Bébé Maybe

I have honestly felt pretty happy lately. I like not working full-time and having more time for things I enjoy. I've been doing lots of reading, writing, picture projects (scrapbooking, organizing old pictures), and walks around the neighborhood listening to podcasts. I also like spending more time with David. And always getting enough sleep! My alarm for work used to go off at 5:40am. Now every day when I wake up (usually around 7:00), I am fully charged and relaxed. Yesterday, however, I was feeling some annoying waves of pessimism. An online meeting was scheduled for all of the aides at school. Pessimist me wondered if they were going to stop paying us. Instead, they want us to be more involved. And the meeting started with the principal holding me up and an example and praising me because I have already been helping a student. Why is my inclination to always assume the worst??? The scarier thing that I've been feeling pessimistic about is an upcoming test at th...

I've never really been someone to just let things go. I always need to know the WHY. So today I feel like wondering about the 'why.' Specifically, why are we going through this? And why do I feel like I can't tell anyone about it? Over the years we have come up with lots of (sometimes rather depressing theories) about why this was happening to us. -As a punishment (this is something we both periodically torture ourselves with... maybe because I did this, this is happening, etc.) -Because for the most part we've had healthy, happy lives... and everyone needs to have trials in life in order to grow from them -Because it will make us better parents in the long run... after going through so much to have kids, it changes your whole perspective about appreciating your children as miracles and blessings -Maybe our kid/kids will be really difficult or sick or disabled.... and by going through this trial it would help us see the positive in even having any chi...

Well, unfortunately the pandemic itself has not improved. It's only gotten worse. I don't think anyone (besides maybe a few really smart epidemiologists?) ever thought the whole world could shut down over a disease. In other news, I feel like we did make a tiny bit of progress on our journey. We met online with a doctor from the other clinic we were considering. It's never a fun process to slowly go over all of your myriad health issues that could prevent you from having children. I did NOT enjoy being reminded of all of that all at once. Wow, we are messed up. The first bit of good news is that this doctor seemed very knowledgable about our specific situations. She seemed to have experience treating the things we're dealing with, and already had a plan to adapt our treatment accordingly. I really like the other clinic because they're very nice and only 5 minutes from my house, but there was no plan in place to change any protocols to fit our unique issue...

Really??? After over 3 years, we finally came close enough to actually getting treatment that we could almost see it, almost be happy about it. And then some idiot in China ate a bat, and now who knows if we can ever even have kids. I swear, if that is the reason this never happens... Well, a lot has changed in a week. Literally the entire world is shut down. Schools, restaurants, stores, everything is closed. Indefinitely. That's the part that kills me, the fact that there is no end date. I get that no one can predict when it will be safe to reopen, but that just kills any tiny ounce of hope that I had left. We were already considering looking into doing our IVF cycle at a different clinic, and I was thrilled to see that they were just about the only fertility still open during Corona panic time. Our main concern about exploring this one as an option was the location- it's an hour away. But since I'm not working right now, that doesn't matter anymore. It s...

When I lived in Israel for grad school, traveling out of the country was quite the undertaking. I still vividly remember the stress of one particular trip- a completely last-minute, surprise visit to my boyfriend (now husband of course). It involved- 1. Hauling my heavy luggage up 5 flights of stairs. 2. Taking a 30 minute bus ride to the train station. 3. Taking a 1 hour train ride to the airport. 4. Going through airport security (takes several hours and is pretty intense in Israel). 5. Taking a 2 hour flight to Istanbul. 6. Finding my way around the Istanbul airport during a 1 hour layover. 7. Taking a 3 hour flight to Paris. 8. Taking a 30 minute ride on the metro. 9. Taking a 2 hour train ride to Strasbourg. 10. Taking the Strasbourg tram into the city. 11. Finally, finding my way in the dark and on foot to my hotel. It was much too overwhelming to think about all of these steps at once, so I took it one at a time. "Ok, I'm on the right bus to get to ...

I am annoying myself so much right now! The prospect of doing IVF and everything working out with the clinic we want to be at is so overwhelming that I'm having trouble handling stupid things. I can hold it together, but when any little (and I mean little) thing goes wrong, I can't. Last night I was literally upset because 1. My family watched a movie without me that I would have liked to watch with them, and 2. I look forward to the weekend all week and I was stressed that I was wasting time and not enjoying my weekend enough. This morning I couldn't find anything to wear to church and was stressed about being ready on time. I ended up crying over both of these situations. So obnoxious. David is probably thinking that I am a crazy person. Just imagine what I would be like if I ever get to be pregnant and have those emotions lol. Let's end this with a few things about my life that I don't hate: 1. It's snowing. 2. I have friends at work. 3. There...

Ok, it's not actually 3 letters. It's 20 if you spell it out. IVF! We're doing it. It's simultaneously really horrible and really incredible. One week ago we had a very intense, informative, and overwhelming consultation about starting the process. I'm glad I had the day of the appointment off of work, because that day and the whole weekend afterwards were a wild roller coaster of emotions. The best way I can describe it "a lot." We were given a long checklist of the different steps and how to proceed. A summary: -Another round of testing (blood tests, ultrasound) -A class on how to give yourself shots -4-6 weeks of medication (3 shots a day and more) -Egg retrieval, a surgery for me -Transfer of an embryo (hopefully) It's even more complicated than it seems. Before getting started I need to do even more testing and make sure all of my blood tests are good. If there are no problems there, I need to have an ultrasound to check on some...