Another Two-Parter!

The first part though is non-TTC. Proud of me?

I love being a teacher and I love it even more on days like today. We had a two hour delay. YAY! Mr SC got up and drove me to school and before he did, he shoveled a little path around the car so I wouldn't have to walk in the snowy glop. :) I'm also looking forward to the weekend. MIL is taking me shopping for Christmas. I'm glad, since I need some new clothes!

And now, of course, is the TTC part. Sorry, folks. I'm trying!
I'm soon close to O day. I'm REALLY hoping it comes before Sunday, which means I can have surgery over break and won't miss any more days of school. I hate that we can't try. My RE asked if we were going to this cycle. I said, um, can we? She said it would probably be better to wait but that decision was up to us.

Well, that was an earth-shattering, exciting post. :)

Parts One and Two

I had vowed to deviate from the TTC posts but I have a little to say, so...this post will be Part One and Part Two

P1... (TTC)
I'm doing fairly well. I haven't cried in three days (yes, I'm really counting) and it's super tough, but I'm doing better. I'm forcing myself when I have to but that's ok. I just wish this journey wouldn't be as it is, as if any of us really think it's a "journey". This whole TTC thing (whether it's losses, failed IUIs or IVF, etc) just plain old sucks. The word "journey", to me, is about getting to that end point but knowing that there is an end point. What if I don't ever get my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? (Ok, I know...cheesy analogy. That's fine. I'll live with that.)

P2...non TTC
Things that make me happy:
1. Christmas lights. I LOVE them. I love to randomly take drives (gas prices, be damned!) and ooh and ah over them. On Sunday night, we drove almost two hours to see a famous street with Christmas lights. All of the homes on the street (with a live manger scene at the end) have been participating for 54 years! It was fun.
2. Coffee. Not that I'm one of those people in the morning who is pretty much set on "vibrate" but it's sooo good. I need cream and sugar, of course. I have two cups in the AM and that's it but ooooh yum!
3. Bad, horrible, guilty pleasures TV. I don't read guilty pleasure books but I definitely watch them on TV. Here's my confession to shows that I will watch (not all the time or religiously or anything...) Some of them are even more embarassing considering that I'm 35 years old!
-The Hil.ls
-Rock of Lo.ve
-Youn.g and the Rest.less
-Gene.ral Hosp.ital
-America.n Idol
-Parent.al Control
4. When Mr SC makes my lunch or cleans the house.
5. As a teacher, the possibility of a two hour delay!

What's on your list?

I'm So Over It

I don't know if I'll ever truly be over what we've been through this year, but I'm so over being sad/mopey/depressed/cloudy/all consumed with my grief.

Something clicked in my head on Thursday when I was with my therapist. She suggested I look into anti-depressants. I took a long, hard look at myself and our current state and I didn't like what I saw. I know there are many, many things over which I have no control. However, there are things that I can control and there are many, many things that I'm blessed with. I don't want to travel down that path so I'm going to fight to regain my emotional well-being, just like I'm going to fight to find out what's wrong with me and fight to maintain a pregnancy and carry to term.

I'm not against anti-depressants and please don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone who takes them. I feel as though I "need" one of my mini- chill pills on occasion. I just realized that if I can't regain myself now, what happens when I am pregnant again? What happens when I need to cope and don't want to take pills? These thoughts made me realize that I don't need medication like my therapist suggested. If I did, I don't think that I'd be feeling this way.

So that's that. We have to take off until February. Yes, I have a great deal to deal with and a great deal to be anxious about. However, every second that I cry or lay on my couch or play entirely too many games of Bejewel.ed Blitz, it's a second of my life that I've wasted. Life is too short and too precious to do that.

I'm going to take a bit of inspiration from my friend R, who is going to be blogging about other things and changing her focus while on a "break". Thanks for the great idea!

Obsessing

I'm a fairly take-charge kind of person. I like to gather information and take action. I consider those things personal strengths. I'm also impatient. I'm getting better at it, but it's something that I've been trying to work on.

