Laptop woes

My laptop is just over 4 1/2 years old, and it is on its last leg.  The connection to the screen is getting finicky and so half of the time when I open it up and turn it on the backlight for the screen doesn’t come on.  Which means a very dark screen.  So I have to close the lid, push it down in a couple places, and hope that the screen lights up when I open it again.  Sometimes it does, sometimes I have to do that three or four times before I get light.  Very annoying.  And I have no idea how long it will be before it completely dies.  So I need a new laptop.

There is a laptop that I have been wanting for over a year now.  It’s a tablet and I think it would help make getting paperwork done at least a little easier.  Plus it’s fairly small and would be much easier to carry around- a nice benefit, since I take my laptop with me almost everywhere.  My husband is supposed to get his last financial aid check in the next month or so.  And we were planning to use some of that money to buy me a new laptop.  The one that I’ve been wanting forever.

Except now I feel like I can’t buy it.  Because we’re going to need that money for a shot at getting pregnant, for a chance at having a baby.  $1400.  Probably a little less than 10% of what we will need for one IVF/ICSI cycle.  How can I put a new computer over a baby?  But it’s not fair.  I want my new computer.  And I’m mad, darn it!  On top of mourning the potential loss of my ability to even get pregnant, I’m mourning the loss of a stupid computer.  I know it sounds ridiculous, and probably very selfish.  And I know that a big part of being a parent is having to make sacrifices for your kids.  But I almost never spend money on myself.  And I’ve really been looking forward to that laptop.  And it shouldn’t cost anyone $15000+ to even have a chance at getting pregnant.

So I’m having a major pity party for myself.  It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s NOT FAIR!  And I’m feeling very bitter about the whole situation.  And I know I probably need to just get over it.  But underneath all that, I’m TERRIFIED that I’m never going to be pregnant.  Completely and absolutely terrified.  And I think the bitterness and anger are easier to cope with than the terror.

I want my computer.

A whole day

I can’t believe it.  I made it through a whole day without crying more than a few tears.  Hallelujah!  

I didn’t, however, make it through the day without yelling at my husband.  My poor, poor husband.  Anyone who knows me in real life would never believe me if I told them about my fairly frequent “temper tantrums”.  You know, yelling, slamming doors, banging things around, the works.  I’m horrible sometimes.  And my husband is pretty much the only person who gets to witness all that.  Isn’t he lucky?

I’m singing in church tomorrow, so I’m sure there will be plenty of tears then.  I don’t go to church all that often these days, but I cry pretty much every time I do go.  That reminds me, I need to put more kleenex in my purse!

Can I blame this on clomid too?

This week I think I’m averaging about an hour of crying per day.  Between depression and infertility it’s not completely unusual for me to have periods of time when I’m doing a lot of crying.  But an hour a day? For five days straight?  That’s way more than I’ve cried before.  So I’m blaming it on the clomid.  And telling myself next cycle will be better.  It will be better, right?

I have way too many stressors (sorry, therapist talk) in my life right now.  WAY too many.  I’m sooooo behind on paperwork for my job.  We have no money and things keep coming up to eat away at the little we do have (like needing a new alternator for one of our cars last week).  My husband is so stressed about trying to get things finished for school that I feel like I need to take care of everything else by myself.  Oh yeah, and we had another fantastic appointment with the RE this morning.

The first time I had my FSH checked it came back at 14.  Scary.  We met with the RE and my attitude was basically “we’re screwed, right?”  The RE wasn’t convinced (hence the clomid challenge test) and seemed to have more of a “let’s not panic yet” attitude.  So we went back today, to review the results from the clomid challenge test.  And the RE’s attitude was “there’s a good chance you’re screwed.”  He didn’t say that, of course.  And he’s more than willing to let us try at least one injects/IUI cycle.  And then we’ll have a better idea of how well I respond.  But when he reviewed our options, donor eggs and adoption were both on the list.  Nothing like that to instill hope.  Hearing your RE say you might end up needing to adopt.

I know we can “always” adopt.  And if we did, I know I wouldn’t have any problems loving my kid(s) or thinking of them as truly being mine.  But . . . I want to be pregnant!  I’ve wanted to be pregnant since I was in high school.  And if that isn’t going to happen it’s going to be a huge loss for me.  There’s a very real chance that I will never see a positive pregnancy test (unless it’s right after a trigger shot).  I might never get to know what it feels like to *know* that I’m pregnant.  To be terrified that it won’t stick.  To excitedly wait for an ultrasound appointment and get to take home ”pictures” of my baby.  To have to deal with morning sickness, aches and pains, and clothes that keep getting smaller.  To know that, by some miracle, there is another life growing inside me.  To have that automatic and deep connection with my child.

