Friday, October 31, 2008

IVF #3: Day 3 of Stims

Hey, I'm back!

Not a lot of excitement, other than the fact that the birth control pills made me vomit this time around. Yecchh. Sympathy to my heterosexual sistren.

They also, like last time, made me really, really depressed. I've been off of them for a week now and the miasma is finally starting to clear.

Anyway. Third day of stims, yeah. Having one underreponse and one overresponse under my belt, of course I'm eager to see where this one will land. We're using an "overreponse" amount of stims, but I'm on metformin, which will hopefully modulate my response enough to keep me away from OHSS.

I am also considering transferring two embryos. Maybe if I sacrifice my principles, the sacrifice will be deemed handsome enough, and I'll finally get to have a freaking baby. Don't you have to let go, open your hand, give up, just relax before you can get pregnant?

I don't believe any of that, of course. Of course.

A while ago, when I was trawling the internet for depressing videos, I found one called "The Slow Path to Motherhood". I can't say the video spoke to me, but the title has stuck in my mind. The slow path to motherhood. This is the path I'm on, and the implications of that tumble around in my head.

Is there some way spin it positively, to find meaning in the fact that I'm on this path? I've toyed with the idea that maybe I'll appreciate motherhood more, having arrived this way. But you know, I think most parents love their children pretty much to the max, regardless of whether it was easy or hard to get 'em.

I don't think it's made me a better person. I think it's made me a worse person. I liked myself a lot better two years ago.

In conclusion: the only lesson I think I have learned from this path is that this is the path I'm on. Gracefully or gracelessly, this is the path I have to stumble down, and hope that what's at the end is what I want it to be (hint: live squalling infant, stinky diapers, hysterical toddler, condescending teenager).

And if there isn't? That will be the path I'm on then. And I guess I will find some way to walk it.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

CD8: No go

Haven't much had the heart to blog -- last cycle negative, of course. I've started the birth control pills for my last fresh cycle.

Big love to all the kind and wise people who told me to step away from the Google. Now it seems a bit foolish to worry about multiple pregnancies, given that right this second being pregnant at all seems fantastical.

I've unsubscribed from several high-profile infertility bloggers, all of whom are now pregnant (nobody whose journal I've ever commented on, or who has ever commented here). It's just too much. Too much. I was at a conference this week, in a discipline that's heavily female and, apparently, fecund. I overcompensated mightily, as always. If I'm ever pregnant, I wonder will I notice when a woman is smiling at me too warmly? I know I'll never be a belly-rubber, but I wonder if I'll see. Probably not. I can't see it on anyone else's face even now. I always feel like the only person whose eyes slide away.