So, as you can imagine, all of this TTC bull is difficult. Nope, I never thought I'd be one of those people who'd get pg right away. Really, I didn't. I'm glad I set things in motion yesterday with my RE visit. I really am.

The waiting now? Until January to know everything? Um, yeah. I'm not doing well with that. I want to be able to do something.

I started obsessing today. I'm trying not to but hey, at least I'm not upset I suppose. I called my OBGYN out of curiosity to find out my CD3 b/w from Dec 2008. I have it somewhere but for the life of me, I can't find it. Anyway, the nurse gave me the info. She then said I can't find your estradiol results. I'll give you a call back if they ran that test.

Well, that did it. My FSH was 5.5 last year. I thought that was pretty good for being 34. Then I went to Dr. Google and read that in some cases, your FSH can be normal because it's suppressed by abnormal estradiol. Those two tests together can determine egg quality best.

Of course, now I think I've found the reason for my losses. It must be that I have bad eggs, which is one of the things that can't really be "fixed" without donor eggs or IUI or IVF to help things.

You may suggest to try to keep myself busy?? Oh yes, I was trying to. I did all of this fun stuff during school today!

I Survived! :)

So after the mess I was last night and today, I survived!

I felt comfortable with my new RE. She seemed very thorough. Right now, I'm scheduled for a hysteroscopy either 12/30 or 1/6 to remove fibroids/polyps. I believe there are two. At the post op appointment following my surgery, I'll then have the full panel of the results from the 12 vials of blood they took from me today. We'll be off this cycle (which we already knew) and January also. We can be back in the swing of things in February, with plan.

Thank you all so much for all of your kind words of encouragement. They helped me tremendously!

No One Gets It

So I'm alone tonight. Mr SC has practice and then other things to do. So now I get to blog about my issues. I sure wish that I felt like a normal person that didn't just wallow in my pathetic state.

I truly feel like no one IRL really gets it. I guess that's why I turn here. All of us are carrying around this IF burden, primarily alone. That just plain old sucks. I have my RE appointment tomorrow and I'm scared out of my mind. Scared to have to deal with it. Scared to not have any freaking clue of what I'm going to have to deal with. Scared to have more poking and prodding. Scared that something is seriously wrong with me. Well, you know, beyond the three miscarriages thing. I don't remember if I had said this at any point before...I never even had a cavity. Never broke a bone. I only got chicken pox when I was 29. My D&Es were my only experience with medical procedures and being in the hospital.

I tried to talk to Mr SC. To him, it's just a doctor's appointment and I don't have anything to worry about yet. I wish for me it were that easy.

I dont' want to deal with any of this. I don't want to wait anymore to try. I don't want to have more instruments inside me, twisting and turning to see things. I don't want to miss more work. I'm 35 years old. I just want to be a normal person who can have a healthy baby. From the three very pregnant skanky (sorry, they are...not because they're young and pregnant, just because they are) girls in the high school where I teach, I didn't think that was anything too difficult. I guess I was wrong.

My Freakin' Mind Today

is mush. Just pure mush. All of these thoughts today came crashing in my brain at once.

First, I had a dream though that my boss fired me because I was missing too much time from work. He's very supportive and knows what's going on, so I know that's not going to happen, but obviously I'm stressed about it.

During the drive to work...
1. Shit. I should be home today. WITH A NEWBORN.
2. Ugh. I feel absolutely sick to my stomach.

At school...
1. Shit. I shouldn't have completely relaxed over my break so I would have some clue what I was doing today.
2. Crap. I have to call my hematologist to fax over their report to my new RE.
3. What kind of freak am I that I'm seeing all these doctors that most people (well, outside of the IF circle) don't even know what they do? Seriously?

While on the phone...
1. HOLY F*CK. I see an RE on Thursday.
2. How much time and I going to be out from school for the testing?
3. What else will they find wrong with me?
4. God I have to go to the bathroom. I feel sick to my stomach.
5. Guess I better get ready to get off the denial train once again.

My brain is on absolute overdrive. My mini chill pill helped matters, but seriously.

Then Mr SC called just to talk to me because he missed me. I took a deep breath and that helped a bit.