tornado

A veritable vortex of forces is sucking me in: my would-be first child’s 3rd birthday. The pregnancy I just lost in June (numero seis). My friend’s pregnancy announcement, which is just driving home to me what I lost in June and where I’d be now. The arrival of Aunt Flow. My failure to conceive after two cycles on clomid, which is mind boggling considering the ease with which I can get (temporarily) knocked up without it. The financial challenges of IVF vs. adoption, which are strangling slowly any hope I might have for the future.

Here’s the long and short of it: I’m swirling around in a tornado of grief and despair. Around and around and around I go. I feel trapped, as if – no matter my efforts – the tornado will set me down, broken and battered, when and where it pleases. I spent the weekend crying and reading and crying and cooking and crying and lying on the couch, trying to shut out the world. Oh, and did I say crying? Yeah, I did a lot of that.

(Side note: I picked a chick lit novel to escape into this weekend. Not even halfway through, I encountered a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, an abortion, and IF. Seriously, universe? MUST you fuck with me like that?)

I really am making an effort, though, to claw my way out from the tornado, however futile it might be. I made my annual appointment with my RE to get my Pap and talk about moving on to IVF (there have been some very promising new studies concerning IVF and RPL, and my doc thinks this is the way for us to go) when we can afford it. I’d like to start getting my body ready for it now, and am interested in hearing my doctor’s thoughts on what I should/shouldn’t be doing in the wait time.

I’ve also been reading some miscarriage/grief books, which have made me feel slightly less crazy (oh, you had ONE miscarriage and felt suicidal? For 15 years? I guess after six I should be glad I’m not driving my car off of a bridge).

Lastly, I’m buying flowers for myself, today, to remember that sweet almost babe (even if everyone around me has forgotten). Numero Uno. Three years ago this week, I should have been giving birth. Finding out about that pregnancy – shortly after two shockingly sudden family deaths – was the last time I remember being truly, deeply happy. Happy with my present, happy with my future. Oh, the joy that flooded into me when the word “pregnant” flashed on the pee stick screen! Dear sweet baby, how loved you were, right from the beginning! How wanted! Your daddy and I, we just held each other as the dawn broke and we waited for the alarm to go off. We were too excited to go back to sleep, dreaming of you and how you would change our lives. The highest high of my life, followed too swiftly by the lowest low. You’d be three years old! Trouble, I’m sure, given your genetics ;). Walking. Talking. Getting ready for pre-k.

I hope you are happy wherever you are, with your siblings, running as a pack. I picture you all, sticking together in the Great Somewhere, sticking up for one another when the other dead baby bullies come around. I hope it’s a long, long time before any others join you all. I love you. I always will.

drought

So, I've read that clomid can cause some vaginal dryness. Apparently, I get to experience that lovely little side effect. Seriously, it's like the fucking sahara down there.

I keep expecting to see tumbleweeds blowing through when I drop trousers to pee.

It makes that actual baby making act more than a little difficult. We've been muddling through. Thank god for pre-seed.

Other side effects: I've been a little more emotional lately (okay, I cried reading the front page of the newspaper today. And nothing was even really on it!) but no crazy mood swings or rages. I have been sweating a ton. A ton. Thankfully, I have a rather physical job, so it's not unusual for me to sweat, but this is borderline ridiculous.

I haven't ovulated yet, so I'm sure more fun side effects will pop up as this cycle continues.....

jagged little pill

I've done it - swallowed my first clomid this morning. The fact that I got it down is a feat in and of itself - I am a notoriously bad pill taker, reduced to chopping my cramp fighting ibuprophen into teeny tiny bits and feeling the jagged edges scrape down my throat. I don't think it's just psychological - though it may be - because I make the attempt to swallow whole pills regularly and usually end up with them stuck. But I'll do anything to make spawn, including swallowing clomid and ten little folic acid pills every day.

I'm sitting here waiting for some kind of womanly epiphany to descend upon my body (I'm picturing an ethereal glow, magically bigger boobies and a uterus that suddenly decides it's tired of killing babies), but so far, nothing. I am, however, talking to my ovaries and uterus like I'm a high school basketball coach for the losing team at halftime. "Come on, girls! You can do it! Make a good, quality eggy. Uterus, you get in there and start growing a nice thick lining. We can win! It's not over till it's over!"

The insanity that this mess has brought into my life - I don't think I've ever had a conversation with an organ before.

In adoption news: our trip to get the ball rolling is in 2.5 weeks. Holy crap. I want to do the happy dance every time I think about it, but then reality smacks me in the face: We have a TON of work on the house to do, and we really don't know how we're going to finance this right now. Our original plan was to scrape together all of our savings, etc, and then ask Hubby's folks for a loan to cover the rest. I don't know if it's going to go down like that, because they've been tough to deal with lately. Hubby's dad has been okay - he's usually quite understanding and non judgemental about this shit. Hubby's mom - well, she's another story. When we told her a couple of weeks ago about our latest loss, she basically said that this is god's plan for us and we should accept it. I call bullshit - if there is a god, and he/she/it really wants us to adopt, I think there's a better way to go about it than to have us experience loss after loss, heartbreak after heartbreak. A vision or something, perhaps? A booming voice declaring that we should pursue adoption full force? What kind of god wants people to suffer like we have?

She also made a point of pulling Hubby aside at the party for his niece and saying that she "hopes we can get over this." Ugh.

Speaking of the party, Hubby has declared that it was a good thing I didn't go, because he was reduced to stifling the desire to punch family members in the face as they went around declaring PIG a "miracle baby" and other such crap. Had I been there, I'd have sat in the corner crying, or downing a bottle of wine. I did cry while he was gone, but alone in my house with the curtains drawn and shitty tv on, just the way it should be.