I'm the smallest I've been

in 4 years! :) WOO!

Last Monday I started taking Metformin again. I know, I know...I should have been taking it for the past two years, but I keep forgetting. Once I get off track it takes me a few months to get back on again. So I started it up, figuring all the walking I'm doing isn't doing to do me a damn bit of good if I don't take it.Thursday I started taking the Cymbalta. One of the s/e's is "weight decrease".

Apparently it works.

I weighed myself last Tuesday (the 20th) so I could see if the Met was working. The last time I started on it I lost 9 pounds in 10 days. While I was at Mom's I noticed that the jeans I was wearing were really loose - I could pull them down and back up without unbuttoning them. Dad had to punch a new hole in my belt to keep them on! When I got home on Sunday I weighed myself for shits and giggles. 190!!!! I weigh in at 190! (and I can't believe I just admitted that on the net...) I weighed about this much (or little, depending on your point of view) when Aaron and I got together 4 years ago! WAHOO!

I know that most of it is water weight - the body doesn't have the capability of losing that much muscle/fat in that short of a time period. I don't really give a flying rat's ass how I lose it - I'm just glad I did. I'm eating breakfast again - Mom had me try the South Beach Diet breakfast bars. They're really good - I normally hate these type of things, but the Cinnamon Raisin ones are YUMMY!

My plan is to wait until I plateau and then up my Met dosage. I want to try being on 1000mg again, see if I can handle it. The docs really want me on 2000, but I really can't do that. I get way too nauseated, and fire butt doesn't even begin to cover what happens. And it doesn't go away like it should either. So I'll temporize and try 1000 for a while. This Thursday I have to up the Cymbalta dosage to 60, so I don't want to up the Met just yet. One at a time or I'm going to have my body seriously freaked out. Mom says that if I lose that much weight again this week then I have to go see the doc. Aaron and Wilma agree.

At any rate - woo me! And if you're reading me, head over to Wendy's blog and cheer her on too!

How much do I want this?

Wilma and I spoke today for a little while, about what happened the other day and how we both feel. As it turns out, she didn't even realize what she'd said until I snapped at her in my own anger. She thought about it, figured it out, and left before she made things worse. So we spoke about why she was so angry, whether at me or at herself.

She doesn't want to be pregnant. Not because she doesn't want another child, but because I'm not pregnant. She wants us to be fat and happy and pregnant on the couch together, convincing our husbands to do all manner of things for us while we watch Gilmore Girls together. It's what she wanted for the first one too, but I couldn't make it happen. She knows it's not my fault, and she wants more than anything for me to be the one to say "Wilma, I'm pregnant". Once again she's offered to be a surrogate for me if I ever need one - she demands to be on the top of my list. Considering she's the only one... :)

Wilma is also very frustrated with me. She sees that when I want something, I rearrange the budget and I get it. We wanted to buy the house - or rather, we didn't want Aaron's parents to lose it, so we bought it. It wasn't the best idea ever, but we can handle it. We also just bought a car - not planned, exactly, but we can handle that too. Both of those mean that I don't get to pay off debt nearly as fast as I could have without those extra payments. She doesn't understand why I don't just rearrange the budget again and "buy" a baby. What she does see is that I tried one IUI and gave up. How could she know the heartbreak I went through doing that?

I tried to explain - I can take out a loan for a house, buy a house, and have a house. I can take out a loan for a car, buy a car, have a car. I take out a loan for IVF, go through all the drugs and mood swings, all the hope and stress...and have nothing. I do it again...and nothing. I simply can't justify spending $75,000 on 6 IVF's with nothing to show for it. I don't see wanting to make myself spend 30 years paying off those loans with monthly payments - the heartbreak of writing that check every month, knowing that I'm paying for the babies I was never able to have. Sure, maybe the first one will work. Maybe it won't. I didn't find out until after my IUI that it only had a 13% chance of working. Had I known that upfront, I might have decided not to do it. I thought I had a 50% chance, or even a normal 20% chance. 13% wasn't enough to pin my hopes on.

