Tom, you owe me.

Every time I have a 24 hour period like the one I'm about to tell, I wonder... does this stuff happen to other people with the same frequency that it happens to me?  I feel like I'm in the movie The Adjustment Bureau,  except they use me as a tool to adjust everyone elses life. 

So yesterday, I have a pretty average (average is good these days) day at work.  I leave work, I'm driving.  DING DING DING!  My cars tire pressure alarm goes off.  I check it, it says 6 PSI.  I don't know a lot about PSI, although I've tested how low mine can go, much to my husbands dismay.  I do know that 6 PSI= a flat tire.  As soon as you think you have a flat tire, you can isntantly see your car tipping to that side.  So I'm like crap must pull over.  I get out, everything was fine... whew crisis averted. 

On the road again! A few minutes down the road, Im getting on the ramp to 95.  My coffee from the morning tips out of the cup holder.  Now it's glug glugging out of the cup down my leg.  I look like I peed myself, I felt like I peed myself too.  Problem, I have to return redbox movies and do a quick grocery store run.  I decide Im going to go anyway.  I dont have time for this crap. 

I get to the grocery store, in line in front of me is this woman with her child throwing a fit at the machine.  He wants to watch the owl movie and it's not available.  This goes on for a few minutes, in the meantime, I look like I need to find the Depends aisle ASAP.  I return the movies, and I pick up my goodies, and proceed to check out.   I put everything on the belt, everything except the carton of blueberries.  As I reach to grab them out of my cart, the lid pops off, blueberries were bouncing everywhere.  Through my cart, around my cart, down the other aisles.  My cart was clearly the epicenter for a blueberry explosion.  People are walking by saying "Uh OH!" Now I dont know if it was because I look like I peed myself or the blueberries.  I couldnt move the cart because I would make more of a mess than I already had.  Im stuck.  Now other people are in the line, looking at me like WTF.  I'm looking at them like WTF, because you saw this mess and still opted for this line.  As this gets cleaned up, I check out, and me and my wet pants high step out of there. 

I get home.  I let the dogs out, as we come back in I notice this adorable parade of ants going through my kitchen.  ALL OVER THE PLACE.  I've had ants in the house before, I dont think Im special here, but this was crazy.  The line of ants coming in the house was about an inch wide coming in in a continuous stream.  I dont know what happened between me leaving for work and coming home, but between those hours, we were clearly invaded.  It was war!  If you know me in real life, you know anything related to bugs is my worst nightmare!  I find the poison and I start spraying everywhere.  Oh I killed each and every one of those little bastards.  However now I have puddles of poison on my kitchen floor.  So the remainder of the evening is spent cleaning all the floors in the house and killing the occasional stray ant I find on my arm.  I then stress ate a Hershey bar, because I just felt like ants were all over me. 

I went to bed!  The next morning I had to take the dogs to the vet, BY MYSELF.  I normally wouldnt do this, except they needed their shots, and it had to be done by Friday.  Why?  Well our dogs are terrible, and we got a cleaning lady.  It was something I treated myself to after the failed IVF.  Im not wasting a single second of my life cleaning this craphole anymore.  IVF failure mid life crisis. So in order to be nice to her, we take the dogs to doggy daycare.  Problem is somehow during all of this IVF crap,  they never got their vaccinations.  So the doggy daycare finally put their foot down and requested their records.  I would rather see death than clean my house, so since 9 am was the only available appointment time, I made the appointment, knowing I would be alone.  The woman on the phone assured me that the people would be able to help me with them.

I get them to the vet, I take them in one at a time.  Lucy, AKA Lucifur in our house because she is so bad, went first.  Doc cried in the car, his cries could be heard for quite a distance.  I get her settled in and ask the woman to watch Lucy while I go get the other one, Doc.  I get him in and the woman hands me Lucy.  I have both.  THANKS FOR THE HELP!  I'm getting tangled in their leashes, because Lucy likes to run in circles around me and trip me up.  Im trying to untangle them, and Doc is SQUATTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WAITING ROOM ATTEMPTING TO MAKE BOOM BOOM!  I looked up just in time to stop it!  I ask the lady to watch Lucy again.  I take him out.  He craps in the parking lot.  I dont have a bag because this was an emergency.  OH MY GOD!  I AM SO EMBARRASSED!  I finally get him to grass, and he finishes up.  Back inside.  Lucy is looking at a puppy out the window, barking.  She is trying to get on top of the counter to have a better look.  Doc is trying to sit on my lap as Im trying to yell at Lucy to get down.  Clearly you can see Im getting tag teamed here. 

