I wish I had something to say. I keep coming back to my blog as if I'm hoping that some happy entry will appear, just like when I'm reading other people's blogs. But alas, no happy blogger gnomes have written any posts about my life. Oh dang it.

I do have good news. I got a job. It is actually in my field, the pay is better than minimum wage, and the commute can't be beat..all I have to do is walk out my front door and cross the street. At any other time I would be floating on cloud nine. One of the reasons I was so excited to move here was because there was a museum across the street and I was hoping that I could get my career back on track. I am so sad that an opportunity that at any other time would seem heaven sent just tastes like ashes in my mouth. I am just so struck low. I am happy for no one, I envy everyone, I hope for nothing.

I spent a good two hours pouring through a box of papers looking for my birth certificate and social security card. What I found instead were baby shower cards, newborn photos of my twins, ultrasound pictures, mothers day cards, love notes from my husband, and so many cards and letters from him telling me "we will get through this, we will have children." I envy myself most of all. Why can't I remember all these happy moments better than I do? Why does it seem like it has all happened to someone else? I walk around during a normal day and a sudden jolt will hit me out of the blue. It feels like the sudden panic that you get when you are in a taxi and you realize that your purse with all of your money and your passport is still hanging over the back of the chair in the restaurant, or maybe the one when you get off the elevator in the parking garage and there is only a glass on the ground where your car is supposed to be. I keep hoping for the relief when I look down at my feet and see my purse has been there all along, or that I took the wrong elevator and my car is safe and sound across the lot. But the relief never comes. I feel so helpless to do anything to make that feeling go away. And my husband has been so incredibly....nice! I can't stand it. Why can't he at least be a jerk so I can hate his guts? He's a nice guy. He WANTS to be the nice guy. Except that nothing about what he did was nice. He stole my purse, he stole my car, he knocked me down. He dangled hope in front of me and then he snatched it away.

I was so lucky to be able to vacation on the most wonderful island you can imagine. All I have ever wanted since I left was to go back. I know that there are so many others who have never been there even once...but I was so close.

Mother's Day

I'm still here. Limping along.

Mother's day was about what I expected. I loved waking up to my kids piling on top of me with the cards they had made and purchased. Both of my boys had cute crafty things they had made at school, which are worth their weight in gold. I was always totally skeptical of my mother's teary-eyed joy when I would give her my handmade cards and gifts, but now I know she wasn't lying. They are truly priceless.

The rest of my weekend pretty much sucked off and on. Friday I found out that my daughter got into the pre school program. I thought I would be happy with the news, but it made me weepy on Friday and I have been fighting a downward funk ever since. I was supposed to be having a baby in July. AK going to school for almost 3 hours a day was going to be the time I could spend alone with the baby, as well as giving AK time to socialize and prepare for kindergarten. I keep thinking I should be happy, that I should be looking forward to a chunk of time without any children around, but I'm not. The silence of having the house all to myself is the last thing I want. It's not like there isn't a thousand things I could find to occupy my time for 2 hours and 45 minutes...it's just that I probably won't want to do a single one of them.

I truly don't know what to do or where to go from here. If I had transferred embryos and gotten a BFN, I would be where I am now, grieving and struggling. That's fine. Well, it's not FINE, but it is what it is. I was prepared for the giant tidal wave of loss-on-top of  loss-on top of this-is-the-very-end that I'm drowning in. But, now I have the never ending suck of not knowing how to deal with my husband. I just don't know what to do. I guess it's like how two people stumble around each other after one of them has had an affair, when neither one of them wants to give up on the marriage and leave. Except that is something my husband would understand, my reaction to this he thinks is "childish"...any day now I should just get over it and everything will get back to normal. What he doesn't realize is that right now he could toss a woman on the floor in front of me and go all '50 shades of grey' on her ass and I wouldn't even care. I'm that numb inside. If it wasn't for our kids I would probably have changed the locks weeks ago.

