a few of those books. I was embarrassed to admit that I had read them for about a year, but I've gotten over it. :)

I am super excited, and it makes me feel a little better that I wouldn't be doing either of these if I didn't have kids. Ha! One point for the infertile!

First Counseling Session

2009-11-18T12:32:00.001-08:00

Sweets and I had our first counseling session together on Monday night. Things have been swirling through my head a bit, and I'm still thinking about everything, but it was over all a positive experience.

Some things surprised me about the visit in general. Mainly about how Sweets acted, and then about how I felt/interpreted them.

I feel like I create too many lists on this blog, and will work to fix that (aka become more creative), but for now it's just the easiest and quickest way for me to get everything.

1. Sweets talked a lot. Generally he is very shy unless he's extremely comfortable in a situation or with the people he's around. I am usually the much more talkative one, and he probably talked 70% of the time.

2. He acknowledged that both he and his job have a lot to do with the problems that we are having in our marriage.

3. He told the counselor that his reasons for going to counseling were exactly the reasons I HAVE been using to try to get him to go to counseling for the past couple of years.

4. He spoke repeatedly about how perceptive I am, and how perceptive he is NOT. And sort of about my strengths in general. (This is just not something that we had really talked about before, and not something I thought he would have registered).

Now, even though this sounds all very positive, I feel sort of pessimistic about it. Things seemed to me to come out in a way that I felt as though he was trying to make his case about everything, and preemptively "score points." This is not a side I have seen of Sweets, though we've never actually been in this sort of situation before so I'm not sure why I would have seen it. Normally I would put this off on myself, and I would think that I was being paranoid. But something my Mom told me long ago has been playing over and over in my head.

At some point several years ago we were talking about Sweets and my mother commented that "He's just SO COMPETITIVE with you." Now, she normally would never say something like that to me. She's a gossip, but she very much believes in the sanctity of a marriage and a marital relationship.

So what's that mean? I don't know. Maybe it's just his reaction to being in a stressful situation?? It's pretty uncomfortable to be sitting in front of someone who's entire purpose is to JUDGE YOU. (hee hee, ok, so I know not really judge, but you know what I mean...) I guess we'll see if counseling can help us through all the problems, and maybe once we get more comfortable in our sessions, things won't be so tense. I think maybe I should cut him some slack for at least a few more sessions.

Erg!

2009-11-15T15:25:00.001-08:00

I just realized that I didn't enable comments on my blog! (Really, I'm usually not so ditzy.) My apologies to anyone who was frustrated by the inability to leave a comment.

Update: I just realized that I had to turn on comment moderation in order to get everyone else's comments to show up from the last two weeks. I think I finally have it sorted from here on out. Again, apologies from the newbie-blogger.

Nope, not pregnant

2009-11-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

AF showed up on Friday evening (as I was expecting). Sweets and I went out for an expensive dinner and split a bottle of wine. We then had several good, and several bad conversations in our inebriated state.

1. (Good) We talked about foster parent orientation. I have wanted to be a foster parent since high school, and it is something that we've talked about off and on for a few years. Sweets wasn't too keen on the idea, assuming that we would have our own kids "soon" and didn't want to complicate things. Now that our own kids might not factor in, we've decided to at least go to the orientation to see what it's all about. Sweets is still hesitant (rightly so) because things are so up in the air with us, but we'll at least have our bases covered when/if we want to pursue it.

2. (Good) Medicated cycle? I got an appointment with the RE for the 23rd. We will develop a game plan and see if we want to pursue a medicated cycle (we are leaning towards no here, but it's still TBD).

3. (Good) We decided our plan for the holidays. Our next IUIs will probably be the day after Thanksgiving, and Xmas day. So, we are going to sit out Xmas, because we will be traveling to my in laws, who do not know.

4. (Bad) I have mentioned to Sweets previously that Xmas will be hard for me this year and we revisited this conversation at dinner. Not only are we traveling away from my family, but we will be sitting out a cycle AND his sister is pregnant with her FOURTH child. She has had two pregnancies since we have been trying. She's also one of those people who I KNOW will pressure us ("when are you going to have kids???? you've been married FOREVER! don't you want them???" etc, etc)

This opened up "can of worms" conversation number 5, and I was "that" crazy woman at dinner, arguing with her husband and certainly ruining the dinners of the people sitting next to me.

