Feeling Good!

My blood tests results came back very positively yesterday.  My FSH levels are exactly where they need to be in order for the IVF drugs to work their best wonders.

I gave myself my first injection last night with no problems.  I was so worried about going through these next two weeks without Dave.  In fact 24 hours ago, I would have said I wasn't coping.  But something shifted during the day yesterday and I feel great!  Don't ask me what it was.  I wouldn't have a clue!!!

I'm feeling really, really positive about this round.  I know that can be a dangerous place to go when the let down can then be even bigger, but I don't care!  I'm feeling really good about the possiblity of being successful this time around and I intend to go with this feeling!

So many things seem to be falling into place at the moment. 

One - The freakiest one of all is the level of syncronicity between my kinesiologist and my therapist.  Everytime a new things come up with one person, it is also comes up with the other.  It's crazy!  And I love it!  I feel like they are working together.  And I really believe that I have been led to both of them at this time in my life.

I feel like there are some really significant breakthroughs going on in my pysche and that I am finally beginning to take some small steps toward releasing some long held patterns and issues in my life.  And to be doing that just before a baby comes along, is simply wondrous.  I have always wanted to be in a place where I am not passing on to much "garbage" to my child.  So that they don't inherit and have to deal with all the difficult things that I have had to.  We bring so much into our lives that need healing as it is, it would be nice not to give my child all my "garbage" on top of that as well.

Anyway, it is just baby steps, but I'm feeling so good about it all at the moment.  It is giving me the feeling of the timing being just right.  And that, as I let go and heal from my own issues, I will be a much better mother.

Two - And then there is starting to babysit my great nephew every week.  My maternal instincts have been switched on with him and I am loving the role of being his caretaker once a week.  I love it more than I thought I would and it just fits me to a tee!  It's made me more excited about being a mum.

Three - Without my intending it to be, my work hours have dropped quite a lot this year.  I have more time, less stress and I am beginning to love my life once more.  I am certainly enjoying work more which is just wonderful.  In fact, I could even begin to say, I'm starting to love it again.  I haven't been able to say that for years!

As a result, I am beginning to enjoy my home life more.  I'm getting out into the garden, I'm keeping up with the bookwork.  I'm back to regular exercise.  I'm not feeling this constant pressure to have to keep up with everything because I have more time to achieve what needs to be done.

I am grateful to be in this place now, after two months of really struggling.  Thank you!!!

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A truly happy one for today! One of my favs of Dave!

Professional help

A few months ago, I took advantage of the free counselling service they have the fertility clinic.  I needed to talk to a professional about all that had been going on.  The lady was really good and it was so helpful to talk to her.

In the process of my session, the issues of my eating addiction came up.  She recommended another shrink who she believed would really be able to help me.  This lady, Shona, is just amazing.  I've had 7 sessions with her and they have been amazing and intense and really helpful.  But my allocated sessions have run out, so I needed to go and have a review with the doctor to get 4 more assisted sessions.

My doctor has been good with our fertility journey and I told the doctor about the last two miscarriages.  She added a second reason that I still needed counselling - grief. 

I've often talked about the loss I feel, but understanding that there is grief surrounding that loss makes so much sense.  I'd shut down, not able to function, not interested in anything.  All symptoms of grief.  My kinesiologist came up with the fact that I am dealing with a feeling of being let down.  It is good to be able to put some words to the confusing array of feelings that I have been having.

I started back at work today. It was good to have a routine in the day.  It was a good day.

I'm also going to the naturopath on Thursday.  I am taking a naturopathic supplement for depression, but it's low dose and is not really working.  There was another one I used to take that worked much better so I will talk to about that and all the other difficulties I am struggling with right now.  It's time to get back on track.  I've been shut down long enough.

IVF round one

Well, we have finished our first round of IVF – unsuccessfully.  I have a month off now to recover and then we go again.

Unfortunately, we only got one viable embryo, which was of course implanted.  So with no frozen embryos to use, I need to go through the whole process again to produce more eggs.

It was a difficult month.  I didn’t have any trouble with the injections nor did I go through any mood swings which was great.  But I was exhausted.  All the time exhausted. 

And then there was the ovary bleed.  After the egg retrieval, I had what I thought was the usual discomfort after this procedure, only to wake up in complete and utter agony in the middle of the night.  It was excruciating.  Fortunately our clinic has a 24 hour service and we called them at 1 am. 
The doctor on call was fantastic.  He diagnosed what was wrong and I went on a high dose of pain medication and we were able to manage.  I couldn’t move on my own, couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t straighten.  It hurt so much to pee even.  I was on my back for a week.  And then I continued to get spasms of pain right up until I sadly got my period.  I knew something wasn’t right.  I said to Dave “being pregnant shouldn’t feel like this”.  That night we found out I wasn’t.  Even now, a week after my period has finished, I still feel mild symptoms of discomfort which could be the residue of the reproduction system getting a complete battering!

