Insult to Injury

So.

A week or so after the shower incident letting me know that I most certainly WAS NOT PREGNANT, I started lactating. And I have to say it was/is pretty confronting. Not horrible leaky kind (like after your baby has died and you stop expressing) just a very distinct feeling in my breasts and an urge to check if I was lactating. Which I was. You can understand that it kind of threw me.

I visited Dr Google and typed in lactating while not pregnant and got pituatary cancer, benign cancer of the brain, menopause.

Which is a good reason why you should never visit Dr Google.

I rang the clinic and the nurse said "that can happen sometimes". CAN IT???? I don't get why injecting estrogen would make my prolactin go crazy.

And I get starving hungry (which I am sure is hormonal) so when i was racing past a teacher (who is pregnant) at 8.30 am with a packet of chips in my hand and some salty crumbs around my mouth, she asked me if I was pregnant.

DO YOU THINK I WOULD NOT KNOW IF I WAS PREGNANT AFTER HAVING A BABY DIE AND 4 ROUNDS OF IVF?????

I simply said "No I am not" and went home and took another pee test to confirm it. Definately not. I even dug it out of the bin half an hour later even though technically I would be 7 or 8 weeks and an early reading pg test should show positive in about 0 seconds if I was pg. I still wasn't.



I have become very effecient in my grief. I can now fit a good half hour wail (literally) in between the coming and going of two sets of guests, or between arriving home from work and leaving for a social engagement. I've given up trying to look after myself at those points. I mean, I could send the guests away but I would stay miserable and if they arrive I have a better chance of not being as miserable for as long. So I sit and stare for the first 40 min and after a while I just join in. There is only so long you can maintain the intensity of feeling absolutely miserable.


Which is not to say I feel happy. Or I do in some moments. Minutes, hours even, but never for a whole day. Never for days at a time. The heaviness always comes home to roost - settles itself in my chest again, clucks about creating noise and discomfort.


I still wish I hadn't experienced any of this.

I just wish it was someone else and not me.


Yesterday I thought that nothing seemed important to me anymore. I don't have anything to say about anything (except my pain). It does not seem important. I don't get uplifted by seeing something beautiful. What meaning does it have. My husband and I are going parrallel but both seem stuck in our own depression and grief this weekand don't often connect in that. Which is a pretty bleak place to be, and I get scared because after years of grief these feelings seem to be stiffening into a more permanent part of my character rather than a transient feeling that I know is just something I am passing through. That scares me.

Perhaps the fact that I ran inside to grab the camera and take this photo this morning means that is not the case. It was enough to excite me and make me feel like the day had something in store.


It's a rosella in the gum tree I planted which is now in flower. There were a pair of them, sipping nectar out of the blossom. I only managed one picture before they flew off but I hope they come back.

Some things

You should check out my husband's blog (link to your right - my dearest). He doesn't blog about the IF thing.

But you will see a lot photos of him eating, me eating, our friends eating, the food we make, and the scraps after people have eaten the food we make.

Can you tell that food is a hot topic in our house?



I was very impatient with one of the kids at school today. He keeps sticking his hand down my top and tugging at my bra.
So the internal dialogue goes like this

Good Barbie " It's a way of trying to communicate, what is he trying to tell me?"
Bitch Barbie "back off and STOP TOUCHING ME"
Good Barbie "Maybe he's not coping, maybe the work is too hard, maybe it's too boring"
Bitch Barbie "Why don't you just SPEAK to me. There are these things called words and they work for the rest of us. We don't have to pull clothes off each other"
Good Barbie "Hey little Mister. Why don't you grab this elmo doll instead"
Bitch Barbie (and todays winner) physical wrestle to untangle kid from my clothes and get him to sit down. Shouting "NO" in a startling manner.

(times that scenario by about 10 and you have a little piece of my day).

Yeah - there are days when I feel like I really could improve quite a bit at my job.


The weird thing is, I forgave myself for being like this when I was in the middle of the IVF cycle and had that mountain of stress. But it does not seem OK to be like this now. And today is not even a cry day. No tears today, just a run of the mill, life-after-your-baby-has-died-and- a-string-of-failed-IVF-attempts kind of a day.


I had a great massage last week. It released so much sadness and I had to do a lot of weeping for the next few days.
But it grounded me somehow. It was one of those great moments when you are so vulnerable that you will trust anyone - and somehow - this person was just the person to trust. Not that I spoke with her beyond "I'm really sad" but I completely gave myself up to her care. Her hands and my body had a heartfelt conversation. And she undid something, and put something else back together. And then she pulled something out and shook it from her hands and it left me. It wasn't the end of sadness, but it was a beginning. I had strength to enter my grief. To let myself live the aching pain of hope gone dry, again, and know that I will live beyond this too.

red, white (but no pink)

Standing in the shower with my hand between my legs.
Trying to stop the blood.
Trying to make it stay inside.

Please don't go

Please

don't go

little Bo

I

love you

so

much.

Saturday

WE PUT ONE BACK!

Yep. You betcha. Got the call at 4 in the arvo to say they did the testing on the 3 little embies (it's starting to sound like a nursery tale) and one was NAD. That means no abnormalities detected. Which means it can live! It has the same chance as any little embie going into a body of growing big. So by 4.3o and after a mad drive into the city it was done, or, I should say, in.

We waved at it on the screen and welcomed it to my uterus.

