Life Outside of Infertility

Being that this is my blog about infertility, that's mostly what I talk about on here. But as you know from my previous post, I'm trying hard to remember that there is more to my day to day life than infertility. So I thought I'd let you all know what the "more" is these days. It's not particularly exciting, but at least I'm trying, right?

Hubs and I had a massive flood in our house in December. Just a few days shy of my 29th birthday, I came home from work to a waterfall coming out of the kitchen ceiling. And upon further investigation, one in my basement as well. Turn out, the toilet on our second floor had exploded sometime that day and gushed water for several hours. It flooded that bathroom then flooded the kitchen on the first floor, then the basement. Enter: several weeks of drying, dehumidifying, and construction on the house. For a while, our house looked like this:

The good news? We were able to get rid of our crappy wallpaper and ugly laminate floors in the kitchen and bathroom with the insurance money! So here it is, July 30, 2012, nearly EIGHT MONTHS after our flood in December, and we are putting the finishing touches on our construction this week. I'll show you before and after pictures when we're done!

I run every single day as part of a year-long commitment. On September 1, 2011, I challenged a group of about 25 students and staff at my campus to run at least one mile every single day for one year.  I started this group because I wanted some kind of motivation after last summer, during which I was total lazy bum. I told myself (and everyone else who got on board): It's ten minutes. Who doesn't have at least ten minutes to spare every day?

There are four of us left (including zero college students).

It's been tough. Ten minutes is how long it takes me to run a mile (actually, my time has improved a LOT since last year, so I'm more at the 9 minute pace now), but it doesn't include the time to get clothes and shoes on or to cool down and shower afterwards. And EVERY DAY... includes EVERY DAY. I had to run a mile on the day of my sister's wedding. Christmas. New Years Day. The day after my marathon (that was not a pretty one). I've run kind of drunk. I've run in jeans. I've run barefoot. I've run through tropical storm Debby.

I CAN'T WAIT for September 1, 2012. Well, for September 2, 2012, cause I have a half-marathon on September 1. And September 2, my butt is not leaving the couch.

Hubs and I have recently become obsessed with Breaking Bad. We somehow only starting watching a few weeks ago and we are plowing through the first four seasons like champs. We're halfway through Season Four and we're DVR'ing Season Five so we can seamlessly start those eps as soon as we're finished.

We've actually been watching a lot of TV via Netflix these days. While mostly we watched critically acclaimed shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men:


I am a hardcore follower of The Bachelor/ette & The Bachelor Pad. Consider it a guilty pleasure. I even joined Twitter last week just so I can follow my favorite bachelors and bachelorettes of the past. I realize this may have knocked me down a notch or two in the totem pole of your mind. Forgive me!

Okay, so those are only a few things but now you know a bit more about me / my life.

*Note. Okay, so two of the four on this very brief list have to do with TV... but this list is more of what my day-to-day looks like instead of meaningful stuff.

Hubs: A Chat & Flowers

In the past week, five people have told me I "look tired." I think that's just a nice way of saying "you look like shit!" Hmph. 

Last night Hubs and I had a chat about where things are and where they’re going, in regards to our infertility “journey”. You might reason that this would be a normal topic of conversation, as I think about it probably a hundred times a day and “being infertile” is always a lurking presence in the back of my mind. However, we very rarely TALK about it, except occasional references to the doctor or annoyances at seeing a ton of baby bumps, etc.  So this was a nice little “check-up” to see how we’re both doing.

We started by talking about how I’ve been depressed. I told him I’m worried that this depression isn’t just a phase and that being infertile is actually re-wiring my brain to be different. I know I’ll never be who I was before, but what if I don’t ever get back to being a happy person? He said that was his biggest fear through this whole thing. He’s way more concerned about me and how IF has affected me than he is about having a baby. He’s accepted that this is the hand we’ve been dealt and we just have to play it. But what if we don’t ever get there? What if we never a baby? “That’s a possibility” he said. “But we can still be happy. I don’t define myself in my ability to be a father. I still have a role and a purpose to be a good husband and brother and son and employee.”

It reminded me of something my therapist said Monday during our session. I just finished telling her how pissed I was that I did everything right in life. I never broke a rule, never got in trouble, got straight A’s through most of high school and college, put my education first, was always careful in everything I did. And look at me now. It didn’t work. That’s where my therapist stopped me. “Whoa, whoa whoa. What do you mean it didn’t work? You have a happy marriage, a wonderful family and a stable job.” Oh, right. You mean there’s more to life than having a baby? What?!?  Clearly, my husband has already figured this out.

So when Hubs talked about other ways he defines himself, I sat on it for a minute. Do I also feel that way? Can I garner some purpose from my roles as a wife, daughter, sister and employee? The verdict is still out on that one.

I do know I’m very lucky to have a husband who loves me despite being both physically and emotionally broken right now. He even sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers yesterday at work – completely out of the blue. No reason at all. The card said:

Jen,

Here are some flowers to celebrate our 1,025 days of marriage. It only feels like 1,023. I hope you have a wonderful day molding the minds of America’s youth. You’re my hero.

Love, Hubs

Seriously, how great is he?!? If I have to go through infertility and a childless life, I’m grateful to have my guy by my side.