5. (Bad, very EXTREMELY bad) I cannot stand my sister in law, and Sweets is very close with her. I, for the most part, keep my mouth shut about it, and put on the nice face and she "thinks I'm great," according to Sweets. I do NOT WANT HER KNOWING about our IF, and Sweets wants to tell her, because they are close. We'll call her Sasha.

There are several reasons why I don't want Sasha knowing, and why I don't like her (and this post would be extremely long if I decided to go into them all, but I'll try to just gloss over a few).

I don't like her for one main reason: she is extremely selfish. She did not attend our wedding, or my bridal shower because it was not convenient for her to be there. When we travel across the country to see Sweets' family, she can't be bothered to make the trip down to his mom's house to see us, and we then have to make the 3 hour drive (in addition to the 6 hour flight) to see her. There is much more to this story but it's whole-other-post-worthy. This is strike number one.

I don't want her to know about her IF for the same reason I don't want to tell my own mother: I don't trust her to keep her mouth shut. There is good reason for my trepidation. A cousin of theirs recently had to terminate a pregnancy (a very wanted pregnancy) for medical reasons. While they are telling everyone else that she miscarried, Sasha knows the real reason and talked to Sweets about it. This is strike number two.

Sasha is also close with their other sister (Fiona) who has a terrible gossiping problem. So, a common scene of drama in the in laws house is that Fiona spreads everyone else's gossip around (including Sasha's). Strike number three.

My worry is that even if she didn't spread it herself, that Sasha would tell Fiona, and it would get around to everyone in the family. And, while we may end up telling everyone some day, I do not want to feel pressured to tell everyone because people are suddenly finding out from the gossip mill.

Does anyone else have any problems with gossips in their family? It seems like I'm getting it from both sides and now I'm wondering if I'm just being overly sensitive about the whole thing. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing, and we should just tell people. Sigh, I don't know.

d10pIUI#1

2009-11-11T15:18:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling decidedly normal since the IUI 10 days ago, despite my mind's best efforts. It nags: Aren't you more tired? Aren't you a little more sore than usual? Was that cramp out of the ordinary???

Today I made the mistake of POAS because I'm meeting a friend for coffee tonight after work, and I kinda wanted to go full caffeinated... BFN, but of course I won't believe it until this weekend, when AF is actually due. Decaf it is. Now I just ask myself why did I waste the test? Apparently, I'm just maso.chistic.

About life in general: I'm feeling much better today. Sweets booked an appointment with a counselor for the both of us next Monday. I wanted him to do it, to feel like he was part of the solution to all of this, and I think it's working. [Also, because nothing I ever do is good enough, so this way he can't bitch at me about how I've picked the wrong counselor.]

Apparently

2009-11-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

Apparently I have not been as good at covering my feelings as I thought. Today my sister told me that I have been acting very crabby lately and asked what's wrong. (not in a way that she really wanted to know, but more in the "knock it off" sort of way.)

I suppose I should re-visit the whole arena of why we aren't telling people about what is going on in our lives. Or why _I_ don't want to tell people about our IF status, because I think that Sweets would be completely willing to do that (he thinks that it would shut people up, and I don't agree). The main reason is my mother. She is a Gossip. The kind of busybody that doesn't have much to do but talk about everyone else, TO everyone else. My family is actually pretty close, and for the most part we simply don't tell her things that we don't want everyone else to know. I should note that she does great with short-termed news, like first trimester pregnancy announcements. But anything longer than that and the "If I tell you something, will you promise not to repeat it?.... " starts to creep out of her.

Our relationship has been disintegrating over the past few months, and I know that she is dumbfounded as to why it's happening. Part of me is VERY angry at her for her personality and this makes me angry at myself for feeling this way.

She can't help it! She can't! It's just in her DNA! My rational self screams at me.

I don't care! I need my mother and I can't tell her any of this! Screams back the Crazy IFer.

And so I have chosen to keep her at arms length. indefinitely. I feel like eventually we will get pregnant and it will be come a non-issue, but as the months wear on and on it's just becoming harder and harder.

And part of me realizes that she's probably just gossiping about me ANYWAY, and making up her own ideas about what is really wrong. Maybe I should just tell her and get everything out in the open.

MMI (More Marital Issues)

2009-11-05T17:29:00.001-08:00

A lot has happened in the past two weeks. I have been digesting everything and trying to figure out how to put it into a cohesive blog-posting. I'm also worried that he could find this blog and get very angry with me for posting about all of this, and considered not posting about it at all. But I think that the therapeutic value of doing this will be worth it. (I'm also thinking about participating in IComLeaveWe this month).