Lucy requires four vet techs to hold her down to get a blood sample.  The whole time, she is looking at me, right in the eye like... YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS. 

I thought when we recently had to first take Lucy to a dog opthamologist, that I had seen a new low.  However, Im not so sure, Lucy, A DOG (she doesnt like it when I tell her that) has IBS.  We have been crushing TUMS in her food, and she gets two pepsid a day to help her.  She now requires dog food that costs $90 for a 28 pound bag. 

After 2.5 hours, and $560 I was ready to call it a day.  I leave the dogs in the office, put the food in the car, pull the car up, inadvertantly running over the nice pile of crap Doc had left me earlier.  AWESOME. 


My hubs owes me... BIG TIME!

Lucy (above)

I'm pretty certain she is laughing at me.

Note her cool band aid from her bloodwork.

Doc (below)

The crapper

Best Present Ever!

The day started with me not wanting to get up.  I decided to get myself a large cup of coffee.  In line in front of me, a pregnant girl 20ish.  Buying cigarettes.  ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS WITH THIS SHIT GOD?

Today I was having a real pity party for myself.  It's not that I want to have a pity party for myself, it's just some days are harder than others, especially holidays/special occasions.  I remember the last holiday/special occasion.  I remember hoping the next holiday/special occasion wouldn't suck as much as this one. Yet here is the anniversary of that sucky day, and things actually suck worse now than they did then.  Then you wonder... how long will this crap go on? You try to be positive, but it is really hard to smile when life is taking a huge dump on your forehead on a pretty consistant basis.  So this morning I was not in good spirits. 


Caption... "Im doing great!"

This is not me, but a pretty accurate depiction of how I feel on most days... yet another gem I found while doing my random googling, and yes, I just made myself laugh out loud again.  I'm not right. 

We've been pending a match for quite some time now with the embryo adoption agency. We have been waiting for the donor's to sign the contract.  Well it has been weeks.  A few days ago, I emailed the agency.  I asked her if they changed their mind.  She said no one has ever done that (every time someone says that, it ends up happening to us).  Well today, we got great news.  WE ARE OFFICIALLY MATCHED, SIGNED, SEALED, but not delivered just yet.  I'm hoping that the timing of this is a sign of good things to come.  We are cautiously optimistic.

32 (ICLW)

Things have been so bad for so long now that it’s hard to get excited about anything.  For every one good thing that happens, twelve bad things soon follow.  It’s really hard to say when this train is going to leave Suck Town, USA.  Every time you scrape yourself off the floor, life has a funny way of putting you right back where you just came from.  Eventually, you don’t want to get up.

Statistically, it just doesn’t make sense.  The odds of having a deformed uterus, the odds of my husband being equally messed up,  the odds of being 31 and having a depleted supply of eggs, the odds that IVF was a complete failure, the odds that they gave me the wrong medication during IVF.  I could go on forever with this.  I think when you look at the odds, you begin to realize that this really does not seem all that random.  All roads seem to end up a Dead End.  I somehow managed to never take statistics.  I am a scientist and look at statistics all day long.  I can’t give you the exact statistics (P value) of this happening to us, but I can tell you this… STATISTICALLY WE ARE FUCKED!

I have a secret.  Although I have been like… WOOO HOOOO!  We’re going to adopt (AKA buy) some embryos.  YAY!  I have secretly been hoping for some kind of divine intervention.  To end up one of those lucky people who accidentally end up pregnant when they had just about given up all hope.   Shouting to all that would listen… IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! 

I remember wanting to cry when I turned 30.  I remember last year feeling a little worse than the year before at 31.  This isn’t how I thought my life was going to go.  Tomorrow I turn 32.  I’d like to tell you that I’m feeling better about turning 32, however in my best Maury Povich voice, I have to confess... THAT IS A LIE!

          My attitude charted for your amusement

I’ve been ignoring my doctor’s recommendation to go on birth control pills for months.  It’s supposed to help control the hormones that have turned my uterus into a tumor making factory, hopefully preventing me from needing an additional surgery.  So this year, for my birthday, I’m going to the drug store, buying a giant box of tampons along with birth control pills.  This will be taken consecutively until we do the frozen embryo transfer. We are officially nailing the door shut on any hopes for normalcy.  Sad, yet relieved at the same time.  I can not go through another year of this insanity.  We are, however, open to new types of insanity/torture.  So for right now, I want off THIS ride, immediately!

