Reality Hits Hard

I never would have imagined how much it meant to receive so much love and support from all of you earlier this week. Thank you for walking this journey with me.

* * * * *

A few hours after my last post, I got a call letting me know that my Grandma had a stroke. She'd been at a writing class (no wonder I love writing so much!) and couldn't stand up to read her poem. Thank god that she was with so many people, because they called for help right away. She was able to get treatment very quickly. 

I adore my grandma. 

I am on night duty with her at the hospital tonight. We haven't left her alone since she arrive at the ED on Monday. Even laying in a hospital bed, with all of these iv's and monitors and bleeping lights, she is as graceful and composed as I have ever been. She really is an amazing woman. 

I miss my grandpa. His time with us ended just a few months after my wedding. He always was the family patriarch. We all looked to him for guidance and direction. What grandpa said was the way things were. He was so wise and strong. I miss him all the time. 

Grandma has been on her own since he passed. Its been hard for her, I know. But she is so strong. A military wife who raised four young ones while her husband fought for our county in wars where many soldiers never came home - yep she's a fighter. and I love her.

I cried when they sold the family home. We all did. They needed the money, and the house was too big. It had been grandma's parents home when they settled here. She lived there with the kids while grandpa was away at war. We lived there with grandma and grandpa when my dad got out of the army. That home was always home for me, for my dad, for grandma. 

My grandma is a beautiful woman. Really gorgeous. She was beautiful always, and has aged so gracefully. She told my sister this afternoon, "thank god her face looks okay, because that would just be too much." 

My aunt will arrive tomorrow. She is the youngest of the four, the only girl, and the one who grandpa left in charge of the affairs before he passed. She and grandma are hilarious together. Grandma loves it when Aunt comes to visit, and Aunt's heart breaks that she is so far away the rest of the time. 

You know, I dream of growing old with ML. I dream of celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary surrounded by our family, like we did for my grandparents. My grandma may be getting older, but she is not alone. Not tonight, and not ever. 

* * * * *

So on my way over to the hospital tonight, driving our 13 year old 275k mile minivan that we bought from my MIL 150k ago, I noticed the temperature gage was on hot. I called ML and he said not to panic, we'd deal with it the next day. It was just a few more miles so I continued. 

It felt like the car was losing power, but I was driving up a hill and at my exit anyway. As I roll up to the stoplight the car lost power. And then smoke started poring out of the hood, and into the cabin. I threw on the blinkers and jumped out of the car with my phone. Freakin Ay. 

Some guy stopped and helped me move the car out of way of traffic. My phone was nearly dead, my mom was waiting for me to relieve her from her shift at the hospital, I was so flustered that I couldn't figure out how to call for roadside assistance. Smoke continued to pour from the car.  I really was just down the road from the hospital so I grabbed my overnight bag, locked the car, and caught a ride to a safer location with the guy who had stopped. F. me - I'd locked the keys in the car. 

I called the roadside assistance and they said that they couldn't get a tow truck out until I had the keys. Gotta love it that our other car is currently in the shop. And just tonight we were talking about how reliable and trouble free the van has been. I should have knocked on wood.

I had my mom leave a note on the windshield, and have my fingers crossed that the CHP doesn't tow us tonight. ML will bike the extra set of keys over in the morning and we'll deal with it then. 

* * * * *

I felt so tired today. Like the delayed emotion of Monday's news was slowly catching up with me. Not in the sense that I feel sadder now, just that I feel a little drained emotionally. Tired. and a little hopeless again. It all just feels so futile, and pointless. Like the pain/happiness balance is out of wack and there is just too much hurt. I want to think that the happiness will come back around again, but it feels so far away. 

Hot Water

Hot water that comes of of the ground is freakin amazing. I never cease to be fully amazed at the wonders of nature when I discover naturally created hot pools of water inviting me to soak. We’d planned to camp at a hot spring last night. (*at the time of writing - this post had to wait for internet access.)

I dropped the boys (ML and Mr.T) off to take a 60 mile bike ride and spent the next three hours wandering around the cutest little town. The plan was to follow the path that they took and meet up with them at a ranger station. The plan fell apart when the road turned from a paved one to a gravel one. I could see their tire tracks so I figured they persevered to follow the plan. There were a number of forks in the road and I did my best to guess which way to turn. Every so often I’d come across a sign that pointed in the direction of my destination.  I was concerned that I might be lost, and that I was no longer following the path that the boys took, and that no one would know where to come looking for me if something happened, but continued on my way.

