Angel In Bloom

Spoke with the doctor yesterday morning and learned that despite what I heard (I am now thinking I misunderstood the nurse with my previous results; instead of hearing “abnormal ovulation”, I heard ”normal ovulation”. Could be my fault.) my progesterone level was extremely low. For someone like me, someone who takes progesterone for 10 days out of every month just to have a normal cycle like any other woman, they were hoping to see a progesterone level at about 10 or so.

I registered at 0.2. As in, 9.8 away from where I should be.

So basically, I don’t fully ovulate. Well, let me clarify. I ovulate, but I don’t release an egg. Just like I was starting to suspect.

For me, that means that for the past year that I’ve been on clomid all my trying and all the heartaches may have been for naught. There’s no way to know that, but that’s certainly what it feels like. After all, I could just have a normal ovulation only one month out of the year… We’ll never know this until we test more, etc. Obviously I’ve ovulated fully at some point in my life because I have a 5-year old sleeping soundly in the next room. I know it can be done.

So I asked her straight out regarding September. If I am not really ovulating, then I was probably not really pregnant in September?

i spend a ridiculous amount of time lately feeling sorry for myself. i’m so alone, so lonely, so overwhelmed, i think. and then a day later, i wake up and realize that despite the issues, i do indeed have it good and i should just shutup. today’s one of those i should just shutup days.

and now that i have shutup, i can hear the needs of my heart loud and clear.

a friend of mine and i spoke for a good thirty minutes today about infertility and the frustrations that go along with it. it was nice to get some of my feelings out to someone who doesn’t read my blog because i didn’t feel at all like i was boring her with details she already knew. in fact, it was quite an engaging conversation. i don’t feel like i ever have enough of those.

part of that’s my fault, because i sort of rely on one friend to be the only friend i really reach out to, and i shouldn’t do that. i’m surrounded by women who love me and women who are genuinely concerned about my situation. michelle is and will always be my best friend but i have a lot of other friends that, since michelle moved away, i haven’t relied on fully when i really should have. michelle is so great with the girl talk, you know, and is rarely biased in her advice. she’s so easy to talk to, too. but i should engage with other people, because the majority of my friends are easy to talk to– that’s why they’re my friends, after all. i should be more willing to spend time with them and to put more into our relationship than i have been since michelle moved away and left me all by my lonesome. so in my shutting up today, i realized that i need to write some love notes.

i was sitting on a couch this afternoon in a furiniture store, trying to visualize my new living room and ignore the salesman’s repeated attempts to be all up in my grill, when my OB/GYN’s nurse called regarding my bloodwork.

“your progesterone levels are showing normal ovulation,” she said. “but [the doc] wants to retest it in 3 days. can you come in on friday?”

“look,” i said, rather numbly, more than likely giving her the impression that i was almost mad that i was even on the phone. she probably thought i was quite the heifer, and i sort of am so i really can’t beat myself up for it. “i need to make an appointment to speak with her about stuff that’s been happening. i know i won’t get to on friday but i need to discuss…”

“sure you will!” she said sweetly. “you can speak to her at 9:45 friday morning and do your bloodwork afterwards.”

oh. well, i didn’t expect to get to talk to her so soon about these tests and my next course of action. so i apologized and said thank you for working me in, to which she reassured me that anytime i wanted to speak to the doc i could. all i had to do was ask to see her.

wish everything was so simple.

***

yesterday i told mike that i wanted to take steps to help my anovulation, like dieting and reducing stress. “what stress?” he asked me. i glared at him. “i mean, other than the baby thing?”

Today I sat in the waiting room at my OB/GYN’s office and looked at pregnant belly after pregnant belly around me. Some were round and high, some were oblong and lower; some of the women were there for ultrasounds. Some already carried the print-out that showed them the little one(s) growing inside of them. Some of the women had their significant others there, quietly chatting with them about their future. I wondered if it was their first child, their second, maybe more? I didn’t have time to feel the longing that I might normally feel, remembering my first and only successful pregnancy because 1) I wasn’t there for more than 20 minutes as I was only giving a blood sample to be tested and 2) Nick was there with me, and he was talking nonstop about how blood is gross.

I do remember so well when I was handed my first picture of Nick, that beautiful little mass in my uterus. “My peanut” I called him, as I proudly held it up for Mike to see.  And I recounted the entire story to Nick, how we decided on his names, how we learned that he was a boy.

When I was handed my lab papers, I noticed that they had given me a new diagnosis that I hadn’t been privy to yet. Anovulation it’s called. Apparently they have decided that when I bleed during my cycle, I do not release an egg. It normally happens to women in menopause, but it is also one of the main causes of infertility, both primary and secondary. Here is what else I learned:

today, ms. j (one of nick’s preschool teachers) came to the door to greet me even though nick was pretty much out the door and halfway down the hall by the time she started talking. “he,” she said, nodding at nicholas after i wrangled him back into my general vicinity, “is a joy to have in class.”

i smiled. should i say thank you? i’m not sure what to do in those sorts of situations because she was looking at me as though i was supposed to say something else but thank you really doesn’t apply because it’s not ME who is a joy to have in class. however, i am somewhat responsible for his good behavior and generally pleasant attitude, so i thanked her for that reason and she went on to tell me that he was one of their best, always polite and always listening. she said if ever her and ms. c ever have to call nick out on anything, they both look at each other like, “wow!” because he almost never misbehaves and needs to be called out.