The Ever Elusive Stage of Acceptance (no, I'm not there)

My therapist has been talking a lot lately about how going through infertility is a grieving process. I get that, and I've read about it on lots of other IF blogs. It's weird to be grieving something I never had, but here I am, definitely grieving, definitely cycling through those stages of grief again and again.

Of the five stages, I vacillate frequently between Denial, Anger and Depression, with an occasional stop at the Bargaining Station. Acceptance seems like a distant glimmer. Haven't been there yet, not even for a minute. My favorite is Denial, where there still lives some hope and I can blissfully forget that my ovaries suck. Bargaining hosts some hope too, but I find myself easing out of that stage more quickly than the others. I make regular stops at Anger and Depression. But really, who with IF doesn't?

The elusive "Acceptance" Stage seems way out of reach. And here's where I think the grieving process must be different than grieving a death. Death is final. You know when someone dies, that's it. Close the book. Roll the credits. It is OVER. With infertility, however, it's so open-ended. How can I ever finish grieving the possibility of my own biological child if that possibility isn't completely 100% dead?  My chances of getting pregnant are small, but they're not zero. I can "accept" that my journey is shit and it's not easy, but when do I "accept" the rest of it? Will I EVER accept it?

I don't think I'll ever get to acceptance as long as I equate acceptance with "giving up" (on my ovaries).   To me, they are one and the same. I'm not ready to move on to Donor Eggs until I accept that I won't have children with my own eggs. What's the line? How do you come to that decision? I'd love to hear from ladies out there who have decided on donor eggs - when did you know you were ready? And also, ladies who waited it out and got their BFP or who continue to wait... how long did you / will you wait?

Welcome August ICLW!

Welcome ICLW peeps!

Sidenote: At first I typed "Welcome ICLW poops" and had a good chuckle.

My story, in brief: I was diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Failure in November 2011 and have been TTC for about 14 months. Prognosis: Not so good. We tried a few rounds of stims in the winter / spring (letrozole, menopur) and had no follicles at all. Currently taking daily hormone replacement therapy to manage symptoms (i.e. hot flashes, night sweats, brain fog, possible bone loss) and trying to figure out what to do next, while also trying to keep develop for the first time a healthy way of dealing with the grief of IF.

Was this the longest week ever or was that just me? I feel just like my cat Henry does in this picture: 

Is there anything cuter than this little guy?

I've been super irritable lately at work. The Physical Facilities lady who cleans my building came by yesterday to tell me she got a stain out of the wallpaper and it literally took twenty minutes. I tried to think how she must be lonely and not have many people to talk to or be mentally stimulated during her job, but all I could think was "Stop talking. Please stop.  Stop it now. Shut. the. *@#$. up." I mean, I could feel my blood pressure rising. This is only one instance of too many to type.

This can't continue, because come August 20, my job will include at least six hours a day of daily conversing with college students. Mostly listening, because they haven't learned appropriate turn-taking skills in conversation yet, which is fine because I am not likely to spill any personal details about my life to them. I can imagine, however, that being irritated for that many hours a day might take a toll on my enjoyment of a day's work.

I used to LOVE my job. But the past year of infertility has shifted something inside of me. I don't find joy in lots of things I used to. It doesn't help that I spent four months of this year in a total brain fog. I look back on December through March as "lost time." Truly, my head was not in the game of life. It went way beyond being a little forgetful and absent-minded. I remember telling my husband that I didn't feel like I was experiencing anything in the moment. It was like I was removed from the present. Okay, it's obviously hard to explain. But I was so worried this year about not screwing up basic tasks at work that I think I forgot how to be excited or passionate about it. And though the daily HRT has helped IMMENSELY with the brain fog since March, I haven't been able to recapture that spark I used to have with the job.

I'm a little encouraged because Hubs and I have a back up plan to move far far away next summer if we're still not knocked up. So in a year, I'll either be pregnant or at least looking to find a new job and new city. There's some promise there.

Enough about me. If you're just stopping by from ICWL, introduce yourself! How adorbs is my cat? Is anyone else feeling blah and irritable lately?

I Suck a Little Less

Good news: I'm NOT going to the baseball game this weekend after all!

However, it had less to do with me standing up for what I want and more to do with the tickets being really expensive and my MIL deciding not to go after all. Yay me!

In other news, while I am not participating in Belle's seven day detox like many other bloggers out there, I am doing very well in my own "two-week cleanse" which involves a total elimination of alcohol and caffeine. I'm on day four and zero sips of alcohol or caffeine. Woot!  However, the cleanse did nothing to stop me from mindlessly devouring two handfuls of m&ms while blog reading today. Must. Stop. Doing that.

ALSO, and this really is good news: I just booked a trip to Mexico with two of my best girlfriends for September! I would love to go with Hubs but he doesn't have the vacation time to do any more trips this year. I have a TON saved up, even after my trip to Florida last month. And I am going to need something to get me through the hell that is August and September at work (busiest time of the year for me). So we're headed to an all-inclusive resort for six days and we got a great deal that included flight, transportation to the hotel and the resort itself! 

My only baby-making news is that I heard back from the billing office at my RE's (remember the coding mess?). They said they weren't going to change any of the codes to my diagnosis for those bills because they were trying to induce ovulation. Wouldn't it be nice if you only had to pay for those kinds of things if they worked? Because it certainly did not work for me. So they are re-issuing the bills and I will just have to pay them. Bummer.