Why can't I just be normal? Why can't I live my life like all those other oblivious people out there who don't know jack shit about their cycles? Those who have unprotected sex in the backseat of their car and get pregnant without thinking about it. Those who never stop to think where they are in their cycle when they want to have a drink. Who don't plan for the family they may or may not ever have when buying a house or a car, who can walk through the baby section at Wal-Mart without wondering if they'll ever have the chance to buy all the cute things for their own children. I know they exist - I meet them every day. They Email me after two years to tell me these things. But this is all another post for another day - perhaps after I get used to my new anti-depressants and am not so emotional.

I have not the words

to describe, fully, how I feel right now. Lets start with anger, resentment, deapair, depression, utter failure, completely overwhelmed, rage. Lots of rage. I can easily sense the blackest, deepest pit of despair I have ever encountered, and I'm teetering on the brink. I don't know how to handle any of this anymore.

Why all of this, you ask? Well, I told you late last week about Wilma, right? On Friday I received an Email from a girl I was/am friends with from JSO. She's been TTC about a year...and found out Thursday that she's pregnant. Joy for her, sorrow for me. I told Aaron that there would be another one - there always is. I figured it would be on Sunday. Nope - life can't be that predictable. It was today. This time it was a girl I haven't spoken to in about 2 years, since she got pregnant with her first. She emailed me to tell me there would be another addition to the family - and I swear this is her third, but I've lost track.

I found this out while waiting for Biology class to start. I looked at Wilma and said in a very calm and somewhat lighthearted tone of voice "See? I told you there would be another one! That makes three in the last week!" To which the pregnant little bitch replied "So what? Who cares if we're all getting pregnant and you aren't?" I, more than a little shocked at this, said "Maybe I should go sit elsewhere." She replied "I feel sorry for you, I really do. But I'm tired of feeling guilty because you can't get pregnant and I can." The hurt and utter rage must have showed, because two minutes later she claimed she wasn't feeling well and left class.

How dare she? I have never tried to make her feel guilty for being pregnant. I have celebrated both pregnancies as best as I could. I've been totally honest and upfront with her about my own issues in dealing with this and how, while I am beyond happy for her, it's also killing me. And she has the audacity to say "Who cares?"??? I am so angry with her right now that if we didn't have class and lab together twice a week I wouldn't be speaking to her anymore. I'm stuck with her as a lab partner, but I can sure as hell sit somewhere else in class. Why does she not understand? She's been going through this with me for three years. How can she not get it? I haven't been this hurt in a very long time. This is soul-rending pain - I feel it to my very core. The one person, besides Aaron, that I thought understood...and she chose the very worst thing she could ever say. She belittled me so far, probably without ever even realizing it until it was too late, that she and I may not recover.

Every time I think I've come to grips with my infertility, and think that I am more or less accepting of the fact that I will never have children (if one can ever truly accept that), something like this happens. Every day, or once a week for a month, I get an email or see a post on a forum or blog that someone else I know is pregnant. Each and every single one of them is a slap in the face, a stab in the heart. "You've been trying 3 years, I'm not even trying. I can get pregnant and you can't" they all seem to say. Or "I am somehow more deserving than everyone else because I've been trying 6 years and you've been trying only 3". I know, I know - that isn't really what they're saying. They're celebrating, and one day I hope to make a post that similar. I realize the hypocrisy in that, I really do.

At the same time, I can't help but think "What right do I have to make anyone else feel even remotely guilty for being pregnant when I want that very same thing? What makes them so different from me? The fact that they haven't been trying as long? That's no excuse - that makes me no different from those who have been trying for longer. Everyone, EVERYONE, deserves the chance to have a child." I hate myself for the thoughts that follow - such thoughts as "I wish that I had one real life friend, someone I had physical contact with every day, who was infertile. Someone other than a faceless, voiceless group of other infertiles to share things with. Someone whose shoulder I could literally cry on when times like this come around." Not that all of you aren't a wonderful source of support - please don't think I mean that. It's just that the only people I have are my husband and my mother. The first understands, as best as he can, but can't fix it and it kills him. The second one tries very hard to understand me, but sometimes ends up hurting me when she's trying to help.

I now have to go to work and pretend I'm fine. I have to not cry when the pregnant people walk into my office, and I have to make my face stop being blotchy from all the tears I've cried this afternoon. I have to find a way back from the edge of the precipice I am on before I tumble headlong into a spiral that only my mother can save me from. I need my mommy, I need my friends. I need a hug.

