When you are TCC (trying to conceive) there is this funny little game you play with yourself to help you not break your own heart every month. You don't play it at first. At first you allow yourself the truest sense of hope every month. It's free and powerful and joyful and awesome. Every month you think, "I could be pregnant this month" and the emphasis is on the "COULD BE". There is the hope and the chance and the possibility of the "COULD BE". It sits in your heart and your head and you may eagerly await the pee stick if you get past a certain day on your luteal phase count. It can put a spring to your step or a smile on your face. You may start thinking of yourself in the sense of being a Mom because you COULD BE. Then, if you have a Day 1 (the start of your menstrual cycle), you are crushed and broken and suddenly you feel like you have lost your identity. After all, yesterday you could be a mom and today holds no such "could be"s for you.
I was blessed in that I knew many many years before I had ever met my husband, let alone try to get pregnant, that I may not be able to get pregnant. When I didn't follow my dr's advice, it wasn't because I didn't trust their medical opinion. It was because they were all suggesting that, out of fear of infertility, that I should grab the nearest sperm donor and get pregnant immediately. "Hey, you are a 20yr old college kid, forget all your life plans and get pregnant now so that when you are ready to have a husband and family and all that, well, you won't have missed out on getting pregnant and you can feel fulfilled in your life." I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of what I was told by many drs. Most of you know my enthusiasm towards the medical profession. Instead of working from a place of fear, I chose instead to believe that it's always God's plan and what's best for the kidlets that a child should be born in a happy and healthy 2 parent home. I chose to wait until I was married to start trying to get pregnant.
As with everything that has to do with my health, I had to fight the drs in order to be seen by a specialist. Then, it turns out that I was still only being given half the picture so I started reading up. So much information is available for us women and they never volunteer it in the schools or the drs office. Such a loss of time, precious time, since we weren't timing things correctly and didn't have a clue about the signals the body gives you that it's a great time for some private time with your husband! I have long suspected that drs get nervous when you know at least as much about your body as they are supposed to know. I'll make time to write about that in the near future.
So, for the past few months we've been trying Clomid. It's kind of crazy but my side effects have been pretty minimal. It's increased the number of eggs I'm going to ovulate that cycle but so far no one has gotten overly excited. I think that the size of the eggs are still not what they have been hoping to see. They even made me come in for the hormone blood workup I was avoiding during tax season. This month has been a crazy crazy time. Especially the last few weeks. Long story short, I felt certain that my stress levels were high enough that I may be delaying ovulation this cycle. I warned the Dr about that when I went in for my ultrasound. I didn't want her to give me their "Worried eyes". Today was a new Dr so I didn't know what to expect. However, she got all excited when she found my first ovary. A really good size egg and a smaller one. Hurray!! When she glided over to the other ovary she got even more excited!! At this point even I'm getting a little excited. She found a bigger egg on the other ovary, along with a smaller one. She was super impressed that I had an egg that size considering how far along I am in the cycle.
For about 30 minutes I enjoyed a happiness and joy that I haven't had in months. I enjoyed hope!! Then my more cautious side reminded me to not enjoy the happiness and hope too much lest I also suffer thru a broken heart in another 2 weeks. This is the negotiations you go thru when you are TCC. Part of you wants to throw a party and another part of you wants to go into lock-down so that you can keep it private and not have to share your pain with a bunch of people. The other part of you just wants to forget you even know you are ovulating and get on with daily life. It's kind of this crazy dance between you, yourself and you.
For the record, I'm tired of reasonable hope. It's a hope that is allowed in but either just for a short time or as a lesser version of it's true self. Unfortunately, the broken heart at the end of the cycle can threaten to overwhelm and take over. God didn't make us to only be sort of joyful. He meant for us to be filled with his joy and peace and calmness. It's hard to focus on just that when you also have the voices of the people around you demanding your attention. Drs and bosses and frenemies and on and on. I wish I had even just one day where I feel like I could clear my head and just focus on God and what He's trying to tell me.
So, reasonable hope won out for today. I'm excited about the 2 eggs that are huge and even excited about the 2 smaller eggs that may come a few days later. However, I'm not going to dedicate several days of my life to just be sad if things don't work out. I don't see how that helps and really just keeps me in a dark place that would be hard to get out of without some help. Some days I feel like a crazy person just trying to walk the line between "AWESOME" and "THAT SUCKS". Some days I'm glad for whatever hope I have to hold on to.
Today I firmly held on to my reasonable hope but tonight when I dream . . . who knows what COULD BE!!
