Taking the next step

I finally made the call to the state adoptions office yesterday, and requested an information packet.  I’ve been putting it off for a while now – the whole homestudy process scares me a little.  Getting licensed as foster parents was the easy part.  Getting approved for adoption?  Not so much.

I have depression.  Chronic depression.  It’s something I’ve dealt with for over ten years now.  It kind of comes and goes – I’m mildly depressed for a while, and then it becomes worse for a short period of time, and then I go back to mild.  I’m getting treatment for it, and I’m pretty good at managing the symptoms so they don’t disrupt my daily life too much.  Or at least I was until infertility came along.  Infertility and depression seem to have been working hand-in-hand to try to disable me.  And there have been times when they have been successful in the last couple years.  Since we got licensed for foster care, things have been a little better.  I haven’t been so easy to knock down.

But I worry about how the person doing our homestudy will see at it.  I worry that I’m going to be judged (by everyone) for trying to adopt a baby when I’m struggling with depression.  I know that having a “psychiatric condition” (as it says on the preliminary application form) doesn’t mean I can’t adopt.  But I still worry.

What if they decide I’m not good enough?

Anger, part 2

Thank you everyone, for the comments.  It’s always nice to have the reminder that I’m not alone.

As I’ve been spending more time thinking about this, I’m realizing that a big part of the problem is that I don’t know how to express anger in general.  I’ve been doing some journaling about all of it.  I’m not usually into writing poems, but that’s what I ended up with  this time.  They might be kind of dumb… but I figured I’d share them anyway.  (Gotta love the anonymity of blogging.)

************

I hate this crushing pain.

Feeling like I can’t breath.

I hate the black hole inside my heart.

Sucking me in.

Leaving nothing but emptiness.

How do I express the anger?

Where do I even begin?

If I start to let it go, will it overcome me?

Will I completely lose control?

Will I lose myself?

It’s easier to sink into the pain.

To give in.

It’s easier to feel dead inside.

Numb to it all.

Feeling exhaustion instead of anger.

************

I’m mad because

So many people can get pregnant

So many people think it’s easy

So many people give unwanted advice

So many people don’t even try to understand

I’m mad because it’s not fair

I’m mad when I

Hear about other people’s babies

Am told about yet another person who is pregnant

See baby pictures on Facebook

I’m mad when I have to pretend it doesn’t bother me

I’m mad at

Baby showers

Maternity stores

Ultrasound pictures

Pregnancy test commercials

I’m mad at the reminders that are everywhere

I’m mad because I have to

Do things even when I feel like I’m being crushed by all the heartache

Deal with the sadness and grief and depression

Cope with the invisible pain

I’m mad because I have to somehow continue with everyday life

Anger

I was talking with someone today.  I was telling her about how I spent last Thursday evening in tears.  Almost the whole evening.  I even cried myself to sleep.  (My eyes were so puffy when I woke up Friday morning – I looked AWFUL.)  I guess all of the sadness just hit me.

And then I told her about having breakfast with my mom the next morning.  I love my mom, and we’re really good friends, but she can be a little clueless with the baby stuff.  I made a “bitter infertile” comment to the person I was talking with about how I really don’t need my mom to tell me that a kid I babysat for is now pregnant with number two.  (Really, I don’t.)

This person caught the anger in my voice and asked who/what I’m mad at.  I told her I’m mad at life in general.  She commented that it seems like I usually skip over the anger part, and go straight to the sadness and tears. She said maybe it would be good for me to express some of the anger.

It’s true that I skip over the getting mad part.  I grew up learning that anger is a scary thing.  I can calmly say I’m mad at life, but actually express that anger?  Forget it.  I wouldn’t even know how.

But maybe it’s not such a bad idea to try to get some of it out.  So I need ideas.  How do you deal with the anger that comes along with infertility?

Nothing in particular

I’ve kind of been in the mood to write a post recently – kind of looking for some connection, I guess – but I don’t really have much to write about. I suppose maybe that’s a good thing?

We’re still on hold with foster care, which sucks, but what can you do?  We’re waiting for some paperwork to be processed and passed on to the licensing people, and apparently they’re running behind.  I’m SO tired of waiting, but, right at this moment at least, I’m resigned.

I think a small part of me almost expects something else to go wrong with all of this.  And a small voice is telling me that maybe all of the obstacles are really just signs that I’m not supposed to be a mom.  I can rationalize a lot of that away, but not all of it.  Some of the fear remains.  Fear that this isn’t going to happen.  Fear that maybe it isn’t “meant to be”.  Fear that I may never get to have a baby, even for a short period of time.

Work is work.  I’m exhausted, but for the time being, I’m mostly caught up on stuff, which feels good.  Now I just have to stay caught up on stuff, so when baby comes I can balance work and baby.

I suppose that means I should stop blogging, and get some paperwork done.