Our current plan?  Next Friday my husband and I get to take the injections class.  And I call the first day of my next cycle to schedule an ultrasound.  And then I start injects.  And pray that my ovaries respond the way they’re supposed to.  And we at least try IUI.

We have to figure out how to come up with money for IVF too, since the IUIs aren’t likely to work.  I would like to be able to do an IVF cycle by the end of the year, before my ovaries completely fail me, but we’re barely getting by right now so it’s going to take some creativity and lots of discipline (something neither I nor my husband have very much of).

I know life isn’t fair, can I maybe get a break from the reminders?

Responsibility

Sometimes having to be responsible really sucks.  I got a positive OPK this morning.  Of course.  It actually made me laugh- it just fits so well with everything else going on in my life right now.  And I just don’t feel like I can miss work at all tomorrow for an IUI.  So we’re waiting until next month I guess.  I know that was the right decision to make, but I’ve still been feeling sad and disappointed all day. 

I had an all day training for work today.  A lot of it was about what it really means to empathize with someone and how important that is when working with clients.  Feeling their pain, taking time to understand and to let them know you understand.  One of the good things about all the crap I’ve gone through is that I really like being able to do that with my clients.  It doesn’t scare me like it might.  I know I made it through my own intense pain; I have no doubt that I can hold my clients’ pain and help them get through it.  That’s one of the things I love about being a therapist.

The bad part about the day?  They showed this music video:  The Eleventh Commandment.  I work with kids who have been abused everyday.  Sometimes I work with parents who have a history of abusing their kids.  I can do the empathy thing when it’s on an individual basis.  Taking each client as they are and accepting that.  But this video is a much broader view of child abuse.  And that, combined with my disappointment about not doing IUI this month, started the tears and the “Why God?”  Why is it so easy for people who are going to abuse their kids to have them?  It’s so not fair to those kids.  And why are there so many people who desperately want kids and would be good parents that can’t have them?  It’s not fair for us either. 

Holding my breath

I don’t think I have ever been so anxious about when I’m going to ovulate.  I’m really worried that I’m somehow going to miss that surge of LH and have no clue.  I’m worried enough that the last couple days I’ve woken up at 5:30am to take my temperature.  I haven’t temped in forever.  And this morning I actually dragged my butt out of bed after taking my temperature so I could pee.  Because I’m supposed to do these stupid OKPs using smu (second morning urine) and I’m supposed to call the RE before 8am if it’s positive.  I’ve been using fmu, but apparently the increase in anxiety while I wait this out has made it easier to wake up and harder to fall back asleep.  Hence the blog at 6am.

Confession: I’m a bit of a math geek.  I am forever adding things up, figuring out percentages, figuring out averages, highs, lows, etc.  Maybe I’m a little OCD too.   But, according to the 24 cycles I have charted on good ol’ FF (wow! has it really been that long?), my longest cycle to date has been 27 days.  Out of those 24 cycles (not including this one), I temped and/or used OPKs to figure out when I ovulated for 19 cycles.  The latest I have ever ovulated is cd (cycle day) 16.  On a side note, the 3 cycles I ovulated on cd 16 my LP (luteal phase) was 9 days long (for 2) and 10 days long (the other one).  Apparently my body has been more concerned with keeping my overall cycle length the same rather than keeping my LP the same.  Today is cd 15.  Not even a slightly darker OPK yet, to tell me I’m at least heading in the right direction.

Of course I’m actually kind of hoping I don’t get a positive OPK today.  My day tomorrow is packed and I don’t want to cancel any clients because I didn’t see any of them last week (thank you clomid).  Plus one of our cars died yesterday.  So getting my husband and I to the RE’s office, from different sides of town and at different times, might prove difficult.  So, no positive today.  Please?  Of course, I wouldn’t really even be surprised if the clomid somehow had the opposite effect on my body and made me NOT ovulate this cycle.  I have very strange reactions to medications sometimes.

Sigh.  I’m off to get another glass of water.  So I can pee again before I have to leave in just over half an hour.

NaComLeavMo

NaComLeavMo: More Conversation Than You Can Shake a Stick at

As I’ve said before, I’m really good at starting things and not so good at sticking with them and/or finishing them.  But I’m going to try this.  It will probably be good for me to get out of myself for a while.

If anyone knows why the image isn’t showing up on my sidebar feel free to tell me how to fix it!  I’m totally new at all of this code stuff. 

 

I am soooo grumpy!

Warning:  This is going to be a total venting post.  Full of b!tching and moaning, whining and complaining, and a whole lot of self-pity.

