Here I am again, awake too early on the morning of a scheduled pregnancy test. This time, I have zero interest in self testing. Yay! I am kind of stumped though - whatever the outcome, how do I make myself believe it? I was explaining my thinking last time, that whatever that test revealed, I wouldn't believe it without self testing, when someone pointed out that no, I would believe it if it were negative. It's so much easier to believe the negative.

How very, very true. If I were to self-test right now and got a negative result, I would be devastated again and believe it right away. Except for a little niggling of doubt spurred by hope. A little hope can be a dangerous thing.

But if I got a positive result at home, no way would I be able to believe it! I would just be a million times more anxious to get to the appointment, and then waiting for the results to come in!

But the question remains, should I bring a pregnancy test with us? So that when the phone call does come, I can confirm it? What can they say to convince me it's really true if it's positive? I really don't know.

As I'm remembering more, I think it was Susan that I had this conversation with, who said it was easier to believe the negative. Because I remember telling her that I'm a pessimist, who tries to be a realist, but is a closet optimist.

I am usually intensely pessimistic: I stomp around with all my negative thoughts, telling myself "it will never happen". But most of the time, I have reason(s), ie: it's never worked right before. I try very hard to be realistic. But under it all, there is always this tiny, fantastical hope - because I want to believe in miracles.

I think I've mentioned before that it is impossible for me to believe anything 100%. I am 99.999999% sure that: the sky is blue, the earth is round, my cats can't talk, my husband loves me, etc...

So here I am with my extreme pessimism, and my fantastical hope. "It will never happen. This part won't work, that thing will go wrong, someone isn't good enough. But oh! What if I'm wrong? What if by some miracle, all those obstacles are overcome? What if it really happens?! No, never. Too much will go wrong..."

I'm tired just typing all that, and yet it cycles continuously through my mind when I'm anxious/worried about something.

Ridiculous optimisms I have actually thought of at least cursory contingency plans for: I might still get pregnant on my own, my cat will pull through this, she may forgive me, he may still love me, someday I may trim down to 125 lbs, someday I may be able to get off my antidepressants, it's possible to be up over $100 in craps, Jon Stewart might read my blog, someone might publish my blog, I will finish the novel I started when I was 11 years old, Simon le Bon will become infatuated with me...

There are so many variables out there, how can anyone believe in anything at all? How does that admonishment go... "and you might get hit by a bus tomorrow, but if you keep focusing on that, you'll go crazy!"

DingDingDing! I am absolutely bat-shit crazy! So that's where it all started....

I was so sure I was pregnant. At my Wellness group, someone asked how I could stand the wait, how could I keep from home testing? I explained that my brain is so untrusting, such a thing would send me to Crazytown - no matter what the test said, I wouldn't believe it until the official blood test, leaving me to suffer through days of worry or false joy. But, I had a plan. I tested myself at home the morning I was scheduled to go in for my blood draw. I guess I really had this urge to pee on a stick...

It was about 5am, most of the world is still asleep, and I'm watching my pee activate a pregnancy test strip. Not once, but twice - negative both times. I somehow got myself dressed and went out to buy another test - surely my tests had been hanging around too long and had gone bad. I had my hoodie up, sunglasses on, tear streaks on my face, and still the checker cheerfully asked me about my day. I couldn't believe how chatty he was. I couldn't believe he wouldn't shut up and wither and die before my eyes. I still can't believe I didn't reach over and cause him physical harm.

Home again, and another failed test. I cried and cried and cried and cried. I somehow lived through the hours until it was time to wake up Eric to take me to the "real" test. He did his best to console me and keep hope alive. At the clinic, they kept us in the waiting room for an eternity. Seriously, it was the longest wait we've ever had there, and all we were there for was to give some blood. Did I mention there was another couple waiting, and I was spontaneously breaking into tears every other minute?

The lab tech did her best to console me. And she seemed genuinely surprised that no one had told me not to self-test because those tests were so unreliable. I kept to myself about the fact that it was 3 tests, and all those commercials they make about how home tests are "just as reliable" as blood tests these days.

I went home and straight into bed. Eric was the one who took the call. He was miserable coming to tell me, but I already knew. I wasn't pregnant. It didn't take.

"It didn't take."

This is the official phrase used by the clinic, my husband, the notifications we emailed.

It is not the phrase used in my head. If I allow myself to be honest, I had a miscarriage.

I was pregnant. An egg was fertilized by my husband, the embryo was implanted inside of me. Even if the loss occurred that very day, the fact remains that I had an embryo in my uterus. I had a baby in my womb. But the embryo was gone. The baby was dead.

The first 48 hours were the worst. I called my mother to ask her to tell me that I was wrong, trying again wouldn't be murder. Because all I could think about was the idea that now I knew my body couldn't support a pregnancy, wouldn't introducing a baby into that body constitute knowingly putting it to harm? Or, in my mind, a death trap. She told me no, that wasn't true. We talked about all the babies still in some lab, waiting to be born. They were already there, waiting for me. I couldn't walk away from them.

In the end, that was what made my decision. 17 embryos sitting in a frozen vat somewhere, waiting to come to life. I had made the decision to have them created, and it was up to me to do right by them. 17 possible babies.

The past few months have been unimaginably hard. Not only because of the sadness and loss and grief, or the gravity of the decision on what to do next, or the feeling of limbo as if my life is pointless until the next implantation, but the realization that my definition of life has shifted. This is big. Like realizing I didn't think god really existed big.

Because I didn't just have a procedure that didn't take. I had a baby in my womb. I had a baby that went away.

When did this happen? How did this happen? Such an extraordinary change in mindset. I had no idea it was possible, that this was in me waiting to happen. How on earth did I go from the belief that an embryo is just a packet of cells to eliminate when necessary, to the belief that on day one I had a real live baby inside of me?

There is a certain politician on the presidential campaign trail who is using her story of miscarriage to explain the evils of abortion. I understand her in a way that I couldn't have before. And yet now she and those that share her belief are even more alien to me. Because knowing there is a baby inside you and deciding to have it aborted is officially the hardest decision a woman can make. And yet, these people still think I'm incapable of making that decision on my own.

I have changed so much, but I am still the same.

The waiting is almost over - the procedure for implantation is scheduled. My last Lupron injection was a few days ago, my last Estrogen (butt) injection was yesterday. I am trying to balance between giddy and calm.

Things they don't tell you in the beginning:

You have to have a full bladder, full enough that you think you will explode.

Implantation is always scheduled for 3 days after retrieval. However, on the morning of day 3 they take a look at your embryos to see if there are any "leaders of the pack". If there are, awesome, implantation continues as scheduled. If there aren't any leaders or, get this, there are too many awesome ones, "it behooves you" to wait another 2 days for further development to make the "winner(s)" more clear. In my case, the call will come just 4 hours before my appointment is scheduled if they need to reschedule. *twitch*

Embryos "react" to strong smells, so no perfumes or other potent scents/soaps/toiletries.

The oocyte (egg) harvest seems very large. Retrieval yielded 31 oocytes, 25 of which were "mature", 21 of which were successfully fertilized into embryos.

The moral implications involved really hit you in the head with the form that they wait to spring on you until the day of retrieval: consent forms to give them instructions on what to do with your embryos in various unpleasant scenarios. It's not... pleasant to think about divorce and death, and it's extra not-nice thinking in terms of what to do with frozen embryos if these things happen. Should I get them or him? Should they be donated to science or another infertile couple? Get this: to donate to an infertile couple, regardless of whether they are known or anonymous to you, YOU agree to pay for all the testing involved for genetic compatibility. How strange is that?

The morality of this whole thing is a constant watcher, sitting on your shoulder, harping at everything, making you doubt and stumble and worry.

We are the owners of 21 embryos, 1-2 of which will be implanted, leaving about 20 to be frozen so they can be used or donated or destroyed at a later date. Or just kept in frozen limbo until one of those "unpleasant" scenarios activates the clauses we consented to. What will I want if this procedure is unsuccessful? What will I want if we have a baby?

This is not the kind of responsibility I want on my hands. But there it is anyway. The link to the debate on abortion seems obvious, making me doubt more than just what we've decided to do, but my own sense of right and wrong and life and death and abortion rights.

