Take It With a Margarita

My new doctor apparently hasn't been in the office much this week. I played phone tag with another doctor until this afternoon when we FINALLY connected. This other doctor wasn't worried about the gallstones. She said, "we won't need to do surgery since you aren't having any symptoms".

Ummmmm....hello? The symptoms are why I went to the doctor in the first place!

She explained that I could have had both heartburn AND the gallstones. So, I can go out of town as planned and just try to control any pain through diet (no fat). I've been doing that the past couple of days and it's worked pretty well. Of course, trying to eat a low-fat diet in the deep South might prove to be a greater challenge.

As a side note, Meghan commented on the last post that lots of bloggers are having this gallstone issue. Apparently, it's very common for women to get them after having their first child - something about the hormones. While I haven't had a kid, I HAVE been pumping myself full of hormones, so that kind of makes sense. Because literally, that is the ONLY explanation for me having gallstones. The only other risk factor I have is being female.

But, this other doctor wasn't calling me about the gallstones. She wanted to order more tests because there were "lesions" on my gall bladder and kidney. She said they aren't that worried about the kidney because it's just a "1 sonometer mangionoma" (or something). Oh right. Of course. Silly me. When pressed, she told me that meant it was just a small benign mass of cells. She wants me to have a CT scan for the one on the gall bladder, though. (For those of you who like to worry - I'm sure everything is fine, honestly, but I want you to understand the feeling I had this afternoon.)

She said, "Well, you know how radiologists are..." (No, actually I don't.) "...they think everything is cancer, so take this with a grain of salt."

Okay, did you just use the "C" word with me and then tell me not to worry about it? I'm sorry, but that is just WRONG. To be fair, she also said it could be from the gallstone rubbing against it. (So that is what I'm going with.) And, since she didn't sound worried about it, I'm not going to worry about it either. Because really, what does that accomplish? I did go ahead and schedule the CT scan for right when I come back. When I called to make the appointment, they asked me several times if I was sure there wouldn't be any chance I'd be pregnant. I laughed out loud at that one!

My bloodwork came back mostly normal - no ulcers, no celiac disease, etc. BUT my autoimmune antibody panel (which I didn't even know they were doing) came back elevated and I was positive for anti-nuclear antibodies. Not sure if that's just from the Hashimoto's or not, but I mentioned that I've wanted my RE to do that test (or at least ask if they've already done it), so she was making copies of everything for me and putting them in the mail. She also offered to do further testing if I wanted it.

Wouldn't it be funny if a terrible case of heartburn caused them to figure out why in the hell I'm infertile? I won't hold my breath, but it sure would be interesting.

So on Sunday, I get to go back to Stone Mountain, GA for a few days and then, as a bonus, I get to see Michael again! Hooray! He mentioned that as of Sunday, it will be 100 days until all this is done. 100 days - I can do that.

Or not...

So, I didn't have heartburn.

Or maybe I did, but I had my ultrasound this morning and it is clearly my gall bladder. Very clearly.

U/S Tech: "There's your gall bladder..." (pointing to the screen)

Me: "Oh. So that looks normal, right?"

Tech: "Uhhhhhh - no. It's very enlarged and there's one, no - two stones. Are you SURE it doesn't hurt when I press here?"

I had even thought about cancelling the u/s because I felt fine this AM. Good thing I didn't! I guess the gall stones move around and hurt worse in different places.

So now I just wait for my (new) regular doctor to call me once they get the pics from the u/s to talk about next steps. Stay tuned...

Heartburn

Sorry I just disappeared and didn't tell you all that I would be away. I went to visit Michael in AL for the run-off election. The good news is that his candidate won! The bad news is that I'm still without my husband for another 3-4 months. But, I'll live. I'm actually heading back down south next week for work - and then tacking on some time for a visit with him again. We won't know what to do with each other, having just been together. Well, I'm sure we can figure something out. ;-)

After the election, Michael and I drove about 10 hours to vacation with my family in the affectionately named "cottage from hell" in Atlantic Beach, NC. Seriously - we love this place. It was built in 1935 and I believe that much of the furniture (including mattresses) are from that same era. There's no AC, the rusty springs in the beds poke you as you try to sleep, the bathroom is an addition on the back porch, but... it is ocean front. How could we not love it? I've been going there since I was born, but I think Michael loves it even more than me - if that is possible. I should have gotten a picture of him in the broken-down hammock, as that is where he spent 95% of his daylight hours - getting up mainly for food and bathroom breaks. There's no schedule, that great salt-air carefree feeling, happy hour every day, walks on the beach, fun in the ocean, and incredible produce from the local farm & fresh seafood. My whole family (well, except my step-mom - who secretly loves it, but loves to complain about it more) loves this place. My brother even selected it as the location to propose to his girlfriend, Katy this year. Luckily for her, he proposed before the whole fam-damily rolled in to town. We are all excited to finally have her joining our crazy clan! Every year, we take a family photo on the deck - but my dad takes those, so that means I should be getting it somewhere around Christmas...otherwise, I'd post it so you could get an idea of our view. Have I mentioned that I LOVE this place?