A week ago (Thursday) I had an all-out panic attack. I was VERY thankful that no one was around me when it happened. Preceding this attack was the realization that my husband is an emotional abuser. I came to this realization after reading two blogs about marriage and IF (whichbox.blogspot.com and jo-mojoworking.blogspot.com).

I should state here that I am a VERY independent person, and rarely let him get away with the behaviors that are abusive. But it does wear on a person, regardless of how strong.

I had never put it together quite like this before. I was a bit shell shocked, and went to girls weekend anyway, and got a chance to talk about it very briefly with my best friend (who is very grounded and gives great advice). She wisely asked me if I was overreacting because of everything going on in my life right now. I said I could be, and decided to think about it some more.

Then on Sunday, we went in for our first round of IUI. On the way there, we got into a ridiculous fight about something trivial. He belittled my ability to park, and then told me that he wasn't going to go through with the IUI while we were in the elevator going up to the office. We argued with the door of the elevator open for a bit, and were interrupted by the security guard, at which point, Sweets snapped back into the real world, and everything was suddenly fine.

I should also give you a little back story on Sweets' family. He was raised primarily by his wonderful mother, as his parents divorced when he was quite young. His father is/was a CLASSIC emotional abuser. His mom says "He was only ever happy when I was crying." He continues to be that way with his new wife, and he chooses uneducated and dependent women to marry so that they can never leave him.

Last night, Sweets and I had a very frank conversation (no yelling, yea!) about all of this, and I told him I thought he was being emotionally abusive to me. And he actually HEARD ME. REALLY heard me. We chewed on lots of issues, and at one point I asked him,

"If everything is so terrible and bad, why are you still here, and why are we still trying to have a baby?"

His response was, "Because this is my fault, and I want to fix it." And apparently he's considering quitting his all-consuming, crazy crazy job to do it.

I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time. We are going to find a counselor (something he has previously refused to do) and see if we can get everything worked out.

I did not cry today....

2009-10-31T20:45:00.000-07:00

... in front of anyone.

This was a monumental achievement given the circumstances.

I have a group of close friends that I have known since 5th grade and became close with during high school. We see each other about once a year if we can swing it. This weekend was that weekend this year, and we all got together to hang out.

One of these girls is 4 months pregnant, though they started trying 5 or 6 months after us. I was devastated when I found out, but able to both be and act happy for her. This weekend was going to be hard, because I know that she's showing with a cute little belly, and that the vast majority of what would be talked about would be babies and pregnancy. I was more than slightly dreading it, and seriously considered canceling.

Last night, we caught a movie, grabbed some dinner, talked about babies and babies and more babies, and I managed to get through it with a glass of wine or two. Then, shortly after waking up this morning, another one of the girls told us that she is also pregnant (she already has twins). I am so very happy for both of them. and I am so very sorry for myself.

To add insult to injury, I LH surged this morning, forcing me to leave the festivities early and also explain to them why I was doing this. Sweets and I have really wanted to keep this as a "need to know" situation.

Anyhoo, in response to my news, pregnant friend number one says, "Yeah, I never even got my period for 4 months after stopping the pill and then got pregnant. The doctor was thinking of putting me on met.formin."

Now, my rational self realizes that she was trying to be understanding, and connect with me because she may have thought she was having problems... But what I hear is this: "I got pregnant the first time I ovulated."

I want to be a better friend than this! It's so frustrating!

At least I feel like I'm presenting myself well outwardly.

___________

IUI tomorrow morning. crossing our fingers

____________

As a side note, I had my first full-blown panic attack on Thursday. I nearly lost it completely, and was only glad that none of my coworkers were around to witness it. Finding a therapist is now number one on my to do list for next week.

___________

Feeling a little more upbeat, actually got some good news.

2009-10-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my husband called me at work (this is a rarity). I could tell from the way his voice sounds that he had on a large, cheshire cat sized grin. He had just gotten off the phone with his doctor, with great news: His sperm count was 167 million/ml with a total of 5 mls. Motility is 65%, straight swimmers. There was a 3% peroxidase reaction, but I'm not sure what this means, something about white cells, and they are doing more tests?

Basically he is a sperm producing rock star. I got to listen to it all night, and it was very cute. It also made me feel really bad about myself. Does this mean that I'm the soul reason we can't get pregnant? It probably does. bummer.

