Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Well, this went downhill quickly...

Ah, life with chronic, annoying pain...how I've missed thee...

Honestly, was not expecting it to hit so fast.  Nor do I miss it.  At least I know I'm not crazy this time, or "just thinking about it too much".  Never-the-less, still quite annoyed.

The insomnia...that's the worst part. My cats don't mind it....
Here is Gaius and I blogging at 2:00 am...

It's not that I can't fall asleep I can... I can't stay asleep because I wake up with a cramp, a twinge, or I move wrong during my sleep. This is also how I know I'm not making it up.  I like to sleep.  I LOVE sleep, in fact. It's one of my favorite hobbies, especially with a pet to cozy up with...but it alludes me.  

I can be distracted from it during the day mostly and activity helps.  Unfortunately, as with most humans, I'm not meant to go 24/7 with no sleep.  And some days...like a couple of days ago, crossing the threshold of moving out of the fetal position from under the heated blanket to the cold and waiting for enough activity to loosen everything up again becomes too high.  So then I take a sick day from my other job as a domestic engineer and Emma and I crash on the couch.  When I'm not dozing off, which is the only time I don't hurt, I feel guilty about not doing anything. It's rather fantabulous like that...

It's nights like these that really make me think I deserve a hysterectomy before I'm 36...Hopefully I've used my organs by then.  In the meantime, hopefully I can get in with my OB/Gyn and have my bladder numbed Friday or Monday. Other than that...it's just keep taking my meds and hope for the best.  I guess I could try Benadryl tomorrow night, but it's a little too late for that at this point...grr...



Womanhood...such a a beautiful, mysterious thing, no?  I mean this is it, right? There has to be a special place in Heaven for ladies with endometriosis...that's all I'm saying...

You think God will forgive me if I sucker punch Eve in the face if I meet her in Heaven?

Peace, Love, and Forgiveness even in the event of premeditation,

Mary Katherine 


Monday, February 17, 2014

Here we go again...I guess...I think...maybe?


You know you might be infertile when:

1. You randomly have 3 different brands of pregnancy tests in your bathroom.
2. 2 different types of ovulation predictor kits
3. Baby aspirin with the little hearts that made you cry to dispose of it 2 years ago because that was "giving up."
4. Bromocriptine...I mean I don't have Parkinson's or a pituitary tumor so this is just wasting away...
5. Every time you bring a pocketbook back into rotation you find a bottle of Menopur/needles/syringes.
This is absolute chaos...maybe I recognize this now?  Although that didn't stop me from peeing on an expired ovulation test...I mean, because what the Hell, right? I have one and I had to pee...so, why not?
...btw...I'm not ovulating....SURPRISE!

Any-some-how...I'm trying to clean out all the old..err...consolidate...at least, consolidate, because really that box of 3 tests can hold 8 comfortably...but not 9...why do pregnancy tests come in threes, anyway?  I mean do people that are fertile, but not really wanting children, do they screw up 3 times in rapid succession?  I'm just curious...It's something I'll never know.  I mean if you need 3 positive pregnancy tests to prove to yourself you have a positive pregnancy test...well, that just seems like double line hoarding.  I mean good for you, but really?  You need 6 lines?

The sad thing is, I needed this stuff.  You don't understand I NEEDED this stuff...because every day was a possibility, and every month was a possible dream come true.  And every "next" month was a slap of devastation because the only double lines I ever saw were the streams of tears down my cheeks.

Yet this is the cycle we are jumping...well...inching towards. The end of peace, the return of fear, anguish and physical pain.

It reminds me a lot of the time I tore my left ACL almost exactly 2 years to the date of tearing my right ACL.  I screamed.  The only time I did more than shriek or groan or just yell, "ouch" when I got hurt. I mean yeah...tearing your ACL stings, but a 16 y/o that just got back into her prime after spending 6 months in rehab and the next 12 catching back up with herself gymnastically, the final 6 progressing again...well that scream was for 24 months down the drain. It was for possibly kissing college gymnastics goodbye, it was for knowing that even though the sprain stings, having holes drilled into your femur and tibia, chips of your patella and tibia removed with the middle 3rd of your patellar tendon, fighting for weeks to simply straighten or flex your knee against fast forming scar tissue...well that sting of the original tear was nothing compared to what was to come.

So the tiny twinges I feel as my zombie ovaries re-awaken from their chemically enhanced hibernation do not really feel good, no, but it's not enough to make me do more than wince, yet...However, I want to have a full-out little girl tantrum in my bedroom floor.  It's so unfair.  So many aspects are unfair.  Endometriosis isn't fair, interstitial cystitis isn't fair, poor egg quality isn't fair, chronic pain in a region of the body you aren't supposed to talk about isn't fair.  But I remind myself...

"Guess what buttercup?  This is your life, and it's more fair than most."  Nothing I have is trying to kill me.  [Remind this to me when I actually start my period again, bc I will not believe I ever said that.] In fact my immune system is trying it's damnedest not let things get worse.  We'll just forget about the infertility thing for a second, but my endo, adhesion-wise, could be much worse.  I could have no possibility at all of ever carrying a pregnancy.


The most terrifying thing is not getting burned, but walking back into the fire, again, after you have been burned.  Only this time, it's not up to how diligently I work on my rehabilitation.  It's not up to how compliant I am with my meds. It's not up to how hard I pray and beg for a certain outcome.  It's just taking a shot at something my husband and I have dreamed of, prayed for, and tried...God knows we've tried.

Peace, Love, and Buttercups,
MK

Monday, February 3, 2014

Something New Is Born


Well, at face value, this seems like another empty promise to an infertile.  And to some, it's one of the many reasons we recoil from churches that celebrate life, births, and throw every family-friendly pot-luck event in your face week after week.

I, on the other hand, don't see things quite so literally.  (I'm an Episcopalian after all.)  I've been pained, agonized, broken, yet I'm not who I was in 2010.  I'm the something new.

It takes a while...and I don't think you can rush the process, you simply have to go through it.  I'm happier because I've accepted childlessness as my default.  It's not necessarily what I want, but tough cookies.  I didn't want all those sweaters my grandmother knitted for me, either.  And guess what?  I wore them to school, anyway!

There comes a point in which you just have to accept the way things are.  Much like a victim of a crime cannot depend on the sentence of their perpetrator for their own healing, I cannot depend on having a child to make me better, happier, or content.

This is not to say I'm not unencumbered with moments of grief here or there, but they are simply moments that I accept and don't try to fight off.  I just know that all-in-all, I can exist happily with or without a child.  This person is someone I thought I was incapable of being in 2010.

Patience, while still not one of my finer, purer qualities, in other aspects of my life, I have embraced in this matter.  I may be the oldest mother in my future child's kindergarten class, or I may never be a mother at all.  Either way, I'll find a way to be happy, to enjoy life, and to continue to accept the blessings (especially, kittens, golden doodles, and/or margaritas) thrown my way.



Peace, Love and Acceptance,

Mary Katherine