I'm sitting here grinning like a crazy person. Not only am I enjoying a chilled glass of Moscato D'Asti but I'm considering finishing the entire bottle.
I'm not grinning because I'm a lush. You see, for the past three years, my life has been completely out of my control. It's been out of my husband's control. It's even been out of my team of doctors' control. My life has been 100% dictated by my body and our attempts to get pregnant. For the past three years, my schedule has looked like this:
- Day 1: Not. Pregnant. Dreaded period starts which has been preceded by pregnant-like symptoms: sore boobs (I'm sorry, I just can't say breasts. I guess that's why I teach middle school), headaches, exhaustion, weird appetite, etc.
- Day 3: Start taking meds to try and get pregnant. Not a lot of process time since finding out that there's no reason for my boobs to swell up bigger than they already are. And this just pisses me off even more. They amped up the medication from Clomid to Femara. All of the tests indicated I was responding favorably, but apparently not enough. Femara did, however, make me feel like I was going through menopause as I broke out into a sweat and then would be freezing to my bones, all day, every day with hormone swings that would challenge any 5 star roller coaster ride. My husband's absolutely a saint.
- Day 5-10: Begin having sex every day (I am SO sorry, I swear, this will be the only time I talk about our sex life. I guess I'm hoping that you might see how even "this" has become clinical)
- Day 8: Done taking meds.
- Day 10: Yeah! Blood test followed immediately by an ultrasound. And I'm not talking about the cute one's where they rub the wand over your stomach. I didn't not know that there was another kind. I usually like surprises...not this one! The blood test is to check my hormone levels and the ultrasound-that-they-don't-show-in-movies is used to check the follicles in my ovaries. I know, who knew you had follicles in your ovaries!? They show which side is ovulating and how close to ovulation I am. Thankfully, I'm like a clock and always have had numerous "big follicles" so I've never had to have the hormone shot in my tuckuss. Appreciative of every little thing!
- Day 11: Insemination. We've done this at least 8 times now. I'm sure this is weird, but I stopped keeping track.
- Day 12-28: Go about our lives and try not to hope.
There have been times that we took a month off for a variety of reasons (being out of town, Parent/Teacher Conferences falling on insemination days, or just to take a break!). But do you see a key thing here!? I was only able to drink for 2 days every month, and believe me, when you're going through infertility you want to drink.
And now I can. Jim and I are going to adopt. We're thrilled to be moving in such a positive direction but are also truly heart broken to be letting go of the dream of having our own biological child. We kept our infertility...journey...struggles...visit to hell...very private. It's weird to talk about infertility because it revolves around such a private part of your life. Adoption, on the other hand, doesn't revolve around my hoo ha. And I know that I need you. As excited as I am, I'm not naive. This is going to be hard, scary, and trying. So I'm starting this blog to celebrate, learn from you, vent, and maybe even help someone else to realize that they're not alone in their pain of infertility.
Ok. It's Day 26 of my cycle, and I'm going back to my Moscato. Oh, and screw you cycle counting. I'm done with that and moving on...
