Thursday, November 30, 2006

Didn't see that one coming

As I was digging through the stacks and stacks of paper that we have accumulated this past weekend, I came across some mail that Husband, as usual, had not shown me. This irritates me to no end, since I am the only one who ever does anything with the mail, either by sorting before it gets in the house and dumping it into the recycling, or actually, gasp!!, paying the bills that show up.

Anyway, a little piece of information came from my previous OB/GYN exam. Dr. Newbie had run a full blood panel, including cholesterol, HDL, LDL, etc. I had confessed that I hadn't had the levels checked in probably something like 15 years. Lo and behold, they ALL came back NORMAL! OK, so the happy dance should be tempered a bit by the fact that they were a little on the high end of normal, but I was at least 5 points below the cutoff for most of the areas, if not more. Hooray!

I know that they aren't as good as they can be, but you must remember that that last time I had my cholesterol checked, I was at 210. This time it was 190. Still not hall of fame worthy, but better. While the scale has yet to be encouraging, at least one thing is going in the positive direction. I even have my gym bag packed and under my desk as we speak. Let's see if I can make the 30 yard trip to the small gym here at work.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Back on the infertility trail

Well, we started off things to do a cycle in December yesterday. Due to our Thanksgiving travels, I wasn't able to get my progesterone draw done until yesterday. It came back at...0.56. That little fantasy that Dr. RE and I had about me maybe spontaneously ovulating is shot to hell. Oh well, no big deal, it's what we expected.

Now that we have the all-clear, I've started on my lovely Provera. God, how I hate that stuff. I was reading the patient information sheet from Target, and do you realize that this stuff is used to treat cancer? It looks like such an innocent white pill.

After feeling like absolute crap this morning, I started to think about how I would rate the overall cruddiness of infertility meds. Let's do this Letterman style, shall we?

6. Gonal-F: Other than the whole sitting on the toilet shooting yourself up bit, it really isn't that bad. A sub-q injection. Since the last time that we did this, they have that new-fangled pen that you can use to adjust the dose. I actually enjoyed my visits back to my good 'ol lab days in college.

5. Provera: Usually not too bad, as for the drug itself (although I think I need to blame the lovely wave of nausea this morning to it), but the end result periods are usually horrible. Now, granted, since I am a PCOS patient, I'm not used to "normal" periods, but when I have a Provera induced one, all I want to do is crawl under the covers with a heating pad and stay in a fetal position until it is over. Oh, and have the largest bottle of Advil that they make.

4. Metformin/Glucophage: Prior to this go-round, this would have ranked higher, but it hasn't been too bad this time around. My regular doctor originally wrote the prescription for bumping up the dose over a series of three months. Normally I would agree. This stuff sends my entire digestive system into an absolute revolt, especially for the week that I up the dosage. However, it seems better this time, so I'm going to try to go up to 1000mg on Friday and see how it goes. On the cycle when we conceived Son, one of the members of my category over at TLOL gently urged that I really should stick with the Met, since it really can make a difference in the number of follicles that you get. I begrudgingly listened, and lo and behold, my response to the Gonal-F perked up immediately. I still think that I owe Lauren for the advice and kick in the rear.

3. Bravelle: O.M.G. Hurt like hell going in, no response (at all) for all of the hell.

2. HCG Trigger: The trust that the administration of this shot requires is monumental. Husband, armed with one huge gauge needle, gives this bad boy to me. Where I can't see what he is doing. I hate it. He was initially too scared to give it in my "hip", afraid for some reason that he would hit bone. (If anyone has ever seen my "hip" they would understand that it is probably anatomically impossible, but thanks for the vote of confidence Hon.) He would do it in my thigh. Hurt going in, and the noticeable limp for the next three days didn't help. He finally got brave after we did the thigh shot, with our cleaning lady vacuuming the hallway outside of our bedroom, and he didn't pull it out fast enough. Enough pressure built up that when he finally did, oh so slowly and carefully removed the needle, that we had a fountain of blood that shot up a good six inches in the air. He instinctively put his finger over it, looking like the nursery rhyme about the dam, with a terrified look on his face. While it was scary at the time, we both laugh about it now.

