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A year ago today, I went into the hospital, pregnant and bleeding with Quinn. DH was out riding his bike and couldn't feel his phone vibrate when I called him, so I drove myself in. A year ago today, he walked into the same triage room we were in with the twins, and all I could do was shake my head to tell him it wasn't good. A year ago today, I was taken by ambulance to the University hospital, and I went into surgery very late that night. A year ago today we started counting days until viability, a countdown that never reached the hoped-for conclusion.
A year has passed and where am I? I'd like to say I'm physically healthy and as mentally sound as I can expect to be, given the circumstances. Saying that might be utter bullshit, but I'd like to say it anyhow.
On the physical front, my digestive system behaves as long as I'm very careful with what I eat. I did my first >25 mile bike ride of 2018 this weekend, and I'm feeling good. My goal is to do ~40 on the 4th, and ramp up from there so I can do a century in September. I know that my acupuncturist and yoga instructor would both tell me that endurance exercise is bad for fertility, but these rides are fantastic for my mental health, so I'm prioritizing that! Overall, health is good, and yet ovulation is once again missing. I should be less than 10 days out from CD1, but despite signs of high estrogen for days now, OPKs are very negative. It's so disheartening to be doing so much for my body, and to have the apparent signs of fertility getting worse.
On the mental side, I feel peace that my girls are with me. I am not my former Type-A, 'make sure everything is perfect at all times', self, but all the critical things are getting done. Work is going ok, my house is clean enough, all the bills are paid on time, I'm keeping up with friendships. I am actively engaging in self-care. I spend far too much time on the interwebz,when I could be doing more 'productive' things, but I'll keep giving myself a pass on that for a bit longer. Overall mental health is good, yet I can't stop ruminating about fertility-related things. I've always had a 'one-track' mind, so it's no surprise that I still do, and that track is focused on reproduction. I'm just suspicious that it's not helping me much at this point, even if it isn't hurting me much, either. Aside from shutting down my blog and getting off the interwebz, has anyone had success in actually getting your mind to focus on other things, while in the midst of fertility treatments? If so, how?
I guess this is to say that a year has passed and I'm a work in progress. And I think that's a good thing. If I stop being a work in progress and consider myself 'done', that would probably be the bad sign!
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On second thought. . . . I typed this up, saved it, and then went to walk a lap around my office complex. The memories hit me so hard on that lap. Walking the same route in December 2015, absolutely bursting with excitement that I was pregnant and we were going to have a baby in August '16. Doing a lap last year, on the Friday before the 4th, right after the bleeding had started when I was just angry that my body was giving me shit at 18 weeks and not yet scared. Then I got back to my desk and started sobbing. Guess I have farther to go on the mental side.
It's such an ebb-and-flow thing, especially when you are in the thick of it -- I have had those moments too, where I'm all proud for making all this progress and then something flattens me. Anniversaries are hard, and yours was a brutal one. It doesn't erase your progress to have that moment of deep sadness and disbelief at where you are now and where you hoped you'd be. I'm proud of the progress you've made -- and the biking is amazing! I think doing what's good for your mental health and what keeps you YOU and not just a walking follicle or uterine lining is healthy. I was TERRIBLE at focusing on other things when in treatment. I was a single-track mind, all the way, and had notebooks of all the cycles (although not pretty spreadsheets like you have), and everything was fertility related -- what I ate, the wheatgrass juicing, the yoga, the acupuncture, the Maya Massage, the vag steaming, the candle lighting, the guided fertility meditations...and it consumed me. I think you can let go of some things, but if you are that one-track-mind person it's hard to deal with things totally differently. I think the biking is a very good thing -- something that's you, for your sake, and not related to fertility. Having something that you can do that reminds you that you are more than your ovaries is good, too. I wish you so much luck as you wade through everything you've been through and hope for the best possible outcomes.
ReplyDeleteYes, anniversaries are really tough, so I think collapsing in tears at your desk is perfectly normal, and as you yourself said, if you hadn't, you might need to worry. Your paragraph before that is wonderful though, and especially the fact you are focusing on self-care. Good for you. One year on is not long at all in the grand scheme of things.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I have no solutions about how to focus on other things. I wish I did. But I was a full-time infertile in those years, and turning it off is tough. What helped me was simply focusing on good things whenever they arose, so that I had happy moments free from the burden of infertility. Good luck!