Frozen

Yesterday was both a non event and a total nightmare. My husband and the counselor talked like old buddies about his stress and going to a marriage counselor, all while my life was on fire. I felt like standing up and yelling "That's great, but can't you see I'm burning? How do I get to make it stop?!?"  I told her I would rather destroy the embryos than have them sitting there for the rest of my life. I just want it to be over. It will never be over. They won't let us destroy them, they won't let us transfer them. The counselor must have mentioned 5 times at least how we have three children and 15 years invested in this marriage. I know lady, and he has all of our children hostage. Thanks for reminding me that I have no choice but to hurt or be hurt.

I was blessed on the way up with the sensation of holding a young baby against my shoulder. I could feel the shape of the back of it's head cupped in my hand. I could the feel the weight against my shoulder and the porcelain smooth skin at the temple where I kissed it. I held that baby again when I got home, sitting on the swings in the rain, crying again. I took the baby off my shoulder and laid it on the ground and said goodbye. I can't stop the wishing or the longing, but the hope stops here.

Tomorrow is another day

Tomorrow hubby and I are going in for our counseling session at the fertility clinic. I am incredibly depressed and anxious about this visit. I also feel a little bit angry...ok, a LOT angry. I don't think that anyone should be able to weigh in on how many children my husband and I have except for my husband and me. Yes, my husband is all kinds of messed up and confused, and I don't want to have a child with someone that is feeling so ambivalent...but I don't think that it is their place to stand guard over our embryos. I also feel that part of their motivation for making us put the embryos on ice is a financial one. If they had gone through with the transfer it would be on our insurance, but since a thaw cycle will technically be a separate cycle, they can bill us all over again for something that would be have just been part of the fresh cycle...if they had allowed us to move forward. My husband turned around and said "Just go ahead and do it" 10 minutes after throwing his fit, but they wouldn't let us move forward. If he can have cold feet in the moment, why isn't he allowed to change his mind back just as fast? He will probably have a whole different list of feelings tomorrow, and another 6 months from now.

I am tired of feeling so utterly hopeless. Something that was so close...I was actually pregnant...is now slipping into impossibility. It was a goal, then a dream, and now it is just a fantasy. Some people fantasize about winning the lottery, becoming an American Idol contestant, or finding something incredibly rare and valuable in their attic...I fantasize about having more time. I have given up so much to be a parent, over a decade of my life, and I have put my career indefinitely on hold, and I am watching them grow up and leave bit by bit, day by day. Having another child would give me that time. What do I dream for now? If I won a million dollars tomorrow, I know what I would spend it on, my children...and the chance to have more time being a parent. Going through the 2ww is hard enough, but never being allowed to go through it and get to the other side is just torture. As far as dreams go, nothing compares to the chance to create a new person within your body or to raise a child, at least for me. A new car? who needs it. A stylish wardrobe? whatever. An exciting, profitable career? nice...but at the end of the day I would still give it all to go back in time one day to when my twins were babies. I'd give anything to have one more day helping my daughter learn how to walk. But I can't. One day soon my boys won't blow kisses at me from the school bus, or need me to sing them songs at night, or run to me to give them hugs. One day my daughter will be getting on the school bus and not looking back. I don't want to stop them from growing up, I just want more time. I know that another baby would mean just a few more years, but it is a few more years of everything. I have done everything within my power to make that dream come true, and now I am helpless to finish the deal.

I believe in love and disaster
Sometimes the two are just the same
I'm beginning to see, what is left of  me will have to be free to survive
And I'll be sleeping by myself tonight
     
              Eddie Vedder


I am still here. I'm still reeling from the shock of last week. My boys have been on vacation since last Friday so I've been acting my normal self on the outside during the day and crying and avoiding my husband at night. Yesterday I went to Mickey D's for dinner and ate in my car in the parking lot so I wouldn't have to sit with other people. I'm tired and sad, and tired of being sad. I'm sure my husband thinks that I will 'just get over it' and that if he keeps pretending it didn't happen then all the bad feelings will just gooooo awaaaaaaay. I'm sure that he thinks that the fact that I'm still here being the good mommy and the good wifey instead of stabbing him with a dull steak knife is proof positive that he's 'done the right thing'.