I talked to my doctor yesterday afternoon and it looks like the HSG show clear tubes. I also continued to bleed until this morning (2 full days), have cramps and the pinching, stabbing pain I usually get the last week of my cycle. Hopefully that doesn't mean that something is going to be screwed up for this cycle, because we are on for IUI this weekend.

We talked a lot less night about what the plan is going to be from here on out. We actually went through the entire conversation with no raised voices, which is rare and very, very good. He is hesitant to do IUI mainly because he doesn't like the fact that it's "artificial." It make me wonder if this is why he's been picking fights with me about all of this. I can totally see where he's coming from, and my counter point to this is: If you're so great at making sperm, and my tubes are clear, and I'm ovulating, why aren't we pregnant? We obviously need help. Maybe there is a mucous or cervical problem?

I hate the fact that none of this is covered by insurance so we're left with forging ahead without a full workup.

We also talked about how we have no confidence in our doctor after the HSG debacle. She isn't on call this weekend, so we'll have the IUI from whoever is on call, and then jump ship to a very nice RE that I spoke with on the phone last week. (I found a great clinic that offers free first consultations via phone.)

Ouch

2009-10-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

Went in for the HSG today. The time line of the morning looks like this:

Took 400 mg Advil before leaving the house at 7:20 am. Appointment was at 8 am which was the first appointment from the day.

7:25 get in a fight with Sweets on the way to the hospital about the fact that he still hasn't scheduled a SA with his urologist (he went in last week for a look at a varicocele). If we do IUI this weekend, we need to know if he's producing sperm. He yells out that he has a testicular lump that he thinks might be cancer. He does this to "win" the argument. I should add that this is pretty common for him. He with holds something, acts weird, and when I press him on it, the real true comes out in some terrible, horrible way.

7:45 Get to the hospital, Sweets parks and I check in like I have been instructed.

7:50 Change into flimsy hospital gown, go over the procedure with the technician and then wait. and wait.

8:20 The technician calls the doctor's office and and page the doctor. I finally call my doctor's nursing desk and leave a message around 8:30.

8:45 Sweets and I are deciding whether or not to leave (we kind of just want to wait it out because we don't want to have to go through this again, and we'd have to wait until next month because it's cycle day 9 today)

8:50 Doctor rushes in, saying she just got paged by the nurse (didn't get our pages because technician had the wrong number). But get this: SHE WALKS IN WITH COFFEE. Rule number one in my book of etiquette is this if you are running late, you'd better not show up with coffee, thus implying that your coffee was more important than my time.

Doctor apologizes "i'm sorry, sorry sorry...." And while she doesn't say it, it's apparent that she simply forgot she had an early patient this morning.

9 am we start the procedure. And she botches it. Not once, but TWICE the clamps come off of my cervix when she is removing the speculum. I think that if the catheter had just stayed in, the procedure wouldn't have been that painful. But each time that she had to re-insert it, the pain increased. It brought tears to my eyes, and something has to be pretty painful to get that reaction.

The second time she had to insert it, Sweets jumped forward and grabbed my hand. After it was all done, I finally turned to look at him (he was slightly behind me so I couldn't see him during everything) and he looked panicked and livid at the same time. He said later that he was so angry at her for causing me unnecessary pain that he couldn't talk to her, even though he had questions to ask. He was uncharacteristically protective of me, which I found surprising and comforting.

Good news is that the doctor said from first look that tubes are clear. I've had bad cramps all day, and have been bleeding, but it's fading as the day goes on.

It's been a bad day

HSG tomorrow

2009-10-25T11:40:00.001-07:00

So, tomorrow is a big day. I go in for an HSG to see if my tubes are blocked. This will be a pivotal bit of information for us (But really, what tests aren't when you are going through infertility).

For a lot of infertility patients, an HSG is the beginning of diagnostic testing. For us, it very may will be the end of our fertility treatments, because blocked tubes would mean moving on to IVF. As unpopular as this may seem for the infertile world: I do not believe in IVF. (insert gasp here). I mean, I can completely understand why so many people do it, but I just can't take the responsibility on myself with the "picking the appropriate blasts/embryos and choosing-not-to-use-others" aspect of the procedure. Maybe I will change my mind somewhere in this journey, but I guess I just don't know.

