July 23, 2021
I haven’t felt much like writing the past couple of months. It’s been a pretty challenging time but also such a wonderful time. This process has really done crazy things to my head and the way that I think about life and love and children and self. Not to say that I’ve changed the way I feel about having children; more that I’ve shifted my understanding of the world and the universe in how that reality will play out for me. Certainly not to me, but it was clear to a close friend of mine that I…
May 19, 2021
I’m starting to get nervous. I decided to go to a family friends home for the Jewish holiday in the middle of May and less than a week following the horrible recovery of retrieval. I shared a small portion of my recent events but they didn’t pry and could only see that I was still in both physical and emotional pain upon arrival. Their house and backyard has been built beautifully since I’ve last visited complete with a heated lap pool, and four days in beautiful weather felt like real vacation for me. We spent the days…
It has been a very difficult four days. Almost immediately after waking up from retrieval sedation, I was informed that my extreme pain was likely because the anesthesiologist on call for procedures that day had been pretty conservative with her allotment of analgesia (pain medication). Cool. My nurse had available the remainder of fentanyl that had been withheld and promptly administered it so I could start to breathe. Once the pain was better controlled from the hospital I was able to get home and start the recovery process. Unfortunately the rest of the day I was unclear about appropriate level…
(Third cycle trigger prep)
This week has been really hard. It seems that every time I’m told there’s a chance that something may happen but it’s very unlikely, I am the person it happens to. This cycle has obviously been disappointing. My follicle counts are super low and despite hefty dosages of stimulation medication, we haven’t been able to manipulate that. This week my physician decided it was time to trigger me and prepare for retrieval for the measly couple of follicles that are growing slowly. 2% of patients don’t respond to the high dose lupron so it is routine…
I’ve not felt this alone maybe ever. Alone in my physical space, alone with my thoughts, alone in evening after evening shots, followed by morning after morning shots. And alone with my ever present body that just is not up to the task of recruiting and stimulating eggs for my future. Alone in processing. Day after day.
Disappointment after disappointment. I’m embarrassed to share how I am truly feeling when a friend asks how I’m doing. Even to those who know I’m in my third stimulation cycle. I see the burden of their lives with their own children and spouses…
It’s been a couple weeks since retrieval. I’ve been on a real vacation for the first time in over 14 months and I’m about to jump into another freeze cycle.
It’s been a pretty incredible week- spending time with immediate family and just being outdoors in warm weather has been such a soul cure. As I ready for return to colder weather and away from family haven and into another hormone surge I sit with such anticipation. Of homesickness. Of loneliness. Of heartbreak. Of birthday dread. Every year it hits me like a ton of bricks. Every year I brace…
I haven’t written throughout the whole twelve day stimulation cycle. Wow. What a difference a few months makes at a different practice and with different support persons. I feel good. Sure, in the past 48 hours I’ve had super uncomfortable pressure on my colon that makes it feel like I have to poop all the time. Sure, I hold my abdomen as I stand up from sitting and from standing to sitting position from discomfort. Sure, the skin on my abdomen is raw and tender and sore. But I don’t care and I’m almost happy about the discomfort. It’s working…
Today started with a weird, kind of sad and lonely dream yet not quite a nightmare. A couple day ago a friend mentioned my ex having not reached out since we parted ways. My brain basically made up a new breakup narrative in the form of a sad dream. He showed up and “moved out” of my apartment (not a place I recognized nor did we ever live together), silently made a scene by bringing all the linen out of the bedroom during an indoor party with way more people in said apartment than I would ever be comfortable with…
You can’t explain fertility shit to people. You can’t explain anything about it. How even before you start on medications that screw with your brain and your body you feel like garbage because the anxiety of missteps along the way, or unanswered questions, or failing, are always looming and always there. Because it’s related to a biological process that cannot be dictated by time, or sense, or planning, or practicality, or human behavior, or human error.
[I start this entry with the understanding that it is mostly written out of frustration and not complete knowledge of the end result.]
I…
As I reflect on the past few months and anticipate the next few, to this point it seems that every step of the unpredictable and unexpected journey has been flanked and sandwiched by night shifts.
The day I learned of my low counts, I tried to rest for an hour before going into work and subsequently crying through the next few night shifts, praying that my patients continue to self suffice for the duration.
The day my implant was removed I went straight from the practice to the pharmacy to obtain real migraine medicine for the first time in my…
