Revelations

I've been sick all weekend with an awful cold virus. Using up boxes of tissues and my joints are aching so much. Not much fun. I didn't go out shopping so instead I've been doing what I call "cooking something from nothing"; we're having long grain and brown rice with roasted brussel sprouts, carrots and turnips. It tastes okay but this is not one for the recipe book.

I've been thinking about the holidays this year. I'm making some effort but it feels hollow and I wasn't sure why until I started thinking about it. I used to go back East to see my family; they would drive me crazy but they were my family. Now my mother isn't talking to her family, my grandmother and I aren't speaking since she was so awful in relation to my first pregnancy (a disgrace to the family she said), my sister is in Seattle but I hardly ever see her (though we were best friends when we were growing up) and I find it hard to talk to my brother, he's not grounded in reality unfortunately. Add to that how little support my family gave to me during my miscarriages and after my surgery last year and it feels like my family has fully disintegrated -- and much of it feels to me to be related to my fertility issues.

So my family isn't really there anymore, and the family we were going to have hasn't materialized. Add to that the feeling of general alienation the past few years have engendered in me and socially I've been feeling isolated as well -- probably more through my own doing than not. It's no wonder really that I hit the wall with the TTC business.

Years ago, a friend of mine told me when life felt out of control to me that I needed to create touch stones for myself in my life. I did take that to heart and it was within months of hearing that message that I met my partner and met a few of my good friends. Over the past years though people have changed jobs, pursued different interests, moved away and so there are fewer touchstones that there once were. There haven't been many people IRL to talk to about what we have been going through, it's hard to talk to friends who know they don't want to have kids about infertility and pregnancy loss. Then the ones that have had kids, well their kids are getting older and so they have parties with a bunch of four year olds, etc. and since we don't have kids we don't get invited (though really I wouldn't want to go anyway).

So I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a bridge, trying to leave one side, two failed attempts to cross that bridge that hurt me, and a bunch of nasty momminess, child care, teething, diapers, terrible twos etc on the other side (is that supposed to seem appealing?) And more and more I feel like I won't be able to cross the bridge without medical intervention, which I don't want to do. It just feels wrong to me.

I think that my current RE is part of the problem. Over and over in my head do I hear those words from a couple weeks ago "that's (low progesterone) not what's wrong with you" which makes me want to scream back THEN WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!

If I feel the time comes for another consult I might just consider going with a different RE. Maybe we should even consider going for a consult outside of Seattle, there's too much crap going on with the fertility clinics here. It makes me the patient feel like a pawn or an asset instead of like a person.

By the way, Virginia Mason Hospital decided to close the fertility center outright. Dr McClure, the urologist who did my partner's vasosostomy (vasectomy reversal) was the only one left after Dr Marshall, my RE left to open Pacific NW Fertility. My partner had some crappy frozen sperm there, from before we knew what we weren't going to do and since it was only about 1% kruger we're going to dump it.

That's enough of a book for one night. Thanks for your replies and talk to you soon.