I hope

It’s not easy…

I am still trying to get over the false positive on that pregnancy test. It’s been almost two weeks, and I still find myself hoping maybe the six negatives taken afterwards are wrong. However, I knew the test looked like it might be defective - the control line had jagged edges. So I don’t know why I insist on holding on to hope when I really don’t believe there is any…

A good friend of mine from a PCOS support group got her BFP (big fat positive) the same day I got my BFP (big false positive). I am elated for her, but crushed for me. A couple of other friends from the same group got BFPs that same week… and as happy as I am for them, it’s bittersweet. We all go through this, those of us who are coping (or trying to) with infertility. We’re happy when one of ours gets pregnant… it gives us hope, the ability to believe, that someday it will be our turn, too… but we also struggle with envy, with wanting it to be our turn NOW. Why is it always someone else with the BFP? Why not me? Or really, why not ALL of us?

It’s not that we begrudge them their joy, not ever, for a minute… we just want it to be our joy, too.

The night I got that BFP, I posted a jasmin live picture of it on two sites. I had no fewer than 30 replies, all agreeing the test looked + and full of congratulations… for a few short hours, I knew how it felt. It was lovely… I didn’t ever fully believe, but I had hope, and when I closed my eyes that night, I believed I’d wake up to another positive - a more definitive one - Sunday morning. When I woke up Sunday morning, I no longer expected a positive… and I didn’t get one. Nor did I the five additional times I tested that week.

I never went for the blood test, because after six negatives, and the information the ultrasound gave me early on, I just didn’t see cause. Plus, we’re in insurance limbo, technically covered as of 12/1, but not in the stupid system yet… which means we risk being charged full price, rather than what the insurance company contracts stipulate they can charge us…

We’re seeing a reproductive endocrinologist (RE) in January. Hopefully, she can help… maybe Clomid isn’t the answer. I also bought an herb called Vitex (or chasteberry), which has been shown to help women ovulate, but takes a while to work. Frankly, at this point, I’d consider just using that, but I think it’s time to do a semen analysis, just to have the complete picture. Hopefully, there’s no issue there… but if there is, it’s probably better to know. Even with male factor infertility women get pregnant without things like IVF or IUI. That friend I mentioned, her husband has a morphology issue, but she got pregnant without IUI or IVF… so it happens. But I think knowing is helpful, too… especially before I do anything any more invasive than Clomid.

IF I decide to do anything more invasive, that is.

One thing I do know… we’ve ruled out adoption 100%. My husband doesn’t really want to adopt, and with the many obstacles in our way, adoption would be hard for us anyway. First off, he has a serious medical condition. We’re also atheists, which I suspect would pose a problem (even my therapist pointed that out, though I’d already figured that for myself)… most international organizations have a religious affiliation or objective. Which is fine, but somehow I don’t think they’ll see us as suitable parents. Domestic adoptions are so much riskier, and no matter what, at the end of the day, adoption isn’t a sure thing, either. So if we’re going to risk money, I’d rather spend it on IUI attempts, or even IVF (though I don’t foresee us going that route, either - for the same reasons as adoption… it’s even less likely than adoption to work and even more expensive).

I don’t know when I’ll hit my limit. I don’t know how long this will continue… what I do know is, I’m going to spend more time writing my second novel, with the hopes an agent will like this story. It’s dramatically different than my romance novel… much more serious. I am going to set a goal for myself to spend x amount of time writing per day. I don’t plan to start this until 2008, not because it’s a New Year’s resolution (I really hate resolutions), but because we leave next weekend for NYC/NJ and I know starting now isn’t the most reasonable goal - though I do have a smaller goal to write something, anything, once a week. I wrote a poem about my infertility struggles… and one about sex. LOL. Guess infertility makes me think about sex, gee, wonder why??? :)

Soo… this is why I haven’t had m uch to say recently. Not much has changed… I’m still sorta obsessed about that test. And still a bit brokenhearted that it wasn’t legit. It will take time, but I know I’ll get over it… maybe when I finally get an actual positive, if that ever happens. I hope it will, but I’m trying to learn to see beyond it now… to accept it might never happen, and come to terms with that.

However, I somehow suspect that if it doesn’t happen, it will take me the rest of my life to come to chaturbate terms with it… it’s not something you can “get over.” Even deciding it’s time to stop trying isn’t going to make the desire to be a mother go away… I know all of this, and I also know all the planning and preparing in the world won’t make it any easier to cope with.

