Stress

Of course when everything seems to be going right, something has to come in to knock me down. I'm having a bad day and I am totally stressed and upset. Not about infertility, for once, but I am very concerned that my stress level today is only going to worsen my chances this month. So that's making me even more upset!

I swear, the devil is out to get me! Why does something always happen on important days? My little egg was probably getting all set for fertilization and then... BAM! Stress hormones were released and it was like an earthquake hit!

I'm trying to calm down. I think I'm going to go lay on the couch, watch some T.V. and just try to relax as much as possible.

Do you think one stressful morning is enough to derail me? Is there anything I can do to lessen the effects of any stress hormones that were released? (Hmmm.. how about not stressing about how much it is affecting me).

I know that it is ultimately in God's hands, but I'd like to know I did all I could as well.

Oh, and speaking of stresses - could you please pray for my mother, if you get a chance? The C-di.ff came back again (it's the fourth time now) and her doctor won't prescribe her the more intense medication that she knows she needs to get rid of it (who knew - doctors are clueless in more areas than just infertility!). She is going to an infectious disease specialist on Monday, so hopefully she will get it then, and then she will be rid of this horrible thing for good.

And how about this - my poor mom posted on a C-Di.ff message board the other day and someone on there chewed her out! Can you believe that?? It was a U.K. support message board apparently, because the U.S. one was down. She had been reading the boards for some time, and finally decided to post the other day. The person who was rude flew off the handle because my mom said she was a nurse, and this woman got in my mom's face because she is mad at all doctors and nurses for the way they've handled this health crisis (apparently people are dying of it in the U.K., making it a very emotionally-charged issue. And yes, hearing that people are dying made me more stressed out about it!). It's not my mom's fault, though. She is a school nurse, and she is suffering from it herself! I felt so bad for her. Other people came to her defense, so that was nice. I just thought I'd share that since it would be like the equivalent of one of you being mean to me on here, you know? You would never do that!

All over the place

Warning: This post is going to be all over the place (hence the title), which happens to also reflect my current mood. I've got a lot of different things on my mind, so here goes...

First off, I still haven't been feeling well. Nothing I can't handle, but it's just uncomfortable. I'm slightly nauseous all the time. Thankfully it's not full blown nausea. Thank you, God! But... it probably will be once my metformin dose is raised next week. If I'm going to feel sick, then I at least hope it is helping my weight loss.

Speaking of weight loss, I am trying to focus on the good in my life and my weight loss definitely fits into that category (sorry if you're tired of hearing about this! I'm just trying to focus on the positive). I've now lost 19 pounds since the beginning of May, and today I bought my first pair of size 6 pants in years. If someone had told me just a few months ago that by July I'd be able to fit into a size 6 I wouldn't have believed it in a million years! (And let me just say that I'm not "officially" a universal size 6 by any means, but I am when it comes to a certain style of capris in An.n Tay.lor, so that's all that matters!). My life definitely changed at that first appointment with my new doctor. I'm just thankful that I have this to be excited about, because my weight was an issue for me. I hated seeing my reflection, I hated my clothes being tight, I hated seeing pictures of me when I was thinner, I hated trying on clothes at stores and having to admit what size I was. It just added to my infertility depression because I kept postponing weight loss because "soon I'd be pregnant anyways." That, obviously, didn't happen and didn't really make much sense anyways. Well, all of that extra stress is now gone, and any stress I can eliminate can only help my infertility!

As for my cycle, it's day 20 and it's the third day post-peak. I had seven fertile, good-mucus days in a row, so that's good news (since before May I use to have a fews days of mucus, then dry days, then more mucus, then more dry.. you get the picture). Today, I saw a tiny bit of brown mucus twice. Not sure what that means, but don't think I didn't consider implantation bleeding! I'm sure it's not, but you've gotta love those little things that keep hope alive and then lead to more disappointment! As for my temp, it spiked a little on Sunday to 98.0, but since I woke up three hours earlier than normal, I'm hoping that had I slept until my normal time that it would have spiked considerably. I woke up two hours early on Monday and that day it was up to 98.2, while today I woke up at my normal time and it was at 98.5.

Meanwhile, I'm still sad and have been crying unexpectedly lately. Hopefully my trip up north will help to get my mind off of things for a few days.

Speaking of that, I leave tomorrow morning for New York. I'm driving by myself and not exactly looking forward to the ride. But I've got some books on CD and Sophie will be with me, so hopefully it will go by fast. I'll still be posting and reading blogs while I'm there, so you won't even notice I'm gone!

One more thing... My wonderful husband helped to get me out of one of my crying spells today by going for a scenic walk. Isn't he nice? Here are some shots from it:

Tired

Today I feel like the weight of this is too much. The prospect of living the rest of my life in a world full of fertile people, kids, commercials with babies, pregnant stomachs, abortion.. it's just incomprehensible. Can't we all live together on an island somewhere, and take trips back to the "mainland" when we're having a good week?

I'm trying to convince myself that these feelings will pass. There will come a time when I can handle the heartache better. It just seems impossible when you're in the middle of it.

