Slow and Steady Wins the Race...

Initially, I want to say hello to everyone who may be visiting from RESOLVE.  It is great to have you checking out my site.  Please feel free to check out past posts to get a feel for where my journey is at…and thanks for being involved in National Infertility Awareness Week. 

Next, I want to thank everyone who nominated me for awards over the last week.  I am so grateful and promise to address them in a post in the very near future.  However, knowing how amazing you all are, I also know that you will forgive me for putting my “venting” ahead of the awards just for right now, while I am in the thick of my donor egg cycle.  As an added bonus of procrastinating, I am finding a ton of new amazing blogs through the RESOLVE myth busting challenge, so I will have lots of recommendations for blogs to check out once there is a lull in my cycle madness.

And, as a final side note, I just wanted to give a heads-up to those of you undergoing intralipids.  I did NOT pee opaque white for a day or so, as the nurse predicted.  Without being graphic, things were different than normal, but nothing that would have sent me running to the doctor in a panic.  I would hate for any of you to call the doctor in a panic because your pee did not look like milk, as your doctor might think you are crazy.  As for the infusion rate, my IV drip lasted two hours, although the last 15 minutes or so was just the saline.  I felt none of the fatigue or flu like symptoms that my friends had complained of.  I hope that answers the basic questions that were posed. 

Now…back to it…****************************************************

Once upon a time, very early in my fertility journey, when I still believed that there was a chance that I could get pregnant naturally, timing was everything.  I spent huge chunks of time each month charting, peeing on OPK sticks, and trying to look pretty on certain days of the month to help things along from The Prince’s perspective.  Although my body danced to the beat of its own drum, I felt in control of the cycle’s timing because I was right on top of it, day in and day out.  And I mentally tried to push my cycles along, as if in a race...and as if I were capable of some Jedi mind trick on my own body.  Slowly, our RE took over the timing of my cycles…and I grew more and more impatient and worried.  With each injection, and ultrasound, and schedule change, I felt more disconnected from my body’s timing.  Now I’m in the midst of my donor egg cycle and I have no illusions that I control anything.  I am at the mercy of my donor’s body’s timing.  I don’t even know her medication protocol or what happens at her monitoring, so there is no relief offered for my poor Type A nerves.

For a long time, I was told that my egg retrieval would likely be Monday (yesterday), and that things looked great.   Then, the retrieval was bumped to “almost certainly Wednesday” (which would have been tomorrow).  Then, yesterday when I called to get the final okay on making hotel reservations for a Wednesday retrieval, I was told that the donor is still moving rather slowly and will not be ready for retrieval any time before Thursday.  She is going to come back today for another ultrasound and I will know this afternoon whether we are moving forward, or whether I am extending my wait even longer.  I was quiet on the phone with the donor coordinator (a first), and she (in her infinite compassion) said “There’s nothing to worry about.  I can tell you are worrying, but don’t!  She has 15 to 18 follicles developing and things look good…just slow.”  In reality, I was quiet because I was disappointed that we are back to that "15 follicle" range, when last Friday it had been "lots more than 15," and I was also stunned that I would have to wait even longer for the information I am so desperately seeking - How many eggs we will have to work with, How many will be mature, How many will fertilize and, in the end, How many beautiful little embies will be smiling (theoretically smiling) up at me (from their little petri dishes) telling me “We were so worth the wait, Mom.”

I am trying to be flexible.  I am trying to remember one of my favorite lines from my childhood books – “Slow and steady wins the race.”  (Perhaps this is the real reason that the turtle is a sign of fertility…not the hundreds of eggs it produces…but because it is frustratingly slow).   I’m also hanging my hat on every cliché and over-used expression I can think of – “Good things come to those who wait,” “A watched pot never boils,” and “If you build it, they will come.”  Oops!  Not that last one.  That last one is just a really awful uterine lining joke that I thought up and now can’t get it out of me head.  That’s right…I said it…my mind is so gone I am now writing “uterine lining jokes.”  Anyways, in the end, I am still waiting (albeit impatiently)…waiting for my miracle to arrive, in its own time. 



