SF and I keep talking about how we want to put up a blog post, but we can't figure out how to give voice to what we're feeling. He's out skiing with the dog this morning; I've decided to give it a shot.

Despite the reassurances of our doctor, we're both finding it hard to relax and stop worrying. My body seems to be misbehaving just enough to suck the joy out of every day: the spotting stopped for about 4 days before the last appointment, but it started up again, heavier, on Thursday. Then just a spot Friday evening. Nothing so far today, but I expect it's in the mail.

Every good thought I have seems to risk bringing misfortune down upon us. I know that sounds melodramatic. I know it is melodramatic. But I can't deny the feeling is there. It's strong enough that, after going through three miscarriages and 2 1/2 years of ART without the help of a therapist, I'm considering calling the one our RE recommended to see if she can help us relax and find the joy in what we're experiencing.

It felt like a risk to request the information packet from our hospital. It felt like a risk to call the OB/GYN. It felt like a risk to stop the PIO injections.
Our doctor has given us a 3-5% chance of miscarrying at this point. We've "beaten" the odds in so many ways before, though, that SF and I are both fully aware that those numbers above the 95th percentile still represent people. Logically, I know that requesting the hospital packet doesn't cause miscarriages, nor does filling out the OB's paperwork, nor sneaking a peek at cribs online.

Emotionally, though, it's a different story. SF sat me down a couple of days ago and said, "It's all right if we pretend we think things are going okay. If we don't, we won't ever do anything to prepare, because there's never a guarantee that things will continue as you hope."

This post feels clumsy ... but so do I.

bruising

I have a bruise in my bellybutton. It was bright red and the size of a pencil eraser this morning. I called the nurse, and she said it might be leftover blood pooled from the injections. That seems strange to me, since we've been finished with them for a week.

I thought maybe it was from the button of my jeans pressing into my great bloated belly. But I didn't wear pants with a button today, and this evening the bruise is three times as big as it was this morning.

Very puzzled.

In other news, the nurse also said the bleeding/spotting is either (a) breakthrough bleeding that will stop, (b) breakthrough bleeding that will continue off and on into a period, or (c) an early period.

In other words, it's too early to tell.

Crinone -- spotting 6dpo

We're not quite halfway through the 2ww, and I'm spotting ... bleeding? ... I'm not sure where the borderline is.

Last night when we got home, I had a couple of drops of pink. Then -- and I apologize for the TMI here -- overnight, I had cramping bad enough to wake me up, and the drops of pink turned into dark red blood combined with the typical crinone mess.

Dr. Google says "bleeding on Crinone is not uncommon" and "we found no evidence that Crinone causes early bleeding."

I find lots about pink spotting and brown and orange(?!?) discharge. My doctor says anything less than a full period isn't a period. We're not there yet, but ... I'm worried.

But -- 6dpo? Why so early?

So puzzling.

Gonal-F round 4, day 7

Small bruise from yesterday's shot; no mark at all from today's, which was the first shot I couldn't see going in -- SF's hand was in the way. I kept bracing for it to hurt, and there was a small sting when the needle first touched, but that's it.

The bleeding has slowed but not stopped. According to the nurse, "With all the medicine we're using, it's not unusual to have bleeding at any point during the cycle."

It took her a couple of minutes to say that, though. She was obviously thinking about something else, though she didn't say it. Now it's got me wondering; I should have pressed her. They want me to keep up with what I've been doing, come in on Sunday as planned, and call them if anything changes again.

Weight change since yesterday: +.4 pounds
Net weight change: -.2 pounds

Bleeding?

So. At work this afternoon, I started to cramp bad enough that I couldn't focus on putting the files in my filing cabinet in alphabetical order.

I took some Advil. An hour passed. I could hardly stand up.

Then the cramps went away almost at once. I continued to work and got a lot more done once I could see straight.

My boss stopped by about half an hour later and said she was leaving and I should too. I started getting ready to leave and discovered --

-- I had bled all over myself. Through my jeans and everything.

It's now about 2 hours later, and I'm still bleeding as heavily as a heavyish period. Guess I'll call the doctor tomorrow morning ... I've never had breakthrough bleeding like this before.

