Not much going on or too much going on

I’m not quite sure which. 

On the infertility front we’re just waiting.  My husband did another semen analysis yesterday (no results yet) and got his hormone levels checked again.  He stopped taking clomid a couple months ago and all of his hormone levels (FSH, LH, testosterone) have dropped down to about where they were before he started the clomid.  I started a new cycle today (yipee) so I’ll go on Monday to check FSH and estradiol again.  And then we go see the RE on Friday.  It will be good to talk about what are options are but I’m kind of dreading it too.  We just don’t have the money to do IVF right now.  And with my FSH levels so high we need to.  I think I’ve been avoiding thinking about that too much because I’ve been waiting for the appointment.  After Friday I’ll probably be a lot more stressed about it.

Money.  We’re having a hard time with that right now.  Bills are still getting paid, but we just barely have enough to live on after that (especially with gas prices!).  My younger brother is living with us and is *supposed* to be helping out with rent but he’s been unemployed since January.  So that’s income we don’t have right now.  My husband is trying to finish up school- which involves an unpaid, 25 hours/week internship.  So he’s working nights on the weekend.  He’s killing himself with all of the back and forth between days and nights.  He’ll finish his degree by June and should get a “real” job (translation: a job that pays well) starting in August or September.  We’re so used to living on a shoestring that once he gets that job we should be able to save a significant amount every month which is how we were going to save for IVF (we have no extra money to save right now).  But that might not be soon enough now.

Speaking of my brother- he’s incredibly depressed and going downhill.  Earlier this week I took him to the emergency room because I was worried he was suicidal.  Once we got there he took off on foot (the hospital we went to is close to his at-the-time-ex-girlfriend and a lot of his friends).  The police were called.  His friends were called.  About an hour later the police *apprehended* him (complete with put your hands in the air and a pat down) and brought him back to the hospital where he was placed on a hold until he could get a pysch eval.  The people who do the pysch evals won’t talk to anyone who is intoxicated and my brother was at least slightly drunk so he was there overnight.  My parents and I went home around 2:30am and I actually managed to go to work the next day.  Anyway, the psych eval guy said my brother wasn’t actively suicidal (which was true at that point- 10 the next morning) and so they couldn’t admit him to a hospital.  He was referred for county mental heelth services which have a waiting period of at least 3 months.  Great.  So he’s still living with us and I have a feeling this is really only the beginning.  Hopefully I will be proved wrong on that one.  Right now he’s back together with his girlfriend so things have been okay.  But they have a very dysfunctional “on again, off again” relationship. 

And work.  I’m so behind on paperwork.  That’s actually what I should be doing now, instead of writing this novel.  I SO wish I could figure out how to stay caught up, but it never happens.  One of the medications I’m taking is for ADD.  It helps me a lot with being able to get things done but I’ve also lost a lot of weight since being on it.  Most of the weight was okay to lose since I gained about 20 pounds from taking a different medication.  But I’m at the point where I’m really close to being underweight and even though I’ve been trying to eat more I haven’t gained any back.  I’ve read a couple things online that have said having a low BMI can *possibly* cause high FSH.  So that worries me.  Plus, I’m just not very healthy.  So I’m wondering if I should stop taking this medication for a while.  But I’m also worried about how that will affect my ability to do my job.  So that’s another thing on my mind.

I guess maybe I have too much going on.  Maybe I’m just so overwhelmed that I’m running on automatic and it almost feels like there isn’t much going on.

Family drama

This has absolutely nothing to do with infertility (okay, maybe it does a little bit- more on that later), but I’m stressed about it so I’m going to blog it anyway.

I am so tired of the drama in my family.  And of being the one who doesn’t get to cause any drama because I have to cushion everyone else.  So today it’s my brother.  He and his girlfriend went out of town (about an hour and a half away) for the weekend.  Today they had a fight, he walked/hitchhiked home, and now he is absolutely desperate to get back to her.  So he’s been calling my parents ALL day trying to convince them to drive him back there.  He’s whining, yelling, hanging up on people, acting very irrational, and trying to lay a really big guilt trip.  Did I mention he’s 26?  My mom gets sucked into all of it and gets really stressed and then I get to calm her down.  She actually said to me today, “I know I shouldn’t get sucked into your brothers’ problems, but I can’t help it.”  I’m thinking- that’s exactly why I can’t tell you about anything going on in my life.  I DO tell her about things, just after the fact, never in the middle of it.  She cannot handle the stress.  And I still feel the need to protect her some.  (I’m sure I’ll blog more in about my history at some point and all of this will make more sense).

 So what does that have to do with infertility?  The fact that my parents *said* they will help us out with paying for IVF, but they keep having to bail my brother out of one problem or another.  One new engine for my his car (which he didn’t get back since the car loan is in my parents’ name and he wasn’t making payments).  One 4 week stay at a residential alcohol addiction rehab center.  And a million other little things.  I get kind of mad that they are so busy helping him that they don’t have any money to give me.  Of course I can never say that, but that’s how I’ve been feeling lately.

Sometimes I wish I lived a little further away from “home”.