For right now, I’m telling myself that there is a reason for this.  Keep in mind that I’m telling myself this… if anyone else tells me this, well I hope you have quick reflexes, because I will likely attempt to punch you in the face. What is getting me through this, is the idea, that in this batch of frozen embryos, there is this amazing person who hasn’t had the chance to fulfill their destiny yet.  There had better be a reason for this.  I am truly hoping that there is a bigger plan for us.

P.S.   You know how at baby showers they make diaper cakes, well I thought (because I’m not right) how funny it would be to get a tampon cake.  So I googled it.  Turns out it already exists.  This little gem turned my frown upside down.  Don't judge.

 

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/gallery/vadis_turner.php?i=2221 (giving credit where credit is due)

Just enough tequila

When I got the call that IVF didn’t work, I didn’t cry. Nothing. Numb. Dead inside.  I remember I told my husband that things just hit me at the weirdest times. I felt bad, he was upset, and I just sat there and looked at him. 


Fast forward to yesterday.  Everything was fine.  I was in a fine mood.  We were about to go out for dinner and we had to run some errands.  We were going to stop at Target.  I ran down a list of things we needed to get from Target.  Nail polish remover, stomach medicine for the dog, a card for my friends wedding… Mothers Day Cards… Mothers Day Cards. I did not realize Mothers Day Cards was going to be the thing that broke me.


This was not supposed to happen.  I should not be 31 with diminished ovarian supply.  IVF was supposed to work.  We should not be here.


I told myself to shut up, go get dressed, that we have to go.  Suck those tears back into your head, YOU WILL NOT CRY OVER THIS.  As we were driving to Target, my phone picked up a wifi appropriately named…. “Lifeainteasy”.  This made me laugh for a minute.  The closer we got to Target, the more I couldn’t contain it anymore.  I just burst out into the nasty cries. 


Imagine your biggest failure, the one thing you can’t overcome, but this failure is so easy for everyone else to overcome, and there is a day celebrating it.  An entire day to celebrate people that will never know what you are going through.  An entire day to celebrate all the things that you can’t have. 


Unfortunately, no one will get a Mothers Day card from me this year.  It took everything I had to walk past the aisle.  I couldn’t do it.  As we left, I broke into tears again.  As we drove, we drove behind a car with a mother’s day balloon bouncing all over the interior.  This also made me cry.  At dinner, my Mom called.  I couldn’t answer.  Her name made me cry.  Mom.  I drank just enough tequila at dinner to get me through the grocery store without busting into tears. 


This year, Mothers Day stings.

So they aren't ice mutants?!?

While we were on the fence waiting to see if the IVF drugs could be covered or donated, we contacted the woman at the embryo adoption agency, just to get the ball rolling on that process because we both knew that getting these drugs would be a long shot.  She told us that we could just go through the profiles on the website, pick the “batches” that we are interested in, and contact her. 

We did just that.  The whole thing is a whole new level of bizarre.  I don’t know if all agencies work like this, or just the one we we’re working with.  So each “batch” (that’s what we are calling it, translation: embryo’s that come from the same eggs/sperm) has a biography.  The height, weight, eye color, education, occupation, race, and religion of the genetic donors are listed, along with number of available embryo’s.  Also, the donor’s can decide what types of people they want their embryos to go to; married, single, surrogate, straight, gay, and what type of relationship they prefer. One couple even specified they want their embryo’s to go to an Asian/Caucasian couple.  They can also decide if they want the relationship to be open, closed, contact for medical purposes only, etc. 

Initially, there were two “batches” that we were interested in.  One batch did appeal to us more so than the other.  So we emailed the woman and the craziest thing happened… she sent us pictures of the children that were born from these “batches”!  Now I truly have no idea what my husband and I were expecting.  To be honest, I think we were expecting to see photos of ice mutant children. 

 

 

However, these were normal, beautiful, happy children!  I think that the minute that we saw the pictures, our whole attitudes shifted.  We no longer felt like we were on the fence.  We no longer felt like we would regret not doing another round of IVF.  Suddenly, things became clearer.  

