It just breaks my heart

So J.'s SIL (let's call her K.) is a very nosey person. She is a stay at home mom and her connection to the adult world is attempting to be in everyone's business. For better or worse I gave in to her questions about why we weren't pregnant yet.
In the nicest way I can I have been slowly letting her know that her constant questions and implications is very hurtful to those who are unable to get pregnant by looking at their spouse like she is. I guess I need to be more blunt.
J.'s cousin has a 3 year old. We were unable to make it to that side of the family's Christmas earlier in December, but I of course heard all about it from K. She said that while the girls were playing with their presents she was telling the 3 year old that she should tell Mommy and Daddy to give her a brother or sister. . . wouldn't it be nice to have someone to play with. . . she doesn't want to be an only child. . . on and on. Well her mom started crying and told K. that they have been trying to "give her a sibling" but haven't been able to get pregnant.
It just broke my heart to hear this story. Seriously, has nothing I said to her made her the least bit more sensitive to conversations like that?!?!
I know she doesn't understand what we are going through. She even admitted that she takes for granted the fact that they got pregnant so easily, but I think it is all things that she says in order to get out of these embarrassing situations.
It just breaks my heart to hear about more people having to go through this pain that we have gone through. I wouldn't wish this on anyone!

"Not the Worst Christmas"

Where do I begin with these Holidays? I feel like J. and my last statement tonight sums it all up, “It wasn’t the worst Christmas season we have been through!”

That isn’t saying much, but at least it wasn’t the worse. We started on Christmas Eve at my mom’s house. She was actually a bit crabby. Which isn’t like her on when she is having people over to her house. One of my brothers wasn’t there because he has this “really important” job and couldn’t fly into town for Christmas Eve. She was crabby about that. I don’t understand why she wasn’t just happy that he wasn’t around to pretend he knows everything and start fights just for the fun of it. Maybe his absence was the start of things not being that bad this Christmas.

I had a bit of a cold that I was getting over and still a bit sore from the pelvic laparoscopy (see picture J. took to the left, you can't see anything, but he still wanted to take a picture) , not that I was getting much sympathy from my mom. I have not shared any of this journey with my Grandma and she was there that night so I refrained from talking about anything. She is a very spiritual person. She has Virgin Mary’s all over her house with holy water sitting under them. Anything that goes wrong with anyone she cares about she acts as though it was her fault and spends all day praying her rosary. Despite the advice of my mom’s sister I have not told my Grandma any of this. My aunt thinks my Grandma praying for me is going to help me get pregnant. I don’t think I could handle my little old Grandma creating blisters on her fingers praying the rosary for me. Don’t get me wrong I am not disagreeing that prayer can help, but I don’t think me worrying about my Grandma worrying is going to help me out too well either.

Okay, on with the Christmas celebrations. Christmas Day we drove to J.’s family for a couple of nights. I really dread visiting his family and wonder what horrible thing could happen this time. But, like we said, it wasn’t the worst Christmas we have been through. We showed up to the extended O. Family Christmas celebration 3 hours late – perfect timing in my book. But of course J’s SIL was the first to shout out – “Good of you to come” “Where you drinking to much last night” No we just have family that we actually like hanging out with and we had to drive 5 hours on Christmas Day to see you dysfunctional people so sorry we weren’t so quick to get here. Oh if I only could say that and still be able to show my face at the in-laws again.

We survived the couple hours at the extended family celebration and enjoyed the next two days with J.'s nieces. 6 - 4- and 16 months, they were busy and a ton of fun to be around. They get so many toys during the holidays. We were boring and got them clothes, but we took the older ones to a movie. We are hoping that it will be the memories of fun times and hanging out with us that will last longer than the DS games and Polly Pockets.

It wasn't the worst Christmas we have spent, but we are hoping the best are yet to come!

Glad it's winter break

I am so glad it is winter break. My stomach is still sore from the surgery on Friday and I can't even imagine going to teach tomorrow. I hope I am feeling better by Christmas Eve though. I don't want to be spending my entire holiday on my back . . . and not in the way you are thinking. :-)

I put together digtal photo key chains for my mom and my mother-in-law tonight and I so wished to be putting baby pictures into them, but maybe next year. I was able to put some fun travel pictures that we have gone on. Many people have said to me "just think if you had a baby you wouldn't be able to go on all those trips."

