Why?

As in Why do I do this to myself. Watched "Knocked Up" and drank wine. Now I am just sad. What gets me is the song at the end...and yes I watched it through to the end..."That's my daughter in the water...everything she knows I taught her.."

When will I ever teach my child?..maybe never.

What would my three pregnancies have turned into? My first would be 20 months old. What would that feel like? I would be a completely different person.

Distraught. Tears....pulling it together so my husband doesn't see.

Why do I do this to myself?

Which came first?

So one of my chickens laid her first egg last night and it is the cutest thing. I ran around the house to show my husband. It's the small things :) that make me happy these days. This particular chicken has also become very friendly, letting me rub her top comb which she seems to love. It's a good thing my husband loves animals too, I sometimes wonder what sort of menagerie we are going to end up with if we don't have a human child.

Only 27 days until my surgery and I really just want to get it over with. I am a little nervous about the recovery. I meet with the Dr a week before the surgery and am already compiling questions for that visit. One of them being "When can we start trying again".

I'm ovulating now and as much as I know we can't try right now and are on a break, it's hard to break the habit of watching for signs and thinking about trying. I wish they could do the surgery now.

It amazes me that I still want to try, I almost can't figure out where this drive comes from in the face of such a negative experience.

Waiting and Hoping.

I am all booked in for my Laparoscopy and Hysteroscopy. Dr said (on voicemail) while we are under for the H she could also do L and see if she could repair or unblock my tube and then my husband and I could try naturally..instead of go to IVF. I figure get it all done and it will be done but I'm not sure if I want to wait on IVF I want to get this thing going already. It's been too long, I am tired of waiting! :)

I feel more hopeful which in itself is a double edged sword. I have to reign it in a little and remind myself that I am 40. Advanced maternal age so these issues aren't my only hurdles.

I am also a little worried about what they will find when they get in there, I ama closeted hypochondriac, and have had more than one daymare about waking up to find that they have removed my lady parts. That's the part where I scream at my husband..."WHY DID YOU LET THEM DO IT?". So I guess that's something I'll have to really clarify with my Dr that something like that is or is not a possibility...as soon as I speak to her...I have so many questions.

Dazed and Confused

I went to my IVF Consult and I am more confused than ever, not about IVF that discussion was very thorough. I am confused because at the very end of that apt when I was going to the list of pre testing with my Dr to see what I did and did not need to do, she pulled up my Sonohysterogram and said we had done that in September so would need to do it again if we hadn't just done the HSG mere weeks ago. Then she pulled up the images from said HSG, which I only discuessed on the phone with her - haven't seen her since they came in...and then she said..."Oh, that's not good"

What's not good is that the image showed the inside of my uterus as a Y shape, not a triangle as she explained to me it should be. I may have a septum, or something in there. She called it something which in my shock I didn't write down and now forget what she called it..Now my confusion comes in because I THOUGHT THAT WAS WHAT THE SONOHYSTEROGRAM was for to find anomalies in the uterus.....I am so defeated...She explained that this fibrous tissue at the top of my uterus could explain my miscarriages and the ectopic. Could...again with the coulds..I was so shocked, we talked about surgery to repair it...possibility of scar tissue and infection, possibility that insurance won't cover it..

Dude I didn't even google this as a possibility. She gave me the all clear structurally back in September and this recent HSG was just to check the tubes. I feel some hope popping back in. IS this all it was? IS it easily fixed? Could I bypass IVF altogether? I'm just so angry that this wasn't found sooner.

I like my dr but should I get a second opinion? What would cause her to miss this?

Opening my mind..

My IVF Consult is Friday. I don't know what to think. After my recent vacation from TTC I am reluctant to jump back in. I go back and forth between two schools of thought:

1. I have to try, if I don't try I might regret it, Hubby might regret it. If we don't try we will never know.
2. I shouldn't even try, It's not going to work because....I'm too old, I'm broken inside, I will just miscarry, I'm too old, I won't be a good mother anyway, what if I regret it, I'm too old...ugh

I realize that number two is my fears, fears that have had a good long time to fester and grow out of proportion but I know how much is involved in IVF(or I think I know), and I know how much is involved with a miscarriage. I honestly don't know if I have the strength left to come out on the other side OK.

I think another part of the fear is that this is it for us, this is the lengths we've agreed to go. What if it doesn't work? There are no donor eggs for us, we don't have any moral issues with it(or any other issue), but both decided that if that was the case then we would want to adopt a baby or child who needed a home. Neither of us are that tied to our own genes. Adoption...every time I look into it I get discouraged..and I know my therapist always says small steps..take each step one at a time, but I really feel I should have started the adoption process three years ago. It seems such an abstract. If only I'd known what the future held. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda...

So for now, I will commit to taking the small steps. I WILL be at the IVF consult questions in hand, I WILL look at our finances, I WILL keep an open mind about needles and banish my fears to the dark.

Where have I gone?

I went on a road trip this weekend with some good friends. Friends I used to backpack with, travel with, drink with, etc. Without TTC hanging over my head for the first time in a very very long time. I didn't realize how long it had been, until we all started talking, recapping our past trips and time spent together. I've missed so much. I stopped backpacking and traveling. Some trips I missed because I was pregnant, some I missed because I was miscarrying, some I missed because we were trying and I needed to be close to the DR. I never regretted it, I had a goal a plan, and it was worth it.

But...

It was great to have a glass of wine and not even think about it. It was great to hike hard, sweat, get sunburned and a little sore. It was fun to eat road food, and practically no veggies (although I did regret it later :)) It was great to just have sex with my husband for it's own sake. It was fun to forget for a moment that I can't have children and talk about men, life, jobs, politics, food, drink and friendship. It was great to realize I have not lost my friends even though I have moved to the background of this life for so long.

What was greatest of all though was the lack of stress. Stress over schedules, pills, shots, dr apts, my relationship and what ifs.

I feel more myself than I have felt in years. I can't believe it's been years.

As I try to figure out what to do next I feel as if I am on the threshold of the next part of my life. I am at the end of this infertility phase and I am not quite sure how it is going to turn out but I am seeing myself there at the threshold and I missed me.