Can’t sleep

It’s really late and I have to get up really early, but I can’t sleep.  Someone broke into my car today at work and I’m still a little freaked out about it.  The neighborhood I work in isn’t that great, but overall I’ve felt safe there.  If I’m the last one leaving and it’s dark I usually call my husband and talk to him while I walk out to my car, but I go in by myself on the weekends and a lot of the time I’m the first one there in the morning (yes, I work way too many hours).  And now I’m not so sure . . .

Whoever did it pulled out the handle on the passenger side door and was apparently going for the stereo but they couldn’t get it out (they did a good job messing up the whole panel though).  They ended up taking some random things (calcium chews and a couple of burned cds???) as well as my registration and insurance cards.  So, as my mom so nicely pointed out, this person has my address.  Which is making me even more freaked out.

Over the last few months I’ve been discovering that the more stressed I am the more paranoid I become.  Seriously, some of the things I worry about are a little ridiculous.  Like thinking that an overpass might fall on my car when I drive under it (it could happen).  Or that someone is going to break into our house.  Or that when someone gets raw meat juice on the counter and doesn’t clean it up right away that we’re all going to get food poisoning and die.  Terrible, isn’t it?  At least I’m aware that they’re not really worth stressing about (even though I stress anyway).  And none of them have actually affected the way I do things.  So I’m not totally insane.  But it has been interesting to watch.  I think half of the time the rational part of me just sits back and watches the irrational part of me totally overreact to things.  I’m not so sure the rational part always has the power to intervene though.  But being aware of my “issues” is a good first step, right?

It doesn’t help that I’ve been pretty depressed the last few days.  I swear, one of the meds I’m taking totally switched around my moods during my cycle.  I used to be exhausted and more depressed before my period, now I’m fine during that week but I totally crash the week before I ovulate.  This change started right after I started a new medication last November.  Being the good internet junkie that I am I did some research.  It turns out that the estrogen in birth control pills makes this medication less effective.  So my hypothesis is that when I have more estrogen in my system (before I ovulate) the medication doesn’t work as well.  And I tend to crash.  Hard.  So I get to increase one of the other meds in my drug cocktail to see if that helps.  Treatment resistant depression is great fun!

I know I’m totally rambling, I have that ability late at night, but I suppose I should *try* to get some sleep.  Since I have to wake up in four hours.  Yuck.  I’m making my husband drive my car tomorrow (and make all the phone calls- police report, insurance company, etc.) because I don’t think I can deal with the reminder all day.  Plus I don’t want someone else to try to break into it, now that it would be so easy to do (with the already broken door handle).  Hopefully we’ll be able to get it put back together and all fixed up quickly and then I can move on.

Unexpected side effects

Well, maybe not so unexpected, but still a little strange.  I grew up in one of those families that just didn’t talk about sex, how babies are made, and certain body parts.  Anyone who has gone through infertility can tell you that, even if you were embarrassed about that sort of thing to begin with, you quickly lose the discomfort.  It just comes with the territory.  Today I realized just how true that has become for me.

First, I was shopping at Macy’s with a friend.  I was telling her about my high FSH, my husband’s low sperm count, and needing to do IVF.  Hormones, sperm, and fertility treatments.  In the middle of Macy’s.  On my way home I stopped at Safeway to grab some beer for my husband.  I’m trying to figure out what kind to buy when my phone rings.  It turns out to be my RE.  So I have a 10 minute conversation with him while I wander through the alcohol aisle.  In the middle of Safeway.  Talking about my cycles, spotting, having DH do another semen analysis, and about where we go from here. 

When I hung up the phone I couldn’t help smiling at myself because of the huge change.  I seriously tried to avoid looking at the “reproductive anatomy” pictures in my physiology textbook when I took the class in college because I was too embarrassed.  And I couldn’t have said the word “sperm” without blushing.  And here I am now, having conversations about all these things in public places.  Kind of funny.  Definitely strange.  The things infertility can do to a person . . .

In shock

It’s amazing what a difference *one* little number can make.  One little stupid number that is the result of one little stupid blood test that I had to ask the RE to do in the first place.  For my “peace of mind”.  I guess saying that plan back-fired would be an understatement.

My CD3 FSH came back at 14.4 (and my E2 was 29).  So what does that mean?  That for the first time in all of this the odds are against us.  Up until getting that one little number there was really a good chance that I would someday be pregnant.  Not without it costing an arm and a leg and involving at least one invasive medical procedure, but it probably would have happened.  And I can’t say that anymore.  With the high FSH and the dismally low sperm count my chance of getting pregnant is pretty low.  There is a much better chance that it won’t happen for me than that it will.

How on earth do you process something like that?  Something I have been dreaming of forever, that most people don’t even have to think twice about, and I have to process that there’s a good chance I will never be pregnant with my own biological child?  I know there are so many women out there who have to cope with the same thing, or worse, how do they do it?

For now I’m alternating between crying and being numb.  I’m pretty much non-functional.  I didn’t get much done at work today and I’m supposed to be on vacation next week so I have to figure out a way to function enough to get lots of paperwork done this weekend.

Why?

Getting things

So a couple of months ago I asked work if I could go to a job-related training.  They said “sure”, as long as I was willing to come back and give a mini-training on what I learned.  I absolutely HATE talking in front of people, but I really wanted to go to the training so I just figured I’d deal.  Yeah, nice thought.

As long as I’m “baring all” in this blog I guess I might as well go here too- the training was about suicidality and self-harm.  Been there, done that.  For both.  Not part of my life now, but they definitely left their mark.  So now I’m trying to work with someone to put together a fairly objective training about a topic that is anything but objective for me.  And it’s harder than I thought it would be.  It’s really making me go back and revisit that time in my life.  One of the things the trainer said (specifically about self-harm) is that it’s important to communicate to clients that you “get it.”  Not condone, but at least understand.  And it got me thinking- how many things do I “get” because of my experiences?

I get the intense and overwhelming pain that would lead someone to hurt themselves.  I get feeling worthless and invisible.  I get feeling unloved.  I get feeling betrayed.  I get how much strength it can sometimes take just to make it through another day.  I get not wanting to deal with things.  I get that life isn’t fair . . . in the least bit.

Dealing with infertility has only added to my list.  I get loss.  I get extreme sadness and grief.  I get anger.  I get bitterness.  I get wondering if dreams will come true.  I get wondering what will happen if they don’t.

In my journey through depression I learned how to feel.  Infertility is teaching me how to have all of the intense and painful feelings and not fight them.  To actually feel the sadness and let myself cry and be okay with that. 

I would never even begin to think that I understand everything my clients go through, or that their experiences will exactly match mine, or even that I’ve been through as much trauma as many of them.  But thanks to depression I understand being in pain.  And thanks to infertility I’ve learned to be much better at holding other people’s pain.  And I guess all I can do is hope that makes some difference.