And then, after at least an hour of driving and forking, the gravel road was blocked. Totally blocked. A big gravel mound with a few fallen trees. No possible way over or around it. Crap. 

Panic started to set in. Where the fuck was I? Why didn’t they leave me a sign? There was nothing for me to do but back up and go back. I had no idea how to go back, there had been so many forks in the road. I thought that they must have just continued over the roadblock and continued to our agreed upon destination. Even if I did find my way back to where I’d started from it would take me an extra three or four hours to get to the destination on an alternate path. 

I looked at the clock. It was already 8pm. It was going to get dark soon. crap. I came across another fork in the road. I had to pee. As I got back into the car I had that awful skin prickly feeling that I get when anxiety is taking over. I took some deep breaths and decided that all I could do at this point was commit to a different direction. There was a directional sign at this junction. I wrote a note with my name, the date, the time, and the direction that I was heading in, thinking that the boys must be at the destination realizing that was lost in the national forest and maybe getting ready to send a ranger out to look for me.  I tucked my note into the sign and continued on.

Long panicked story short, I left a few more notes, finally ended up back on a paved road that had an arrow drawn into it with charcoal. Turns out that there were a whole series of arrows at each succeeding junction, and that they were in fact left for me. At some point my phone beeped with a text message from ML. The boys knew I must be lost and were waiting for me at a pizza place in the nearest town. He told me that they left arrows for me. Not sure how the text came thru, because I still had no cell service. 

Finally, I was found. The boys were found. An hour after sitting close to ML I was feeling back to normal. We were no where near our planned destination. We got some dinner at a little diner and directions to a nearby campground. 

There is more to say here (about dinner), but it is for another post.

We found a beautiful national forest campground (blue pool) right along a river. Perfect. and in the morning our neighbors told us about a hot springs a mile up the road. it was beautiful. We made some breakfast, packed up camp, unloaded a mile down the road and spent the next hour soaking up the glorious natural hot water that was emerging from the ground in a perfect little pool right alongside the river.  

Our best laid plans went terribly array, yet we still managed to find exactly what we were  looking for all along. Beautiful.

Logic Prevails?

So much to write about, and so little time.

Our SA is next week. I talked to my therapist about it, because I want to make sure that I am prepared to receive and handle the results. She suggested that we have the Doc email the results rather than call, so that ML and I can read them on our own time, as opposed to getting a call while we are in the car (for 12 hours with two other people). We kind of walked thru my reaction if they are negative, which I had kind of been focused on. Then we talked about my reaction if there is sperm. Ironic as it sounds, I have a lot more anxiety about that. There are a whole series of actions that get kicked into high gear if this SA finds sperm. And I would want to start them all immediately, which isn't really feasible for 10 days while we are on vacation. So instead I will just obsess about it during our vacation, and since we'll be camping I will be without any access to the internet or reliable phone service to start planning.

Awesome therapist also suggested that I check in with ML about all of this. To see what he is thinking and feeling about everything, and to let him know what I am thinking and feeling. (Duhhh. She often has the most common sense suggestions, that I somehow fail to see clearly on my own.)  Although I think about this stuff a lot, ML prefers not to think about it and has some magical ability to turn off that part of his brain. (Can you sense my jealousy!) I know that he doesn't like to think or talk about it, so I try to be thoughtful about how often I bring it up. So we hadn't really talked about this...

...Until I brought it up the other night. He clearly hadn't been thinking much about it and started to panic a little when I started to talk about having the Doc email the results so that we wouldn't get them in the car with his friends. He looked at me like I might be totally crazy when I said that if the SA shows sperm that I fully expected us to find a sperm bank on our trip so that he could make deposits during our vacation. He was panicked because he is worried about me. and my reaction. and about these results 'breaking me', like the last results did. He wants to wait until we get home to get the SA. I cried.

I tried to explain that I will be fine, That I just need to talk thru the negative/positive reactions now and that I will be fine when we are in the car for 12 hours with other people and unable to talk about any of this. I am so much stronger now. I have so many support tools in place now. I can handle this. I've been planning on this SA being next Wednesday for months. I can handle anything, I just can't handle changing the plan.

He thinks that this will ruin our vacation.

I took a zanax, finished crying, and went to sleep. He couldn't sleep, woke up at 4am and watched the Tou.r de F.rance for 4 hours. He is concerned about me. and probably feels a little like he has no control over these plans that I am so focused on.

