A little holiday

My husband and I are going to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary this evening, in some amount of style. We got married in a big rush as he was in the country on a tourists visa. My dad would have thrown us a bigger wedding but he wanted to do it outdoors during the summer months on his property. In the end, we just went to the courthouse at 8 am on a tuesday and got hitched. There was a small party with a few of my friends and my immediate family. His family stayed in England, even though they really wanted to come over. We didn't want them there for what was pretty much a non event, compared to the average modern wedding. In the years that have followed, we have tried to make a big deal of our anniversary to make up for the lack of pomp on the actual day. This year we meant to go out of town, at least as far as Seattle or Vancouver, but perhaps to mexico for a week. With my new job, I cant get away for more than a day and a half, as I have a mandatory meeting on my day off this week !

I have booked us a room for tonight at the hotel Monaco here in Portland, and we will have dinner out. http://www.monaco-portland.com/

I've been running myself ragged at work with new management and tons of organizational stuff to be done. Its going to be so nice to have 24 hours just to relax with my husband.

I have started a clomid cycle. Today will be day two of taking the tablets. Already getting hot flashes, will of course keep you all posted.

Caution be damned

My therapist would like for me to wait to try to conceive. She said "lets get you through the holidays". I feel that the best way to get through the holidays would be to do something something productive, reproductively speaking. My OB thinks we can try again whenever we please. She is happy that I'm doing the counseling and going to the support group. My chinese medicine doc wants me to hold off for another two months at least. I suppose it would be best to reach my ideal BMI, get my chi aligned and my emotions sorted out neatly, but I say phooey. I don't have enough faith in the chinese medicine to hit the snooze button on my biological clock. Because I have some sort of ovulatory dysfunction in addition to my little habitual abortion problem, I feel pressed for time. I will be 34 in March. I know that most women still have a handful of good breedin' years ahead of them by 34 but I am not one of those women. My best years are certainly behind me for baby making, if I ever had them. Im not ovulating on my own, and Im not going to count on becoming pregnant on clomid, as quickly as I have in the past. I have to be prepared for things to take a while, or to be moved on to injectibles and IUI. This has already taken a while. I've lost count of how many cycles I have actually timed intercourse but I do know that I recently found receipts for HPT's dating back to late 2005. Each time I become pregnant and miscarry, I feel as if I just got sent back to the start line of a long foot race. Then there is all the negotiation with the doctors, my husband, our schedules, finances, sex life, fertility meds. I want something I can keep so I don't have to keep starting fresh each time. Weather that be a baby I will give birth to, or a baby I will adopt, I want it soon. My life has been on hold for too long. Its not easy to make career plans or serious work commitments when a pregnancy is looming on the horizon. If I miscarry again we will move right into adoption proceedings. The main reasons for not initiating adoption now are financial ones. Its far less expensive to try for a "free" baby.

All this to say that I'm determined to have another go. phoning the doctor this afternoon to be sure my clomid prescription is ready to go for this next cycle. Im also getting my cd 3 blood work redone, as the last time they took it I was pregnant. Of course we didnt know at the time, but the RE said even though I was miscarrying, the low FSH number probably wasn't correct. I can still avail myself to the chinese medicine. I can still get therapy, but I dont think I can wait much longer.

Remembrance day

Im sure most anyone who reads this blog will know, that October the 15th is pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day.

Im holding a small private candle lighting ceremony this evening to honor the memory of our collective lost little ones. Too many.

the psychiatrist

She changed her mind. Shes going to squeeze me in whenever she can. I wonder what gives. Or gave. She probably got the referral from Kaiser and thought "this poor woman really is messed up". Just a little strange after being told that shes not taking any new patients. It's supposed to be for a med eval but they are letting me see her a total of six times if need be. Im pretty happy with my clinical social worker, but I wonder how effective our chats really are. If shes got a goal in mind, other than just letting me spout off.

the way courage comes

THE EMBRYO


When the time comes for the embryo
to receive the spirit of life,
at that time the sun begins to help.
This embryo is brought into movement,
for the sun quickens it with spirit.

From the other stars this embryo
received only an impression,
until the sun shone upon it.
How did it become connected
with the shining sun in the womb?

By ways hidden from our senses:
the way whereby gold is nourished,
the way a common stone becomes a garnet
and the ruby red,
the way fruit is ripened,
and the way courage comes
to one distraught
with fear.

Rumi

We often talk about what a roller coaster this infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss business is. Ive certainly had some highs and lows in recent weeks. I was feeling about as bad as I ever have, after my visit with the RE. I had jumped through so many hoops just to get into that office. All for nothing. Two days later I found myself on the table of a chinese medicine practitioner. Brimming with hope after purchasing The Infertility Cure, by Randine Lewis. This was the first real consideration I had given to attempting chinese medicine, and I dove in with the zeal of the newly converted. I have mostly been adhering to my new anti allergy diet. Im drinking two nasty concoctions of mysterious chinese herbs daily. Ive had the acupuncture. I do wonder if this isnt a bit of voodoo. The western alernatives such as IVIG are equally as dubious. Im trying to read positive stuff about the wonders of TCM, and stick my head in the sand when it comes to really reading up on the research. I want to bask in the placebo effect for as long as possible. This is one of the high points. I started hoping again.

Another high point is the support group that I attended for the first time a few nights ago. These women all have infertility issues, and most of them have suffered infant or pregnancy loss too. This has been heartbreaking and intense. We all had the chance to speak as long as we liked. I wanted to bear hug every one of them while they shared. The faciltator is an expert on grief and opens her beautiful old Portland home on a regular basis for these grief groups.

My new job is keeping me so busy, I hardly have time to eat, much less dwell on my situation but today I had the day off. I had a look on facebook this morning to catch up with friends and family who are scattered all over the country, all over the world really. The first thing I saw was this "{sigh}...looks like I'm going to be the driver of a minivan by April next year". Posted by a family friend, who is my age. She is about 12 weeks pregnant with her third child, and obviously not thrilled about it. Moments after I read it, I got an email from her mother

"Hi, sweetie,

I know ____'s news can't be easy for you to hear right now. I just wanted you to know you were one of the first things I thought about when I heard. I am happy for her and I'm very excited about the new grandbaby, but my heart is breaking a little for you right now. I love you."

Which totally reduced me to tears, and then I couldnt stop. I cried for about 4 hours. When I was finally able to catch my breath I knew that I had been putting off that visit to the psychiatrist for too long. I phoned my HMO and guess what? They couldnt find an appointment for me ! shocking, eh ? Bastards.. they refered me out of network to a lady who has some experience with postpartum depression and lactation issues, I guess they figure thats about as close to my situation as they can get. Bloody hell. She says she cant see me, shes booked out for months, so Im going to have to phone the HMO mental health dept. yet again the next weekday I get off of work, and see if they can squeeze me in somewhere else. My OB is not comfortable prescribing psychiatric meds.

Despite all these ups and downs, I do feel that I am making progress. I have more good days than bad days. I feel that I am taking care of myself in ways that I never have before, with all the counseling and healthy eating. Not doing self destructive binge drinking when the going gets tough. Inching my way to that time when I will feel brave enough to attempt another pregnancy, and slowly wraping my mind around what will happen if I lose the next round.