So. Very. Frustrated.

Whew.

I have spent the last several weeks mostly not thinking about trying to conceive. Work has been a bear, so I've been busy. And we can't start again until I have a period after the last miscarriage, and we're five weeks on now.

Or is it six?

Ah, the bliss of not knowing. It's not very important. In fact, if it'll hold off even another week, I'll be able to stop worrying whether the end of August will involve trying to balance two weddings (one family wedding and the second where I'm matron of honor) with injections and doctor visits.

Our doctor gave us several choices at the last visit:

1. Do nothing for a few months. Take a break.

2. Do another cycle of Gonal-F.

3. Move on to IVF with genetic testing to see whether we can learn why every embryo we produce dies.

4. Egg donation.

He seems to want us to move on to IVF, though he admits he's not sure whether this latest miscarriage was a fluke. But -- he's a doctor, and the way I'm reading the situation is that he wants to know what the answer is.

I am less concerned about the answer and more concerned about the result. For that reason, since he's not sure, we've decided to try one more round of injections. When I told the nurse that, she made it clear she thought that was a fine path, which reassured me some.

The hard part is that, although that seems like the best choice for us -- least expensive (this round of drugs is discounted with the pharmacy and we already have the progesterone) and also least invasive -- it may mean we are effectively choosing another miscarriage.

I have to remember there are no guarantees with any path we choose, at any time. Even babies born at term do not come with a guarantee that they will live long, healthy lives and die in their beds at a hundred and two.

Out again

I'm pretty sure this cycle was a bust. A blood test tomorrow will likely prove it. I'm having a hard time even feeling disappointed ... this is what happens, right? You shoot yourself full of drugs and time everything as well as you can and follow directions and take your prenatals and wait thinking this time might be different, only it isn't. I'm beginning to doubt the presence of any eggs at all. I think my ovaries were just blowing bubbles on the ultrasound or something. Stupid feckless organs.

This time is different in one way, though. This time, I'm going to ask the nurse to check with the RE to see if he has any big ideas about how we should move forward *now*, instead of having any surprises sprung on us this month when we're trying to order the injectables and only have a short window of time for appointments.

Live and learn.

How do you know what's normal ...

... when normal isn't normal for you?

I'm having some abdominal pain today, 36 hours after the trigger shot, but I don't know whether that's to be expected with 6-8 eggs bursting out all at once. Called and left a message for the nurse but haven't heard back yet.

Work this morning is supposed to involve crawling around on the floor with a group of preschoolers. Since I can only bend gingerly at the waist, that's going to be ... interesting.

ETA: The nurse called back. Cramping is normal. It may last 2-3 weeks. If it gets bad, I should "cut back on my activity level."

Blargh.

The Power

In college, my roommate and I marvelled at the power we had to control our periods using only the power of our minds. If we wanted them to come, they didn't. If we didn't want them to come, they did. The Power carried us through vacations, formal dances, exams, you name it.

In spite of all of the other madness surrounding infertility treatments, I have not lost The Power. I finished this month's round of birth control on Sunday night, and I really, really, really wanted my "visitor" to arrive as soon as possible so as not to make the ultrasounds conflict with Easter weekend. We're now at Maundy Thursday and she's only phoned to say she'll be here ... sometime soonish ... probably.

I am, of course, completely freaking out about getting the ultrasound scheduled at the proper time. If you ever think trying not to have a baby makes you an expert at period math, just wait until you're trying to have one. If regular period math is like arithmetic, this is like statistics and probability, and it never leaves your head:

"If it starts today, then the ultrasound must be Friday or Saturday, if they even do them the Saturday before Easter, but if it doesn't start until tomorrow, I need to call as soon as possible, because maybe they'd be able to fit me in before the holiday, but what if the blood lab isn't open, and if it starts Saturday I need to get ahold of them that morning because Monday will be the only day possible for an ultrasound, and what if it's one of those ones that starts with spotting and how do I figure out what's day one in that case because if we miss it everything will be messed up and wrong and we will never have a child and it will be even more all my fault than it already is."

Jeez ... maybe I shouldn't be surprised she hasn't shown up. I wouldn't want to visit me, either.