1. Progesterone Suppositories: I HATE these things. I know that I need them, but I HATE them. They are so irritating, messy, you name it. With Son, I had to keep using them until I was 12 weeks. Almost four months worth of these things. I had so much fun with the irritation that developed into a four alarm yeast infection and being in the first trimester and feeling crappy overall. I grew a new appreciation for any child that is left in a soggy diaper for longer than they should be. YUCK. The other alternative is PIO, and there is no way that I am doing that unless I have to. IM's every day for weeks? For those of you that have had to do it, I salute you.

So, there is my list. Contribute if you like.

If I don't keep a sense of humor about all of this, I'm sunk. At least I learned one thing from the four years of trying to get Son.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Thanksgiving is going to be a turkey

Ahhh, my plans for a couple of quiet days at home as a family have been shredded. Damn.

I was all optimistic about the three of us actually getting some time together. Husband can take Thursday and Friday off, these being the first days off in over month. I went out and bought this tiny little turkey breast, and the miscellaneous other stuff that we both like. I thought, great, we can sleep in, take a nap, get some things done on the domestic front, and just reconnect. I also had my progesterone draw scheduled for Friday morning. Hooray, I thought, Husband will be home to take care of Son, so I don't have to (1) haul him to Dr. RE's office and try to wrangle him and get poked and (2) I also wouldn't have to subject the other women in the waiting room to his antics. I admit it, I was one of the haters of anyone who would bring in their kid to a lab or ultrasound appointment when I was struggling to just have one.

As usual, my plans are blown to smithereens. Husband relayed our abandonment by our respective families to a friend of his, and his friend, being a nice guy, suggested that we come down and spend the day with his family. (They have adopted us before under similar circumstances). Unfortunately, to finalize our adoption, we get to drive for four hours. We're used to it, but still.

I understand why Husband wants to go, I honestly do. If he is out of state, then his work can't call and drag him in. He can basically tell them to deal with whatever is going on. All of the shifts are covered, and it is going to be quiet. He will still have to work this weekend (the sixth one is a row, mind you) but he still gets a respite. This is his best friend, and he needs this type of time. Their respective favorite football team is playing on Thursday night, so they can sit, drink beer, and swear at them together. Husband doesn't even mind that it is on a 25" TV as opposed to getting the game in HD on our 52". I get it. Need decompression time. I just wish that it could be more with us as a family. Son misses him, I know it. Since the weekend gig isn't looking to change anytime soon, I guess that we'll just have to adjust.

We were planning on visiting our new niece (born on Monday) on Friday as well, and it's on the way, so we were looking at time on the road anyway. I guess it would be nice to not have to stare at the devastation that is currently my house for a couple of days. However, it still puts me in the mode of having to devote the entire weekend to just trying to catch up. Oh, and I get to spend tonight getting animals ready for someone to come over and watch them. I've been too busy and tired to get up the energy to try to take the more spazzy of our two dogs in to get his shots, and now they are out of date, so no kennel. That's probably OK, since it usually adds up to around $100 for a couple of days. With Christmas coming, every $100 counts.

I'm just tired, and I miss my Husband. My Son misses my Husband. I know that he needs this for his mental health. I know, I know. I'm just getting a little worried about my own.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The good things

I'm still not in a good place about my health. I received a comment that (a) pissed me off and (b) got me thinking. More on that later.

Just because things have been on the crappy side lately, there are some good things going on. First of all, Son has finally cut his second molar (at least the tips are through) so Mr. Crabby Pants might go on hiatus for a while. These molars have been really tough on him. He kept signing what we thought was "more"and we couldn't figure out what he wanted...umm, he was actually showing "hurt." Dumb parents. Pass the Motrin....

Secondly, Son and I were able to sleep in until...drumroll please....9:30 on Sunday morning. I honestly haven't been able to sleep that late since I was six months pregnant with Son! He woke up around 5:15 when he heard Husband get up to go to work, and just wouldn't settle back down. I finally caved into my own exhaustion, and brought him to bed with me. I don't do it very often, but I really didn't want to deal with Son CIO. I just couldn't this time. Anyway, he fell asleep on top of me. I slid him off, and he immediately snuggled in, little ice cube feet tucked under me. We both were out. It was so nice to wake up and see him there, and be able to hear him breathing, knowing he was content. This kid loves a good pillowtop, I tell you. Funny thing is, when he sleeps with me, he always flips over on his back. He never does that in his crib. When he finally woke up, he pulled on the covers, and grins up at me like he was being such a big boy. He then sits up, pokes at me, and signs that he wants to eat. Off we go to make waffles and just hang out. Even though Husband hasn't been home on a weekend morning for over a month, we had fun anyway.