On the Other Side of the Castle Walls

Because the retreat fell through, I thought a nice quiet weekend at home was in order.  However, the Prince has been in an increasingly difficult and distant mood lately, so by Saturday morning I realized that my weekend would not be restful “inside the castle.”  To avoid the discomfort of staying at home, I decided to “leave” for a day.  I found a great deal on a nice hotel room in the same city that we live in and I booked it.  I came up with a weekend schedule for myself, full of yoga and indulgence, watching movies at the theater and in my hotel room, ordering room service and just relaxing in general.  I also threw in the shopping trip that I have been putting off for weeks - getting a gift for the first of many baby showers that I will be attending in the near future.

I decided to go get the baby gift out of the way first, so I would have time to recover afterwards.  I walked into Buy Buy Baby and was immediately engulfed in a world of baby toys, clothing, furniture, potty chairs, diapers, etc.  I’m not going to lie, at times it was hard to suck in a breath.  I couldn’t tell you what one other person in the store looked like because I had to just focus intently on the list I brought from my friend’s baby registry in order to avoid a panic attack.  I made it through the experience, but the rest of the baby shower gifts are getting purchased online.  That was simply no fun.

So…jump to the hotel room a few hours later.  I was all settled into my very nice room when, at 5:00 p.m., I noticed that I was stressing out.  I kept wondering, should I order room service or drive to the mall and get take out.  I had planned to get takeout, but them I didn’t want to leave the hotel room once I got there.  I was so distressed over the idea of veering from my plans, I literally spent over an hour making myself a sick because I couldn’t reach a decision.  Then, I started thinking about my husband and my problems with how things are progressing, or not progressing, in our relationship.  Before I knew it, I was tense and unhappy…bouncing from one negative topic to the other…the very things I was running from.  And then…I heard a baby crying.  Apparently, a family with an infant had been put in the room next to me and, as babies do, this baby cried…a lot.

I got so stressed out that I actually became angry because my “weekend of relaxation” was being ruined.  I could have just stayed home if I wanted to be stressed.  While sulking about my bad fortune, I ran a hot bath and I soaked.  I went for a late swim in the pool at the hotel.  Then I used a calming body scrub and gave myself a spa treatment in the room…telling myself the whole time “Just enjoy this.  The other stuff doesn’t matter tonight.  It will be there tomorrow.”  And, after repeating it enough, it was true and I did start to enjoy myself.  I ordered room service.  I ate a delicious steak and drank a root beer float (something I haven’t had since I was a child).  I ordered an in-room movie that I knew the Prince would not enjoy (not the naughty kind) and fell asleep during the movie (clearly the Prince was not the only one who would not enjoy it). 

As I awoke this morning, I started to make a list of everything I had to do today, both relaxation-related and functional tasks.  And then that smart little voice in my head spoke up and said…”This is why you don’t need a weekend retreat elsewhere right now.  It isn’t going to solve your problem.”  Offended (by myself), I wondered what that meant.  So, I did some yoga and then considered what I was feeling.  The voice, as usual, is right.  Had I gone away for the weekend, I would have been busy with juicing or yoga classes or meditation, or “skin brushing.”  My weekend would be scheduled out for me and I would use the non-stop activities, not as a means of working through my issues, but as a distraction allowing a temporary escape from the issues I face each day.  While I thought escape was what I needed, now I don’t think that is right.  I needed to just creep over the castle walls for a breather, while staying close enough to the castle that I couldn’t forget what’s awaiting me when I get back inside the castle. 

This mini-retreat didn’t fix my problems, didn’t even leave me fully recharged.  But it did teach me a valuable lesson that I am going to need going in to the next cycle - let the little annoyances and obstacles (I picture them as small, child-like trolls) sit beside me while I do what NEEDS to be done, until I can focus my attention on them, one at a time.  I don’t need to carry them on my back or juggle them around.  They’ll follow me around, sometimes patiently and sometimes not so patiently, if I just keep moving along, dealing with them as needed.  Having them there clearly isn’t killing me.  I don’t have to run away to escape them…I just have to be aware that they are there and they eventually need to be dealt with.  Sometimes a trip outside of the castle walls helps you see more clearly what lives inside the castle.