At the post IVF appointment, our doctor informed us that they would like to review the embryology reports prior to a match being made.  So we asked that the agency send both files to the doctors office for review.  We also had to fill out a packet of information required by the agency.  The nice thing about the agency that we went with is that they don’t require a home study.  So that was one less thing we had to worry about.  There was a lot of information that was requested, and we spent a lot of time gathering that information.  We had to write letters to the donors, send pictures of us, our home, our dogs.  We also had to fill out a questionnaire about our level of openness… would we be willing to have family picnics on a scale of 1 to 10?  Would we be willing to share photo’s on a scale of 1 to 10? Tons of scenarios like this.  We just went straight down the middle.  I come from a place of, let’s let the relationship develop and see where it takes us.  If I were to meet you, and you are one of those people from ‘My Strange Addiction’ with Cabbage Patch kids all over your house that you refer to as your babies…. NO!  I would prefer to not have a relationship with you.  However if you are a normal well intentioned person, well, let’s just see where it goes. 

Both batches were approved by the doctor.  That was such a huge relief, yet made the decision so much harder.  We had to select the batch that we wanted to move forward on.  Decisions like this don’t happen to normal people.  What if we pick one, and one day the child gets sick?  What if the kid ends up a cat killer? What if we pick one batch and none of the embryo’s thaw?  What if, what if, what if?????????????  In the end, we decided to go with our gut.  Our gut immediately drew us to one batch of embryos over another.  For so long, our lives have been dictated by other people telling us what to do and when to do it.  This was a decision that we had to make.  It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. 

We are currently waiting for the match to be finalized.  We are very happy with our decision. 

Masters of Disaster

So our decision to move forward with embryo adoption is one that we came to with relative ease.  However, like everything else, you soon realize things are never simple.  I think on first thought, you think you’re having the baby, it is yours, end of discussion.   You may have a baby, and it is yours, but it is not the end of the discussion.  You see most of these embryos come from people that have their own family.  Translation: if you have a child via embryo adoption, your child has brothers and sisters, and biological parents out there.  Although on the surface, embryo adoption seems like having your own child; it is in fact more like adopting.  If, heaven forbid, your child gets sick, you are not genetically related to them.  This brings up a million additional questions… When do you tell your child?  How close of a relationship do you have with the donors?  What if they are weird?  In theory, your child was conceived years ago.  How do you explain that?  You have been chilling (literally) in an iceberg (as we like to call it) for years?  The whole thing is… NOT NORMAL!  I realize this. I think we have decided that should a child be born, it will just be something that they have known from day one.  All of the other questions we will have to figure out as we go. 

Dealing with infertility alone would test a lot of people.  Dealing with all of these decisions and everything else that has been going on in our lives is even harder.  We have coined ourselves “shit magnets”.  (Side note, I also curse a lot, there are plenty of other G rated blogs out there if you would prefer to read those, my apologies in advance.  I’d like to say that this is just a one time occurrence, but it’s not.)  They say when it rains it pours, but we are experiencing a monsoon… and it’s been over a year… WHEN WILL IT STOP!  I hate when I’m on Facebook, and people put posts like "your life is what you make of it, if you are unhappy, change it".  I know they aren't talking to me, however I feel like they are, because we can't change it.   Now these if these same people get a flat tire, their world is totally wrecked, but I digress. There are a lot of people that I would like to shake the shit out of… because they could not make it one single day walking in our shoes. These are the people that love to tell you "the sun will come out tomorrow" well, tomorrow has come and gone, and there is no sun!   