Experiencing technical difficulties… er, I was anyway

If you sent me any emails over the past several days, I didn’t get them. So sorry! I don’t have any mail since Friday, which includes notification about comments (though I read them on my site anyway). Just an FYI. I’m not ignoring you. :)

PS. Everything is back to normal now - switched servers and sorta forgot to create my email address on the new one. Duh. :D

False positive on a pregnancy test…

So last night I got a positive on pregnancy test. It was faint, but very there.

This morning, I got a stark white negative on the same jasminelive brand.

Devastated doesn’t begin to cover it.

On some level I knew the test was defective… but I posted it on various support groups msg boards, and EVERYONE saw it. My husband saw it. They say a line is a line and no matter how faint it’s a BFP (that’s Big Fat Positive). Mine was a BFP, all right… a Big Fake Positive.

I’m so close to saying enough, I’m tired of wasting time on something that just doesn’t feel like it’s ever gonna happen… but then what? When I think about giving up, I realize how empty my life will be. I’ll have to figure out what I want to do for work… and that’s a major issue in and of itself. We don’t live even remotely close to colleges, so going back to school would be a logistical nightmare…

We talked about adopting, and it’s out of the question. Even IF we found an agency willing to adopt to us, it’s not what my husband wants - beyond his desire to make me happy, which I love him for… but I won’t risk our happiness together or a ’s happiness on that. I think he’d love the hypothetical-if-we-adopted … I really believe he would… but he’s not sure, and that’s enough of a red flag to say, nope, it’s not for us.

So, these days I’m less likely than ever to be a mom in the future… and last night, for a few, sweet hours, I had a shred of hope. I had a BFP. I just didn’t know that F stood for Fake.

Dead washing machine

Our washing machine died on Sunday afternoon. It’s probably like 15 years old (it came w/ the house, but it’s older than the house for sure). So we had to go out and buy a replacement, and we replaced the dryer, too. It takes about 140 minutes to dry the average load - too long, for sure. Our new dryer supposedly can do a load in 30 minutes, but I’m skeptical. Still, even if it takes an hour, it’s a vast improvement.

Of course, this comes at the worst time of year, when we’re buying gifts and have already been dealing with money being tight. We’re not poverty stricken, but it was an expense we certainly didn’t need to add right now.

In other news, I never ovulated and will be seeing a reproductive endocrinologist in January. I am sort of at this crossroads… I still very badly want to be a mommy, but I’m also scared to death of it, and so I think maybe if we don’t have any it won’t be the end of the world after all… but then I realize I’m just thinking that way because I am scared. Fear isn’t a reason to decide not to do something… but how is this for a flip side - I am just as scared of being a mom as I am of never being one. Go figure. Clearly an issue to discuss with my therapist. Though I think if I weren’t terrified, on some level, of the responsibility that comes with being a parent, it would probably mean I shouldn’t have at all.

We’ll probably put our tree up this weekend. We were supposed to do it Sunday night, but you already read what happened Sunday. I am half excited about it and half feel like I don’t want to bother. Of course, I have that nearly every year, but am always glad to have it up, in the end. It’s just, my husband hates Christmas, and we don’t even spend Christmas home, so there’s an element of “what’s the point?” However, the lights and ornaments make me happy, and I do enjoy seeing those special ornaments I add every year.

The downside is, it’s probably the most difficult time of year to be dealing with infertility. Everything is so family centric, and for my entire life I’ve dreamed of passing on traditions, sharing the joy and love and warmth with my own family… and now, this year, I’m facing the very real possibility that it might never happen. Oh, I know someone’s bound to say or think that I need to be positive… and that I “will” be a mom - even people on my infertility boards dealing with the same thing say that to me… but I need to face reality. I can’t delude myself into thinking it’s a sure thing, because it isn’t. Which means I need to be prepared to face that… as prepared as it’s possible to be. I can hope I never have to face it, but if I don’t accept it on some level, it would be all the more devastating in the end.

We won’t adopt. We’ve discussed it, and there are multiple reasons. Health concerns, not wanting strangers probing every little detail of our lives… not to mention the expense for something that still isn’t always a sure thing. Plus, given our religious beliefs (or lack thereof), I think we’d have a hard time finding an organization anyway… and finally, there’s the reality that it’s simply not right for my husband. He doesn’t really understand adoption… and that’s enough reason to not do it right there. honestly, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to forget that I’d adopted because I was unable to have my own … and that wouldn’t be fair, either. So, if we don’t have a biological , we’ll just be us… and our dogs. It’s maybe a less typical family, but it’s one nonetheless.

Anyway… there’s not a lot new to report, beyond that. I’ll try to post more soon.