30 Day Shred Level 1, Day 1

It looks like I've come full circle this past year. It was just over one year ago that I started this blog to chronicle my workout efforts. It was just under one year ago that I shifted my workouts to jogging in order to "train" for the October half-marathon.

Why am I trying to start an overall fitness routine again? Because even my fat pants are too small now. Clothes that used to fall off me, are snug or unwearable. And basically, that is just added sh$t that I don't want to deal with.

Sooo.. I'm hoping to get a more balanced approach this year. I think I can do it. Last year my longest run prior to the half was 6 miles. So far I've done one run of 6.5 - and I still have another 2 months to train. Adding some overall conditioning should only help....right? I'd really like to improve my times - it's hard to get the miles out when you know you'll be running for 2-3 hours.

You would think

I keep thinking that since I have all this time where we are just waiting, that I could stop thinking about it. I just can't. Everyday I look at the calendar and make a mental note of either how many days/weeks until I get to meet with the therapist or until we find out if we can try for a biological child. Thankfully, the appointment with the therapist comes first.

I've tried a few different tactics to take my mind off of it but they haven't really been working.

Believe me, I know these aren't exactly new or original thoughts - I'm sure that there are a lot of other ladies out there that have felt the exact same way (and that helps more than you know).

How did I get here? Shouldn't TTC be an exciting time - how did it turn into something so painful and downright scary?

Should I really feel as badly as I do about all of this? I have a pretty great life and a good marriage. We are both relatively healthy and employed. We have a house we can still afford - two wonderful kitties and our pup that fill the house with fur, entertainment, and love.

This isn't the worst thing that could happen. I know that. And it's not like there aren't other options - either donor options or adoption. Why doesn't that feel like enough?

Why am I always asking 'why'? I hate that I always feel like a whiny baby when I think about how we're going to get through this.

How do I balance my anger, sadness, and jealousy when I should be feeling happy for others. Will I ever get over wondering if someone had to try "hard enough" to get their baby and if they didn't really have to try, do the appreciate that?

Is it ok for me to throat punch the next person who asks me 1) are we going to have children 2) when are we going to have children 3) don't we want children and 4) (my new favorite) "So are you guys waiting until you're 40 to have kids, or what"?

2 more months

It will be another 2 months until we have any answers - but it will be a definitive one. The worst part of this being scheduled so far out, is that I feel like I still would have a chance to do a concombinant IVF cycle. Maybe it's a sign that I should? Crap - more time to second guess our choice.

I am still hoping I make it to the IF support group sometime soon - even after my traumatic experience yesterday. After a tear-filled drive home, I decided it was time to make an appointment with the therapist. A few weeks ago I called our clinic and asked for a recommendation, but I hadn't done anything past checking into insurance coverage. I called today and made an appointment ($150 AFTER insurance- WTF!). It's not for another month, but I think it will be good to talk to someone before everything else happens. I'm going on my own and I was hoping I could convince DH to go once and then schedule an appt to go together. I know I can get him to go with me, but it doesn't seem like he's very interested in going on his own.

This is the kind of luck I have

I finally decided to try out the support group I heard about in town. I get there, wander around the warehouse of a church with kids and adults running all over the place, and find the room empty and dark. My best guess is that it was canceled this week because of vacation bible school.

I suppose it's my own fault because I should have double checked (not sure who I would have double checked with...). All I've heard is the 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month. For the last 8 months whenever I've thought about going, or checked into seeing if they were still meeting they always were. Just not tonight.

What a waste of an hour.

Dr. RE, please don't steer us wrong

First off - thanks for the comments and reinforcement that I'm not crazy.

So we had the much anticipated appointment with Dr 2 yesterday. (anyone who has already been subjected to the vent on this may want to skip this blog entry) What a waste! First off, we didn't get called back until a half hour after our scheduled appointment and the nurse followed that up with asking why we were there. Didn't we discuss coordinate things with Dr RE's office? WTF?!? Not like DH didn't specify that when he made the appointment. There is a surgery involved - shouldn't it be expected that we'd want to discuss the details with the person performing the procedure?