I'm angry with God. I'm angry that he made me to want to grow up to be a mother. How can a loving God not take pity on me and at least design me to not be the girl who always talked about having kids? I know he could do that if he wanted to. And here's a question for ya: I know people say that suffering comes from Satan, but if so, then why wouldn't God want to eliminate what Satan caused? If people say that God allows our suffering because it is "part of his plan for us" then does that mean he's working with Satan? Surely they aren't in cahoots. It just isn't making sense to me right now.

I just feel like I've heard of very few people who have been trying nearly four years who actually end up pregnant, especially who are over 30. I hate even typing that because it sounds like a bad statistic.

Sorry, I just needed to vent.

Big day

It's been an emotional weekend. There have been a couple of mini-breakdowns. Which is why I haven't posted.. I figured they'd be angry, bitter posts and I'd regret them.

I'm exaggerating. It wasn't really that bad.

So tomorrow's the big day (technically it's already tomorrow). My doctor's appointment is at 11:30 a.m. I know this might shock you but I'm nervous about my weigh-in. Remind me next time to not set stupid goals for myself that I might not reach no matter how hard I tried (negative much?). It's just that I'm fragile these days, so not reaching it could be bad.

In other news, I've been cheating on this blog. I am now the proud owner of three blogs - this one, a private weight loss blog I'm doing with my sister, and a blog for my documentary. It's too much! And to keep them all separate (and this one secret), they're all on different accounts. I already inevitably commented on this blog with my other blog's username. I'm bound to do it again, so bear with me.

Hopefully I'll have good news to post tomorrow (today)!

Kinda a mess

So today we did the bulk of our moving. All that's left at the apartment is my clothes, food, and dishes. So I'm taking a break for the rest of the day and for the first time in about a week, I'm just sitting, watching t.v. The living room is all set up so if I just stay in this room I can ignore the other rooms full of boxes. I can almost pretend there aren't hours and hours of work ahead of us.

I am very stressed out right now. I'm trying not to break down and crash. I'm trying to remember to be patient. I definitely don't handle stress well, and when things are cluttered in my life, things become cluttered in my head. So right now that would mean my head is in complete disarray with some things in my apartment, some things in the new house, everything in boxes, including crap that should be dumped but we keep moving it from place to place. I can usually handle one stresser okay (that would be infertility, and "okay" is debatable), but if I add an additional problem, I lose it. So I'm close to losing it.

I'm starting to get those "it's-not-fair" thoughts in my head. Those are never good. I just want to be pregnant so much that it is driving me crazy. I know I need to be patient, but I am having thoughts of "what if I'm patient and it still doesn't happen?". I know this is very dangerous as well. I can only live for today and I cannot waste time worrying, crying and freaking out over something that I can't control and that I have no idea how it will turn out anyways. (I can type that, but I don't currently believe it.)

I know I should be happy as I sit in my new home, but like I wrote earlier, extra stress can sometimes put me over the edge. The other day I decided to paint the would-be nursery a color not conducive to a nursery. I decided I didn't want to live in a holding pattern waiting for something (ya, right, I couldn't imagine any other way) and if I do become pregnant, we'll be more than happy to paint the room ten times over if we had to.

So I held a baby today. It didn't bother me at all; maybe I am starting to feel numb, a feeling I've heard described by other bloggers but couldn't relate to. It was my sister-in-law's baby. Her life just seems to move at a much faster pace than mine - a normal pace. When I started dating her brother she hadn't even met her future husband, and wouldn't for a couple years. And then I eventually attended their wedding as her brother's still-not-yet-engaged girlfriend (honey, if you read this, I swear I'm over it.. I'm just illustrating a point) and then she waited to have kids for a few years while I tried and tried and tried. Now she has a three month old. It's nothing against her, of course. She's just normal. I'm abnormal.

Thank God I don't have a serious illness! Or that a loved one doesn't have a serious illness. And that I have a loving family. Sorry - just have to put it in perspective and remind myself it could be worse. I was feeling really sorry for myself.

This post is kind of a mess (reflective of me right now) but I should also mention I'm having some pain. I had pain the day I got my period, not nearly as bad as an endometriosis attack, but it was pain nonetheless. And today I had some pain (I think today is day eight maybe). Also for the second month I have had mucus immediately following my period. And last, but not least, I am having pain when peeing. Not a burning sensation that might indicate a bladder infection, but rather a kind of not-able-to-empty-my-bladder feeling - not pain necessarily, just not normal. I have had this feeling for more than a year now (which I assume was due to endometriosis on my bladder), but it has kind of gotten worse the last couple of days. My mom said to try drinking a lot of water. Sorry for all the details, but you never know, maybe someone else has experienced the same thing.

So during this post my husband helped to calm me down. He convinced me there's not that much to do with the house and, like I suspected, this lessened my infertility-related depression as well. Not to mention I cried a little and I always feel better after that. Plus, the Mets won their spring training game! Yay! Opening day's almost here!