I know I haven't been on for more than a second or two lately.  My life has been blowing up big time in ways completely unrelated to the infertility.  It's been significant enough that DH and I decided not to even try this month, which I definitely have mixed emotions about even though I know it was the right thing to do.

My friend J was visiting a couple of weeks ago, and he and DH were talking to each other, concerned about how bad the effect on me would be if I got pregnant and then had a miscarriage.  Later that night, everything went to hell.  The week after that was when I was scheduled to ovulate.  Because the stress and issues from everything blowing up were sure to continue for much of the next week, DH and I agreed that the risk of a miscarriage from stress would be significantly higher this month than any other, so we decided not to try.

I've gotten the advice before that maybe DH and I should just stop trying, or that we should take a few months off from trying.  We've been told that when we stop trying is when it will happen.  Which, for the record, seriously pisses me off.  That's not what we're doing.  We're looking at the specific circumstances of this month and deciding not to try this time, just the same as if one of us had pneumonia with a high fever at the fertile time of the month.  It frustrates me to have this be the best course of action for this month, especially since I know that we only have, at best, 13 chances in a year (52/4 is 13, not 12, after all).  At the same time, I know deep down that it is the best course of action and that a miscarriage is just NOT something I can handle until things settle down at least a little bit.  J was calling it a wise decision, and I agree with that assessment...but I still don't have to like it.

I have more I want to post about, but that will have to come later. 

PS. I talked with my one PG friend a couple of weeks ago, and we're ok.  We're as much on the same page as we can be, given the different perspectives that we're coming from.  That's a huge relief, because I value her friendship and her as a person very much.  Like I told her, I knew we needed to talk, but I had no idea how to start the conversation.

A friend recommended this article on Facebook, and it's a really powerful account of pregnancy loss by a father.  http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/11/o.father.mourning.baby/index.html

A lot's been happening and I'll post more later, but this is all I've got in me right now.

Oh, yeah, and that came up an hour after reading that another friend found out she will be having a girl.  Today is Pregnancy Loss Day or something like that.  I definitely am glad there's a day for that, because it is a serious issue that is horrible to go through.  At the same time, where's the day for those of us who can't even get that far??

And another friend announces their pregnancy while I continue to suffer in infertility purgatory.

So, I didn't get invited to my one friend's baby shower, and I don't really know what to think or how to feel about it.  On the one hand, not being invited means that I don't have to decide whether I can make it or come up with an excuse if I can't.  On the other hand, this is the friend that I haven't seen since she was about 5 months along because it hurts too badly to go to the tailgates.  The last I heard from her was when she asked that DH not come to tailgates without me and I replied, "Yeah, I understand what you mean about (DH).  I'm just trying to find a way to make everyone happy, or at least not upset, and there just doesn't seem to be a way to do that."  I posted on her Facebook wall a couple of days ago asking how she was doing, and I haven't heard back from her.

It makes me wonder.  Does she think I don't care about her anymore because I haven't been coming to the tailgates?  Does she think I'm selfish because I'm not oohing and aahing and wanting to see her as many times as I can before the baby is born?  Does she think I'm too weak to be worth talking to and having as a friend because I'm not right there in the middle of everything?

Am I too weak to be worth talking to and having as a friend?  My two best friends tell me that I'm too obsessive, that I can't let this stop me from living, that I shouldn't let it interfere with my life and my friendships, that it doesn't help me to crumble.  How do I not crumble?  How do I not let it interfere with my life?  I try not to let it interfere with my friendships, but I think that depends on the other person in the friendship, too. 

I can't be OK with this.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to be OK with this short of having a baby or not, but I sure as hell can't right now.  I need it to be OK for me not to be OK.  And unfortunately, as far as the above friend goes, I don't get the impression that it's OK with her for me to not be OK.  Now, I understand why that could be.  She's so excited about her baby that it can be hard to think about anyone else but her family and how excited they are.  That makes sense.  But it still puts me in a hell of a position.

So, we've been looking whether and how we can afford to go to a fertility clinic, also known as a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE).

I went to my OB/GYN today to ask were they refer people, and the only clinic they send people to is Shady Grove. I walked down the hall to SG to ask for a rate sheet. The front desk staff were very helpful and sweet. She told me about them having shared risk programs for IUI as well as for IVF. I was told that the initial consultation is $300 but to tell them if and when I made an appointment that we don't have coverage, because some of the doctors will be flexible about that fee for people without coverage. Unfortunately, DH and I make too much to qualify for financial assistance, even though we don't make enough money to have a baby. The woman was surprised that our insurance didn't even cover diagnostic testing because most people's does. Of course this would happen AFTER DH's company switches to shitty insurance. Because every possible thing that could interfere with us being able to have a family is. Murphy's having a frickin field day with me at this point.

The woman at SG did also give me their new patient packet. I saw a pamphlet on the way out for infertility counseling and grabbed it. They don't offer it at the Annapolis office, but they do have free support groups, while our local hospital does not.

Next step from here is for DH to ask his urologist for where they refer people to, especially since the doc said he refers people to somewhere that's less expensive than SG, and for me to get rate sheets from them and from other places that y'all were talking about.

And I finally get the confirmation I've been expecting since Monday of another month of failure.  Not that I'm surprised, of course.  I firmly believe each month that I'm not going to get anywhere.

At least this month, I have a free Reiki session at work and my extra special gift from my friend M, a gift card for a hot stone massage to help me relax.  I'm going to REALLY enjoy that after the way this week has been!!

So, the Zoloft seems to be keeping the tears from being at the surface 90% of the time.  I feel numb in general a lot of the time, which I especially noticed when something unrelated happened that I should have been upset about and I wasn't.  That tells me that this dose would ordinarily be too much and that when this nightmare is over one way or another, I should go back to a lower dose.  This is what is letting me function at this point, though, so I'm going to keep it here as long as I need that level of numbing.

While the Zoloft numbs the emotions, it doesn't do anything for/about the negative thoughts.  The thoughts that every month is going to be this horrible, the thoughts that we can't afford to see a fertility clinic, the thoughts that we can't afford to adopt either, the thoughts that only rich people can create a family if it's not handed to them on a silver platter, the firm expectation and belief that I/we will continue to fail each month.  Hopefully the therapy will help with this part.

On a semi-related note, I came up with an analogy tonight to describe what my life is like and somewhat how that relates to my faith.  To set the scene, a couple weeks ago my mom had sent me the Footprints in the Sand poem over email.  I've always loved that one, but right now I feel like I'm not being helped or carried and I told her that.  She replied that God still is carrying me.  My thought in response was that if He is carrying me, it feels like He's letting parts of me drag along the sand to the point where I'm getting road rash.

So tonight I was thinking while I drove to drill.  A lot of stuff has been going on in the last week or two, some related to the infertility and some not, or not directly.  I realized that I feel like grain that God is grinding between the millstones of circumstance.  There may be something good that comes out of it, like flour, but in the process, I am being utterly mutilated and destroyed.

Previous circumstances have been like threshing the grain, knocking me out of my comfort zone and into where I can be used, but they only knocked me around, they didn't destroy me.  No matter how bad it got, I still knew that I could do it, that I could make it through and accomplish what I wanted to and needed to if I only kept fighting.  This is different.  Every time I think I might be able to get my head above water long enough to catch a breath, another wave of shit comes in and tries to drown me.  I try to cling to the few things in my life that are going well, but they're increasingly overwhelmed by everything else.

Gee, can you tell I like analogies?

My BBT dropped this morning.  Damnit, another month of failure.  Fitting start to a rainy, cold, dreary Monday.