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.

Procrastination

I had a rough week. Work-wise, not infertility-wise. It's one of those times when I just feel like I can't seem to catch up. I've worked a lot of the weekend, aside from having lunch with a friend and doing some household chores. (I was rather proud of myself for doing a few things that would usually be Michael's domain - fixing the toilet and spraying a hornets nest on the garage - without getting stung - quite the accomplishment.)

Although, today I was reminded of my college days. It was always a joke that my apartment was spotless before finals because cleaning was my procrastination tool of choice. Well, today as I sat down to write this grant - I thought, "I CANNOT LIVE ONE MORE MOMENT WITH MY KITCHEN LIKE THIS." So, I had to get up and immediately clean the kitchen top to bottom. Then I had to start some laundry. Productive? Yes, just not exactly what I needed to be doing this weekend.

Does anyone else have any preferred procrastination methods? I guess cleaning is better than drinking heavily.

I've gotten about half of the grant written. I have to have the first draft done by Tuesday PM - and I'm in meetings all day tomorrow. Looks like I've got a couple of long nights ahead. Guess I'd better get back to it. Or wait - I think I hear the dryer buzzing...

Damn Hormones

Just when I think I've gotten to be so well-adjusted...

BAM - a hormonal (not even drug-induced, mind you) moment hits me like a ton of bricks.

Yesterday I went to the Farmer's Market after kickboxing. I saw a girl that I am friendly with at work, but only see her about once a month during this meeting we're both in. I hadn't seen her for awhile for some reason, and I stopped to say hello. She introduced me to her husband and 2 adorable children who all wanted to chatter to me at the same time - including the husband! They were so funny. The husband was in the middle of a story when the little girl (probably around 6) grabs my hand and excitedly says, "guess what's growing in my mommy's tummy?!"

Sucker punch.

I had noticed she had gained some weight, but as (I think it was) Dave Berry said - do not ever infer that a woman is pregnant unless you see a baby emerging from her at that very moment. Given the number of times that my age + an empire-waist top has made people at work speculate on my own status - I didn't let my mind go there with her. Well, that and I don't particularly want to think about other people being pregnant. Anyway - I was surprised by how much this little cherub's pronouncement affected me.

The little girl did tell me she'd only like the baby if it was a girl. Oh, the things I DON'T envy. ;-)

Anyway, I got the reason for my hormonal reaction today - my period. I feel better knowing there is a reason, but when does it get better? It's not even like there was ANY chance that I was pregnant given that I haven't seen Michael since April. Do I just resign myself to feeling this way every month for the rest of my life? Leering at innocent, happy-looking pregnant women like they have done something intentionally and personally to me? Or is it because there is no resolution? Maybe once we either get pregnant, adopt, or decide on a child-free existence - that will serve as some sort of closure for me. I sure hope so. I hate these hormonal moments.

Lesson Learned

I learned an important lesson while conducting a training session this morning.
If you are going to be standing and walking around teaching a course for 4 hours, you probably shouldn't wear these...

I'm not sure what possessed me to put them on this morning. My only excuse is that it was damn early when I had to leave for work. Okay, and maybe the cuteness factor of the shoes blinded my reason. I was literally hobbling around by this afternoon. Needless to say, no running today! In fact, Ashley suggested we go to yoga on Saturday instead of the 5K. I think that sounds like a good idea!

So I think the highlights were also a good idea. I've never gotten so many compliments as I've gotten this week! And it's been a crazy busy week. I heard things like "you look so rested" and "your tan looks great" - clearly an illusion. People asked if I'd been on vacation (ha! exactly the look I was going for. Well, that and fewer grays.)

Today is Michael's birthday. Happy Birthday, Hon. Wish we were together...today and everyday.

The Race

I couldn't title yet another post "I Did It!". But... I did it! The race was great. We had nice weather, although it seemed to get more and more humid the farther we ran. The course was pretty flat and I followed my friend Anita's advice and didn't let any strollers or elderly people pass me. Now, there were plenty of folks in those 2 categories who finished well before we did, but we sure didn't let them pass us. We walked twice - maybe for about 5 minutes total, so that wasn't too bad. I'll keep working on it so that I can meet my goal of doing a 5K without walking at all. In our race packet, there was a flyer for another 5K next weekend, so I'm thinking about it. My running buddy, Mariahna said that this was a one time deal, though - so I'm on my own. It's a little later in the morning, so maybe I can convince my slacker sister to do it with me. (Only joking, Ash!)

One of the coolest things was that my friend (from the 6th grade!), Nichole was there with her husband and they were at the finish line cheering us on. Thanks, Nichole! We beat our goal time by about 30 seconds! Yay us!

After the race, I got my hair cut and highlighted (for the first time since the Sun-In incident of 83 when my hair turned orange). I think I like it, but I'm going to have to see if I want to keep doing it. The gray was just getting a little overwhelming. I was worried I'd develop trichotillomania from all the plucking. How's THAT for a hundred-dollar word? (Confession - I DID have to look up how to spell it, so I probably won't be able to use it in Scrabble or anything.)

I was thinking I'd work out again today, but instead, Uno and I went for a long hike. Thank God we didn't run into any flies.

Neurotic Nancy

No, I’m not referring to myself. (Surprisingly.)

It’s my dog, Uno. Now, many of you know that she is a little…well, “off”. But what I experienced on Monday evening after picking her up from boarding was just plain bizarre.

She was running around the house and kept opening the door to go out in the garage. (Yes, she can open our doors – that’s a whole other story.) She refused to stay in the same room with me and peed on the floor when I was coming to take her out on a walk. I figured she was just mad at me for boarding her for a few days. After our walk, she was panting like crazy and kept trying to dig on the stairway landings. It was one of those unbearably hot days. She wouldn’t drink any water or eat anything – including treats she normally adores. At this point, I start think there is something medically wrong with her and made a note to call the vet the next day. I took a water bowl and put it in the room she kept going into and just left her alone.

That is – until she came sprinting into the living room and up onto the couch (she’s not allowed on the furniture), and then onto my lap – on top of the computer. She is not a small dog – about 30-35 lbs. She was shaking like a leaf. Then she scooted off my lap and buried herself in between me and the other side of the couch. When I tried to make her get down, she snarled at me. (THAT is why she isn’t allowed on the furniture.) I sat on the floor and she came over to me, still shaking like crazy. I was so worried!

When we went upstairs to bed, I noticed an almost dead fly buzzing in the upstairs hallway. She totally freaked.

THAT is what all the fuss was about. A fly. My poor dog has so many issues. (She’s totally fine now, so it was definitely all about the fly.)

So that is what I came home to after a nice relaxing weekend with my friend AT. The beach was great. Definitely some much needed girl-time. We had great weather until it got crazy hot the last day. We even went for a run on the boardwalk on Saturday morning! We were very proud of ourselves. So proud that we justified lots of wine and ice cream based on that one run. ;-)

The race is tomorrow. I wasn’t able to do the longest run in the training plan. I wussed out. Hopefully, I’ll make it through! At least I know I’ll finish even if I can’t run the whole thing. But that’s my goal - to run the whole thing. We’ll see!