In the end, the only thing that has changed is that I am hyper-aware of my own sense of morality. I am more infuriated than ever that anyone feels they have the right to stand on the sidelines and pronounce judgment. Do they really think I am so cavalier about this whole process? That my heart aches just attempting to make these decisions, let alone living with them? I am responsible for deciding what happens to 21 clumps of cells in some petri dishes in a lab somewhere. Could it possibly be any easier to decide what to do with one much-more-advanced embryo already inside of me?

Are you nuts?

Honestly, I cannot recommend this path we've taken to anyone. If someone I know decides to do this, I will offer my insight, my love and support, but not advice. Ditto abortion.

A: Cranky and whiney and dragging.
Q: What is "how does Mysie feel when used as a human pin cushion", Alex?

Last week was the trifecta of pain: Estrogen needle in my ass, Lupron needle in my belly, blood draw needle in my arm. All three went badly. I got home and went straight to bed. I've been doing a lot of that, sleeping through the pain. The day after a butt injection has proved to be the worst - from the time I wake up to the time Eric goes to bed, sitting, walking, and just shifting around hurts. The next day, walking is much easier, and gets easier as the day progresses. Day 4, the day of another butt injection but on the other side, it only hurts a little to sit. Lucky me, the day after an injection is the worst, but the previous injection finally doesn't hurt so much!

Repeat, repeat, repeat...

All tests so far have been positive, and occasionally I'll hear that the donor is doing well on her side too. Retrieval is only 9 days away, implantation 3-5 days after that. So soon! The time really does go by more quickly when you don't pay attention to it and you spend your days either sleeping or boxing up your possessions!

I've been asked a few times if I'm excited. Honestly, I'm not much of anything - I am forcing myself to live in the moment to survive this. If I let myself actually think about what's going to happen in 2 weeks, the anticipation and anxiety will vibrate through me until I explode! I seem to be doing well with this technique. I'm not hyper-productive or as efficient as I worry about being when I worry. But I am calm, and things are getting done slowly but steadily. So why worry?

On a side note, I've made a pair of custom earrings for a giveaway online through a new, but interesting fashion blog. More details to follow!

Cycle Day 25 sucked. It was a huge pain in my ass, literally. Who knew that shoving a 3.5" needle into the muscles of your buttocks would not hurt a bit - until 48 hours later when every movement and pressure made me yelp. This morning the pain is much less already, thank you GODS! Not looking forward to the trio of needles waiting for me today though: tummy, left buttock, right arm. Whose idea was it to have a blood draw on a butt injection day?

Other than that, my symptoms so far have become negligible. I've had a headache almost every afternoon, but they go away just fine with some Excedrin - definitely not migraines!

So let us continue on to the second question of twenty that I mentioned the other day...

2. Is this what I want to be doing?
This very moment is, always, the only moment in which you can make changes. Knowing which changes are best for you comes, always, from assessing what you feel. Ask yourself many times every day if you like what you're doing. If the answer is no, start noticing what you'd prefer. Thus begins the revolution.

Outside! Right now my mind is squealing: outside, outside, outside! I would rather be doing anything that takes me out of this house. I want to see the world, but I will settle for something beyond these walls.

Looking beyond the moment and into my current life, I can say yes. Resoundingly. I have my doubts about turning myself into a baby-making machine, resentment of the injections, trepidations about raising a child in this house. But do I want to be making a baby? Do I want to introduce a baby into our lives? Yes. Oh, yes, definitely!

All of my worries and concerns are about how equipped we are to do this. How prepared we are, how responsible we can become, how diligent and clean and house-bound. But do I want to be doing everything in my power to have a child? Yes. No question.

I've felt for some time that being a parent is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I feel like I've just been spinning my wheels, waiting for life to call me up to bat. I've always believed that every past moment of life is preparing you for this one, right now, as well as the future. I think my life of physical and mental anguish has been preparing me for this, drilling into me all the things not to do, how not to be. I've lived so much of my adult life so selfishly that I've become sick of myself. I really feel like having a child will bring balance to my life: a way to be both selfish and self-sacrificing at the same time.

Yes, it's happened - Eric gave me my first injection of Estrogen yesterday, and we all survived: me, Eric, and my butt! Amazingly, despite the terrifying length of the needle, you only feel it as it pierces the skin. Which means you barely feel it at all! Whew! It's just now starting to feel a little tender when I sit just so, but nothing at all worth all the worry and drama before hand.

In other news, today was another meeting of my Wellness Group. I love this group! There is no way to describe properly how comforting and uplifting it is to sit down in a room with other people dealing with chronic ailments. You can vent, complain, wish, hope, learn - all in a supportive environment. At the beginning of each session, we go around the room reading a list of "rules" about being respectful of each other. This is always my favorite rule:

Although our goal is wholeness and a positive affirmation of life, we allow ourselves to express our real feelings, including negative ones. We do not need to pretend to be more positive than we feel.

Hallelujah! The burden to smile pretty for every grocery checker (Tom) and receptionist (Dick) and random Harry that you run in to when you leave the house - it is just exhausting, infuriating, condescending... bleck!

In other news, our huge task of re-carpeting the upstairs is almost complete! Saturday we moved the last of the furniture downstairs. We are crossing our fingers that our bed and M-A-S-S-I-V-E dresser fit in the upstairs bathroom when the time comes, because we just can't move those on our own. But now on to the fun part - picking out the carpet! Or at least, I keep telling myself this should be the fun part. People find decorating fun, right?

Last week CNN shared an article by Martha Beck from Oprah.com, 20 Questions that could change your life. Despite not being an Oprah viewer, I decided to click the link to read these mysterious questions. To be honest, I didn't know it had anything to do with Oprah at the time and, despite some vague curiosity, I didn't really think I would find it all that enlightening anyway.

It wasn't exactly enlightening, but there was a familiarity to it that kept me reading. Most every question had me really thinking about myself and my current place in life. It all seemed to tie in very closely to the mental/emotional changes that I've been experiencing/implementing in my life this past year. So I thought I'd take it one step further and write my answers, to do some real critical thinking on it - writing about something has its own unique way of ferreting out insight within me that I had no idea was hiding there to begin with. So today, Question 1.

1. What questions should I be asking myself?
At first I thought asking yourself what you should be asking yourself was redundant. It isn't. Without this question, you wouldn't ask any others, so it gets top billing. It creates an alert, thoughtful mind state, ideal for ferreting out the information you most need in every situation. Ask it frequently.

The questions I ask myself every day: how do I feel? is this worth it? am I doing the right thing? why is it so difficult to go to the gym?

The questions I'd prefer to ask myself: what do you want to do today? what do you want to create today? what do you want to write today? where do you want to go today? what do I want to photograph today?

Every day, I am stuck in the rut of being ruled by my health problems and judged by my own self. Yes, it's necessary to gauge my energy level before I start any task. And yes, looking at yourself critically is important. But that seems to be the entirety of my inner-monologue: health, ramifications of health, disappointment in self.

It seems I would much rather be escaping and/or creating. I want to be out of the house, or deep in a project - both with the result that I will be out of my mind, away from my own worries and criticisms. Is this really such a bad thing? Why don't I listen to this part of myself more often? Why has it been so long since I've been creative?

Rereading this before posting, there is another set of questions that occurs to me: am I healthy enough for a baby? is this good enough for the baby? am I good enough for the baby?

Worry, worry, worry! I'm so tied to worrying, I seem to have lost sight of why I want to have a child.

Questions I should be asking myself: what do I want to teach my baby? how will I explain this idea to the baby? how will I tell this story to the baby? what would be a good way to get my baby interested in this?

Things are going quite smoothly, finally! My mood is good and my symptoms are annoying, but tolerable: the headaches have dissipated, I'm sleeping better, the spotting has turned into full-blown menstruation, and this morning my chin was attacked by acne the likes I haven't seen in ages. You take the bad with the good!

I got out of the house to catch a movie with Jenni and Meg: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was watchable, and I was entertained, but it was kind of boring. The magic of the journey that was captured in the book just was did not translate into the movie.