Aside from vacation fun, I've had a serious case of heartburn since the night before the election. Not coming and going heartburn - but pretty much continuous discomfort. I've tried a bazillion medications and nothing works. I have to take Tylenol PM in order to sleep. I went to the doctor yesterday - who did all kinds of bloodwork, wants 3 stool samples (fun, fun!), and scheduled an abdominal ultrasound to rule out gall bladder problems. Bottom line - she doesn't know what is wrong with me either. Sound familiar? The good news is that she asked me in a very concerned voice - "do you realize that you have lost 7 lbs in 3 months?". I wanted to hug her. No, I didn't realize that, but I'm damn happy about it! Although, some of that I'm sure is from having this heinous pain in the middle of my chest and not really wanting to eat. Which means some of it will come back once the pain goes away.

And then there's the other type of heartburn I'm experiencing. I guess that could be called heartache, but then the title of my post would be off. So I'm calling it heartburn. Because it's my blog and I can. (Which is Michael's favorite reason for everything - "because I can". THAT will definitely come back to haunt him if we ever have kids...) Anyway, we have some family friends that go to the beach too. And we've had some pregnancy announcements in our little circle. Which is all very awesome. (Seriously - I am totally happy for each and every one of them.) However, it does contribute to my "left in the dust" feeling. Especially when one of our friends responded to the latest announcement - "That's GREAT! Now everyone is pregnant!" Wow. Could someone remove the dagger from my chest? Thanks. I was doing so great with the announcement. Until that comment. I couldn't stop the tears as I croaked out, "well, not everyone..." Ugh. Then, I beat myself up for being upset and feel worse. It's just this vicious cycle that I can't seem to drag myself out of - happy for them, sad for me, and then mad at me for feeling anything other than pure joy at their announcements. One of my good friends, Lura says - "Allison, people are going to be getting pregnant all the time. You need to get used to that." She's right, of course, but I just don't know how.

So I have this heartburn that is from God only knows what, and then this heartburn from missing my husband, missing the child that we should already have, and trying to be purely happy for others who keep getting what I so desperately want. I'd be happy if Tums could cure any of those.

Quitter vs. First-Born

All my life, I've been a quitter.

I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. It's just that if I'm not good at something, I usually stop doing it. "Practice makes perfect" never really seemed worth it to me. Piano, ballet, riding a bike, driving stick shift (okay, basically anything that required any minor level of coordination) - I just decided that these were things I didn't need to do. So I quit trying to do them.

However, that doesn't seem to apply to trying to have a baby. I'm clearly not good at it, yet I can't seem to give up. Why is that?

It's something I've been tossing around in my brain for awhile now. Why is Michael, the overachiever who has never quit anything in his life, okay with giving up, but I, the self-proclaimed giver-upper, can't seem to wrap my mind around that concept all of a sudden?

I think my other role as first-born, people-pleaser supercedes my role as a quitter. And they actually work together - stay with me here, more on that in a minute. I'm a rule-follower. I do what is expected. I don't like to rock the boat. I value being seen as responsible, reliable, dependable. A woman's role in society is to produce offspring - to leave another generation behind us. How can I quit trying to fulfill that role or expectation that society has of me? How can I possibly get to the point where I feel comfortable giving up on what is supposed to be my biological purpose in life? And honestly, as much as it is about me and how I think of myself - there's also something in there about what others think of me. I feel I'm letting my parents down for not giving them a grandchild. Isn't that what they've been expecting all along? I can't meet those expectations, and that is killing me. That's part of what makes it really hard for me to give up.

So how does the quitter work with the people-pleaser? Part of the reason I would quit anything I wasn't good at was because I didn't want anyone to see my failure. If I just didn't do it, I couldn't fail. If I didn't fail, I didn't have to worry about not meeting expectations. But the drive to have a child is so biological, so innate, and so expected by society. Not trying would be worse in that case than trying and failing (over and over and over again). So here I am. Stuck in that place between contemplating the quitting and desperately wanting to hang on.

I had a dream last night that I pretended I was someone else at the fertility clinic to get them to do treatments on me because they had given up on me as a lost cause. I was hurting their statistics. This isn't true of course, but we really ARE done after this next IVF, so that must have been on my mind. But if they can't tell me what is wrong or WHY I can't get pregnant, how can I trust that I really can't? What if I only need this or that herb or test or treatment? How can I NOT get my hopes up every month only to be devastated once again when I get my period? How can I ever just quit?

Left Behind

That is how I've been feeling lately. Or maybe it's more "life is moving forward and here I am in the exact same place I was 3 years ago, only with less hope". The world keeps changing, but I'm still struggling with the same damn thing.

Getting 3 birth announcements and my embryo report (with a big fat goose egg in the spot for # of embryos frozen) in the mail this week certainly didn't help quell that feeling. The embryo report was very late, given that my last cycle was in April. So I knew the information - it wasn't like it was a surprise. Someone must have just found it and realized they never sent it to us. Just the combo of that bleak report with the joyous announcements of others left me feeling... well, bleh.

Have you ever tried to run in water?

That is what this feels like to me. I feel like I'm in the ocean, trying to get to the pier. I'm running towards it, but I'm not moving. Everyone else is on the beach and they are all getting to the pier with no problem. Heck, some of them are making repeat trips. But I keep running, as hard as I can, and the current is keeping me where I am.

Although, right now - I'm not even running. With Michael gone, it's like everything is standing still. Just waiting for him to come home. And I feel like the longer I wait, the farther I get from ever becoming a mother. But it is what it is. You'd think I would have learned by now how little control I have over anything. I guess old control freak habits die hard.

So here I am. Not so patiently waiting. For I don't know what.