Back To My Regular Infertile Life

This past week has brought a calm and quietness that I have dearly missed--my in-laws are finally gone! I don't want to sound like a cold, heartless, unappreciative bitch, but...

Hooray!


Yippee!


Ya-ba-da-ba-DOOOOOOO!

If I could, I'd be doing back-flips and cartwheels too! Because I'm finally able to breathe. Having them around was like having clingwrap stuck to your face: super clingy and suffocating! Now I can live my life for me and NOT for the Golden Child@my niece whom my in-laws worship. It's so nice to have my life back! Even if it's a pathetic infertile life!

So it's CD20. My obsessive peeing-on-sticks have come back to haunt me. I'm waiting for ovulation. And still no sign of it. Ugh! It's the same old sad drama all over again! Wa-wa-wa-waaa..... I am suppose to seek out a new fertility specialist and there's one that a friend of mine highly recommends. I was hoping to speak to her about her IVF experiences at that clinic and get the contact no and doctor's name, but she's in Japan for two weeks! It's so typical of my luck! So I'm impatiently counting the days until she gets home. I guess it's another month of "leaving it up to god" type of TTC. The other day, I complained to my TCM doc, as I always do these days about how long its been since my miscarriage with no sign of pregnancy... And all he could really say was that we had to leave it up to god! That kinda left me flabbergasted! His faith in god is a lot deeper than mine! He seems to think that my time will come and god has a plan for me. My interpretation: we can intervene all we want but god has the final say! It doesn't leave me very hopeful...  SIGH!...

So whatever!

I'm kinda sick of the futility of chasing my baby dream. My confidence has been shattered somewhat badly by these recurring failures. I feel so devoid of hope or enthusiasm right now, it's depressing. I feel like taking a break from all this TTC crap. All it's done is stretch my patience thin, weigh me down, break my heart and milk my tearducts dry! There's suppose to be joy at the end of all this TTC suffering-a beautiful bundle of joy in our arms. But where is it? I'm so tired. Really tired. I don't even have the energy to carry any expectations any more. So I haven't got any expectations this month. I don't expect to get pregnant. So when AF comes around, I won't care and I'm not going to break down.
HAH! Yeah right! We shall see about that! 

Well, there has to be something good in my life! What is it? Oh yeah - my in-laws are gone (Double Yabadaba-doooo!) and Ass-Throb Day didn't show up. My typical CD-10 Endo-related Throbbing-pain-in-the-rectum Event was a no-show this cycle, so my ass is ecstatic! My icy body is feeling a lot warmer and my libido has come back from the dead. All those TCM needles and herbal potions may not have made me a baby, but it has at least done some good for my hormones and my endo, or so it seems...

Relapse

I've been in pain the last 5 days.

Just when I thought that things were finally looking up, I am suffering a tremendous relapse. All the effort, and spirit I've put into fighting this dreaded endometriosis seemed not to have mattered.

I feel so defeated.

The journey during the past cycle had been wrought with numerous bumps and potholes along the way, but I thought I could get a fresh start with this new cycle. I told myself that I would get back on the roller coaster and face this cycle with new strength and optimism, but someone in the universe thinks that it's much funnier to see me all beaten up and broken down.

My roller coaster had barely left the station and gotten over it's first hill when the three bitches jumped me around the first corner -- Meet Aunt Flo, Aunt Endo and Aunt Gastro. They stuck with me for 5 days (and still clinging on) and made sure I was on a ride to hell! My TCM doc asked me today how I had felt the last 5 days. I laid it all out for him:

• pain in uterus, ovaries, rectum
• heavy bleeding
• bad clots
• anxiety attacks
• cold sweat
• headache
• gastritic pain and abdominal pain
• lower back pain

Oh! And I forgot- sleep-deprivation too! When Mr.Pain felt generous during the first two days, he would let me sleep 5-10 minutes at a time. I had never felt so grateful to be unconscious during those few precious minutes! Yes, Effing Mr.Pain decides when I get to sleep. And thanks to the gastritis brought on by Aunt Gastro, I couldn't take any pain-killers to manage the pain either. So it's always one kind of pain or another. And though most of the pain has left me by now, my lower back is still aching and pangs of pain is still shooting across my ute as I write. It is CD5 going into CD6 and the pain still has not stopped.

At the end of the last cycle, I thought I was done with all the crying. And I never thought I would start a new cycle with heartache and tears again. I learned that I am just not that strong. Where does all this leave me on my road to being endo and pain-free? Where does this leave me on my journey to having my baby? That road seems so far away now.  I've been in the darkness for so long. I put my faith in God and in Medicine, and I still cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. I feel so drained--physically, emotionally and spiritually. There is barely a flicker of life or hope in my soul.

I am broken.

I Wore Black Today

The possibility of losing my "baby" hit me really hard today. This is the closest I've been to getting pregnant in the last 6 months since my miscarriage, and to see it slip away again has been devastating.

I woke up today, 11 DPO, to discover that the brown discharge I had since yesterday (10DPO) had not ceased nor lightened. I was really hoping for it to be a sign of implantation bleeding - short and light, since it started within the expected period of implantation bleeding which is 6-10 days past ovulation. But since it's still going strong on the second day, followed by slight cramping that came and went last night, it's looking bad. Plus, all my breast tenderness over the past week has disappeared completely - which doesn't augur well for pregnancy. It seems like my little bean may not be able to hang on. And this tore me up. I think the dreaded Aunt Flo is coming. I never thought I would ever cry over a pregnancy that hasn't even materialized yet. But it's like seeing a dream being destroyed in slow motion. Each day has been a long and turbulent struggle emotionally.

It didn't help when my TCM doc had nothing positive to say today. He still couldn't find a pregnancy pulse. After hearing about my spotting and symptoms, and not being able to read a positive from my pulse, he told me that my chances of being pregnant now was even lower today. I could really see it in his face that he was very disappointed too, even though he has really been trying to help me. I brought up a 2nd scenario where I assumed that a conception never happened - and asked him why I was spotting on 10DPO, despite the intensive treatments this cycle. I never spotted that early in my past year of charting. That only reaffirmed his conviction that it was implantation bleeding and that my little bean has been fighting hard to stay alive. Despite the emotional turmoil, my acupuncture session today felt really good. I felt it calming my uterus down. It felt restful and good. But as soon as I left his clinic I bawled my eyes out.

So is all this implantation drama for real? It seems very highly possible, but things are not looking good now. Black felt like an appropriate color to wear today. My soul found solace in its quite darkness.

Yet, implantation bleeding has been known to last 3 days. I still have hope, despite the odds. But my heart can't really take this torture anymore. I think I am far on enough in my cycle to take an early pregnancy test now. I have decided to do it tomorrow morning and end this torment. I am hoping for the best, but I am prepared for the worst. God help me through the days to come!