Finally, some real progressive on packing up the 2nd floor! Today we move the heavy items, hopefully without hurting ourselves. Then we'll finally be ready to get the new carpet! We've only been planning this for the better part of a year...

Tomorrow is a "Suppression Check" day, so bloodwork and ultrasound at the clinic. Then Monday the first of the Really Evil Injections. Wish us luck!

CD 17, Lupron Day 7

I had a few days of sleeping longer, and then this morning I'm awake at 5:45 and giving up trying to fall back asleep by 6:15. This on top of the non-nifty side-effects of the Lupron is... very non-nifty.

Side effects so far: headaches for 3 days now, off-and-on nausea, spotting. The dosage goes down considerably next Monday, so I just have to hold on for another few days. Or at least during the "Mock" cycle last year things got much better after the dosage went down, so I'm hoping for something similar here.

Over the weekend I got to finally play with my new camera. I took the giant leap to Digital SLR. So far, I am quite pleased. Some of the differences in usage are frustrating, most notably that I keep turning off the camera because the on/off sliding doo-hickey is exactly where the zoom control was in my last few cameras. I don't mind zooming manually with my own hands. I mind lining up a shot and then accidentally turning off the camera! It's pretty good negative reinforcement though, so I'm sure I'll get the hang of it quite quickly.

But my god the pictures so far have been amazing! Great pictures of my nephew, amazing colors and sharpness, and it is blessedly forgiving of my hand shakiness.

This week is the real test: jewelry pictures. I got a macro lens, but I'm hoping that won't be necessary. I need to test that out too, at the very least take it out of the box and make sure that it arrived in one piece! I never did really enjoy using my macro on my old non-digital Nikon, but when I used it properly it was very impressive. I can't wait until Spring so there are more colorful things out there to take pictures of!

The real good stuff is on the ground, however. It's cold and wet out there right now, and the Seattle area soil is damp roughly 360 days a year, so that's another frustration to overcome. How odd would it be if I suited up in neoprene like a scuba diver?

Today is Cycle Day (CD) 12, Day 2 of Lupron injections.

I've had this idea in my head that I was going to use this blog to talk about the "infertility > IVF" process. A kind of day-to-day journal to not only record my thoughts, but also the details of the process to be a source of information on the web. There is a woefully small amount of information about the Donor Ovum IVF experience.

The problem with this is that it became a "task" in my head, and it was suddenly too much to deal with. Oh, the joys of my brain!

I would like to, instead, simply promise myself to write as the mood strikes me. Too often, I let it pass in order to continue some other mundane "task". I enjoy writing, so I should do it more often!

Back to the "infertility > IVF" for a small while. To recap:

Infertility:

the final "diagnosis" of infertility came in early 2010, after a laparoscopy. The true diagnosis is a trifecta that just about guarantees I will never get pregnant: endometriosis, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and Low Ovarian Reserve.

Endometriosis, uterine lining tissue growths outside the uterus, is largely responsible for the painful periods, as well as complicating the fertility in general.

PCOS means my ovaries are trying to produce too many eggs each month. They stimulate so many follicles to grow eggs that the ovary gets massively over-crowded, allowing no room for any single egg to grow enough to be viable.

Low Ovarian Reserve means I'm at the end of my supply of eggs that I was born with.

Donor Ovum:

hearing the final pronunciation of "infertility" was a very big blow to me. My first thought was that I would "never have a child who looks like me". Eric and I went away for a few days to not think about it, and I made the decision that we would try IVF before resorting to adoption as a last resort.

Oddly, despite the Endo and all the other problems, I was given the green light to use my own uterus for pregnancy. This kept open the option of finding a donor to supply us an egg, which would then be fertilized by Eric and implant the resulting embryo in me. No, we're not talking about swinging, so cut out the cheesy 70s porn soundtrack right now! Everything happens in a lab, except for daily self-medications. Which is the really tricky part of the process actually.

I am given 1 set of medications, and the donor another set that is slightly different. My medications are largely hormones that tell my uterus to make an extra awesome lining this month while telling my ovaries that they won't be needed. At the same time, the donor takes medications to tell her ovaries to work over-time. Eventually the hormones will sync up our cycles, eggs will be retrieved, fertilized, and implanted. Add anonymity and the fact that despite the hormones the body tends to work on it's own timetable, and getting to that sync up is more like choreography than science.

IVF:

this is the part of the process that I have not concerned myself with too much. I have been getting through this bizarre, House of Horror roller-coaster ride by focusing on keeping myself healthy, following instructions, and keeping a positive outlook for the big finale. Thinking too much about the harvesting > pregnancy test process/waiting game puts a little more anxiety in my brain than I care for at the moment. Don't borrow worry from tomorrow, right?

I do know that they will do a "retrieval" procedure on the donor to collect as many eggs as possible from her. Eric provides a "sample". Then they will use fancy science type stuff to introduce sperm to eggs, and wait a bit to see how many/if any embryos result. After 3-5 days (again, timing is not exact when dealing with biology!), a transfer will occur. We wait 14 days and then they do a blood draw to determine if I'm pregnant. During those 14 days, I'm still administering hormones to myself multiple times a day. With a confirmed pregnancy, I will continue this for 10 weeks to ensure that my body has the hormones necessary to maintain a pregnancy.

Bumps in the Road:

the process is not perfect, and I'm personally a little less so. Normally, there are emotions to get over, side-effects to deal with, perhaps complications like waiting an extra day or change in medication. Those sound minor, but when so much is hanging in the balance, any little problem can cause huge anxiety.

Now let's remember that this is me we're talking about. Depression, anxiety, SADD, back pain, sciatic leg pain, restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea... There's not much about this that is optimal! And, crazy as it is, new diagnoses just during the past 3 months: minor hearing loss, adult-onset scoliosis, and carpal tunnel syndrome.

I should be a giant blob on the couch crying constantly from pain and worry. And some days I do... resemble that scenario. But most days, I am impressed with myself for handling it so well.

A few months ago, I had in my mind this idea of becoming kick-ass fit-girl/perfect housewife/robo-mom-to-be. Guess what? That only brought anxiety, which was not helpful at all. I've let that go now, and gone back to merely living my life day to day. The idea of simply dealing with today's problems and putting everything else out of your head is not new. What is new is the concept of actually experiencing my daily life through "mindfulness" - be aware of everything, keep track of how your thoughts and feelings change throughout the day without judgement of yourself, savor anything positive, no matter how small, as it happens. Basically: pay attention to your moods and thoughts, be productive, don't judge yourself or your body if you can't be as productive as you'd like, and stop to smell the roses.

On the days that I manage to keep to this plan of Mindfulness, I am calmer, have less anxiety, more patience and energy, and a greater hope for the future. The goal is not to be giddy every moment of every day, the goal is to remain positive enough to be un-negative as much of the time as possible.

scene from the film Away We Go:

Burt Farlander: Do you promise to let our daughter be fat or skinny or any weight at all? Because we want her to be happy, no matter what. Being obsessed with weight is just too cliché for our daughter.
Verona De Tessant: Yes, I do. Do you promise, when she talks, you'll listen? Like, really listen, especially when she's scared? And that her fights will be your fights?
Burt Farlander: I do. And do you promise that if I die some embarrassing and boring death that you're gonna tell our daughter that her father was killed by Russian soldiers in this intense hand-to-hand combat in an attempt to save the lives of 850 Chechnyan orphans?
Verona De Tessant: I do. Chechnyan orphans. I do. I do.

After watching this scene, and then allowing for the screen couple to snuggle for a minute, I was informed that I am not allowed to watch any more movies today. It has just been that surreal of a day.

A long, long time ago, Eric and I came close to breaking up. We decided not to. Instead, we got in the car to take a long drive. About a minute into our drive, our song began to play on the radio. We had never before, and never since, heard our song on the radio - as far as we know, it was never released for radio play.

For years, I struggled with the decision of whether or not to have a child. So many reasons to fear it would be a mistake. Some very important ones to feel it may be imperative. So much waffling. I rented the movie Waitress, not really knowing what it was about. She spends the entire movie resenting her unborn baby for keeping her stuck with her husband, only to have her entire world flip over when the baby is born. Her husband is making a scene in the delivery room, but everything is muted as she holds and gazes upon her baby for the first time. That scene was hugely influential on me.