So... a little over a half hour after that, the Dr actually came in and we had a semi-useless 5-10 minute conversation in the exam room. Granted we were irritated by the wait, but it just didn't feel like he was really listening to our questions. I guess I'm spoiled by our RE - it may be hard to talk to him in person, but at least the office is pretty good about answering voicemails.

It was a really disappointing visit and if Dr RE hadn't said that this was the Dr we should see (unless we wanted to go to NY), I think we'd be going to the University Clinic out of town. I've still considered that, but I'm tired of the waiting and uncertainty.

Anyway, I called Dr RE today to ask a couple last questions and ask how to handle getting the procedure scheduled, but he was out. That means tomorrow is the day. I'll have to make a decision and it is scaring the crap out of me. I'm so afraid of doing the wrong thing, even though we won't know what we should have done until this is all over. Hopefully, Dr RE will help validate our decision tomorrow.

At any rate, I hope we can get things scheduled soon and I hope the Drs find what we need. Please work, please work, please work.

If only everyday could be a Saturday

Or if it could be a Sunday like yesterday! Generally, I'm not a big fan of Sunday because I'm thinking too much about what needs to get done before the week starts or dreading what's to come on Monday. Yesterday was a great exception to that.

We started the day out with a nice jog (jog may be a bit optimistic... maybe I should say walk) and then went downtown to the Arts Festival. We walked around for a bit and then had a couple beers (and a little buzz) by one of the music stages. We even got to take a little nap once we got home.

To top it all off we had a nice (albeit very short) talk about what we're going to do. It pretty much started because there are days when I still insist on talking about what it will be like when I'm pregnant or what we'll buy/do when we have a baby. DH mentioned that we don't know if that will ever happen and that he was warming to the idea of adoption. That gave me the chance to get some things off my chest and express some of my reservations about using a donor (ie - the day he said "but then we don't have to tell anyone" - I'm not going to avoid adoption just so that we can keep our infertility a secret) . He actually said we probably would tell friends - that kind of shocked me. I'm still not quite sure how our families would handle it and I worry that it's selfish to want to experience pregnancy that much.

He also mentioned embryo adoption again. A couple months ago this was one of my top options, but the way embryos can be treated as children bothers me a bit. I totally understand why couples donating their embryos would want some control over their potential family, and any embryo DH and I might be lucky enough to create would be a little potential baby to me. I just wonder about what direction this will take. Could this trend lead to new arguments against the right to choose? What could it mean for fertility treatments? If embryos are considered children, I'm afraid there might be limits placed on the number of eggs that could be fertilized during an IVF cycle or restrictions placed on FETs, DE, DS, etc...

Hmmmm.... I seem to have gotten a bit off topic.


Anyway, it was a nice day :-)

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I updated my blog! I can't say there has been anything new. I've been really busy at work and trying to reduce my internet time at home. The hope was that I'd think less about IF, if I could focus on other things. ... It didn't work.

My goal was to not blog on bad days, but to wait until I had something really good and happy to blog about. That's not to say that there isn't any happiness in my life - because there is. It's just that IF is always in the background and I can't seem to shake it. I know there are so many things in my life I should be grateful for and I should focus on that. For some reason that last week or two I've been in a funk and haven't been able to break out of it. I don't have energy to go and do anything, but at the same time I feel like crawling out of my skin...I can't think of a better way to explain it.

Seriously, I have turned completely loony.
(confession1: I know it could be worse - but this experience has really felt like the worst thing I could survive. Even worse confession: there are days when I think this is the worst IF possible to deal with. I know it isn't true, but I still have days where I feel this way. I feel robbed of our chance to even try.)

Today was a real reminder of how much worse it could be. Friends of ours, just days away from having their first, lost a family member this morning in some kind of freak accident. At the last update they hadn't heard about the cause of the fire. I can't imagine losing a family member or trying to balance so much grief with the happiness of new life.