Through the last 5 years, I've learned that someone or something, often well-meaning and completely innocent, is going to trigger an unhappy response. And, not everything that was a trigger for me at one point in this journey is a trigger for me now. Vice versa, some things that were not triggers, sometimes ellicit a heavy response.
For instance, Mother's Day... The first couple of years, I was so hopeful, so encouraged that I just looked at Mother's Day as it just wasn't quite my turn. By the third year, it became a celebration of something I may never have. In that light, it stings. At some point, reality set in, and BJ and I, however unacceptingly, realize that we may never have children. We may have to come up with an alternate route to parentage or give up. More so for me, I may never get to experience having a child. Which if you've been fortunate enough to do so, you probably can't understand. But for those of us who haven't, and desparately want to, it's a huge blow to our egos, our identities, and little girl dreams of being someone's mommy.
The third estrogen shot seems to be a trigger for me. It must be the threshold between normal levels, and IVF levels of estrogen because I feel pretty good, and then the next day I simply cannot handle life. For instance, your manager asks you to do one simple thing, and something that should have registered a 0.5 on the irritation level blows up to an 11. Everything hurts my feelings. In another example, someone in the lobby said they hated turquoise, which is the color scrubs my department has to wear. When my estrogen level is less than 1,000, I would not care. I did not choose the color. But when she said it, I felt insulted and it hurt my feelings. I'm not proud...And you have no rational explanation for why except that 'It just does!' And when someone asks you if something else is going on aside from your way overamplified response to a minor situation and you can only say 'Not really'.
Nevermind that something huge is going on in your life. But, then again, something huge is always going on in your life because with infertility, it's omnipresent. It's everyday. It's everyday you get to sleep in because there is no child to wake you up. It's everyday you look at your dog with all her toys and yearn for her to have a little buddy to play with. It's every morning you walk down the hall passed the empty room that has no purpose...So you get used to it...and whether you try to downplay it consciously or not, add hormone injections to the mix and it will eventually come to a head usually in an ugly cryfest over something completely asinine. Also, people get tired of hearing about it, and you get tired of talking about it, especially when years have gone by.
There are good triggers. Last night, my donor took her trigger shot. So we will be heading to Chattanooga on Wednesday to do our part of the paperwork. Monday we will head down to Chattanooga, assuming everything goes as planned, for the embryo transfer. I'm more guarded than excited if I'm to be totally honest. I'm definitely nervous. As we learned from our first donor...so much can go wrong at any point. So I'm not really going to get excited until I have a positive pregnancy test. Although, I can't get to that point unless we get healthy, mature eggs. Those eggs fertilize successfully. They grow correctly and survive to day 5. So, so much has to happen between now and Monday before implantation can even be attempted.
I used up all the home pregnancy tests with my last attempt. Except for one expired digital, which I need to to throw away, so there will be no cheating. I will just suffer through 9-10 days of unknowing, blindly, and praying for a different result.
Peace, Love, & Hopefully Triggering Joy,
Mary Katherine
For instance, Mother's Day... The first couple of years, I was so hopeful, so encouraged that I just looked at Mother's Day as it just wasn't quite my turn. By the third year, it became a celebration of something I may never have. In that light, it stings. At some point, reality set in, and BJ and I, however unacceptingly, realize that we may never have children. We may have to come up with an alternate route to parentage or give up. More so for me, I may never get to experience having a child. Which if you've been fortunate enough to do so, you probably can't understand. But for those of us who haven't, and desparately want to, it's a huge blow to our egos, our identities, and little girl dreams of being someone's mommy.
The third estrogen shot seems to be a trigger for me. It must be the threshold between normal levels, and IVF levels of estrogen because I feel pretty good, and then the next day I simply cannot handle life. For instance, your manager asks you to do one simple thing, and something that should have registered a 0.5 on the irritation level blows up to an 11. Everything hurts my feelings. In another example, someone in the lobby said they hated turquoise, which is the color scrubs my department has to wear. When my estrogen level is less than 1,000, I would not care. I did not choose the color. But when she said it, I felt insulted and it hurt my feelings. I'm not proud...And you have no rational explanation for why except that 'It just does!' And when someone asks you if something else is going on aside from your way overamplified response to a minor situation and you can only say 'Not really'.
Nevermind that something huge is going on in your life. But, then again, something huge is always going on in your life because with infertility, it's omnipresent. It's everyday. It's everyday you get to sleep in because there is no child to wake you up. It's everyday you look at your dog with all her toys and yearn for her to have a little buddy to play with. It's every morning you walk down the hall passed the empty room that has no purpose...So you get used to it...and whether you try to downplay it consciously or not, add hormone injections to the mix and it will eventually come to a head usually in an ugly cryfest over something completely asinine. Also, people get tired of hearing about it, and you get tired of talking about it, especially when years have gone by.
There are good triggers. Last night, my donor took her trigger shot. So we will be heading to Chattanooga on Wednesday to do our part of the paperwork. Monday we will head down to Chattanooga, assuming everything goes as planned, for the embryo transfer. I'm more guarded than excited if I'm to be totally honest. I'm definitely nervous. As we learned from our first donor...so much can go wrong at any point. So I'm not really going to get excited until I have a positive pregnancy test. Although, I can't get to that point unless we get healthy, mature eggs. Those eggs fertilize successfully. They grow correctly and survive to day 5. So, so much has to happen between now and Monday before implantation can even be attempted.
I used up all the home pregnancy tests with my last attempt. Except for one expired digital, which I need to to throw away, so there will be no cheating. I will just suffer through 9-10 days of unknowing, blindly, and praying for a different result.
Peace, Love, & Hopefully Triggering Joy,
Mary Katherine
Praying with all my heart for you! I hope and wish the best for you! It really is the worst!
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