Alas, having my own biological child was not to be. There go half the reasons I was afraid to have a baby - the genetic inheritance of all my family's ills. I am still sad about this, but using a donor will allow us to have a child who will be loved, but who won't have all of my health problems.

Another movie I knew nothing about... I believe it was around the time we decided to go with Egg Donation, because I remember going to the movie store and needing something completely mindless to watch to get my mind off of my worries. Couples Therapy sounded like complete fluff. Until 10 minutes into the movie you discover that one of the couples wants them all to go on this retreat because infertility problems is making them consider divorce.

About 3 months ago I had a personal crisis. My illnesses conspired to make me miss multiple doctor appointments in one week. Appointments I was desperate to have. Because seeing doctors was the only way I was going to get well. I felt trapped and alone. Then something occurred to me: shouldn't there be other people out there who are so sick that they have problems just getting to see their doctors? Online searching led me to whole communities for people with chronic illnesses. People who were spending their lives like me: more sick than well, too familiar with the medical system and disgruntled with it, afraid and tired and lonely.

I discovered The Spoon Theory, an easy way to explain to my family and friends how little energy I had when I woke up each day was so easily taken up by the mundane chores of everyday life, leaving me with no energy for work or socializing or just having a normal life.

I discovered a therapy group in Edmonds. I had wonderful sessions with people going through things so similar to my own experience. I spent hours talking with one person in particular, with whom I shared so many similarities it was spooky. Through her, she gave me the words to express something I had been feeling inside about my life.

A change had been coming over me. I realized I didn't like myself, the person that I had allowed myself to become. I was taking stock of my life, trying to find ways to feel and do good. Nature helped me feel my humanity again. Being made small when taking in the massive scale of mountains and forests in real life, Alaskan valleys on television, made me feel part of something larger. This woman introduced me to the Unitarian Universalist concept of valuing all beings and things equally. In my heart, I had finally defined the core of my belief system: to cherish all life, in all forms everywhere.

Changing your life when you're set in your ways can be difficult. When your own body seems to be in revolt against you, the task appears Herculean. Daunting doesn't begin to describe it.

Focusing on Wellness and increasing my health and fitness has become the focus of my life as I prepare to become a mother very, very soon(!). A handful of appointments were scheduled for this week, and so far I managed to get to all of them. This is a very good thing, but it has done a number on me.

The X-rays from my chiropractor really threw me. I knew it was bad. Just not how bad. Disks degenerating in various places, some small bits of arthritis here and there, my neck curvature is reversed and responsible for may growing hump, my neck is also almost completely right-of-center to varying degrees, one hip is lower than the other, and I have adult onset scoliosis: with not 1 but 2 curves to my spine. The image of my spine looks like someone shoved it all the way to the left as it passes through my hips, then it corrects itself and keeps going in the opposite direction for a spell before correcting again to come towards the center. Before hitting my neck where it slides to the right like the leaning tower of Pisa. Should I be scared because there's so much wrong? Or should I be relieved that finally, there may be a single diagnosis for all of the neurological problems I've been accumulating in the past 2 years?

I have been officially diagnosed with "mild to moderate hearing loss" in both ears. A new sound overlay to my tinnitus may or may not be permanent. The hearing loss, associated with my inner ear, is permanent. But the Ear Nose Throat (ENT) doctor I saw today happened to notice the fertility meds listed in my chart. She told me that she had been an Egg Donor Coordinator for Virginia Mason 10 years ago. We chatted about where I was in the process, the clinic I was using. She confirmed that success rates with donated eggs are higher than that of artificial insemination of your own eggs simply because of the youth of the women donating. She told me about how she runs into people all over the place that she helped 10 years ago, how they point out their kid running on the soccer field with her kids, and she can see the amazing results of her work. She is so thrilled and excited and happy for me. She told me to be positive, that positive results were likely. She was practically giddy.

I decided to do something Christmas shopping after my appointment, but the anxiety and physical discomfort brought on by the chiropractor visit the day before had me exhausted. I decided to see what movies were playing. The new Jake Gyllenhall movie in 5 minutes.

How can a movie called Love and Other Drugs have commercials completely devoid of the information that he is a drug company rep who falls for a woman with Parkinson's disease? The scene where she goes to the Unconvention and listens to her fellow Parkinson's compatriots tell their sickness and their doctors and their shoelaces to fuck off... I was bawling almost uncontrollably for the rest of the movie. When she's saying to her boyfriend, "There are other people with Parkinson's disease! Can you imagine?!" I thought I was going to just lose it. She sounded exactly the way I felt when I discovered the support communities for people with chronic illness and pain.

After the movie, I hid in a bathroom stall and called Eric, sobbing anew. I told him the movie was about me. He told me to come home. I went to clean my face. I had been crying so hard that I my face was covered in red blotches - I looked hideous. A woman walked in behind me, and asked if I was ok. I told her yes, I would be, and turned towards her to assure her with a small smile that I was telling the truth. She said "No, you're not. Let me give you a hug." And she did. I clung to her and sobbed against her leather jacket for about 5 minutes. She did most of the talking. She asked me simple questions, and as I talked and broke down again after each answer, she would just hold me tighter and tell me reassuring things.

We exchanged names and full spellings, each of us having unusual names. She told me my name was as beautiful as I was. She must have told me I was beautiful over a dozen times. She told me that she had been recovering from cancer for 2 years, and I lost it all over again. She told me how she and her husband went broke and lost everything and she didn't think she could bear it any longer, so she got down on her knees and prayed. And God took her troubles and got her through it. She told me that there are the people we love and need in our lives, and then there are the interim people, who are there to hug you in the movie theater bathroom. And when my troubles were too much, I should kneel down in front of Him and give them to Him. She had a little gold cross around her neck. She had pretty blonde hair and beautiful eyes. I never figured out what color her eyes were, because whenever I looked at her, she smiled with her whole face, her eyes crinkling up in the most amazing way so I was always looking at those crinkles and her smile. She prayed for me, out loud, while she hugged me. I told her she had no idea how important this moment was to me.

For the entire encounter, I kept telling myself she was an angel. That this was a miracle. That this was Something with a capital "S". That she was sent or meant to be there. I was half convinced that when we were through, she would pop out of existence. Instead, she told me she really was there to use the toilet and proved herself human. I decided not to mar this perfect moment, and silently walked out, since we had already said our goodbyes.

I went home and cried against Eric's not-so-fancy black shirt, telling him the whole thing. How strange it was. How unsettling it was, to feel like time and again, something or someone was looking out for me. He assured me he didn't think I was crazy.

The right people at the right times. New concepts and personal revelations as I'm finally ready to hear them. Songs, movies.

My contact at the fertility clinic called to update me on our chosen donor, who had just had her first baseline exam and passed with normal hormone levels and lots of healthy follicles in both ovaries. As compared with two months ago when we chose a donor, got health information that made us doubt our choice, and then discovered she was pregnant with her own child within hours of sending the email that we were going to have to choose a different donor. Because she was not the right choice.

I sat down to have some lunch and watch some television, to calm my nerves. This movie I wasn't so sure I wanted to watch was just starting, Away We Go. A couple six months pregnant go on a long trip from city to city to decide where they want to live when they have their baby. And near the end, after all the emotional ups and downs, they say these sweet vows to each other that I quoted above. Instead of vows of marriage, they are vows of parenting.

I grabbed Eric, and rewound the scene so he could watch it. After it was over, I hit stop and looked at him with tears in my eyes. He smiled at me and told me I couldn't watch any more movies today. He held me for awhile.

I first experienced crying out of happiness in 1999, when anti-depressants completely changed my life. Over the years, I've had occasion to repeat the experience. Nothing like today.

I had been crying out of complete disbelief that these things, this movie and this woman in a bathroom, were proving to me that I was going to get through this and I was going to live my life and I was going to be great. I was crying out of joy.

I think it's time for an update on Baby Quest. I've recently been trying to make a concerted effort to keep negativity in check here, but that's another conversation entirely.