I realize that we could chose to only fertilize a limited number of eggs, and have all of them implanted. However, I also realize how much that would decrease our chances of getting pregnant, and INCREASE our chances of birth defects and multiples. I definitely think that infertility patients are not getting the whole story when it comes to the birth defects, increased rates of laryngeal hemangiomas, complications of twinnings, etc that exist for babies born from IVF itself. In actuality, there haven't been a whole lot of long term studies on kids born from IVF because it is a relatively new field (medically speaking). UCSF is currently doing one of the more comprehensive studies on it, but the data is not yet available.

So, tomorrow is a big day. I could be the end of our dreams of having biological children. For some reason, I feel somewhat at peace with this today, and have only cried once since waking up. It may be better for my planning-oriented mind to just have a solid answer. Does anyone else feel like this? Sometimes it's the waiting and not knowing itself that is the worst part to me.

Disappointment (on so many levels)

2009-10-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

The background

My parents have recently told me that they will help me to go back to school, should I choose to apply. I have tossed around going back to graduate or professional school for quite some time. The list of reasons for NOT applying to school has sort of looked like this:

1. We owe tons of money toward Sweets' schooling, and therefore could not afford to take on more debt.

2. We did not live near my family (until recently).

3. Sweets' chosen profession requires a quite large city to live in, and most of the grad programs I would be interested in are in small towns.

4. Having a family is number one priority, and I haven't wanted to work once I had children. Because we foolishly thought that this would be now, there seemed like there was no reason at all for me to go back to school, because I wouldn't be working.

disappointment number 1

Obviously, possibly not having children has put the wrench into the gears. I've pretty much banked all of my life decisions on the family card, and now that may be taken out of the deck, I have been forced to rethink the decisions I have made.

It now seems like the only problem we could have to hurdle is number 3. We could move to an area (in our same state) that would be 45 minute drive from a place that he could work, and I could go to school. It will take me at least 2 years to get my act together (take tests required, a few foundation classes, etc) before any sort of plan would be put into action. However, this would mean that Sweets compromises on his profession, and takes a job that a little less than perfect. Conversations on this topic have been less like conversations more like arguments.

disapointment number 2

Sweets has always said that I have been and EXTREMELY supportive spouse (especially of his professional choices). I suppose I thought that would be reciprocated, but isn't looking like it is. It is disappointing to me that he can't be what I need.

the worst disappointment?

I told him today that I think my mother is disappointed in him. (While she did not come out and say it, I felt that's how she was feeling during my discussion about them paying for school.) I get the feeling that she's upset that he's not making enough money to support me and a family while paying of his loans. She is incredibly proud of all that he has done, but probably thinks that by now he should have all of his stuff figured out. My parents see that I did not return to school for financial reasons, and want that to not be a worry for me.

I foolishly did not expect him to take it as hard as he thought. He took it much worse than any of the conversations I've had with him about how I'M stressed/upset about fertility, finances and savings, etc. I'm left to contemplate why this has hit him so hard? With all of the failures that we've been facing recently why is it MY mother of all things that finally got a reaction? Is it because it hits him in his professional life and his decisions there? Is that worth so much more than our FAMILY?

Sigh. I feel like I don't know how to be a good wife right now. I need a break.

His Dysfunction

2009-10-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

HIM

To me, Sweetie's biggest problem is his complete inability to apologize, admit he was wrong or communicate in any way. He is NOT the typical jock I-don't-share-my-emotions type of person, he just cannot admit fault.

For instance, if he knocks a glass full of wine over (which he did at my sister's house, onto a white suede chair) he will simply say "oh, I was reaching for the soup" as if explaining why it happened is some sort of apology.

This is amplified by one of my personal faults: It is incredibly difficult for me to forgive someone unless I am apologized to. As a Christian, this is probably the number one thing that I struggle to right about myself.

BLAME

I don't think that anyone reading this can't see where it's heading. I blame my husband for the problems that we are having. I am ANGRY at him. VERY VERY angry at him for making me wait. Even in the face of medical problems known to give problems conceiving. I am angry at him for belittling my pain. I am angry at him for not being supportive even now that we are having real problems conceiving and I am being drawn into a deep pit of despair. I am angry that I will probably be at least 31 by the time we have children (adopted, fostered or otherwise) I am MOST ANGRY at him for not apologizing for his role in all of this. If he would man up and act a little guilty or upset about doing this, I think I could move past it.

AS IT IS

But all I do is cry, and he tells me that I'm being silly,

that we don't even know what is wrong,

that technically we've only been trying for 11 months so we aren't actually infertile yet,

that I've always wanted to be a foster parent so we'll just do that... (which doesn't really sound like he believes the first things he said, does it?)

