with nails bitten to the quick

I scheduled an early December appointment with the RE (the one we met and liked a month ago).  Doing so triggered, like, every manifestation of anxiety (I'm talking shaking and tears) and every muscle memory of panic imaginable.

Is this delusion?  I am still the woman with high FSH and Diminished Ovarian Reserve walking into a fertility clinic in the hopes that they will let me attempt a miracle.  I now have four losses under my belt (one of which was chromosomally normal - perhaps the only "normal" egg I had left).  I am still "statistically unlikely" to find success.  How do you embark on something as physically and emotionally grueling as months of inject-able medications and IVF all the while knowing that there is a high statistical likelihood that it will fail?  Is this the definition of insanity?  Or desperation?  My rational mind supposes that husband and I need to turn over every rock before we give up entirely, particularly the rocks hidden under reproductive technologies that are covered by his insurance plan.  But my rational mind also sees the danger in the whole production.  Can you really emotionally detatch yourself from the reproductive process?  I ask this speaking as the woman who tried to emotionally detatch herself from a pregnancy for 11 weeks.  That worked out well. (snark).

Something to discuss with the therapist tomorrow.  Yay therapy.

Affirmation of the Day

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

Proactive

I start back at work on Monday.  I have mixed feelings enough about returning to work after a weekend, let alone after a week of recuperation.  My job is stressful.  Satisfying, occasionally fun (because my co-workers rock), but stressful.  As a researcher I am quite literally paid to think for a living.  And the job is time consuming, I often have to bring work home.  Mainly I am hoping I can avoid crying at my desk.  That seems like a good goal.


I have scheduled upcoming acupuncture and therapy appointments. See how proactive I am about healing?  I should pat myself on the head.  My new therapist describes herself as an addition to my health "posse" - a new tool in my "arsenal" for coping.  Hmmm.  Apparently I am such a mess that I need a team behind me. Ponder that for a minute.


I have also started taking vitamins and supplements again....Wait, what?  "Justonemore you fucking nutcase, are you seriously considering trying again for another baby a week after your surgery?" ask my readers.  Well, no, not quite.  See, here's my conundrum: I am not one of the lucky people out there who can stop popping pills and supplements and get miraculously and spontaneously pregnant and cross my fingers that it will work out fine.  I have to look at the cold hard truth about my body and my brain.  Would I be able to function if I suddenly found myself knocked up without a regimen of methylfolate and Co-Q 10 and Vitamin D behind me?  Likely not. 


How can I put this another way...ok, here goes:  I am taking my supplements and prenatals and drinking my wheatgrass again because IF I get pregnant again (which may not be likely, but is certainly possible, considering fertility after miscarriage and my history) - and miscarry (as I would only come to expect right now) I will be less likely to blame myself. 


See, proactive.  My face might as well be next to the word in the dictionary.


My therapist tells me that "what ifs" are poison to me.  What if I do get pregnant?  What if I can't?    My first exercise is to eliminate the what if and trade it for a "so what"......you can see why I am a great candidate for therapy, right?  So much of my stability right now depends on being able to internalize the following sentence:


So what if Niblet is our only child.

The therapist's pronouncements

"You're a fighter."


Umm, ok, if you say so, doc. 


"You have been through trauma."
That's validating.  Apparently I can toss the letters P-T-S-D around. 

Peace

My return to my acupuncturist this morning was like a vision of light.  I am not sure if I ever mentioned before, but I have always felt incredibly lucky to have a practitioner of Chinese Medicine a couple of hundred feet down the street from me who is also trained in Western Medicine as a nurse and public health researcher.  The perspectives that she brings to the table are something of a lucky break for me given my personality and world-view, and I take great comfort in having her in my self-care arsenal.  I will not go into detail, but I will say that for the first time in days I truly feel at peace.  And maybe I feel a glimmer of hope too.

Stuck

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  PTSD.  I have no idea if I have it. I know so many people who like to toss psychoanalysis into casual conversation (was I one of them?) and I am only now fully realizing how lucky someone is when they can use words like this, without a full understanding of their meaning.


I suppose (hope?) I will have the chance "work through" what I will describe now, in therapy.  OK, let's see whether I can do this justice, because words are strangely difficult for me to conjure now:  It's like, my brain is stuck on a continuous loop at a moment in time, like a record with a scratch.  Maybe when veterans return from war their brains are stuck on a moment of gore, of death, of people with limbs or heads blown off.  God have mercy on their souls.  My brain thankfully isn't stuck on something so vicious and gory.  Strangely, it isn't even stuck on my baby.  Here's where I am stuck, like a recording that has looped and never ends unless you turn the whole fucking machine off:


I am lying on the table, in the moments after the sonographer has completed gathering the pictures for the doctor to view.  I am calm, holding my belly.  And waiting.  And waiting.  My baby was waving her arms just minutes before....Does it feel like a long time has passed?  Why hasn't the doctor come into the room?  More minutes pass.  I am trying to recall every bad ultrasound I have ever endured, did I have to wait this long for the doctor to return for those bad ones?  Then the door opens.


Maybe this is what people mean when they say they recall the moments before the car wreck.

Autopilot

I want to throw out to anyone who has been reading my musings, that I am so incredibly thankful to have the support of so many people right now.  I can palpably *feel* the compassion that is being sent our way, and it means more to me than I can express right now.

In the midst of chaos there is routine.  Niblet needs her mother to dress her, feed her, pack her lunches, take her to school, hug her, look over her homework, read to her, hug her more.  Our house needs to be cleaned, our fridge needs food and meals have to be cooked.  I have a job outside of our home that needs attending to, emails that need to be checked (though I have taken days off from work for anyone wondering).  I guess I can say I function on autopilot.

And a new addition to my routine will be therapy.  I can no longer walk this journey without the help of a mental health professional. Perhaps I've needed one all along, I guess I will find out soon, I start in two days.  I only know that nighttime is the worst time.  I am lucky to have a support network of friends and family, I know so many don't.  I am lucky to have the safe space to cry in, safe shoulders to cry on, and the deep understanding from years of losses that I can cry for as long as I need to.  But those hours when I lie down to sleep, after I have tucked Niblet in are the worst.  The absolute worst.  The panic and anxiety attacks are very real, and the turnings of my brain and resulting insomnia make it very difficult to even function on autopilot.  I am out of my depth in dealing with them.  So I call "uncle" - I need help and hopefully will get it.