I am STILL dizzy and nauseous from that stupid clomid!  It’s been getting better, but I am so tired of feeling seasick all the time.  The nausea is pretty constant.  The dizziness just randomly hits me.  Often enough that I’m still feeling like I shouldn’t drive.  So I have been stuck in the house ALL weekend.  By myself, essentially.  My husband works nights on the weekend- so when he’s home, he’s asleep.  And I get to entertain myself.  That in itself is enough to drive me crazy- being by myself with limited human interaction for a whole weekend.  And when I’m not feeling good?  And feeling like I’m stuck in the house?  Not pretty.

I have been overreacting to everything.  Getting irritated and mad at whatever my husband says and does (or doesn’t say and doesn’t do).  And I’m taking everything as a personal attack.  That anything and everything bad is my fault because I’m screwing something up or not doing something well enough.  Do I get to blame all of this on the clomid too?  I would like to, but to be honest, I do this some of the time even without clomid.  Although not this bad, so maybe clomid is playing a role.  Or maybe my irritation is increased because I’m still feeling crappy clomid side effects.

I was talking to a friend yesterday.  She asked me what exactly my dream is, what I’m trying to fulfill by trying to get pregnant, trying to have kids.  My answer?  I want to be a mom.  And part (or a lot) of the reason that is so important to me is because I feel like, in a lot of ways, I didn’t have a mom.  And I’m hoping that by being a mom I can fix some of that.  Not repeat the same mistakes.  Be there for my child, make sure that he or she knows how special he/she is, how loved and cherished he/she is.  If I can give that to someone else, maybe it will help fill some of the holes in my heart in the process.  A good thing for me to think about, but NOT on Mother’s day weekend.  It’s just even more of a reminder that I’m not a mom.

Another thing I’m worried about- I reallywant to be pregnant.  I have seriously wanted to be pregnant and have a baby since I was in high school.  I know we can “always adopt”, but if I miss out on the pregnancy part of it that is going to be a HUGE loss for me.  And with my FSH high, and my husband’s low sperm count, getting me pregnant is most likely going to be a very expensive endeavor.  And we don’t have the money for it.  We won’t for a while.  And by the time we do, it might be too late.

Which leads me to worrying about money.  My husband is such an impulsive spender.  And he gets very irritated if he feels like I’m trying to *deny* him things or control him.  So I always feel like I’m walking a fine line- making sure all of the bills get paid, but trying to give my husband enough freedom so he doesn’t get upset.  I’m partly to blame, I spend impulsively too sometimes, but lately my impulsive spending has been more because I start feeling like it’s not fair that he gets to spend money and I don’t.  At this point, every extra thing we spend money on feels like money that isn’t going to pay for a baby.

Laptops.  My husband and I both have laptops that we use a LOT.  My husband is going to get a big financial aid check sometime in the next month and we’re tentatively planning to use most of it for new laptops.  Both of our current ones are dying.  Mine is almost 4 1/2 years old and the connection to the backlight for the screen isn’t working so well.  So half of the time when I open it up the screen stays black.  So far, if I close it and open it back up again it fixes itself.  But I have a feeling it’s going to get worse.  I use my laptop ALL the time for work, I really do need a new one.  But again, it feels like money that isn’t go toward fertility treatments.  The nagging voice in the back of my head is asking which is more important- a new computer or a baby?

Another thing that has been hard and stressful lately is that my husband has been depressed.  He’s almost done with his Masters degree and part of him is really fighting that.  So he avoids doing things he needs to do, he flakes out on his internship, and he spends most of his time sleeping.  I know he can finish this and get a good job, but he doesn’t believe in himself.  And that’s what is really important.  I need him to finish this degree.  I need him to get a good job.  We’re used to living off a smaller income at this point.  When he gets a good job we should be able to save a significant amount of *baby* money every month.  So at this point, him not finishing his degree feels like me never getting to be pregnant.  I haven’t told him all of this, I don’t think he needs any more pressure, I’m just trying to be supportive and encouraging and to help him with what I can.

So that’s most of what I’m stressed and worried and irritated about right now.  How is your Mother’s day weekend going?

FSH results

Blog post #3 for today.  About 30 seconds after I posted the last one I got an email telling me my lab results were posted.

So, day 3 estradiol was 27, FSH was 11.2.  Day 10 estradiol was 305, FSH was 10.2?  I’m guessing it’s good that day 10 FSH wasn’t through the roof, but not so good that I’m still over 10.  I’ll see what the RE says . . .

Oh yeah . . . I got tagged

Excuse my spaciness, I almost forgot, I got tagged by Lost in Space.  I can use a distraction right now too, so here goes.

