I am wondering more and more each day if I should be committed to a mental health facility. The thoughts running through my mind are impossible to turn off. Did you know, a LONG time ago, there was a mental hospital in Appleton where if you had someone "crazy" in your family, you just dropped them off there and left them there? Patients would get dropped off if they drank too much, or if they stopped being a "good wife,"etc. Patients who lived out their days there are buried in a cemetery which still exists on the grounds of FVTC. (Read about it online...sort of interesting!)
Anyway, good thing that place isn't around anymore or I may have dropped MYSELF off there. I don't mean to make fun of mental illness, I know many people struggle with it and often people end their lives over it. I know it can be a very serious issue and that is not what I'm joking about here. I'm just saying, I wish I could "just think positive" as nearly everyone has told me to do so far, but I have such a fear of "what if it didn't work." There's some sort of weird guilt/shame that comes with it not working...a feeling of "embarrassment." It would be such a devastation that I can't imagine myself even going there, but at the same time I feel like I need to be ready for that. These thoughts have a tendency to make you feel ca-ray-zee.
But then there are the "signs." I keep going back to the "two hawks" that I saw as we left the clinic after transfer. The one hawk was definitely my sister...but maybe the other one was Rob's Grandma who I KNOW is cheering us on from heaven hoping we have babies of our own...or maybe the hawk was my mom's friend Franny who told my mom before she passed that "Jennine will have a baby." Whoever my sister is "hanging out with" in heaven decided to show up with her that day and offer me a sign - a double good luck sign - of two hawks. Either that, or after seeing the two geese in the parking lot and then the two hawks perhaps I should be like Evan Almighty and start making plans to build an Ark!
Today when driving home there was a bumper sticker that said "EARTH" but it had the middle part bolded. "EARTH." I don't know what the sticker stands for actually, but ART stands for "assisted reproductive technology." So I thought it was funny that my eye caught that. Then, the last 2 times I got in my car the radio had baby commercials on. This morning it was Bellin Health - the best place to have a baby. (Even though I won't be delivering there, it was still a baby commercial). Then when I left to go home today it was the commercial where the moms are having "questions" about pregnancy "Should I be eating different foods? How much does it cost? How much are diapers? Now that we've decided to try, how long will it take?" I love that commercial because I'd like to tell the girl that asks that question..."8 years. It will take 8 years." :)
The other night I did have a little something creepy go on. In the middle of the night around 1:30am, I had horrible cramps. I mean bad. They HURT. They lasted about 15 minutes and came and went. Then they subsided and never came back. I was scared, but then wondered if it was a good sign - that my uterus was making room for my implanting embryos.
Then, I had my OHSS check up. My symptoms are subsiding...which I should be thankful for...but again thought - great - does this mean I'm not pregnant? They told me OHSS could get worse with pregnancy! I Googled the heck out of all of this stuff and can't really seem to find what I'm looking for - whatever that even is!
The last couple days I've had total hot flashes at work. I mean, I am NEVER - I repeat - NEVER - warm at work. I am the girl that wears the N&M Fleece jacket nearly every day over my work outfit, and I sometimes run a space heater under my desk - even in the summer. But I have been getting SO HOT that I sweat just sitting still. I am SURE this is related to the meds I am on (progesterone and estradiol) but one can hope/wonder.
Also, last night I fell asleep on the couch at 7:10pm!!!!! I was in bed, due to Rob's urging, at 7:30pm. I mean, I'm sure the meds make me tired, but maybe twins make you tired too. :)
I've read everything online to if you have a cramp it's a good sign that things are growing...OR...it's a bad sign that you're getting your period. I've read that if you don't have a cramp it's a good thing because you aren't getting your period...OR...it's a bad sign because it means nothing is growing inside. I've read and read and read - even after promising myself NOT TO READ all that stuff.
I've come to the realization and rationalization that "what will be will be." No matter what I think, feel, or don't feel right now does not matter and will not affect the outcome. Whether it worked or didn't work my body already knows that. It's my brain that's having a hard time being left out of the loop. I can try to decide now how I will handle whatever news we'll get, but even that is impossible. You don't really know how to react to any outcome until it becomes reality for you.
So for an entire week - a week from today - I must try to keep it together and try not to analyze everything I feel and/or don't feel. I need to progress with life as normal, yet have that picture of my little embryos smiling at me from my refrigerator door reminding me that they were carefully placed inside me with all the hope in the world of them sticking.
I continue to talk to God and ask for his blessing for this very important endeavor in our lives.
I must rely on all the prayers and support of family and friends. This week I've had people from the dock at work say they would pray for us, I had a friend make us dinner one night so I wouldn't have to cook, I had a friend stop and wheel our garbage cans up our driveway to assist us....it's amazing the blessings this journey has brought to us.
I look at my husband who is taking the best care of me, and hope with all my heart that I am finally able to carry our baby for us and expand our family. The thought that those little embryos are part him and part me and that there is a possibility that they are growing inside me right now is nearly completely emotionally overwhelming to me.
Then I wonder why science hasn't come farther than it already has. Really? You can do all this cool stuff with medications and petri dishes in a lab, but when it comes right down to it, the best they can do is shoot the embryos in there and cross everyone's fingers that they figure out how to attach on their own. Sigh.
I can't imagine the next week, but then again, I know Friday will get here. I remember thinking, when I found out I had to have my polyp removed, "will we EVER get to transfer?" And now that has come and gone. I know that every step of this process has brought us to this moment and that we did everything we could to make things work. I remember worrying "what if I don't grow any eggs?" Then I had 22. I remember "what if none of them fertilize?" Then I had 7. So for me to think "what if it didn't work?" is only natural. I hope I prove myself wrong again on Friday! Having the polyp removed, and finding out I had PCOS, and finding the 2 best, good quality embryos to put back in have all got to be good signs. Maybe, just maybe, it will work and I can quit being Negative Nancy!
I did read my horoscope again today. Check it out:
Friday
"You may be facing some trials and tribulations right now, Aries. In fact, you may be preoccupied with the state of things, and it could be wearing you down. (ya think?) The more you think about it, the harder it seems to deal with because you look at the big, messy picture and you wonder how you'll ever set it right. But you will set it right. The way to do so is to fix it one small step at a time. Concentrate only on one small challenge until it is done, then move on to the next, and so on. Pretty soon, it won't be so big, and, if you address the issues positively, the cosmos will send some excellent assistance your way."
Therefore, if I take the next week one day at a time, and deal with each emotion positively, I may have the heavens smiling on me on Friday. Speaking of the cosmos, a long time ago I had a psychic reading at a friend's house in Oshkosh. I remember the psychic telling me something like "I would get pregnant but he saw a lot of chaos with it." All these years I attributed that to my previous miscarriages. BUT - maybe he was seeing this....that it would be a chaotic road - the IVF journey - that would take me to my pregnancy.
He also told me there were ghosts in my bathroom though, so who knows!
Praying for good news on 10/5/12,
Jennine, Robbie, Baby Bobbie and Horhay
PS - I wore maternity jeans to work today. Ashamed? No. I am not. Even though my swollen ovaries and abdominal fluid is subsiding, I still have a "puffy" belly and didn't feel like crushing my embabies by stuffing myself into some tight jeans. If I could wear my pajamas to casual Friday at work this would not have been an issue...but since those are completely outlawed, I went with my "gut" (literally) and chose to rock some maternity pants, cleverly hidden under a large shirt of course! Looking forward to the day when I will have a REAL reason for wearing those clothes! Thanks again Angela Sprangers for giving me your maternity clothes stash - they are coming in handy already!!!
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