he has them fooled.

at home, nick is not so angelic. in fact, he’s sassy and bossy and a little bit demanding. he’s moody and downright cranky at times, and he is in this stage where he is negotiating with us over everything. “clean your room,” i say. “after wubbzy goes off, i will clean my room up,” he’ll counter. mike will say, “brush your teeth! it’s bedtime!” and he will say, “how about i just go to bed and then i can just brush them in the morning?”

this morning, i babysat for my friend who just had a baby. i haven’t done much babysitting in the last year or so because i’ve come to the conclusion that i’m not really good with other people’s kids on a regular basis. i’d like to sit here and lie to you and say that i love all children and that i’m great with kids, but it’s not true. i have a love-hate relationship with children. i enjoy them only in small doses, except for my own who i love too much to uh, not like. this is why i say i could never be an educator. maybe a tutor, some sort of once a week deal. but the idea of being surrounded by tons of other people’s kids all day everyday does not make me feel too good.

like i said though, every once in a while, i can handle babysitting and i actually enjoy it when people ask me because it shows me that they trust me enough to put their kids in my care. mayhaps after they read this blog they will not feel the same way, but we will just have to cross that bridge when we get there, right? yep.

today my task was to sit with a little man i know while his mom took his older brother to the doctor. it was only a couple of hours, but i seriously believe that the cure for the blues associated with infertility is muggin’ (which is the term i use for lovin’/snugglin’/breathing in the baby’s scent; pretty sure i stole it from stephanie nielsen and maybe she would define it differently but whatever) on someone else’s baby for awhile.

sitting in the car on the way home from dinner the other night, i noticed that my entire upper lip is tingling as if about to sweat. turns out it was the beginning of a hot flash. i’ve had two since then… once after cleaning my living room and the other after blow-drying my hair upside down for a few seconds. it doesn’t always start the same. sometimes, it starts on my neck and stretches its way up my face and down through my chest, making me feel and look flushed and bothered. other times, it might start in my arm pits/upper torso or my lower back.  it’s very unpredictable.

like so much of life.

my friend just had a baby, and last week, she finally invited me over to meet him. i went friday afternoon, very much ready to get my baby time, and do you know what she told me? she told me that she was worried about inviting me over prior to my visit because she didn’t want to make me sad. sad that she had a baby and i did not. sad that she had a success that i couldn’t achieve. and while i appreciated her concern for my feelings, it made me sad that someone would be afraid to share their joy with me because of my infertility. how much infertility interferes with my life is ridiculous. i literally cannot stop thinking about it because even if i do, it’s on the minds of other people. probably my fault for blogging about it.

it’s been a long time since i’ve woken up before 8 am. i took advantage of my “extra” morning time today by clearing out christmas and welcoming valentine’s day- which is probably one of the most over-commercialized holidays there is but i can’t help but love all the romance of it. i think it’s one of my favorites, but then i do say that about lots of holidays.

i’m just a festive sort of girl. what else can i say?

i haven’t been myself lately. i’ve been grumpy and moody to say the least, and mostly because i haven’t felt good enough to be anything but a pill. it’s sort of hard to be nice when you’re drugging yourself to “regulate” your hormones and seeing little in the way of results. i am so over the whole infertility thing, i could just scream. however, december brought good news from the doctor; they want to test me on day 21 of my next cycle to see if the clomid is working as intended. this is good news because no doctor has gone that far in depth yet. up till now, it’s been, “take this pill and it’ll all get worked out”… only nothing’s been worked out. i’m taking the progesterone every month to jumpstart my period, and then when i menstruate, i’m taking the clomid. ideally, the clomid should help me start again in a few weeks if i’m not pregnant at that point, yet so far, i still have to use the progesterone to make the clomid work. so basically, if they learn that the clomid is not working, then i will no longer have to take the clomid, which is both good and bad. bad because it means i am more broken than i had originally thought if not even fertility drugs can help me. good though because at least i’d know something about my situation, you know?

i am not a fan of snow… unless it’s a lot of snow.

i like snow that comes down in such amounts that snowmen or snow angels or heck, even snowballs, can be made. i like snow when there’s no grass poking out, and everything is covered in a perfect blanket of white. to me, snow is a nuisance if you can’t even play in it. freezing temperatures that only cause a spit of snow is ridiculous! (and cold weather without snow is just a crime.)

so last week, our local weather folks decided to inform us all that snow was in our forecast. 1-2 inches they said. in tennessee, you’re lucky to see such an accumulation, so everyone i knew got really happy. except for me of course because 1) i didn’t really believe it would snow and 2) because i hate snow, remember? i hate being cold. i used to love winter but now? now i find myself longing for spring, even the humid hell-like conditions of summer. anywho, schools were closed in preparation for this “blizzard” a day before the storm actually arrived. grocery stores were packed full of people afraid that they wouldn’t be able to eat for days if they didn’t go buy everything in sight right at that moment. it was nuts.

and then thursday morning comes and there is no snow. none at all. oh how many childrens’ hearts were broken.

flurries didn’t happen till midday. and nothing was sticking much.