Now the 10 day wait (it was a day 6 transfer). But I can't believe we made it this far.

We may even have a 2nd emby in the freeze - well it has been frozen but when they did the testing, 2 of the cells showed that it was normal and one of the cells did not take the dye which shows up the particular chromosomes we are looking at. So they are trying to look at it again on monday. They have frozen it because there is a good chance it is normal.

The 3rd one sadly, we say goodbye to. If it grew inside me it would be like Maya, beautiful, but not bound for this earth,

I can't believe how good it feels to have good news instead of crap.

HOORAY! HOORAH!

Click heels together.

I know you are thinking that I shouldn't be celebrating yet........ after all, I have only just started the wait, but join with me. It is a miracle to get this far. I will deal with the future when it arrives.

May it also be good.

Friday

On friday I am not going to work.

On friday I find out if there are any healthy embies to put back inside me.

On friday my neighbour is booked in for a c-section.

There are only 3 embies still going strong..... do you think one of them might be able to grow into a little baby in me arms?

Sorry

now this makes me happy.

Update (or is it down)

So first with the good news.

My dog's paw is better. He's not quite his handsome self due to a rather large and pinkish scar on his leg - not to mention the shaved bits that haven't grown back, but all in all he seems to be returning to his doggy self. And our walks have become the usual mixture of delight and apolgetic shuffling on (he tends to get a bit snappy at certain dogs despite my best behaviour management strategies).

So dog is on the mend. First box ticked.

My dear hubby who was so unjustly fired will finish work this week. I am very proud of him as he has made the transition from righteous outrage (justified I might add) to forward looking job seeker without sinking into a trough of negativity and depression which would probably have been my option if I had gone through that. I forget that he is stronger then I think he is. I just hope that the union lawyers kick ass. I would like to see the evil people who made this decision SQUIRM. In an act of self preservation and solidarity another member of staff is leaving on the same day. For a team of 5 it now looks a bit on the nose to have 3 positions unfilled.

I'm on Day 11 of FSH and looking to be going for a few more days. Did i mention how shit my body is at responding to hormones? I am questioning why my doc did not put me on a big mamma dose of hormones. I think he is kinda conservative. I bet none of his patients ever get whatever it is you get when you're overstimulated. Anyway, not only am i responding slowly i seem to be responding poorly (for me). I've seen enough ultrasounds to know something and despite the cheesy smiles of the sonographer I know that there are a lot less eggs then last time. It feels like my body is rather unimpressed with this whole business and has decided not to cooperate any longer. I used to be the best at giving blood - but now, my little old veins give a polite "no thanks" before being held at needle point and forced into giving up their luscious flow. They bruise in protest. And my ovaries, no matter how much singing and patting, kissing (my hubby does that one - too hard for me) and coaxing, just don't seem to want to give up too many precious little eggs. I confess I have unjustly thought violent thoughts towards my ovaries after former failed cycles but I was hoping that they would be a little more forgiving.

I've noticed that it only takes me hours to detach myself from myself and speak in the third person about the me that was on the bed weeping and begging heaven to have mercy just a few hours ago. As if it was a long time ago. The old me in a different time and place. Who am I kidding?

I'm kind of sick of feeling like a dead weight around people. My friend returned from a conference in NZ yesterday and I have, in truth, not been doing all that well. I rang her up to see if she wanted to go for a walk.. and she said yes because she knows that I have not been doing all that well and then rang back and asked to postpone it as really what she needs is to sleep after being away for a long time. The only thing that bothers me in this interaction is the thought that people might feel like they need to give to me all the time..... even though I feel so desperately needy all the time...... I don't want to be a person that requires "energy" to be around. So I try and section off not-coping me and do this weird thing of talking about those times or moments as if it is another person. As if I had a really close front row seat of watching someone else go through excruciating pain and confusion. Which in a weird way is what I want. I WANT SOMEONE TO KNOW. Not just that I am having a bad Sunday but that Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday weren't very different. That even in my sleep I can't escape this because it occupies my dreams.

I dreamt I was holding a dead baby and then the babies face turned into Maya's face and I gave her mouth to mouth and she came back to life.

That one was a nice one.

I have started going to a church. I like this church. It has a lot of tradition and does a sung communion each week. I like this because there is a lot of beauty in it and I like the physicality of participating in communion. Of being on your knees, holding out your hand. Of receiving the gift of the sacraments. Of singing a response which is both haunting and uplifting.

But I loose it most weeks. It is a space where it is OK to loose it. I am sure I have cried my tears into the communal cup which is a nice metaphor in a way...... last week I lost it quite badly as my friend arrived with her new little baby girl. The one I have talked about previously. It really really does hurt to be around and no matter what self talk I use it remains a heartbreaking experience to watch someone else be a proud mum for the first time and think that the time I held my little girl in front of others was after her death. In fact, I don't even think. I. Just. Cry. and feel that deep ache inside my chest which has not really changed with time....

I am loosing hope for this cycle. It seems easier to give up hope now then to try and fan it back to life and then have a bucket of water thrown over it when I get my BFN.

Ain't that a sad thing.

post script

I just spoke to the friend who was in New Zealand and did not speak about myself in the third person rather just broke down and unapologetically hogged the space until I was in a place to stop and listen to her and how her trip was. Later I said I was looking forward to being in a place where I wasn't so needy all the time. She assured me that that was not how she saw our friendship at all.... which was nice to hear. I think I believe her.