Not funny
R. prepared my Menopur cocktail for me this morning. I wandered into the kitchen, found a free spot on my abdomen and offered it up for injection. After he was done, he looked at the box and said, “We were supposed to do Menopur, right?” I don’t think there is such a thing as infertility humor.
I’m glad it’s the weekend and I can rest, although I did too much yesterday. We walked around Harlem because it was sunny and we wanted to check out some new condos. The first half hour I was fine, but I was winded on the way back. What is up with that? Then we drove around New Jersey most of the afternoon seeking lighting fixtures and ceiling fans. For most of the drive, I dozed off in the car. My body felt like lead. I rallied when R. parked in some lot and managed to drag my body down aisles of ugly chandeliers and sconces. Does anyone make decent fixtures? If I am this exhausted on a day off, I wonder how I will make it through work on Monday? I think, more wheatgrass juice, vitamins, sleep. My similarities to a baby don’t end at whining. Perhaps I need the same concentration of nourishment and rest.
Today, Sunday, I walked to the gym for “Extra Gentle Yoga.” I can’t help it. I have to do something. I’ve done this class before and have been exasperated by the old lady style stretches (chin up, chin down, arms up, arms down). After fifteen minutes I am tired and my arms hurt from mild stretching. I take a long nap in the afternoon and feel like a cat.
A good morning
A funny thing happens with me during the first few days of medication. I submit to this dreamy, tired, lethargic state of being. Usually, I fight to do as much as I can in the day, overextending myself, and end the day tired and drained. With my twice a day injections (two in the morning, two at night), my body is completely given over to the drugs. At first I dread it. But when it happens, it feels a little peaceful to be able to let myself relax. Permission, I suppose, to be a slug. No more gym. No more long days at work. And the effects of my calmness spill over to R., who responds with equal calmness. I think he likes me in my toned down state. I’m less prone to nag or pick a fight. Last night he made me dinner, an actual meal that I would eat (not veal and beef meatloaf or three meat tomato sauce). These are small benefits but I’ll take them.
I woke up at 8:15am, we injected at 8:30am and by 10:30am I’m ready for a nap. Doesn’t sound healthy, but it reminds me of day or two after I had a Valium drip. I thought “this is what it feels like to not be stressed out all the time.” All I wanted to do was lounge and linger and it was so nice to not feel guilty about it.
It is also a good morning because R. was home to give me my Menopur shot. I don’t like that one. Too much mixing and prepping and it makes me nervous. On weekdays, I lie in bed not wanting to get up because I have to play doctor with myself. It’s really not that bad, and this is where I am a baby about the whole thing. It becomes methodical, at some point. Just not yet. Now I am still happy to share the chore of administration.
For now I’m going to enjoy the day, which is sunny and cool. I have nine hours before I show up again at the kitchen counter where the meds are lined up like spices. More on those later.
Day Three (or Five?)
I told myself I would start a blog when I started my next cycle. I’m three or five days in, depending on how you count these things, so I missed my deadline (as I did with this whole getting pregnant thing).
I started Lupron on Monday (to hold back ovulation) and Menopur and Follistim on Wednesday (to get the ovaries going). The real action starts with the Menopur and Follistim; these drugs stimulate the ovaries to make way more than the usual one egg a month the body normally produces. Now my body is going through a kind of tug of war with itself. At least that’s how I see it. How can part of my body be making eggs and another part say “la, la, la, I’m in menopause and will not release them.” I’m no scientist, but I try to piece together what the doctors and nurses tell me. I vacillate between wanting to know everything and wanting to know nothing. Some days its best to sink into ignorance. Some days its impossible not to feel like a science experiment.
This is our third round of IVF. When we started our first one in Novemeber (which we entered into with blinders on), we said “let’s try it once, we’ll only do it once.” By the third day, we said “we will never do this again.” And we crossed our fingers and prayed that luck would be with us and that we wouldn’t ever have to go through the injections and mood swings and early morning doctors visits and proddings and pokings and procedures. We didn’t like this new thing in our lives that at times felt like a third person who had moved into our already too small apartment. But we weren’t lucky with the kind of luck we wanted that first time, and were even less lucky the second. So here we are at three, and we’ve said again, this is our last time, but four is my number. It has to be. You can’t do something like this knowing it is your only chance. That would be more devastating than the loss of something we’ve never had.
