Thursday, July 28, 2011

A Flare For The Dramatics

Yes! Yes, I have a flare for the dramatics.  I like things to go my way and as you can see, my attempts to get pregnant haven't gone my way.  Hence, my previous post of degradation and despair.  BUT.. the best part of about being me, is that I bounce back.  Sometimes it's not a full bounce, but a bounce nontheless.

Anyways, I have decided to bond with my nearly $200 fertility montior.


 I figured we better do something because that's a lot of money to waste for a girl who has a temporary part-time job at the moment.  So, if you don't know what a fertility monitor is, I'm sorry because I don't either.

Just kidding.



It's a white plastic looking thing that could be mistaken for a knock-off Nintendo game boy (do they still make those?)  I'm pretty sure it's a waste of money that plays on the emotions of the infertile, but that's not what it claims.  It claims to be a step above ovulation prediction sticks.  It tracks your estrogen and luneinizing hormones to predict five fertile days.  The ovulation sticks only track the luteininzing hormone and predict two highly fertile days at best.

The first month with the fertility monitor is what I like to call an investment month.   You're getting to know the machine and it's getting to know you.  You set it on the first day of your period.  It's all pretty complicated, but simple because you have to set it for the time you would wake up and take your first pee each morning.

On the sixth day of my cycle, it instructed me to start peeing on these expensive and specialized sticks that clear blue easy sells. 



So, I'll pee on those sticks and stick them in the machine for the next ten days.  The machine is tracking my hormone levels and I'm hoping it will eventually predict the prime time for baby making. Lord knows, I haven't found it in the past five years.

So here's to hoping the fertility monitor isn't just $200 worth of electronic snake oil.



I plan to use this thing for the next six months.  If my baby doesn't drop in by then, I'll be going back to a fertility doctor.  I can't go to my old one because I live clear across the country from her now.  I'm just really hoping my robotic myomectomy will give me a real chance at conceiving.  Sadly, I don't think it is at the moment.  It's been five months since my surgery and two months since we could officially begin trying.  I'm still not pregnant, but now that I crunch the numbers, it really doesn't seem that bad.

Friday, July 1, 2011

I'm Done

I've decided that I'm done for a while.  I'm done trying, thinking and obsessing.  I have had a series of ugly setbacks and while I've had setbacks before, I've never dealt with so many at once.  I'm in a new place, I miss my family, I miss my old job and I miss my friends.

I think my hair is falling out around the edges and at any given moment, I'm on the verge of tears.  Even though I just spent $170 on a new fertility monitor and the sticks that go along with it, I've decided that accepting defeat is a lot easier than trying hard at everything and coming up empty.

Patience has never been my strong suit.  I pray for it every day and every night, I pray for the things I want most in life.  I could take the easy way out and say that God just isn't answering my prayers right now, but I know that's not it.  I know in some strange way this is just another lesson about patience.  I figure the best way to have it, is to simply give up on all that I want.  It doesn't mean I won't always give 110% on my day-to-day activities.  I don't know how to do anything else (I blame my upbringing for that). BUT maybe if I find a way to just totally quit and let go, I will begin to find true happiness regardless of if I get the things that I want.

I have to learn to make do with what I have and the blessings I've already received.  It just seems that it's a bit harder for me to really do that.  Repeated failure is truly my lifes biggest heartbreak.