Work problems

I just got my yearly performance evaluation at work.  I’m getting in trouble for low productivity during the last year.  My life fell apart last December, when we decided to give up on trying to get pregnant, and it took a while to pick up the pieces (go figure).  And I was going through pretty severe depression for most of the summer and early fall.

Gee… I wonder why my productivity was low…

Too bad those things don’t really count for anything when it comes to performance evaluations.

So depressed

Life really sucks right now.  I don’t want to deal with anything.  I’m not getting anything done, I don’t want to do anything, I’m not even really trying to connect with people (and I’m not really caring about feeling so alone).  I’m crying almost everyday, when I wake up in the morning I literally feel like I don’t have enough energy to move, I feel like I’m walking around in a fog.  I’m not suicidal, but I think that’s only because I’ve been here so many times before.  I haven’t cut myself, but only because I’m already worried that I’m not going to pass a home study with my history of “mental health problems”, I don’t want to do anything to further jeopardize my chance of becoming a mom.

I’m tired of being depressed.  But apparently it’s just how my life is.  The ironic thing is, I’m way too depressed to be capable of making any important decisions right now.  Like the decision of whether or not I should go back on my meds.

I just want everything to go away.

Where to start . . .

It has been almost a month since my last post.  I guess I’ve been a little depressed.  And I’ve had so much internal processing going on, I don’t really even know how to get it all out.

I made it through my first injects/IUI cycle.  I started the injects 5/30; 225iu Repronex days 3-5, 150iu Repronex days 6-8, trigger day 9, IUI day 11, luteal phase: 9 days; started my period last Tuesday.  We had almost no sperm, so I pretty much knew it wouldn’t work.  Now we’re back to waiting.  Again.  I’ll send my husband to do another semen analysis in a month or so and see where we’re at.

I’m down one medication (it’s been about 5 weeks now).  I don’t think it’s going so well.  I’ve been pretty depressed the last couple weeks.  With lots of negative thoughts.  Of course all of that could be related to everything else going on in my life and have nothing to do with the medication I’m not taking.  Who knows.  I’m so tired though.  I just want a break from everything.

I’m starting to wonder if maybe I should give up on trying to get pregnant.  Maybe it’s not supposed to happen.  (There are a few different reasons I’m starting to think that, and I’m sure I’ll write about them later.)  Just thinking about that possibility is killing me.  I feel like I’m going to break into a million pieces.  And there isn’t anything that I, or anyone else, can do about it.  I just have to keep going.

My husband got mad at me last night when I got upset about something little.  He told me that I can’t handle anything.  I told him that I am handling SO much.  All of this stupid infertility stuff, making it to work everyday, helping him with some of the things he needs to do, doing some things around the house . . .  I think I’ve said all that before, but I guess he actually heard it this time.  It was so nice having someone acknowledge how hard this is; having someone be at least a little aware of the daily struggle that goes with infertility.  I apologized to him too- I hold it together all day long for everyone else, he really does get the worst of it.

Anyway, I’m going to try to come out of my hole now and rejoin blogland.  Thank you to everyone who left me a comment in the last month.  All of the comments have helped keep me going.  I’m going to work on returning comments (and getting caught up on my regular reads) during the next week or so.

Tough decision

My “almost” depression turned into full-on depression and the last couple weeks have been pretty bad.  I’ve been making it to work but that’s about it.  I think I’m starting to feel a little better, I’ve been up at least part of the time, but I’m still “depressed” at least half of the time.

I started a new cycle last Wednesday, which means I’m supposed to start clomid tomorrow for my clomid challenge test.  My day 3 FSH came back at 11.1, E2 was 27.  I guess we’ll see how high my FSH is after 5 days of clomid.  The 11 pretty much confirmed that my FSH is higher than it should be though.  I just barely turned 29- I’m not *supposed* to be racing against my “biological clock” yet!  It’s kind of funny, I thought I would be okay with getting another high FSH number, it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, right?  But I still cried for a good hour today when I got the results back.

The decision I have to make is whether or not we should do IUI this cycle.  This is the first cycle we’ve even had the option, and I do feel kind of like we’re racing against time.  But doing IUI means stopping one of my medications during the “2 week wait” and seriously considering discontinuing another medication.  And I have this nagging feeling that the responsible thing to do would be to wait a cycle for IUI and NOT stop taking medication when I’m just barely coming out of a depressive episode.  I still have a week or two to decide.  Maybe I’ll be feeling 100% better by then and it won’t be an issue.

Down again

The last week or so I’ve been feeling pretty down again.  I don’t know if I’m officially “depressed”, but I guess I’m close.  I have just had these chronic feelings of not being worth anything and not doing anything well enough.  Those feelings/beliefs are kind of always there, but I’m usually pretty good at avoiding them unless I get really depressed.  But they haven’t wanted to leave me alone lately and I’m not really depressed.  At least not yet.  So I’m not sure what the deal is.  *sigh*  Hopefully they will go away soon.

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.