I couldn't see it that night, but he might be right. It might be easier/better to reschedule the SA for after we return. I suppose I should talk to him about this again. These are not my choices to make alone. and I trust that he knows me better than I know myself when it comes to things like this. and it really isn't fair that my out of control emotions should ruin our vacation. We are in this together.

SA Next Week

Oh my gosh, I think I might have actually blushed when I saw that someone had submitted our upcoming SA to LFCA. Thank you for such a kind and thoughtful gift. Really, I wish I could give you, whoever you are, a great big hug.

So, yeah, SA is scheduled for next Wednesday. One week from today. It's been taking up more and more space in my brain, but I can't quite figure out what I think or feel. The only thing I know is that I want to line up all of my support systems so that I can experience any disappointment, but then bounce back. I don't want to crash into the bottomless pit of sadness and despair that caught up with me last time we got bad news. I can't do that again.

In some part of my brain I don't expect that we'll ever get good news. ever.

And in another part of my brain I am so hopeful that I 'joked' about a miracle for me last month.

The doc gave us a 50/50 chance that this FSH therapy could, in theory, result in sperm production. He explained that even if it was successful, there probably wouldn't be enough sperm to spill into the ejaculate and would still require surgical extraction and ISCI.  But the thing is, this is an experimental treatment. Its not like the doc has seen/heard of more than a couple cases like this in his entire career. So really, anything is possible, but it is not a proven treatment, so it is more likely than not that this SA will be negative.

And if it is, I want to grieve, then move on.

So, to make it all a little more complicated, or possibly a blessing in disguise, we are leaving for 10 days of vacation immediately following the deposit next Wednesday. We'll be departing on a 12 hour road trip  with my lover's best friend and a hitch-hiker acquaintance. So we'll get a call with the results while sitting in a car with two, for the purposes of this kind of news, strangers. I'll probably cry, and they won't know why. But they are boys and probably won't ask.

I'll bring my xana.x and have it handy in case my emotions start to get the better of me. and I'll have my love, right there with me (way better than drugs!). I'll paint my nails, which for some reason makes me feel good. and I'll have my laptop, so I can write. Writing has been the most incredible therapy. It is an outlet for the pain, a place to put it where I know it will be safe and where I can deal with it in smaller chunks. I'm meeting with my most awesome therapist tomorrow and I'm sure we'll come up with a few more tools to pack in my little resiliency toolkit.

So, yeah, I've not wanted to think about this, and have put off writing about it. Apparently I needed the LFCA push :) Regardless of the results next Wednesday, I feel your support and love. and it really means a lot to me.

Taught to be Proud

In preparation for my first ICLW, I tried to write up a little something about me, but nothing came out. So instead, you get a little insight about where I come from. After 18 months of trying naturally, husband was diagnosed with azoospermia due to maturation arrest. Our Someday Story summarizes our journey thus far. Thanks for visiting!

I had to drive to the City yesterday for a work thing. It is in the car, while I am driving alone, that I do a lot of thinking. There was a point earlier on this journey when that car thinking left me in tears nearly every time I drove anywhere. But like I said last post, I am stronger this year. 

When I lost all my local radio stations, I dug thru the glove compartment to find some old CD’s to keep me company. I found an old favorite, Tea. Leaf. Green., and popped it in. The first song starts with “I was taught to be proud of where I come from”, and it got me thinking. My experience with infertility is grounded in the roots of my family and upbringing - where I come from.

My mom has spent her life working with pregnant couples and new families. For years she taught natural childbirth classes in our living room, ran a breastpump rental company out of our hall closet, and teaches new parents how to embrace their new role. We had placenta’s in tupperware in our refrigerator, blow up charts detailing the stages of labor and delivery scattered in closets, and half naked women on our couch learning how to breastfeed their newborn infants. This is where I come from. 

When I got my period, my mom hosted a menarche party to celebrate my passage to womanhood. She invited a couple of my closest girlfriends and their moms, a couple of the ladies who I babysat for, and a couple other older female family friends. They gave me little gifts to symbolize the power and wonder of being a woman. It was at a really fancy restaurant and I actually felt really special. Maybe it was that party, or my moms guidance, but I’ve always embraced my monthly cycle. I’ve trusted that my body is going to take care of me, and someday nurture new life. This is where I come from.