When last we saw our heroine, the ethics of the donor selection process were weighing heavily on her. I jokingly referred to our selection as our brood-mare, because this process seems so de-humanizing I just needed to inject a little levity. Read on for more laugh-or-cry moments!

So we selected a donor, and signed a preliminary "on-hold" document. Then, and only then, did I decide to re-examine a little sentence that I had looked over in the most recent email from our donor coordinator. Because I am a numbskull. A nutjob. A scatterbrained dumbass. But  it's not my fault! It was followed by two very convincing sentences about how un-troublesome the original statement was. For your perusal:

The donor let me know that she had something called Factor 5 Leiden with her last pregnancy.  It is not a genetic disorder, just a blood clotting disorder that she had to take blood thinners for.  She no longer needs to take medications since she is not pregnant.

Are you soothed? I was. But still, due diligence and all that, right? Well guess what Wikipedia and a host of other websites had to say about the matter:

Factor V Leiden is the most common hereditary hypercoagulability disorder amongst Eurasians. - Wikipedia

Factor V Leiden is the most common hereditary blood coagualtion disorder in the United States. It is present in 5% of the Caucasian population and 1.2% of the African American population.
- FVLeiden.org

Factor V Leiden thrombophilia is an inherited disorder of blood clotting. Factor V Leiden is the name of a specific gene mutation that results in thrombophilia, which is an increased tendency to form abnormal blood clots that can block blood vessels.
- Genetics Home Reference, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

Factor V Leiden (FAK-tur five LIDE-n) is a common inherited genetic disorder that can increase your chance of developing abnormal blood clots (thrombophilia), usually in your veins.
Most people with factor V Leiden never develop abnormal clots. However, some people with factor V Leiden develop clots that lead to long-term health problems or become life-threatening.
Both men and women can have factor V Leiden, but women may have an increased tendency to develop blood clots during pregnancy or when taking the hormone estrogen.
- Mayo Clinic

All signs point towards "deal breaker." The other members of the Committee for Baby Quest - Eric, his mother (a nurse), his sister (a nurse), and his father (a two-time Grampa) - concur.

However, the phrasing of the bad news leaves some room for doubt. Why would they call this not genetic when it is? Could it possibly be that the diagnosis is wrong? That the donor misunderstood?? or was told she had something like the disorder but not really???

Through emails (I'm now regretting not picking up the phone about this yet), the coordinator at my clinic tells me that my fertility doctor agrees it is genetic, but is "doing research". Have yet to hear the results of that research...

Tomorrow marks the one-week mark of putting this all together, and also the deadline to file the formal paperwork/contract and submit a lot of money. So this morning has been about looking into this again, as well as contacting everyone to follow-up. And realizing that this has been on my mind so much that I could swear I spoke with the donor coordinator about this when in fact I hadn't. Oy-vey!

Honestly, the only way to resolve this is through re-examination of the donor's medical records and/or testing. Neither of which can be done without me signing the contract and forking over the fees. So in my email to the donor coordinator, I asked if it would be possible to have the donor just talk to her doctors about her true diagnosis, as well as testing without a contract just for this disorder. Who knows how much that would cost though?

This is sooo not an easy process. But I'm doing fine with it right now. I'm still really bad with remembering to follow-up, but other than that, I think I'm doing a pretty good job handling this, including mentally.

Will you be my Baby Mama? No, this isn't a Tina Fey movie, or even Jerry Springer. I'm searching for an ovum donor.

So far, the IVF process has been... personal, challenging, expensive, uncomfortable, stressful, anxiety-ridden, and physically painful. It hasn't exactly been a fun few months. We are currently wrapping up a "mock cycle" that introduces my body to all the hormones necessary for a real implantation when the time comes. Said hormones have been, primarily, delivered by injection. Eric and I are pretty much terrified of needles. I'm betting we look quite ridiculous every morning as we work up the courage for each shot.

Next week, hopefully, the "mock cycle" ends with a "mock implantation". 15 minutes of quality time between my vagina and uterus, some male doctor I've never met, and a speculum. Wo0t!

Which brings us to the next stage: finding an egg donor.

If any of this process so far sounds weird to you, you ain't seen nothing yet. We are supposed to choose the biological mother of our child based on a 10-12 page questionnaire about their health, genetics, schooling, personality, and motivation for donation. Along with a half-dozen or so pictures. That sounds like a lot to go on, right? Well it's not. Whole pages of yes/no questions about diseases, limited data on relatives, their favorite foods... It's like a cross between picking a date and finding a thoroughbred stud - very dehumanizing.

I've developed a process for sorting between the "no"s and the "maybe"s: city, flip 3-4 pages in to check for a "yes" under the question about acceptance of complete anonymity, flip back to page one for hair/eye/height, a few pages in to check test scores, more pages in for motivation to donate, cursory glance at inheritable disease list, done!

So now what? I brought my 5 favorite candidates to Eric, to discover we have differing criteria.  My ranking was based largely on personality, his was on test scores and academic record. My method isn't very helpful, because picking the one I like as a person the most has nothing to do with this. But Eric's method is too sterile, and ultimately has him scratching his head between 2 really smart candidates.

Because the donor rep people will only contact 1 prospect at a time, we decide on our #1 choice. I had this "feeling" about her that made me want to fight for her, so Eric went back and realized her academics were just as good as the one he had ranked the highest, so he moved her to the top of his list too. Success: brood-mare chosen!

Is it conspicuous that I haven't mentioned appearance as a factor? That's because it was the very first one - the listing page only shows you a headshot next to city and yes/no to whether they have donated before. What else can you do except choose to look at the files of the ones you find most attractive? But after that, it's just not very helpful. The top five candidates range from pretty to beautiful to stunning. There is no such thing as an ugly donor.

I will throw out a bit of advice to prospective donors about appearance: using your dating-site photo as your primary photo is a very bad decision. I want to see your natural hair color and a true smile. I take one look at a photo that focuses on your smoldering eyes and/or breasts, and I am instantly grossed out. I have already skipped down to the next woman not in full clubbing mode. There are a lot of women who choose this route, and it makes no sense to me. Are they trying to seduce the husband? Don't they realize how much sway the actual recipient-mother has in the decision? Don't they realize that we're looking for someone that was once a cute little girl? In this mindset, looking "sexy" is instantly off-putting. Grab a sweater and a friend who can make you laugh to snap a quick picture. Don't be afraid to look goofy - playful is good. You'll thank me later.

Today is my surgery. A hysteroscopy to look at and remove a "polyp" from inside my uterus, followed by a laparoscopy to look at and possibly remove one cyst from each ovary. My ovaries are pretty much useless to me now, so that's not a big deal. I was worried they would have to cut into the uterus so we would be off track for baby-making for months while I heal. Apparently, that's not the case. Either they go in the "natural" opening, or they make such a tiny incision it heals right away without stitches.

Of course, they make you sign all sorts of forms saying you understand that things can slip and they can puncture things or sever things and you may need a colostomy bag for the rest of your life if you're really unlucky. But that's not what I'm worried about.

I'm worried about the pure chance element of dying during surgery. Supposedly going through a successful surgery in the past is a good sign you will again. But it doesn't rule it out. Nothing rules it out. It's a fact that people die during surgery for no good reason. Now, I understand those odds are smaller than the doctor nicking an artery or being hit by a bus on the way to the hospital or Mt. Rainier exploding and really fucking up traffic, but... Those are the kind of things that I truly have no say over.

But today, deciding that yes, I'm going to let people poke around inside me with sharp objects and remove stuff and pump me full of chemicals and some tiny anomaly somewhere may kill me during the process. That is a willful choice of putting myself in harms way. So it's what freaks me out.

Yesterday I talked to my mom. Her best friend, my "Aunt" Frances, has liver cancer and is expected to live another 2-3 months. She said she had been worried about my reaction. My reaction was that I didn't have one - except to decide that yes, this was a phone call I should return. I told my mother that despite being sad, and especially sad for her, there wasn't any real "reaction". It is just not real to me. I told her if I was told there was an asteroid headed towards earth and we were all going to die in 24 hours, I'd probably just say "Huh." Because it is all just unreal to me at this point. Some point a few weeks ago I got too much information, too much bad news, for me to fully process anything else. There is only so much that the mind can fathom before it just... stops and calls bullshit. Right now, there's so much, my mind doesn't really grasp that it's all really true.