That's one of those morning that I will have to tuck away in the memory.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

NOW I get it....

I printed off my previous post to show to Husband. It seemed to me that he should know how I'm feeling about all of this. After all, he was the one stuck with the hysterical wife on a bad cell phone connection on Friday.

And his response? You know, to the whole soul-bearing thing? My effort to open up to him a bit more? (He's made comments about how I seem to have pulled away from him. When I mentioned that turning 35 really bothered me, he mumbled "Good thing that I knew about that...").

He went right back to watching TV. Told me it was too late to begin a conversation about this. Oh, but after the TV went off, it wasn't too late to try to get a little somethin' somethin'.

Now I get it. Provide unconditional love and never-ending support. Check. Be available for on-demand sex, even when I have made it clear that this cold that I have is wiping me out. Check. Just don't expect anything reciprocal. Glad we cleared that up. So happy that I allowed myself to be vulnerable. But now I get it.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Come tumblin' down, the walls...

My apologies to Mr. Mellencamp, but it just seem appropriate. It's been a long weekend, and not in the good sense. This could be the withdrawal from the Prozac (cold turkey wasn't that smart of an idea), but I've been struggling the last couple of days. It's not one or two things that are driving me nuts, but a whole host that just seems to have reached critical mass. The explosion doesn't look to be very pretty.

As part of Dr. RE's plan, I scheduled and had my lovely yearly GYN appointment. God, how I hate them. If I wanted an appointment in the next century, I had to go with one of the new doctors that they have recently added the practice. The doc that I have been dealing with for my PPD (Dr. Perfect) and the last 10 weeks of my pregnancy with Son was booked out over a month. What can I say, I like to think that I play with the popular kids.

Anyway, I ended up taking the appointment with the new doc. She was really nice, actually knew something about PCOS (imagine!!), and, get this, actually read my chart. How cool is that? She even told me that Dr. Perfect had been checking my TSH levels in the past. Didn't know that. Well, we do the exam. Have to say, she was great with the speculem part of it-I didn't even know that she had done it! Two points for doc. I might allow her near me again with one of those damn things.

Then, she just did her job. You know, upholding the whole Hippocratic oath. Which promptly caused me to fall apart in the car as I was leaving, yell at Husband, who only partially had it coming, and just basically dissolve into a heap. Yes, several of my finer moments of late. Usually I would only reserve a breakdown of this magnitude when leaving the RE's office. But rage I did. It was the first time in months that I have actually cried. I have to say, it was not cathartic in the least.

The whole thing that triggered the meltdown was that she went into some depth on how PCOS can affect me in ways other than infertility. She didn't say anything that little Ms. researcher that I am, didn't know. How my chances for diabetes are a lot higher, and combined with my GD, I'm even more at risk. Cholesterol issues (have to admit that I had blown that one off...I haven't had a cholesterol check in over a decade). Heart disease. Increased risk for stroke, which is unsettling since both my grandmother and great-grandmother ultimately died from strokes. Basically, I have to get my shit together or I'm going to die early, or at best, have to deal with a long list of maladies. Add that on top of the whole turning 35 issue, where I saw a sign in the restroom saying that I need to get a baseline mammogram, and it just felt completely overwhelming. Like I will never, ever, be able to do anything that makes a damn difference.

All of the years of battling the weight, battling the infertility, just plain battling, seem to come down at once. I know what I need to do. I do. I've educated myself. However, that knowledge doesn't seem to get me anywhere. I'm pissed at myself, hate myself, hate looking in the mirror. I can't believe my husband when he says that he's still attracted to me. I just can't buy it. I know what he sees, what he feels, and I would be repulsed. I don't know why he keeps coming back for more. A lot of other men would have just walked away.