"Let it go, let it go ...

... This is smaller than you know
It's no bigger than a pebble lying on a gravel road
Let it go, let it go
Got to leave it all behind you
Give the sun a chance to find you
Let it go"

--Great Big Sea, "Let it Go"

The doctor's news last week felt like a kick to the stomach. My breath completely left me. I could think questions, but I couldn't make my voice work to ask any of them.

Then I got sick again. I cried and cried Wednesday morning, and my head never cleared up afterwards. It felt like I had a blanket wrapped around it with the ends stuck in my ears. And I had a conference about babies and children to attend for three days starting that afternoon. So I tried as much as possible not to think about it all.

Now, five days and an era later, I still can't quite make my words work to talk about it here. This blog post has been sitting unfinished for days. I was about to say it is going to remain unfinished yet again and post it as it was, but --

-- that's a copout. So ...

Let's start with what I know.

1. This isn't fair. None of it is fair. It isn't fair to me, and it certainly isn't fair to SF.

2. Other people do have it worse. This does not justify feeling guilty for feeling bad about our situation.

3. I still have not learned to handle uncertainty. I can sell most any certain thing to myself: we will have our own child; we will use an unknown egg donor; we will ask a friend or family member to donate; we will adopt; we will remain childless. But I cannot easily hold all those ideas as possibilities in my head. Contrasting the ones we'd prefer with the others hurts.

4. I love a lot of people to whom I am not genetically related. I have no reason to believe a baby should be any different. Thus, the problem is getting past the idea of not passing my genes. Which, let's face it, must not be great or we wouldn't be in this sitch. But -- never seeing what happens when you mix my face and my husband's. No "he has your eyes," or "she has your hair" ... That hurts.

5. I have a husband who, my mother tells me, would eat glass for me. (I told her I hope he doesn't.)

6. I wish our doctor had prepared us more fully for this possibility. He told us at the outset of treatment a year ago, "I don't see you getting to the point where you're trying IVF." Now we're at a point where IVF with my eggs may not even work.

7. Music helps. Great Big Sea's lyrics remind me that I have a choice about how much to let this control how I feel about my life. Here's another, one that looks forward instead of dwelling on the present. Coincidentally, it started to play on my computer just as I typed "Here's another."

And some would say
That time has passed me by
And some would say
That the wells have all run dry
Some would say
That's how its meant to be
So some would say
But I beg to disagree

Cause I know good fortune waits for me somewhere
I will have my portion I will have my share
I'll keep my feet in motion til they carry me there
I will have my portion I will have my share

Cause I do believe
There's a harvest in the field
I do believe
There's truth to be revealed
I do believe
There's treasure to be found
And I do believe
There's enough to go around

I know good fortune waits for me somewhere
I will have my portion I will have my share
I'll keep my feet in motion til they carry me there
I will have my portion I will have my share

Cause somewhere there's a blessing and it bears my name
and soon or late, it's coming to me just the same
Can't wait to see
What's set aside for me
With every new sunrise
I'm gonna keep my eyes wide open

--Susan Werner, "I Will Have My Portion," from her new album The Gospel Truth

8. One way or another, I have to remind myself, the uncertainty will not last. Each month tells us better where we are. And the months will pass.

? ? ? ? ?

Well. Our first cycle of Follistim appears to have failed. 10 days after the trigger shot, I started to spot.

My first thoughts were positive. It was only a tiny amount Thursday night. Women report experiencing implantation spotting resembling what I saw, and it seemed that, at about 8 dpo, implantation was a prime possibility.

I spent Friday in an all-day meeting for work, sneaking out to the ladies' room every chance I got for a "status check." The picture grew more and more dismal. By now, Saturday morning, I have to think that even if there is still a growing group of cells in there, it's not going to have anything left to implant in anyway.

We knew the cycle might not work. I just wish I knew why it failed so ... early. 28 days is usually a minimum for my cycle, and I started to bleed a full week before that. Hormones messed up from the shots? Early early miscarriage? Just one of those things? Another question for which we didn't know we might need an answer.

And I was worried about not being able to come up with things to write about while we waited the final week before we could test.