4 Things I Did 10 Years Ago (1998 )

1. At the beginning of the year I was living in Istanbul, Turkey.  I lived there for 5 months (9/97-2/98).  I was there as a nanny for a family I babysat for ALL the time in high school.  They moved to Turkey due to a job change and about a year later I went to help out with the kids.  (Actually- the family is one of those “Just adopt and you’ll get pregnant” stories.  The older two kids were adopted and not long after they adopted the second one they were pregnant with #3.)  It was a great experience for me, I had just finished high school and was planning to go to college in the same town I grew up in.  I think the five months in Turkey helped differentiate my high school life and my “adult” college life.  For my last week there, my mom flew over to visit and I got to take her around to see all of the sites and show her everything. 
2. I “officially” started college.  I’m kind of a nerd, so during my senior year of high school I had four classes at the high school and two classes at the university.  But in 1998 I was officially a college freshman.  Of course I was only there for the spring quarter of that year, but with the units I got in high school and a few AP units, I actually finished the school year as a sophomore.
3. I moved out of my parents’ home.  And into an apartment with four friends.  One that I grew up with, two that I knew really well from church, and the last one who had been a previous roommate of one of the other girls.  We had a lot of fun together and got along with each other really well. 
4. The move from my parents’ house (not a very safe place) into a home with friends I knew really well (very safe) had some unexpected emotional consequences though.  All of the feelings that I had been stuffing and avoiding for my whole life decided it would be a good time to come out.  I had almost no ability to deal with all of the overwhelming emotions and by the end of 1998 I was at the beginnings of my severe depression.  Not fun at the time, but something that needed to happen I guess.

4 Things I Did 5 Years Ago (2003)

1. Started dating my husband.  We were both working at a group home, although in different houses.  I worked one night with him when he first started there and was amazed by how easy he was to talk to.  Usually I would hardly talk at all with the people I worked with, and he and I talked ALL night.  After that first night one of the other ladies who worked there kept telling me that my (future) husband told her I was exactly the kind of woman he would want to marry.  One morning he called the house I was working in to ask a quick question and we got to talking.  He accidentally blurted out, “Would you want to go to a movie with me sometime?”  And that was how “we” began.
2. Finished a quilt for the first time.  I am really good at starting things, not so good at finishing them.  But, for the first time, I actually finished a quilt.  I gave it to my (future) husband as a Christmas present.  It’s on our bed right now.
3. Dissected a sheep brain.  Yep.  A real sheep brain.  It was the lab for my Cognitive Neuroscience class (I told you I’m a nerd).  I was very proud of myself for making it through that class- I’m a little squeamish.  I actually still have the lab book as “proof” of my accomplishment.  I think I also made it through organic chemistry in 2003, another major accomplishment (and yes, I still have the textbook from that class too).
4. Discovered Lithium.  I’m not sure how many antidepressants I had tried at that point, and how many combinations I had been on (probably 15-20), but medication did not help me very much or very consistently.  My mood would drop from mildly depressed to severely depressed every couple of months.  I started taking Lithium (along with whatever else I was taking at that time) and amazingly enough it helped.  I was still mildly depressed, but I didn’t have the major drops in mood all of the time. 

4 Things I Did Yesterday

1. Took my last dose of clomid.  EVER. 
2. Accomplished almost nothing at work because I was so spacey.
3. Had to get a ride to and from work, for the third day in a row (have I mentioned how fabulous my supervisor is?  She drove me all week!)
4. Had my RE and his nurse concerned about my “unusual” side effects from the clomid.  (Sorry, I’ve been a walking zombie all week, I really haven’t done anything interesting)

4 Shows I Love to Watch

1. CSI.  Preferably Las Vegas.  But the others will do in a pinch.
2. Crossing Jordon.  It’s not on any more, but it used to be my favorite.
3. Hannah Montana.  I know, go ahead and laugh.  But sometimes I really need that stupid, innocent humor, and a show where all of life’s problems get solved in half an hour.  It’s one of my coping skills.
4. Smallville.  I’m not quite as into it as I used to be, but it’s one of my husband’s favorite shows and we always watch it together.

4 Things That Make Me Happy

1. Cuddling in bed with my husband.  It’s my favorite place to be.
2. My baby kitty.  She always makes me smile and laugh.  And she makes me feel loved.
3. My job.  I love feeling like maybe I’m making a difference in someone’s life.
4. Hot showers.  I LOVE taking hot showers.  I just love the sensation of having hot water on my skin.     

So now I have to tag 4 more people.  Let’s see, I have to figure out who hasn’t been tagged yet . . . Dee, Freyja, Lissa, and Hummingbird.  (Hopefully none of you have been tagged yet!)

Good grief

Enough already!  No clomid today and I still felt almost as bad as yesterday.  And the day before, and the day before . . .

I’m starting to get a little worried about this.  What if there is something seriously wrong with me?  My chest has been feeling tight the last couple days and last night I was really close to having a panic attack- tightness in my chest, feeling like my heart was racing, and randomly getting dizzy- just with these stupid side effects I’m halfway there.

Oh yeah, and sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning my FSH results will be posted online.  So I get to find out just how bad off I am.  I’m a little scared.