All of this just makes me believe that I have no right to subject another baby to having me as a mother. All of the things that could go wrong. I could say that no, we won't try in December like we had been talking about, since I am in no position physically to do this again. That we'll wait until March and that will give me some time to drop the weight, remember what a treadmill looks like. Then I think that I have been down this path before, before I had a child to take care of, when it was just me, and I failed miserably. I had four years to get this right before I had Son, and I didn't fix it then either. How on earth am I going to be able to do this now? Between being a part-time single mom (not Husband's fault), doing the work of essentially two people with little hope of relief, and just trying to do the basic stuff at home (where I am making NO progress), I don't have a lot of hope that anything can really change. Oh, maybe a couple of weeks worth, but after that, it all goes back to the same as it was before. I get to add yet another failure to the long, and not-so-distinguished list.

I know that I have nothing but a litany of what others outside would deem excuses, and I don't know what to do.
1. I don't have time to exercise. Honestly, I don't know where it would come from. I pick Son up from daycare between 5:30 and 6:00. It's a roughly 30 min drive home. Feed Son, try to load the dishwasher or fold some laundry, or gee, have a meal myself, give Son bath, put Son in bed, and lo and behold, it's 8:30 and the last thing that I want to do is haul my ass to the gym. Husband keeps harping on that I should work out at work before I go home. Due to the different time zones I have to deal with, knocking off before 5:00 really can't happen. So that gives me a whole 30 minutes, if I'm lucky. I guess that 30 minutes is better than nothing, but it just feels like another obligation, and then I have to rush and pray that I can get to daycare on time. I hate having Son being the last kid there. It just feels lonely to me. The other option is that I go when I get home. And that will work how? Husband has been the walking dead lately, so I don't feel like I can impose on him to take care of Son while I go to the gym. He's been busting his ass for the past three weeks without any time off, and I go to the gym? That doesn't seem fair either. If I ever could go, I wouldn't get to see Son at all. I can't go in the morning since Husband leaves for work at 6:15. Who would take care of Son?

2. The whole diet thing just never, ever works. Ever. I'm 35, and I think that I have spent 30 of those years trying to be the right size. It's never worked. I can't count the number of times I cried in elementary school, or agonized over whether to tell my Mom about what the yearly height and weight check had revealed. I'm in such a cycle of failure I can't seem to ever get off of it. Plus, I have to admit, food is the only way that I can reward myself without anyone else getting a say. I guess that in the end all it has done is hurt me.

I'm so frustrated and pissed at the whole thing. The only person that this needs to be squarely aimed at is me. I'm the only one that has done this to myself. I'm looking down the tunnel, and I'm not seeing any light. I've never shied away from working hard for anything else, so why can't I just get it together and do this? I'm frustrated that the rational, always cautious me says, quite loudly, that I need to wait. Wait some more. Just eat less stupid. The small child in me screams, stamps my feet, and says, "NO!! I've had to wait for EVERYTHING and I'm sick of having to be patient. I'm sick of having to bow to everyone else's demands. SCREW YOU, I'M GOING TO DO WHAT I WANT FOR A CHANGE!!"

Lastly, I'm scared. I've always been scared of death, and I can't imagine what it will be like when confronted with it. So scared that I can't seem to move lest it find me. Scared that I won't get to see my Son as an adult. I just feel so trapped by all of the failures and the demands. This is stuff that regular adults handle all of the time. That the fitness profiles in Shape can overcome. Just once, why can't it be me?

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

When kids go and beg for candy (and the parents get it!)

After much hemming and hawing, we finally decided last night to take Son out trick or treating. It was cold as, well, choose your colorful metaphor, and we didn't know about dragging Son out in it. However, since the wind finally died down, and we have a smallish neighborhood, we decided to go out and brave the elements. The matching outfits on Husband and Son were pretty cute too.

Son, for the most part, wasn't real invested in either direction. He smiled and waved bye-bye, and tried to get into everyone's houses. An open door means that you get to come in, right? He was pretty good overall though. The only downside is that since we all went out, we missed most of the neighborhood kids that would have come to our house. Not intended, but it just happened. Husband insisted that I go with, so I wasn't ablet o stay home and take care of the home fires. My plan for next year is to dress up one of the dogs to come with as well. Black Dog as a devil is pretty darn cute. He just refuses to keep the horn headband on. I'll probably need a year to figure out how to circumvent the paw swipe that he has mastered.

Regardless, I'm happy that we took him out. One of those parent things that I was looking forward to.