Life is ironic

I've been doing a lot of thinking since receiving the call from my friend yesterday. A lot of thinking. Parts of this post may offend some, and I'm sorry about that, but I have to put this down somewhere because I think Aaron is tired of hearing it when there's nothing he can really do to fix it. This is also going to be very, very long.

It's ironic the curves that life throws us. Just about the time I decide that I don't care if we have a child anymore, my best friend gets pregnant and I find out that I do care. Or maybe I don't - it's a bit complicated. I don't really care if we have a child any time soon, but I do care that someone else so close to me is. It's not fair. TTC is never fair, I know. I sometimes feel like we've been in competition with them since day one. I'll tell you why:

Aaron, Fred* and Wilma* have been friends since high school. Aaron and I got together in January of 2003, they got together in March or so. We got engaged on June 13th of that year, they got engaged a week or so later. We decided to get married in May of 2004 and then moved it to September of 2003 - and they decided to get married the same day, by the same judge, 30 minutes earlier. They decided THAT DAY. In February 2004, we started TTC. We never made it a secret. In September, she showed up on my doorstep "There's something I have to tell you." Fast forward 2 years...now three since we've been TTC. They have a child, the child I want and they didn't want but got because they were messing around with BCP, and now will have their second while I'm still waiting. It's not fair.

I am, of course, in the middle of another dreaded session of why me's. Or maybe it's why NOT me's. Wilma is very overweight. She's taller than I am by about 4" and outweighs me by 50# at least. Her cycles are funky as all hell (see my prior post) and I'm not even sure she ovulates every month. I suspect mild endo, from things she's told me. They had sex once...you heard me, once this cycle. They're pregnant. I have almost perfect cycles - I don't vary by more than 3 days. I ovulate every month, my temps are perfect. I am overweight, but only by about 30 pounds, and I'm losing that slowly. We have sex 5-6 times a cycle - and it was more when I was REALLY trying - and always more closer to O time. Hell, we used to have sex every other day from CD10-CD15!!! We have no child. Not fair.

For 3 years I have wanted this more than anything else. For 3 years I've gone on the monthly rollercoaster that starts when AF shows, continues through all the BBT and OPK's and BDing, and ends when AF shows her ugly head to start the cycle all over again. For 3 years this has consumed my life, while people around me got pg by their DH's hanging their pants on the door. I've gone through test after test, Aaron has been tested, he's had to deal with my heartache and disappointment every month...and my friends get pg without even trying. How is this at all the way things are supposed to be?

I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. I am excited that Wilma is pregnant again, but I'm so shredded because it isn't me. I am the only person she really has (besides mom and MIL) to share her pregnancy with - I am not going to shut her out because she was lucky enough to get what I want. I want to hear every detail, and I want to close my ears for the next 34 weeks and 5 days. I'm blessed that she understands as much, and knows that I am going to harass her because it's the only way to keep my sanity. I know that she would give me this child if she could, and she knows I would not accept it if she did. This is her child, not mine. She is my best friend, and has offered to be a surrogate for me if we need one. I love her to death...but right now I also hate her. How is that fair to her either?

*not their real names, but it works for me!

While writing this, a song came back to me from my teen years. It's about lost love and pining, but the chorus fits TTC very well. It's by Bryan White and is called "Someone Else's Star".

I GUESS I MUST BE WISHIN ON
SOMEONE ELSES STAR
IT SEEMS LIKE SOMEONE ELSE KEEPS GETTIN
WHAT I'M WISHIN FOR
WHY CANT I BE AS LUCKY AS THOSE OTHER PEOPLE ARE
I GUESS I MUST BE WISHIN
ON SOMEONE ELSES STAR

I found my fertile genes...

My best friend has apparently been holding them for me.

