Random stuff

First of all, I'd like to thank all who gave suggestions for medical termination books and Web sites; I'm planning on taking a look at them and probably getting myself a few Christmas presents in next couple of weeks.

Many of you have probably noticed that while I've been posting here, I haven't been commenting on your blogs. I have been staying away from most blogs recently, and when I do visit I rarely comment. To be perfectly honest, pregnancy and baby blogs make me feel my loss even more acutely, and even infertility blogs make me feel bad. Don't worry--it's not you, it's me! I just need to take things very slowly right now and be, well, rather self-centered for the time being. I'm still thinking about all of you a lot and will return eventually.

I have lots of thoughts swirling around in my head, so rather than turn them all into separate posts, I thought I'd address them all at once:

--I saw my doctor today for my post-D&C check-up. She says everything looks good, but I have to admit that given recent events I don't feel good about anything unless I've had an ultrasound. But alas, that is not to be. I was very disappointed when she told me I couldn't start the Met just yet. See, here was my plan: Because Dr. Hot (my RE, for those of you who weren't around pre-baby) likely wants me to start Met before even attempting Letrozole, I thought I'd start it now so I'd be ready to begin treatment in January. But my OB wants me to wait three weeks to do anything at all. By that time, she says, we will have gotten the autopsy results back and we can decide whether PGD is in order. That depressed me, because it just reminded me that there's a possibility our baby's problem was genetic and our only chance of having a healthy baby is IVF with PGD. So we wait. Again.

--I go back to work on Monday. I'm a little bit nervous about seeing everybody again, but mostly I'm nervous that work is going to be as boring as it was before I went on leave. That means, of course, that I will have way too much time to think about the most recent depressing turn of events. The last time I was at work I was eagerly anticipating leaving it all behind in March. Now, I'm just working. I guess I should just be grateful I have a job in the first place.

A new position (no, not that kind of position!)

I have now been put in a position I never expected to be in—I think I may be inadvertently acting insensitively toward a fellow infertile (I don’t think I’ve ever used that many “ins” in the same sentence before!).

Here’s the situation: I work in an office area with nine other people, most of whom have their own office. I happen to share an office with a co-worker—one whose company I really enjoy. About 15 to 20 feet down the hall sits C, the office “queen bee.” I’ve never really liked her all that much, for reasons I will outline later. One other note about C before I go on: She’s an infertile. She and her husband went through several inseminations before deciding to call it quits seven years ago. She knew about my struggles to conceive; we went out for a drink one time and talked about it.

I’ve been “out” about my pregnancy for about six weeks. During that time, the subject of my condition has frequently come up, whether it be indigestion after an after-work drink (I made a bad choice in eating so many of the appetizers we chose) or just random comments about how I’m feeling. I also tend to talk to my officemate, who has kids aged 5 and 8, about certain issues, like unexplained pains, outgrowing my clothes or when my ultrasound is. Sometimes I bring topics up, but a lot of times she asks me questions.

Today, I was talking to her about the dilemmas of picking out nursery furniture when I saw her eyes shift to the side. I turned around, and there C stood, waiting to ask my officemate a question. I felt embarrassed, as though she had caught me red-handed going on and on about my pregnancy. Although if I’m to be perfectly honest, even though I try to keep my voice down, I’m sure she can hear some of the stuff we talk about down the hall. I’ve become “that annoying pregnant woman.”

Except.

C has never been particularly nice to me. I went through a period during which I thought she couldn’t stand me. She would invite the other younger women in our office out to do stuff and rarely include me, except as an afterthought. She invited my officemate and her family to join her and her husband at their cabin in the woods over Labor Day weekend, and talked to her about the trip openly in the office. It took me a long time to realize that she simply didn’t regard me as a friend—and that was OK. We didn’t all have to be friends.

When another woman in the office (a good friend of C’s) was pregnant with twins, C was always talking about it. It was almost like she was living vicariously through her friend.

Even now, she sometimes brings up my pregnancy randomly (there were some kids screaming in our office today and she told me I had 16 years of that to look forward to).

On the one hand, I want to be sensitive to C because I know how annoying it would be to have to look forward to five months of baby talk. On the other hand, I don’t have much else to talk about. My job is getting slower and slower, and the hours drag by. When somebody asks me a question about the baby, I’m not going to give a one-word answer and then turn away. Plus, C has never taken pains to keep her personal life separate from the office. Why should I bend over backwards on the off chance that I might be hurting her feelings, even while she sends around baby pictures of her friend’s newborn twins (she didn’t come back to work)?

My pregnancy may sting more for her because she doesn’t consider me a friend. But that’s not my problem—it’s hers.

16w4d

My goodness, how the weeks fly by! Well, not exactly—it’s just that things have settled into enough of a routine that I really don’t have much to blog about. I’ve written several posts in my head, but each time I considered putting them down on paper (or monitor), I pictured all of you throwing rotten tomatoes or eggs at me.

See, I’m extremely irritable right now. Everything in the world bothers me. Every time I talk to my mom (with whom I am very close) on the phone, I usually wish I hadn’t called her. When I consider calling or getting together with friends, I starting listing all their worst traits in my head and decide it’s not worth the bother. And if someone dares to cross me? Ooh, they better watch out. We had Bible study at our house earlier this week. M was out of town, but he made me promise to turn on his Halloween village because he’s so very proud of it. The reaction from one of the couples? “Oh, we don’t celebrate Halloween.” They’re very conservative, evangelical Christians who turn their noses up at the “pagan” holidays that include “sinful” creatures like witches, ghouls, etc. Um, wasn’t Christmas a pagan holiday before the Church turned it into Christ’s birthday? Don’t get me wrong—I, too, am a very spiritual person. I just know when to give my self-righteousness a rest.