I would give up all those trips to just be holding a baby in my lap right now. I would much rather have this pain in my stomach be from labor and delivery than from this surgery.

2009 will be a better year! That is what we keep telling ourselves.

Anesthesia - yuck!

I knew I didn't do well with anesthesia. The last time I was on it was when I got my wisdom teeth out. That was when I was a senior in highschool and I still remember how bad the vomiting was afterward. So I let the anesthesologist know that and he made some ajustments to my meds and it seemed to help. I only threw up once before I left the hospial.

My mom and hubby talked with my doctor after the surgery and she said everything was clear. So I only needed two incisions which was nice! My stomach is still sore from the gas put it in and from the two incisions, but the pain meds they gave me are great!

I woke up from the surgery and after I got more pain meds from the nurse I got a bit emotional. I kept asking myself why I have to go through all this pain - both physical and emotional to be a Mom. The nurses at the hospital were so nice. They said that since I am such a good teacher (I told them I dreamt about my studens while I was put out) I will make a great Mom. They hoped to see me on the 6th floor (must be the maternity floor) the next time I am there. I hope so too!

With every sting of pain I feel in my stomach today I feel it 10 times over in my heart. I hope that since everything is clear that I will be anouncing a pregnancy in January!

I am hoping to call the doctor's office next week to see where we go from here. I am assuming that we will wait until I get Aunt Flo again. I hope we can get started with another IUI as soon into Jan as we can!

Until then, I am sitting on the couch trying to get my dog not to jump on my stomach.

The start. . .

I am starting this blog, but I am far away from starting the journey of becoming a mother. I don't think anyone will ever read this, but it will make me feel better to write it.

I am a scrapbooker and they say with that process you should start with present day and if you get caught up with that you can then begin to work on the past. That is the approach I am going to take with this blog. I am going to start with how I am feeling and what I am going through tonight on Thursday, December 18th and if I get time and energy I will bring this blog all the way back to April of 2007.

Tonight I am sitting at home alone the night before my pelvic laparoscopy. The first time we scheduled this surgery it was scheduled to see why I wasn't getting pregnant. Now that we have re-scheduled it and are actually going through with it to check to see what may have caused the ecptopic pregnany and again why I am not getting pregnant. Dual purpose surgery!

So that brings me to the past a bit. In September of 2008 we underwent IUI #2, two weeks after the IUI my doctor's office did a urine pregnancy test that came up negative. I stopped the progesterone, had a baseline ultra sound, and started the bcp because cysts were found on both ovaries from the Gonal-f injections. I bled a normal period then stopped. Getting myself prepared for another round of IF treatments and IUI #3. Then the bleeding started again. "Just to be on the safe side" they said take a pregnancy test before we start treatment (at this point I am 4 weeks post IUI).

So during the middle of the school day (I am a teacher) I left school (don't worry my kids were at P.E. class) and got a pregnancy test. I took it in the teacher's restroom and saw that line that I had been waiting 19 months to see. I was pregnant!

But, why wasn't I happy? Because this was the second time I was bleeding since the IUI, how could that be good? Also I had stopped the progesterone and I was told that doing that could force a miscarriage - is that what was happening? And I started the bcp - you hear of people getting pregnant all the time on the pill so that really was the last thing on my mind. The last thing on my mind was that J. (that is my hubby) was out of town for work and he tends to freak out easily about stuff. I didn't want to tell him over the phone.

I called the office and they had me come in the next day for a HCG blood test and progesterone test. I was in fact pregnant, but my levels were really low for how far along I was suppose to be. So there went the next 7 weeks, blood tests, ultrasounds, 2 trips to the oncology floor of the hospital for chemo drugs for an ectopic pregnancy (of which I only got a shot on one of the days). And finally after 47 days of bleeding and tests I was officially not pregnant anymore.

So that is where we are now not pregnant, going in for a surgery tomorrow to figure out why, and dealing with the lovely holidays.