And it just makes me feel alone, and awful, and even more sad then I already am.

My Dysfunction

2009-10-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

Where to start... I suppose I have many dysfunctional personality traits that have contributed to the problems in my marriage.

First, I am a complete Type A personality. When a problem is laid in front of me, I can typically see all possible outcomes, and can quickly decide the easiest way to proceed. This suits me perfectly for my job, but causes me to be radically impatient and to worry incessantly about the things that I cannot fix/control. This drives my slow moving, plodding Sweets absolutely crazy (and the reverse).

I am a VERY high strung. This allows me to get things done efficiently and quickly, and I have a hard time resting if I have anything on my "To Do" list. It creates an edge around me when I'm busy and makes me sharp and prickly. This is particularly in respect to time. I am early to everything, and incredibly reliable. On the flip side, when I have nothing to do, I have a very easy time relaxing, but I need to have everything done and taken care of. (Note that this is one of the reasons that infertility is extremely hard for me.)

Sweets on the other hand, has no concept of time, and is incredibly laid back. He will sleep until noon, fix food and eat until 1, go to the gym, and then be surprised that all of the stores are closed on a Sunday. (And then exclaim, "well, I guess I have to wait until next weekend!") When we first started living together, the compromise was that he would be up, and ready to go by noon, and would find me out and about wherever I happened to be (with no nagging).

Other than this particular frustration, the only thing that we ever really argued about prior to the issues of infertility was money. (I am cheap, and he is not). I come from a family of savers; from a family that put all four of their kids through college and paid for three weddings outright and did it all on a modest income. He comes from a family that constantly spends more than they make, and is always balancing on the edge of financial ruin. He tells me that I need to lighten up (and I do), but he also needs to be a little bit better in the other direction.

I should say in the midst of all of this complaining, that I want my marriage to work, and I think that it will. I find the process of writing about it to be cathartic and I am hoping that it moves me towards resolving some of my own issues.

The Sordid Details

2009-10-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

How the cracks formed:

We married in 2003 at the age of 24 and after 2 years of dating and an additional year of living together. My husband and I put off a family "for a couple of years" because of his schooling and very long, intense training (and we were just plain young). But, I had always told him that I wanted to be a mom before the age of 28, and preferably sooner. To this end, I worked to put him through school, and did not pursue a career that I would have loved because I have always known that I wanted to stay at home while my children were small.

The pressure started in around 2005, when I was seriously getting the "itch." My husband (I'll call him Sweets) would doggedly tell me "two more years." But was still never ready. Not even in 2007 after I started having bleeding and pain, leading to an ultrasound and finally diagnosis of adenomyosis. The diagnosis crushed me because of the implications. Highly associated with endometriosis, there was a good chance that this would affect my fertility. I beg him to start trying, and he refuses. This is a dark time in our marriage filled with much crying and fighting. I seriously consider leaving him, but don't for a multitude of reasons (which I'm sure I will get into).

In 2008, we decide to move closer to my family (for which I am SO grateful). I get a new doctor, who does not believe the diagnosis because adenomyosis is difficult to diagnose via ultrasound. She refuses my request to have the ultrasound results sent to her from previous doctor, and repeats her own ultrasound, which is clear. She is condescending and tells me to take Advil for my cramps and deal with it. Sweets decides that everything is in my head, and that there is/was nothing wrong with me.

6 months later, he's ready to start trying, and we do. As the months wear on, it becomes more and more apparent that whatever is wrong with me is probably more serious than "second doctor" has said.

I followed the typical pattern. For the first few months, I would giggle as I hit the store to buy pregnancy tests each month, and act a little dismayed when they kept turning up negative. Then, I moved on to the OPKs, found out I was ovulating different days each month (though always 12-14 days) and figured AHA! That's the problem! So we started trying a little harder, and then a little harder. Somewhere around month 7, I started to loose it, and have been crumbling away a little bit more each month.

Reasons

2009-10-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

I am new to the infertility world, and I am SHOCKED at how few blogs focus on the relationship draining aspect of the process. So, I have decided to blog about the problems that my husband and I are having. Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, I will keep myself anonymous, and change any details that might point to my true identity.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a writer of any kind, and have not blogged before. This will certainly be a learning endeavor... I apologize in advance for improper grammer, and less than witty posts. But I'll try my hardest.