The next working day after the bleed began, I was at the clinic having blood tests and scans to confirm the diagnosis.  Fortunately it wasn’t ovarian hyperstimulation, but a bleed from the ovary.  The doctor is not sure whether it began a day after the surgery or was a slow bleed that took a while to manifest.  Either way, it didn’t matter, we knew what was wrong.
 
In the end, I had two weeks off work from the exhaustion before the retrieval and then from the bleed.  The end result of all of that, is that I have cut my teaching back a day.  There is no way I can go through all of that again and try and maintain the same workload.  I am so relieved!!  As of now, I am teaching one day less.  Woohoo!

We learnt a lot from the egg fertilisation.  They got 10 eggs and they fertilised half via IVF (natural selection) and half via ICSI (where they inject the sperm into the egg.) 

From the IVF procedure we only got one embryo.  Apparently as you get older, the outer lining of the egg hardens and it is harder for the sperm to break through. That explains a lot.
From the ICSI , we got 4 embryos! 

However, none of the ICSI embryos developed.  It was the IVF embryo that got through to a stage of being able to implant.  But even that had a lot of fragmentation and the doctor wasn’t really happy with it.

So, over the last three years of us trying, if one of the little suckers actually managed to break through the outer lining, we may have been fertilising eggs and they just didn’t develop. 

I am feeling a little disheartened with the results and what we have learnt.  I knew age was a real factor but this bit of science really made it a reality.  Nevertheless, we go again in a few weeks.  And I need every minute of those weeks to recover – both emotionally and physically.

I’m  not doing so well right now.  My anxiety levels are up and I am just not with it.  All I really want to do is hide away in bed and read.  But after next week, I have two weeks holiday, so the timing of that is terrific!

The journey through.

Well, we are back in the two week wait once again.  Last cycles thoughts of being pregnant again didn’t come to fruition.  Which in retrospect, was good.  We wanted to wait a cycle just to get things back to normal. 

I’ve been struggling a lot with panic attacks, anxiety and the desire to do anything at all.  The chest pains from the panic attacks have been strong and scary and it has been all I could do just to get through the days.

However, things are starting to pick up again. 

I believe that a lot of the reasons for my anxiety, aside from the obvious – miscarriage, work etc - has been the cycle of unhealthy eating due to stress which causes unhealthy eating with causes stress and on and on.  But my body has finally said “that is enough, take these chest pains to scare you back to eating well and reducing your stress levels.” 

I’ve been through this before – exactly the same thing happened when my body decided it was time I gave up smoking.  Those pains and anxieties (which are the same as now) saw me going to the doctors, specialists and having ECG’s.  Everything was fine.  I know what is happening.

Once again it has worked.  Two weeks ago, through fear, I could only eat the food basics.  Even then, the pains would come back, but each day they were diminishing.  To make matters worse, Dave was away for the week for work, so I was on my own trying to handle it all.  But I got through it – one step closer to being better.

I also made a big decision and resigned from the Flute Society – which was a big volunteering commitment on my part.  In many ways it was an important part of being active in the flute world, almost an obligation.  A thing that if you didn’t do, it put you in the bad books.  But I caught up with the President for coffee and explained to her what was going on and she was most understanding and helpful in making it all happen.  The weight that lifted off my shoulders from doing this was amazingly significant!

Last week,  with my chest pains diminished and less frequent, I introduced exercise again.  I took Maxy on walks at the beautiful Christies Creek Trail, which was wonderful for both of us!

This week, I hope to introduce the stepper again.  Being in the two week wait, I’m not quite game to go back to the gym.  I am concerned that starting up there again in the first weeks of pregnancy would not be good.  I know the equipment to avoid now, but still…  I’ll start there again if we aren’t successful this time around.

The problem post miscarriage is that you start looking back.  Even though you know it was nothing that you did, you start analysing.  Maybe it was the machines at the gym, maybe it was yoga classes, maybe it was the massage I had before I knew I was pregnant, maybe it was…  And so it goes on.  It was probably none of them.  It was nature.  But nevertheless, I can’t bring myself to go back to the gym during the two week wait.

So, after two weeks of gradually getting back on track, I am feeling much better.  It doesn’t take much for the chest pains to emerge again, but they are manageable and I am sleeping well.  I am still struggling somewhat with the daily grind, but I am back to enjoying pottering around the house and doing all the domestic chores.  And I feel such a sense of relief and letting go of the Flute Society.  Things are progressing.

Dave doesn’t understand my chest pains and anxiety, just like he doesn’t understand my eating disorder.  And I can’t seem to successfully explain it to him. I think it’s one of the those things that if you haven’t experienced it, you can’t understand it.  But that’s ok. Even though we can’t connect and talk about it the way I can with someone who has been through it, he is still supporting me just by being there and loving me.  I absolutely would not be surviving this without him.  He is my rock, my comforter, my strength, my shoulder to lean on (literally and figuratively!), my constant, my love.  “I love him to the core of my soul.”

