Failed

As I was typing an email to Jo, my acupuncturist, I stopped myself mid-sentence.  I just had this flash, this moment, where I was about to type that all the work I’d been doing was starting to feel like a total loss.  And what more could I be doing?  Then I erased it.  It feels like I'm doing so much, putting forth so much and yet, it also feels like I've lost the focus.  So focused on getting pregnant, and losing focus on the why and what it results in.  I feel like I'm working, working, working - mentally thinking and focusing and it appears that it doesn't really work that way.  So the question isn't what more could I be doing, but simply, what the hell am I doing? Period. 

We rec’d our results from the Clomid Challenge this afternoon – I failed.  I started out well enough, a low score around 6.  But after the 5 days of Clomid, my FSH had increased to an abnormal level of 22.79.  They like to see it where it started or at least under 12.  Dr. B's nurse left us a message.  I sort of have an idea of what it will be.  Either they will tell us that getting pregnant with our own eggs is highly unlikely or that they won’t even work with us unless we use donor eggs.  Either one is not really the talk you want to have.

I’m bummed.  I’m depressed.  There’s this feeling that it is all out of our control, yet, I still have this bit of hope inside that keeps thinking “one good egg, one good egg.”  And then I feel like an idiot for hoping that we will somehow be the exception to the rule; the miracle amidst lost causes.  It was better when I just thought I was having random miscarriages than now, when the I have data to explain why and to tell me that it is likely I will continue to have miscarriages if we can even get pregnant again on our own.

I start to think about all the ‘work’ I’m doing to make this happen and then I realize that maybe I’m not even doing much work.  I think about the lack of will power I have and those stupid apple cider margaritas that I indulged in over Thanksgiving.  Or the three pieces of Halloween candy I ate.  The 2^nd glass of wine I’m on right now.  I start to feel guilty that I’m choosing a glass of wine over the chance to have a baby.  It sounds ridiculous, but that is where my head goes.  Every bad thing I eat, yoga I miss, sugar I consume – I start to feel entirely guilty.  I start to think how maybe I haven’t been working very hard for this at all and how I somehow don’t ‘deserve’ this.  As if anyone ‘deserves’ to be a parent or a mother, as if this is how it works.  It’s silly, I know.  It’s sad; I know this, too.  And yet, it is what it is. 

I guess my biggest fear is that Dr. B will turn us away – that he will consider us a lost cause.   Then what?  We will be without any hope, any help.  Then what?

Donor eggs, adoption – both of these have not really been on our radar and at this point, it’s hard to think about.  It’s that bit of hope that we can do this on our own I guess; the part that hasn’t given up yet. 

And maybe he will simply say, “If you are going to do IVF, then we need to move on this quickly.”  I hope this is what he says.  At least we then know that we haven’t been abandoned, yet.  I have already researched clinics that will work with high FSH and low AMH patients.  I guess if we are left without any options, that is something we could explore.   But the thought of that just makes me exhausted.  And the expense to travel to far flung places isn’t a big sell for us either.  And that’s when I start to think, “How much more of this can I take?” 

I will call Dr. B tomorrow morning.  I wish I hadn’t missed the call this afternoon. I wish I didn’t have to hear the message, “Dr. B would like to meet and talk with you. Sorry to leave this on a message.”  Ugh.  We’re sorry, too.