Adventures in "Wanderland"



One of my blogger buddies recently asked if I had started medications for our donor cycle yet.  The answer is (drum roll)…Yes!  I’ve been on the birth control pill – Loestrin – for twelve days now.  How odd that, after having no period on my own for months, when AF finally arrived, I was immediately put on the birth control pill…to help me get pregnant.  Hmmm.  “Curiouser and curiouser.” 

The birth control pills make me sick to my stomach, give me a nasty headache that comes and goes without any rhyme or reason, and cause near incessant spotting and intermittent cramping.  Fun times!  I never really took the pill when I was younger.  I was diagnosed with endometriosis at a very young age, so they went straight to Depo Provera and Lupron injections with me.  That’s right…Lupron…my old friend.  That is what I have to look forward to after I stop the pill…daily injections of Lupron, which triggers my migraines and makes me have night sweats.  The fun never ends.

I asked my neurologist (an adorable and sarcastic little man from New Zealand who is married to a lawyer, and never fails to remind me what a pain in a butt all lawyers are) if he could give me something for the headaches that I get because of the medications.  I explained that I couldn’t take my usual migraine medication because I needed something that wouldn’t have negative effects on the baby if I got pregnant.  His response: “Yes.  A bullet.” 

I said, “Excuse me?” 

He said “To bite down on.” 

Still confused and envisioning some strange medical contraption that you bite on to ease headaches, I asked for clarification. 

Clearly annoyed that I didn’t get his joke, he said, “Biting the bullet -the remedy of pregnant women throughout the ages.  Oh…and Tylenol.  You can try that too.  Be a woman and man-up, Sweetie.  If you get pregnant, your headaches are only beginning.”  Thanks, Doc!

It is so strange to think that, in two and a half weeks, I will be finding out if the donor, the other recipient and I are all set to go into the “serious” part of the cycle.  In four or five weeks, assuming things go well, I will be finding out how many eggs we will have to work with…then how many embryos.  In a month and a half, I should know whether I am pregnant or not.  In two and a half months, I may be seeing a heartbeat (or two) on an ultrasound.  Holy Crap!  Although I recognize that there are an untold number of stumbling blocks that could mess up this timeline, I’m choosing not to think about the things that could mess it all up.  I am choosing to wander my way down the path that this cycle is following, hoping for as smooth a road as possible. 

In one sense, it seems like I have been waiting forever for this cycle to get going…and it seems that the cycle is crawling along (the 10 more days of taking the birth control pill is enough to make me want to cry).  But…in another sense…I feel like things are moving too fast for me now.  I’m so scared of things not going well that there is this part of me that just wants to slow it all down so that, if bad news is coming, it takes longer to get here.  But, just like Alice, I have no real control in this crazy “wanderland” I ended up in, when I fell down the IF rabbit hole.  I just need to focus on not losing my head and hope that, when I return to reality, I have a Bippity Boppity Boo in my belly (Love it, Lindsey!).