He must have called my desire to have another child and actually trying to make that dream come true CRAZY about 10 times or more between Friday and Monday. That's right, I'm crazy because I want something he doesn't want. The fact that he actually agreed to all three cycles, not just verbally but with his signature, and that he had his blood tested AND provided the clinic with a sperm sample, all while thinking I was crazy doesn't seem to phase him at all. I'm not the one whose thoughts and actions seem to be at odds with one another. Now because of his craziness our embryos are held hostage by the clinic. I'm sure they will stay there forever. The soonest appointment we can make, thanks to his crazy work schedule will be May 22, and nothing I can say will make any difference. I don't know why he couldn't just let nature be the bad guy. I was all prepared for this cycle to fail just fine all on it's own.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know what I'm NOT going to do. I'm never leaving my house or my kids without being forced, and I'm not giving my husband so much as the time of day until he makes this right.

Total effing disaster

Friday totally sucked. My husband decided to have a total freak out and change his mind before we were supposed to go in for the retrieval. We did end up going, but we were very late, and things did not go smoothly. The nurses found us a little office to sit and talk about what we wanted to do. We could either throw in the towel and do a cycle another time, or we could go through with the retrieval if my husband was willing, and put the embryos on ice for another time. They refused to do a transfer on Monday. After all the shit my husband put me through, he decided that he would go through with it. I'm not sure what the point was, since I'm sure those embryos will never see the light of day. We have used up our insurance, so we will have to pay for a thaw cycle out of pocket, and we have to go to the IVF counselor first...which I doubt I will get my husband to attend. And all I kept thinking was I'm supposed to be pregnant right now! What the hell would he do when the baby arrived in July? Disown it?

I would never have bought the medications if I didn't have his support. I wrote right here on this blog that I called him before I put in the order and confirmed that it was ok to move forward. Friday was not the time to back out. Now I can neither hope to become pregnant, or have the closure I so desperately wanted. Now I don't get to be finished...this cycle is indefinitely frozen at it's midpoint. I don't know if, or when, I'll know when to get rid of the crib upstairs. Now I am in limbo forever.

I had 16 eggs, 15 were mature, 8 fertilized. Not that it makes any difference.

Cycle day 9

It's go time! Trigger is tonight and retrieval is on Friday the 13th. I had lots of follicles that were over 17mm, I think around 15 total, with a an additional 9 or so measuring at 15. I have to stay up until 12:30 tonight to get the trigger shot, and then I have to get up at 6 tomorrow to drive into the city to have blood drawn. Monday is the transfer day, since they always transfer 3 day embryos at my clinic. The amount of embryos they will transfer depends strictly on quality. They have written down 2, 3, 4, or 5 embryos...assuming that we have embryos to transfer. I'm trying not to do any assuming. Past failure doesn't mean we won't have success. And of course...past success doesn't mean that this cycle won't crash and burn. I just keep saying to myself think positive think positive think positive.

I found myself looking at my giant chart and wondering what they will do with it. Will they burn it? Can I take it home? After Monday, will I ever be here again? And if I have embryos enough to freeze....what then? Will I have the strength to dispose of them and move on? Or will they continue to torture me? I must have stood in the waiting room at the lab staring at the chart on the wall that spells out all the odds for a good 5 minutes or more. 103 IVF cycles for women 41-42 last year. 29.9% walked away with a live baby, and of that percentage, 34.4% had multiples. I looked at the statistics and thought that somewhere in those numbers, between women who got pregnant and women who took home a baby, there was me...and by the looks of it a couple of other women like me...who got knocked up but didn't stay that way. Which number will I be this time? Nobody knows. You spin the wheel and you take your chances.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck by me. Good luck to all the women who are spinning the wheel with me. Good luck to us all.