In the context of this and the surgery and my fear of the microscopic chance of unexpected death, I told my mother that some people see the human body as a miracle. All these crazy systems and organs working together to make us walk and talk and move about, etc. And I admit, it's pretty damn miraculous. But then I look at my body, and I have the opposite reaction. My organs, my systems, they DON'T work together. Not well. And they're falling apart, getting more out of sync. Some people have a miracle. I have a nightmare.

My mom told me a joke. Apparently, we have a common trait: we forget jokes. But this one is very simple and I really liked it, so here it is.

God and a scientist are having a conversation. The scientist proclaims he can make a human life, from scratch, just as easily as God. God agrees to see him try. The scientist bends down to grab some clay from the earth. God steps in and stops him, saying, "Go make your own."

I just thought that was hilarious.

We listened to a short segment of "This American Life" last night, with Dan Savage as the storyteller. His somewhat quiet, mellow, even demure voice just does not match the flamboyant sex columnist I've created in my head! He was talking about being a lapsed Catholic. The kind that doesn't go to church, but when he's on a plane he crosses himself, and when his boyfriend is driving them at 90 miles an hour passing someone, he prays to god. But when it's over, he goes back to being an agnatheist (his word). He said something about how not only does this make him a hypocrite, but also an ingrate.

It's nice to know that there are other people out there that can see the oxymorons in their life, acknowledge it, laugh about it, but not having any power to do anything about it.

Well, the valium has kicked in and it's time to leave for the hospital. Wish us luck.

ps: here is how I define irony: going to the video store yesterday to pick up some mind-numbingly dumb but sweet and at least somewhat satisfying romantic comedy to distract myself. I pick out "Couples Retreat". 10 minutes into the movie, it is revealed that they all need to go on this retreat to help save on of their marriages. Because they've been trying to have a baby for a year and the stress has been so much that they're starting to question their relationship and why they're even together. And then later that night hearing Dan Savage talk about his lapsed Catholicism in the face of watching his mother die somewhat unexpectedly in a hospital.

Fucking irony.

I can't remember ever experiencing this kind of depression before. It's so novel, I'm not sure how to describe it. I can't really figure out the exact cause either. It's all very... vague, discombobulated, unfamiliar. I think it may be a combination of depression and anxiety, born out of hopelessness, denial, and a complete inability to cope.

Nobody died. No one's getting divorced. Things are generally going well. But a series of events on top of each other left me spinning, and whenever I try to find my bearings, I realize I am too dizzy to even try. It feels almost like... gravity has multiplied by 100 or 1000, trying to crush me down to the floor, but if I turn my head, it goes away. The problem is, when I turn my head, everything else goes away too. In order to avoid this... hopeless weight, I have to completely vacate the premises, and run on auto-pilot. Unfortunately, unlike auto-pilot, I can still feel the pull backwards. I feel something is missing. I don't want to turn back around to face it, but I can't find myself, and I'm pretty sure I have to turn around to find me and this giant black hole at the same time.

It's very much like catatonia, except I force myself to do the bare minimum.

What happened is this:

1. I was told my ovaries are kaput, due to Low Ovarian Reserve and PCOS. Eggs are not forming, so there is nothing to harvest to try IVF with my own eggs. This was very bad for me, but each day it was easier.

2. About 4-5 days later, I decided we should go ahead with IVF through donor eggs. Eric wanted this to be the next step too. We made appointments.

3. I started my "period", which marked the first day of a "Mock Cycle" - I would take an entire cycle's worth of hormones identical to those that would prepare my uterus for an actual IVF implantation. At the end, they would do a "mock" implantation - everything would be done like a real one, except there would be no egg on the end of the... thread-like tube thingy.

4. I went in for my first bit of hormones: a shot in the hip. I was taught how to self-inject once that step would start in about 1 week.

5. Had a "baseline" ultrasound. Results: I have cysts in both of my ovaries. A month earlier, during my first ultrasound at this clinic, they could not find 1 ovary, but the other looked fine. Empty, but fine. On this day, I had 2 distinct ovaries, and each had 1 cyst almost large enough to fill the entire ovary. I was told this can be a natural occurrence that clears up on its own, and the shot I had just gotten the day before would more than likely clear it up. We were told not to worry, this doesn't affect anything. I scheduled my first uterine test for them to measure the volume of my uterus.

6. I got a call from my sister telling me that she had "pre-cancerous" cells on her cervix, which was going to be removed in 2 months. Without a cervix, you can't carry a baby. A suspicion was confirmed - my mother had to have a partial hysterectomy when I was in college, which left only her ovaries in place.

7. I went in for my uterine test procedure. Eric was there thankfully. They squirted in some saline to "fill" my uterus, so it would show up on the ultrasound monitor for them to measure. Lots of pointing and clicking and poking and prodding and hoping I wouldn't pee on the doctor. Then she pointed out that I had a polyp in my uterus. I instantly asked about cancer, bringing up my recently revealed family medical history. I was told that (a) cervical cancer is completely different than uterine or ovarian cancers, (b) technically there was a possibility it was cancer, and (c) these were somewhat common, easy to remove, and in all her years of removing them not one had been cancerous. We relaxed. We cancelled the next test, which was going to check on my fallopian tubes, and instead scheduled a combined hysteroscopy and laparascopy to remove the cervical polyp and check out the ovarian cysts.

8. I completely checked out of my life.

I have endured so much, it seems ridiculous that this should be what breaks me. Utterly, totally, entirely, insanely ridiculous. I DO NOT HAVE CANCER. This is a simple procedure, similar to one I had 2 years ago that went amazingly easy and quick.

But whenever I try to think about it, to rationalize these things to myself, I feel this giant pit of hopelessness open up in front of me, with monstrous gravity sweeping in behind to send me in and squash me at the bottom like a giant paperweight. It is suffocating. It is despair.

So I turn away. And then my entire personality is gone. One of the symptoms of depression I haven't experienced often is the lack of desire to do activities previously enjoyed. I have become bored with some of the things I like, not feel like doing them, sometimes avoiding them - but there is always something else I would like to do, if only to watch TV and eat junk food.

For the past... fortnight, I have dragged myself out of bed, forced myself to eat some cereal, laid down in front of the television, and done some mindless web surfing. The web surfing makes me tired, and I avoid any of the sites I usually go to because I don't want to deal with reality or people or responsibilities or conversations or deep thoughts. Watching the TV just makes me wish I was back in bed. After about 2 hours of this, I go back to bed. About 2-3 hours later, I wake up and repeat.

Yesterday we went back to Port Orchard to spend the day with family, and I finally smiled and laughed for what seemed like an eternity. But only when the dogs jumped into my car in their exuberance, when my niece tried to talk to me and I didn't want her to think I was upset with her, and when I was playing with my nephew. There was one day last summer, for just a few hours, when I was very bitter and jealous that my sister-in-law was pregnant. And later that day it was gone, and hasn't come back. My nephew has been a complete joy to me. But I didn't ask to hold him. I was afraid it might bring "Me" back, and all of the emotions I was denying too, and I would start weeping all over him. Not out of jealousy or anything, but the depth of emotion that I feel for him, would wake me up finally. I just couldn't wake up with him there. It would have been... bad.

My pre-op appointment is Wednesday afternoon.

My "procedure" is the following Wednesday.

We will be spending the 4th of July weekend in Las Vegas with most of Eric's extended family. I have done some planning and purchasing for this as if there will be a future. But I'm not excited. Something about... being disconnected to the present makes the future seem just... a mirage.

I've written all of this without crying. I am vaguely worried about myself. Worried that I'm not upset. This isn't exactly numb, more like vacant automaton. I can analyze the situation, I just can't experience it. I never thought I would find myself looking forward to surgery. But I am. I have this tiny bit of hope that once I wake up after the surgery, they will tell me it's not cancer, I'm all better, there's nothing preventing me from going forward with IVF except a few weeks of healing, and ta-da! I'll be right as rain.

ps: oh look, a cherry! I have to lose 15 pounds just to qualify for the privilege of applying (with a check for $75) for IVF financing. Whoot!