About 20 minutes ago, my phone rang and it was Wilma. I answered "Happy winged baby bearing projectiles day!" and she was semi-startled...and began to laugh. She said "Funny you should say that..." and I knew. Just like I knew 2 1/2 years ago when she showed up at my house looking apprehensive and said "I have something I have to tell you". I answered "You're pregnant." She seemed a bit surprised then that I knew, since they'd just found out an hour before and she'd been trying to figure out how to tell me. This time I was the second person to know, her DH being the first one. Then again, he's known for two weeks! She only took a test to prove him wrong...much like the last time, if I recall correctly. :)

I laughed my ass off this time. Last time I was depressed, and if she'd gotten pregnant two or three months ago I'd have been depressed too. This time...I don't know. I don't really care anymore, I guess. I'm happy for her - they wanted to be pregnant this time, but haven't been "trying". No charting, no opk's...and very little sex. They're one of those couples you hate - they had sex once this month and it just happened to be in the middle of her cycle. Only she didn't know it at the time, because her cycles are very irregular (35 days followed by 28 followed by 40). I had just started charting her cycles FOR her, to see if I could find a pattern. This is what I get!

So let's go over this again: I start reading an IF blog, they get pg. I start charting a friends cycle, she gets pg. ATTENTION IFers! SEND ME YOUR BLOGS AND CYCLE INFORMATION! I WILL READ/CHART YOU AND YOU SHOULD GET PG! :) At least, that seems to be my luck lately. Mom says it will catch me when I'm unawares - I think I have karma so confused she's just given up on me entirely.

Happy Valentine's Day to me!

The Professor

I'm finally getting around to updating all of you on this - sorry it's taken so long. Classes are hard this semester!!

She was pretty useless. She told me that I needed to start off doing more research on cytoskeletons and how they work, and then see if someone is currently doing research on that particular link between IF and spherocytosis. I can guarantee that someone isn't doing it - neither one are particularly "important" in the larger scheme of things that need cures. Not that I don't think IF is important, but those who pay for research would rather pay for things like cancer and AIDS cures. So I really didn't look into it much farther...it would just be really frustrating to me.

My best friend Nomi has since told me I should go into biology as a major, and I think she was serious. I've come up with a few other "light bulbs" about IF while in class or lab and she's tired of hearing my hypothesis without having a way to get them tested. Hell, all I need is a lab and someone who knows what they are looking at... :)

Oh well. I'm not going into biology - I hate science. I only understand what the professor is talking about if I can somehow relate it in my brain to IF, and that's not always possible. Most of the time I just don't get it, and I'm sure tomorrow's test will prove just that.

I think I'm insane

As a matter of fact, I'm absolutely sure of it. Why, you might ask? Because.

BECAUSE WE JUST BOUGHT A NEW CAR!!!

A 2007 Ford Focus, to be exact, with 9 miles on it (that's after the test drive). It's wine colored (dark toreador red, according to the papers) with tan interior. Absolutely gorgeous, and it's only going to cost us $250 a month. We're going to be using a bit of our tax return to help us make those payments, but we'll be alright. I'm just in shock, panic, you-name-it mode. I do this after big purchases. I damn near freaked out when we bought the house - what's a car compared to that?!

We got the "anything that goes wrong with the car for the next 7 years is covered" warranty, and the "free oil changes for the life of the car as long as you bring it in every 3 months" plan added on. We thought those to be a good deal - it means my car will be nicer longer, and should stay in shape. Considering I really don't drive much, we should be good!

I'm excited. I love my new car. I told Aaron it was "whiney - just like me" because of the color...which makes it a perfect fit. He may never get to drive it - neither of us are under the impression that it's anything other than MY car. :) And to think...this started as a joke. Aaron said "You know hunny, the Escort is going down hill. Maybe we should use part of the tax return as a down payment on a car." I immediately said no, but then thought about it and it made sense. So I crunched a bunch of numbers, we went shopping. I did not plan on buying a car - I was certain we couldn't afford the payments. But we did, and we can, and I'm seriously freaking out. :) W00T!

FINALLY

Af arrived this morning. I figured she would, as I woke up around 5:30 this morning with a different kind of cramp than I've had all week. These were the kind of cramps that I get when AF is actually HERE...the sharp, stabbing, someone-trying-to-get-out cramps that we all know and love so much. This is going to be a bitch of a cycle, I can already tell. At least she's here though - no more jerking me around.

I will update on my professor's response to my biology post later. Right now I'm running late for school, but I had to update all you wonderful people! *MUAH*