A better day.

This morning I woke up feeling normal!  No deep sadness, no anxiety pains.  I didn’t have the overwhelmingly sad dreams that I have been having every night.  Wow.  It feels so different. 

Unfortunately, Dave heads off on Monday for another week away.  This is the time of year that he has to travel.  It is just bad timing for me.  Last time he was away (last week) was when my anxiety kicked in, and that was just 2 nights.  Hopefully I will be fine. 

I have a flute course for the week, so it will be something different and I will be spending the day with colleagues listening to one of the “Gods” of the flute world rather than in a little room on my own teaching my students.  That has got to be better for me!   It is a lot of travel every day as it is in the city and I live in the outer suburbs but today, for the first time, I am looking forward to it. 

Today is my last teaching day for three weeks.  (Aside from one exam student during the holidays).  I am looking forward to my last student!  My three weeks “holidays” though are not holidays.  Next week – flute course.  The week after I am tutoring at music camp.  And the following week I have to get the EOFY accounting done. 

I really could do with a full week off, but I should be able to grab a few days here and there.  And if I go into Dave’s office to do the accounting, not only will I be with him, but I will be more focused and should get it done more quickly.

So, a better day today.  I am grateful.

Handing it over to God.  And Trusting.

A rough road

This last week has been a whirl of panic attacks, anxiety and depression.  I keep looking for a way out but just can’t find the path.  I think there is a large part of my unconscious mind that just doesn’t want to.  When I see a ray of light and possibility, my mind shuts down to it, it doesn’t want to hear it.  However do I deal with that?

I’m in a destructive whirl from which I can’t break free.  Why do I make the choices that I make?  Why do I live from a state of unconsciousness?  I feel like I have no control over my life.  aahh.  click.  That’s because I am meant to be handing over control.  And I need to do this daily.

What I need to do is so simple. 

• Make healthy food choices
• Exercise
• Do a daily devotion to God.

So simple, yet so beyond me.  It makes no sense.

I went to Queen Naturo last week to get some herbal assistance.  I have something for relieve anxiety and to uplift my mood.  She provided me with some wonderful motivational thoughts that lasted for all of about a day and a half.   I can’t live like this.

I have so many work commitments for the next three weeks that are taking over my thoughts and not giving me any time to change my behaviours.  I only took one day off from work after the miscarriage, because I just can’t take more time.  I get one weeks holiday in three weeks.  But I don’t want to have to wait until then to achieve anything.  I need relief now.

I have the day off today with a concert tonight.  But today has seen me go more in a whirl than ever.  A whirl of my destructive behaviours, rather than taking on the things that will help me.  I don’t understand this.

Dave has been waking up very early lately, that probably hasn’t helped.  I need to sleep longer than 5.30 am.  We are also still in the middle of chaos with our house renovations.

Okay, so what to do?  What to do? 

One step at a time.  One step at a time.  And hand it over to God.

A surprise in the microscope

Yesterday morning I leaned over to do the daily saliva test.  10 minutes later, I am handing the mini microscope over to D in total surprise.  The reading was positive!  I was ovulating!  It had been five days since that first sign of ovulation with nothing since then.  There was joy and confusion from both of us!

This morning – once again, nothing on the test.  It is just so strange.

What normally happens with Maybe Baby is that you have two or three days of pre-ovulation readings, 1-2 days full ovulation readings and 2-3 days post-ovulation readings.  So this is all very strange.

Nevertheless, the two week wait now will test my patience.  While it is all a bit strange, yesterdays random reading puts the thought in our heads that it might just be possible this cycle for us to have conceived!  Maybe…  Maybe Baby!  :):)

While there is that joy of hopefulness, I am mostly  feeling disillusioned with it all at the moment.  I do acknowledge that other factors in my life are contributing to this feeling.  One of them is not feeling well at the moment, and another is a colleague announcing her pregnancy at our meeting last night.  Wonderful news for her!  :)  I just wish I was there as well.

The arthritis is giving me grief and I can feel it in my knuckles and ankles as well.  It’s as though, my body is saying “Now that I am diagnosed, feel it in all its glory!”

So, I need to work at riding through these feelings and overcoming the factors that are contributing to them.  I’ve got some work to do this morning, that will feel good to have completed and I have some difficult things to achieve at school that will hopefully, in time, begin to lift my spirits as well.

I put out to the Universe - positivity, hopefulness, patience, good health, perseverance and our dreams of a different life.

… ah, the Universe is surprising.  After writing that last sentence I did a google image search for happiness.  It gave me this photo from… wait for it… an arthritis website!  Perhaps it is time to researching this as well – with joy that I finally have a diagnosis.