Let us begin

Hello dearest Bleaders.  It's been an entertaining week.  Yesterday it was really windy in T-town and my allergies decided to have a party.  They were ridiculous, no matter how many drugs I took.  And this morning, I woke up with a lovely migraine due to all the pressure from the allergies I think.  So here I lie in bed, checking email and blogging.  I'm sure there's a nap in my future today.

I bought a book a long time ago called IVF: The Wayward Stork.  It's a tiny book, 70 pages, just about IVF.  Quick and blunt, this is how you'll feel and this is what will happen...kind of a "IVF for Dummies" book.  Literally read the thing in an hour and folded down many pages to reference next month and I gave it to J even though it is definitely written for a woman because it's the quick and dirty of IVF.  There was one part that really stuck with me and I'd like to share it with you. 

I know that IVF will be an emotional roller coaster for myself and J.  From the outside (and even J) people may feel helpless.  These two pages talked about what people could do for you from the outside.  I intend to forward the email version of this post to people who don't read the blog.  So here goes....

IVF: The Wayward Stork, What to expect, who to expect it from and surviving it all...by Serah A. Tursi, M.S.W., Lea McCarthy.

"Please treat me as though I am in a crisis. I am.  I can and will cry at the drop of a hat.  I am sad, angry, scared, excited, hopeful, worried and nervous.

Please DO NOT tell me that you know how I feel unless you, yourself, have endured an IVF cycle.  This is more difficult on me than you know.

Please treat me with kid gloves, as I am hanging on by a very thin emotional thread.

Please see that everything is not business as usual in my life, household, and heart.

Please call, write or send me an email.

Please give me books or magazines that I can leave in my car for reading during endless streams of medical waiting rooms that I will visit over the next month.

Please bake, cook, or order in food for my household.  We need to eat and I am out of commission.

Please permit me a clear calendar and excuse my lack of involvement in other activities, as my days are filled with tests, results, endless appointments, phone calls, decisions, physical discomfort, and fatigue.

Please offer to go with me to an appointment or even drive me there.

Please excuse my lack of interest in everything else.  Remember what I said about crisis?

Please give me permission to do what I need to do, be it laugh, cry, sit around, or be really, really active in something.

Please help out around my house by washing a few dishes, vacuuming a room, or taking my dogs for a walk.  Remember that my husband is overwhelmed and in need of support as well.

Please let me know that you are supporting me even if the cycle tanks.  That is my biggest fear and the hardest thing to talk about.

Please remind me that I am strong enough to endure this, as I am sure to forget along the way.

Please don't ask me if I am pregnant.  If and when that occurs, I will sing it from the highest roof top."

Yes, some of these sound a little crazy and a little out there, but I have no idea what I am getting myself into.  Sure, I have read the books, the blogs, the articles, but I haven't been there.  I may feel this way for the whole month of June, for a week, or for a minute, but I feel like it's entirely possible at some point that I'll feel as described above. 

I don't know what the next month will bring.  Yes, I am excited.  I have good intentions.  I want to eat healthy, exercise, get plenty of sleep and not stress in June.  But I'm pretty sure all of those things will go out the window at some point, hopefully not at the same point.  At this point the only real things happening in June is IVF (many doctor's appointments, injections, acupuncture appointments, and I'm in a friend's wedding, which happens to be the day before my slated embryo transfer day.  So a little stress there, but I think that will be okay.  I'm not a bridesmaid, just doing a reading in the ceremony so I'm very grateful that I don't have to worry about as much as a bridesmaid might.  I'm hopeful that I can hold it together during that reading as I am a crier to begin with, and add in all the fertility drugs and nobody may be able to understand the verse I am reading. Let's hope! 

But I'm also fearful.  I feel kind of like I did with "big nasty."  However I have even less control over this, even though it is my body.  With "big nasty" I could study and read and prep.  With IVF, I'm just the body.  I can take the meds at the right time, eat healthy, exercise, sleep, and try to stay de-stressed, but I can't control the outcome.  They say to be "cautiously optimistic."  You need to be excited and ready to be pregnant, but you need to be prepared if you aren't.  How difficult is that to plan out?! 

I've already learned that I can't really read IVF books before bed because then I have IVF filled dreams and I'm only on week two of BC (birth control).  This makes things difficult because that is really my only time to read, right before bed.  The next book is The Couples Guide to In Vitro Fertilization.  It's a lot more than 70 pages.  But I am hoping it helps me understand a lot of the intricacies of the process.

Okay, that's enough for now.  Time to try and close my eyes and get this migraine to go away.  I needed to get this out because I was writing it in my head as I tried to go back to sleep and willed my migraine to go away.  And thus, I wasn't going back to sleep.

Thanks for your constant support Bleaders!  I really do appreciate all the love and support you give.

To bed, I said!