This is what I was going to write a few weeks ago:

IVF is Holland. My last quarter at the UW, my instructor in childhood mental disorders gave us a simple analogy on the first day. Imagine preparing and packing and learning to speak French because you're going to take your dream vacation to Paris. Now imagine when you get off the plain you discover you are in Holland. Holland isn't a bad place. It's just different. It's just not what you were expecting, or what you wanted. But you can still enjoy yourself, have a great time, and fall in love with this new country. Now imagine that Holland is a baby born with Down's Syndrome.

After a cooling off period, I realized that I would be ok with using a donor egg for In-Vitro Fertilization. I kind of surprised myself. I felt very comfortable with the decision once it was made. Eric agreed - we both wanted to try this before looking into adoption.

When I was in so much pain, a kind of sorrow that is different (not worse, just different) from any other, part of how I dealt with what was happening was ironic astonishment. If you had told me in high school, or even the first years of college, that I was going to want to have a baby, be told I couldn't conceive, and then I broke down and had a week-long emotional congress... That would have had me rolling on the floor, that's for sure. I imagined comparing IVF to Holland, but in my case, I felt there needed to be some tweaking.

As a girl, I decided I hated Paris. I was never going to go to Paris. Ever. As I got older, my conviction only got stronger. Paris, bleck. Grr! As an adult, I am introduced to a side of Paris I never knew before. I quickly decide I want to go to Paris. Paris requires money, and preparation. It took years to get everything together. But finally I'm on the plane with my Sweetie, and we're going to Paris! Yay! And then we get off the plane in the midst of a bunch of people speaking Dutch. No one is speaking French. There are tulips everywhere. Was that a windmill. Oh. My. God. I'm in Holland? Holland?! You've got to be shitting me?!?! Wait, doesn't Amsterdam have hash bars? Hmm. Maybe we're going to enjoy this just the same...

Yep, everything seemed very positive. And like less chance was involved, which was an unexpected comfort to realize. We gave blood, took tests, looked at donor sites, signed papers. And then another A-bomb fell from the sky.

Last week I was told that I am basically (but not completely) infertile. The chances of having a "natural" pregnancy are microscopic, will likely have complications, and there will be a 1:35 chance of Down's Syndrome. We are currently learning about the process of IVF with donor eggs.

The first day was incredibly difficult. One of my first thoughts was that when I have a child, she won't look like me. I don't need a baby clone, but the thought that I'll never be able to look at the baby and see my nose or eyes or smile or hair... that's rough. I've noticed that I have an eye for seeing this in other's people's babies. I don't go looking for it though, it's always some random moment, in the right light, the right position, and POP! "wow, she really has her father's eyes!". Hopefully the randomness of it will mean I won't dwell on it for my own child.

I was very happy when I decided I was going to go forward with IVF instead of adoption, but as the week has gone by before this afternoon's appointment to learn more, my confidence has disappeared. Mostly, I am afraid of the complications. I will still have a higher likelihood of complications, like miscarriage. I try not to think about that, but it's niggling in the back of my brain too often.

So many thoughts going through my head those first few days, but never surprise, or blame. It would be easy to blame me, but there's no point. I could be selfish and blame Eric for putting this off for so long, but I agreed with him all the way every time we re-examined the decision on when to start a family. And a very large part of me does not think it would have made a difference.

Because it wasn't a surprise. I was expecting it. I've been using ovulation predictor kits for a year now, and have NEVER gotten a positive result. My Basal Body Temperature tracking was occasionally optimistic, but mostly was sporadic and inconclusive. For the 3rd month in a row, I have had NO temperature shifts at all to even hint at ovulation. This is while I'm on Clomid, which is supposed to make sure you ovulate, and there was never any indication it ever happened. Going to the Fertility specialist a few weeks ago for the first time, I was convinced they would tell me I was in pre-menopause, infertile. Despite my misgivings, no one has ever suggested that to me. But when she did an ultrasound to look at my ovaries, she couldn't find one, and the other she couldn't see well enough to get a good idea of its condition because it was tucked behind something else. She didn't say this was bad at the time, but it certainly seemed like a bad sign to me. Last week she told me the "invisible" ovary probably had no follicles or eggs to be seen.

But there's more. My history of horrific periods that started when I was 8/9 and only ever got worse. No one could ever tell me why, they just ran tests that revealed nothing. Over the years, I have developed a tolerance for tylenol, then ibuprofen, and finally aleve. I am currently taking prescription Tylenol+Codein, 1 every 4 hours, with 2 aleve every 4 hours. And it is usually enough to keep me from screaming, but not to feel well enough to leave the house. The pills take too long to kick in, and then wear off sometime between hours 2 and 3. The codein makes me sleepy. The constant adding of medications that doesn't do enough for the pain builds up until sometime during day 2 I begin to get really sick from having too much drugs in my system.

I was told to either remove or scar my uterus if I wanted any kind of relief. For years we tried to suppress my periods through special birth control pills that are known to make women stop having periods after a few months. Not me. I tried an IUD for the same purpose, and was in constant pain for over 3 weeks until I finally made them remove the thing. 3 weeks of feeling like I'm having day 1 menstrual cramps and pain relievers didn't help at all. It was a nightmare.

So came the laprascopy, which finally showed that I did indeed have endomitriosis - something doctors had been testing for and getting negative results for for years. I was told the type I had, which grew within the walls of the uterus, doesn't usually affect fertility. She found my ovaries, but didn't examine them except to see that they didn't have growths as well.

Also, this doctor diagnosed me with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) without telling me - a new doctor going over my notes mentioned it and freaked me out.

That's a lot of stuff stacked against me. Now throw in the fact that most of my high school sex life was unprotected. I wasn't promiscuous, but I was... very, very active. Zero teen pregnancies. No pregnancies later in life despite the requisite condom rupture "oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god!!!" moment that Murphy has declared everyone should experience AT LEAST once in their life.

All of these things are separate facts, not necessarily linked at all. It's not very scientific to think all this adds up to guaranteed infertility. But I've been living this for almost 30 years now. It seems impossible to me that I wouldn't have fertility issues. I was just holding out a little hope that it wouldn't be actual infertility.

So, here I am, waiting for my 3pm appointment to learn more about IVF. It's been just over a week since I went in for a follow-up ultrasound that never happened because of bloodwork results.

It was for a "Clomid Challenge". I had been on Clomid 4 times, but never done this challenge. They draw blood on day 3 of your cycle to measure your FSH (follicle stimulation hormone) levels, put you on clomid days 4-9, take your blood again on day 10, and do an ultrasound on day 12. I was told on the evening of day 10 that my FSH was abnormally high. Low numbers are good, somewhere around 10-15 on day 10 of your cycle. Mine was 28. I found some alarming information online, but waited until that ultrasound appointment to actually talk to the doctor.

I was told that indeed it was bad. It meant that if I had any follicles/eggs left, they were likely unusable. AND that my FSH score combined with my age meant that my eggs were likely too fragile to harvest for IVF - they would be destroyed during the process. The ultra sound was cancelled. I was given a packet of info on IVF, and made the appointment for today to go over specifics.

And that's that. I'm just kind of empty right now. Where did my confidence from this last weekend go? I was so sure of my decision to use donor eggs for IVF, so happy there was going to be a next step that could lead to pregnancy. Today, I'm just feeling very dull, almost numb. I fear I have already made a bad association with the clinic and the doctor that triggers panic. As I get older, I've developed a few panic-attack triggers, and now I seem to be collecting them.

I told my brother-in-law last night that it is scientific fact that physical and psychological reoccuring stimulations cause a person to develop a tolerance to them. The more drugs you take, the less affective they become over time. The more you run, the easier it becomes to run the next time. The treatment of phobias is desensitizing, showing the arachnaphobic patient spiders over multiple sessions.