Let me explain what happened last Thursday.  Something like this occurs every week so, this is nothing new to us.  First, we picked two sets of embryos that we were very interested in.  We had to have both sets approved by the doctor.  We are selecting between two sets, one set titled Jeff, and the other set titled Mandy we really wanted the Mandy set.  So when I sent the request to the embryo agency, I requested that they send the Jeff and Mindy files to the doctor’s office.  The woman sends the information off.  I’m waiting all day Wednesday to get the files approved.  Late Wednesday I get a response that they only received one file, Jeff and are waiting for the other file.  I reach out to the agency explaining that the doctor’s office only had the Jeff file, not the Mandy file.  I get an email from the agency that they sent the Jeff to Melissa file.  I start to panic… What is the Melissa file?  Who is Melissa?  I speak to my husband and exclaim that I’m likely to be implanted with the wrong embryos.  WHO IS MELISSA?  I call the agency.  I speak to the woman who sent the files.  She explains that she sent the files, but doctor’s office must not have realized all of the information was there.  I also find out that another couple is interested in these embryos.  So now time is of the utmost importance, GAME ON!  So now we are into Thursday.  I have been waiting all day, I’m panicking that these embryos are going to another couple.  I’m checking my email every five minutes for a response.  NOTHING!  Suddenly, while at work, I start feeling so tired.  Battery drained, going to fall asleep at my desk tired.  I was at the doctor’s office earlier in the week and had been diagnosed with bronchitis, so I’m thinking that it has officially caught up to me.   I told a co-worker I needed to head to my car for a minute because I’m about to pass out I am so tired; I have never done that before.  I took a quick 20 nap, I wake up, I give myself a pep talk, go back in.  As I’m walking in, I barely reach the sidewalk from the parking lot, I’m telling myself…. OH MY GOD, I'M GOING TO THROW UP!  About 5 steps after that I throw up.  Now, I work at a company that has its own internal safety crew.  People that really want you to ride in an ambulance really bad.  Here I am in broad daylight, throwing up.  When you are puking, you just want to lie down.  I can’t lay down because someone will call their internal 911 number and then I’m going to ride in an ambulance.  HOW FREAKING EMBARRASSING?!?  So I try to find a more private location to puke… THE BUSHES.  I’m laying there, puking, and a coworker sees me.  Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, she has a weak stomach.  She throws tissues at me, explains that she is going to puke if she stays and walks away (truthfully, I would have done the same thing).  I finally finish, and I walk into work.  As I’m walking in, Tom calls.  I ONLY ANSWER THE PHONE BECAUSE I THINK HE HEARD FROM THE DOCTOR.   He explains that he has some bad news.  I’m thinking great, this is just great, expecting to be hearing about the embryo reviews.  No, he is calling me because our car just broke down and they suspect that it needs a new engine.  I explain I really can’t have this conversation right now because I just got done puking in the bushes at work.  I gathered my belongings, left work and headed home. 

At this point, I realize I have the flu.  I’m laying in bed, and the only thing I can think is… CRAP, my computer is in the car and I’m waiting to hear from the doctor’s office about these embryos.  Around 6:30 I get up to get my computer.  I check the mail and there was a message from the doctor’s office.  The girl was explaining to me how funny it all was. She had been working with Jeff and Melissa (they were a couple) and she didn’t realize that Melissa’s nickname was Mandy.  That she had the file (not files) the whole entire time.  At this point, adrenaline kicked in, I start freaking out.  First they should be reviewing files, as in plural, not file.  There should be two sets, one for Jeff and Melissa who is apparently nicknamed Mandy and the other for Mandy.  So I call the embryo agency, after going around and around and around, it was finally discovered… we picked two sets of embryos from people named Mindy.  So when I said send the Jeff and Mandy file, she didn’t realize I meant two separate files.  Funny because I don’t know a single person named Mandy.  So she sent the additional file to the office for review.  Naturally, the next day, the girl at the office who she sent it to was out sick.  So here I was still freaking out, because these embryos could go to another person in the meantime.  The office was nice enough to hack into the girl’s computer so that the doctor could review the file ASAP.  They were both approved! Great news.    

As for the car, it died.  It needed a new engine and cost over 6k to fix.  So we had to buy a new car this weekend.  I’ll be sad to let that car go, it was the first car I ever finished paying off. 

Then we found out that the doctors office requires us to undergo counseling in order to proceed with embryo adoption.  That will be completed this weekend. 

We were also instructed by the doctor’s office to visit with an attorney.  We went this week, which was fun.  The woman really had no clue what embryo adoption was.  She was talking to us like we were adopting a child.  We were, in fact, just adopting a few magical cells.  It seems like no one really understands what is going on here because this is such a new arena to be in.  We didn’t leave there with a warm and fuzzy feeling.  We didn’t drive there together; I had to stop at a friend’s house on the way home.  Tom went straight home.  Well it looks like I won the lottery, because Lucy had an accident in her crate while we were gone (never happens).  Tom said she was covered in poop, she had flung it on the wall, and he couldn’t catch her when he opened the crate, so she tracked it all through the house.  He had to give her a bath.  He said she went in without a fight, almost as if she was disgusted with herself.  Then he had to shampoo the carpets, but the belt was broken in the shampooer, so he had to repair the belt then shampoo the carpets. 

All of this has happened this week!  This is not a sitcom, this is our real life.  Sometimes, we sit and laugh about all of it, because honestly, it is funny.  It would just be a whole lot funnier if it were happening to someone else.