See? I’m doing it again. I have to think it’s the hormones, because I don’t remember being this irritated with this many people in a long time. I HOPE it’s the hormones!

I’m still very, very happy (of course); just kind of bitchy. To everyone but M, thankfully. He and I are on the same page about a lot of things that are bothering us, so we can just bitch to each other. Talk about marital bonding. :)

I’m also counting down the days at work. A bit early, I know, but I’m getting kind of sick of being on someone else’s schedule. After the baby is born, I will return to freelance writing, which means I don’t have to pretend I’m busy working even when I finished the job two hours ago. I’m eager to start making contacts for writing gigs right now (I feel like I should be doing something, career-wise, instead of just standing still), but I know I can’t. For one thing, my bosses have no idea I’m planning on leaving, so I probably shouldn’t start spreading it around. For another thing, what might be a decent contract writing gig today could be next year’s budget cut. Nobody—not even my best contacts—can promise me they’ll have work for me next May. So I sit and wait.

To pass the time, I start making up reasons why something could be wrong with the pregnancy. Mind you, I have no legitimate reason for those concerns, but I work in healthcare, so I hear about way too many of the worst-case scenarios.

Fear #1: I haven’t felt movement yet.
Fear debunked: I’m only at the beginning (16w4d) of the period during which I might feel my first movement. Even my OB said don’t panic if I don’t feel movement until 19w.

Fear #2: The baby isn’t growing.
Fear debunked: I’ve gained seven pounds already, for goodness’ sake! All that weight has to be going somewhere.

Fear #3: The baby has some debilitating condition.
Fear debunked: Well, I can’t actually refute that one yet. But I just have to assume everything is OK until I hear otherwise, right?

So, as you can see, even though I have mostly relaxed, I’m still kind of annoying to be around. I’m one of those people who can have everything going wonderfully in her life, and still find things to complain about. Fortunately, the only ones who hear most of the complaining are M and you fine people.

See, I told you you’d throw eggs at me.

The grass isn't greener here, either

First of all, thank you for all of your well wishes! I'm loving this Commentathon--even though I'm not actually participating myself (hangs her head in shame).

Two years ago, when I was searching for a job in my newly-chosen field of public relations, I went through periods of anxiety and periods of peace. The anxiety came when I interviewed (or prepared to interview) for a job I really, really wanted. It continued as I waited for The Call post-interview and eventually waned when I accepted the fact that they were never going to call me for a second interview or job offer. The peace came when I didn’t have any interviews on the horizon. I could blissfully concentrate on my free-lancing career and not jump every time the phone rang.

The same is true of infertility. I was doing perfectly fine (except for my bronchitis, of course) this past weekend—until I discovered my period was beginning. Then, I worried myself to death that my cysts would still be around and I’d have to sit out yet another cycle.

Digression: I like to compare my cycles to the game Mousetrap. For those who don’t remember the game, you had to set up this elaborate Rube-Goldberg-like contraption so a marble could travel through all the stages and eventually cause a trap to fall on a mouse. My brother and I, however, were perpetually losing or breaking a piece. Break one piece, and the mousetrap is useless. That’s just like the menstrual cycle: When one thing is wrong, it throws the whole cycle off-kilter. In my case, my cysts were delaying the onset of menstruation. So, logic would dictate that because I menstruated, my problems were gone. The missing piece was restored, and the chain reaction could continue. But I wasn’t sure, and the uncertainty caused me much anxiety.

Now, I am half-dreading next Friday. That’s when I’ll find out if my follicles are, indeed, responding to the Femara. This is it. If they aren’t responding, it’s likely I will be moving on to IVF by the fall. (My doc thinks, and I tend to agree, that injectables without IVF may be more hassle than they’re worth for a PCOS patient, simply because of the high possibility of cancellation. I don’t mean to offend any of you who are on injectables; I’m just not sure it’s for me.) I’ve got my “interview” set up, and I HAVE TO make a good impression. Then, if by some miracle all goes well, I have yet another two weeks to wait until I find out if I got the job. (The nine-month kind.)

M summed it all up the other day when he asked me, “Can’t you just live in the moment?”

No, unfortunately, I can’t. I told him this is nothing compared to what I’ll be like during the first trimester if I ever actually get pregnant (evil grin).

The perfect job?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a job that doesn’t take a lot of effort on your part, yet is a good resume-builder and pays an acceptable salary? Wouldn’t it be even more wonderful if everyone at your company thought you were just the best employee they had ever seen, and the organization would be lost without you?

That’s my job. Though it sounds great, it’s actually getting rather tiresome. I work 40 hours a week doing a job that could probably be accomplished in 20 hours, yet the powers that be at my company are somehow under the illusion that I work very, very hard (this is probably because of a few very public accomplishments I have had recently). You could say that I should look for more ways to expand my job, but much of what I do depends on other people feeding me information, and there’s only so much calling, e-mailing and general harassing I can do.

Perhaps I could look for a new job. Except, I plan to be self-employed as a freelance writer once (if?) I have a child. So, there’s no point in giving up halfway decent benefits and a cushy job simply because I need to challenge myself more. I just have to suck it up and learn to live with a job that bores me most of the time.