However, there is a contradicting response when food is involved, called food aversion. In a controlled experiment, if you shock or cause physical pain to an animal every time they try to eat, the animal will keep trying. Maybe not as gung-ho, but the animal needs to eat, so it continues to try. But if you put something in the food that makes the animal ill, it will develop an aversion to the food, something that will easily last a life-time. Cancer patients are told to eat the same thing every time they're about to have chemotherapy. Something small that they don't love to eat. Like LifeSavers. Because they've discovered that the nausea and vomiting following chemotherapy causes very strong food aversion. Personally, I got really sick after having too much cherry pie when I was a kid, and it took me over 15 years to try another cherry pie after that.

For some reason, I develop aversions to actions and events as well as food. My tolerance for pain gets lower and lower, I now get panic attacks at the MENTION of blood tests needing to be done. I cannot go to a dentist without first taking valium. I can't be in the same room with my father. When I'm depressed, I have social aversion - the thought of using the telephone or email makes me nauseated.

And now I have a new one. Involving a small fertility clinic in Kirkland, the office staff there, and my doctor.

Awesome.

ps: maybe you noticed that anxiety affects my ability to spell?

Today is cycle day 26, the end of 4 months on Clomid, and my temperature dropped .5 points between yesterday and this morning. Despite using the expensive ovulation watch, and having more perfectly timed sex than any other month. And now it's all over. I have reached the limit of Clomid they're willing to give me, and that I'm willing to subject my body to. And that's pretty much how I feel about all of it - I don't want to subject my body to any more of this bullshit.

My body had so many things wrong, so many little oddities, there seemed to be no pattern to anything. But apparently there was enough of a pattern for me to notice when it was changed - my body feels alien to me. My periods are shorter, and roughly every other month they've been kind of light and less painful. I can't remember the last time I had diarrhea - now I have very hard, long stools. In the past 2 weeks, I've had 2 compacted stools - the alleviation of which is not pleasant at all. I am nauseated for roughly 2 weeks of every cycle. Headaches every day for 2 weeks.

I don't want to do this anymore. No more hormones, no more fucked-up symptoms, no more feeling like my body has been hijacked. I stopped taking the Metformin for blood pressure last month because of all the nausea. Now, no more Clomid either.

I just made an appointment at a fertility clinic in Kirkland. I have been putting this off, wanting to give the Clomid time to work. I don't know what happens at the appointment, what they can do for me, or what kind of drugs they might want to put me on. My GYN suggested they might want to go back in and look at my uterus/fallopian tubes. Because THAT's what I want to do now. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the whole thing. I want my uterus OUT.

I want a baby. I still want to get pregnant. But I am constantly exhausted both physically and mentally since they've put me on Clomid, and I don't think I can take it anymore.

I can't tell what's worse, the physical or the mental. Every month, it is a struggle to work in the intercourse at the correct time. Especially since I have NEVER seen a positive Ovulation stick test. When the OV Watch told me I was ovulating, I was practically dancing around the house, reassured that I wasn't broken yet, and those stupid tests just weren't working. The sex was all perfectly timed. The daily temperature taking did not support this - there was no obvious drop or spike. Almost a week later, there WAS a drop and spike, very obvious. More perfectly timed sex, just in case (negative OV stick tests, surprise!). The first day or 2 after the spike, my temp. seemed questionable. But then they were back up to spike level for 2-3 days. And this morning, back to drop level.

Did I mention that I woke up yesterday morning from a dream that my OV Watch had developed a new, never-mentioned function - it told me I was pregnant! It was quite an elaborate signal - the watch started flashing and beeping and did some weird Transformers-like folding on itself to shut off all functions until all that was left was the little note that I was pregnant.

My body, my enemy. My brain, part of the problem too. I am so DONE. Now what?

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

I have had a problem with doctors for my entire adult life. Being talked down to is not a way to gain a fan, neither is cutting me off in the middle of my list of symptoms to focus on one thing and dismiss everything else. Test after inconclusive test. Shrugging and scratching heads. Passing me on to others with no follow up. Putting me through tests with no follow up. Telling me to "wait and see."

I have been in the "wait and see" holding pattern for 15 years. So nope, not a fan.

Actually, I'm not really a fan of anyone or anything health related. The wretched "green medicine" when I was about 8 or 9 because anxiety was making me puke all the time. The increased number of pills I have to take on a daily basis that has in fact made my gag reflex WORSE - I used to be able to swallow up to 4 pills at a time. Now I'm lucky if medium-sized pills taken one at a time go down the first time. There are hospitals with their smells and their bad memories and the constant cold. There are office waiting rooms, followed by the waiting room 2.0 that is formally known as the exam room. Dentists have been failing to properly numb me since elementary school, or stab me in a nerve for the most painful 2 seconds of my life - so traumatic that I now need to take valium to see a dentist for any reason, or have needles used on me.

Lab Technicians can be really awesome actually. There was this really cute one at Group Health that I would fantasize about while she took my blood. Quite an experience when I almost passed out and she laid me onto the floor, her face hovering over mine like an angel. My favorite lab tech at Virginia Mason is a flaming gay and a real hoot - and has been known to actually NOT hurt me when drawing blood (gasp!).

Finally, we come to nurses - the true angels of the medical profession. Nurses listen. They do not run all over you trying to diagnose in 3 seconds what no one else has been able to diagnose for years. They take the time to study your chart before and after your visit, do research, and call unexpectedly with new information.

My current gynecologist put me on Clomid for 2 months, and said she didn't know how to help me after that so I should see a fertility specialist. But when I went in for a post-Clomid check up that was supposed to last 10 minutes, I was there for an hour because the nurse took 20 minutes looking over my chart before coming in and then she spent 30 minutes talking and listening and examining. That is a world record, I'm sure.

The nurse pointed out that there are notes from my gyno that she thinks I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovary syndrome), something she never relayed to me!

She went on to explain how PCOS can mess with your hormones, which can mess with your blood pressure, cholesterol, fertility and menstruation, weight, body hair, moods, etc. So she gave me an anti-diabetic drug to help make my blood sugars and insulin work correctly, which she believes can help a lot more than just my fertility problem.

And she put me on extended Clomid - 7 day cycle instead of the standard 5.

And she sent me to get a blood test to see where in my cycle I was, and/or if I was pregnant, because at day 37 I was around 10 days late.

And then she called me yesterday to tell me that the blood test showed that I should start my period any day now (or, as it was, the day before her call).

And to tell me that she had spent the past 2 days going over my charts and testing history, then doing research. She believes there is a gap in the testing - an area that no one else has thought to check: my cortisol levels.

She thinks that I may have Cushing's syndrome, which would explain a lot. She sounded optimistic, that this could be a good thing, that I could cut out all my medications and be put on just one. Holy crap! All I have to do is collect my urine for 24 hours. How... very much un-fun. But as tests go, really damned easy!

So I was happy. Let the pee collecting begin!

Then I started looking into Cushing's. At first I was merely astonished at how the symptoms pretty much described me perfectly. Things I never even thought to mention could actually be symptoms!

And then this morning I decided to continue to do research. And now I'm terrified. Here's what I found, in the order I found it:

1. http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/6/1819/F1.expansion
Looks like me in 20 years

2.http://img.medscape.com/pi/emed/ckb/endocrinology/116364-138556-117365-138806.jpg
I have 8 out of 10 symptoms

3. http://friendsofbecky.com/pictures.aspx
Wow, Cushing's develops fast! Wait... why is this girl on chemotherapy?

4. http://friendsofbecky.com/default.aspx
Becky died from cancer, Adrenocortical carcinoma

5. https://health.google.com/health/ref/Adrenocortical+carcinoma
Adrenocortical carcinoma has many of the same symptoms as Cushing's, is linked to cortisol over production (like Cushing's), and I should call my doctor if I have symptoms of Cushing's.

6.http://7thspace.com/headlines/332095/adrenocortical_carcinoma_secreting_cortisol_androgens_and_aldosterone_a_case_report.html
And I quote: "Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare malignancy with a poor prognosis"

7. https://health.google.com/health/ref/Cushing+syndrome
if symptoms are caused by a pituitary tumor, treatment is surgery to remove the tumor, followed by radiation