Little things that hit hard and some random whining

Sometimes the little things hit the hardest and sometimes those little things are seemingly unrelated to infertility.  Last weekend I drove past a yard sale sign.  I've always loved yard sales (and second-hand shopping in general) and have said for years that I can't wait to have kids so I can go buy them all the clothing they need at the sales.  This is the first year where I know it's not a possibility, not even a small one.  I'd like to say that I was able to brush it off, but the truth is that four days later I'm still thinking about it.

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It snowed today.  It didn't stick.  It was mixed with rain.  But it snowed.  It's almost May, damn it!

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If you're uncomfortable with discussion (bitching)  about lady parts, skip the next two paragraphs.....

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I go for my IUD follow up next Tuesday.  I'm actually glad to be going.  I'm used to extended periods of bleeding/spotting, but this is extreme, even for me.  I don't think I want to give up on it quite yet (all of the literature I've read about Mirena says that it can take up to six months for a person to adjust and irregular bleeding is to be expected, though I'm not sure that something like 28 consecutive days classifies as irregular), but I've hit my emotional threshold for handling it.  On the bright side, if it ever stops, I'll get to replace all of my underwear!

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Hot flashes are sucking the life out of me.  They literally almost make me wish for winter again.  I just want to sleep through the night.  Even six hours.  Or five.  I plan to address this at the IUD follow up and see if we can't figure out something to make them more manageable.  They didn't seem quite as bad in the fall and winter since the outside temperatures were so much cooler, but now that it's getting warmer, it's pretty miserable.  I drove home from the grocery store on Saturday with the AC blasting on high and a bag of frozen peas on my neck.  Not fun.

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I won't bore you with anymore whining in this post, but I'm sure I'll have more things to whine about in the future.  I'm thinking some wine with my whine may be necessary.

Things that make you go hmmmmmm

Did anyone else see the news reports about the 65 year-old woman who is pregnant with quadruplets?      She already has 13 kids ranging in age from 44 to nine.  Here are a few of my thoughts, pretty much in order:

• (string of curse words)
• This woman, who is literally one year shy of being double my age and already has a litter of kids,  is pregnant and I could never get pregnant (despite being a normal age).  It's unfair.
• Math.  At minimum this woman will be 83 when her kids graduate from high school, provided that she lives that long.  The average life expectancy for a German woman is 83.  It seems selfish to me to take steps to get pregnant when it's unlikely that she will live to see them through adulthood.
• What do her other kids think?  Particularly the 44 year old big brother/sister.  Or the grandchildren who will be older than their aunts/uncles.
• Does the doctor who approved and preformed IVF even have ethical standards?  The human body just plain isn't designed to handle pregnancy at that age.  Case in point: the article says that it took multiple attempts (though it doesn't specify how many).
• I wonder how the egg donor feels about a woman of this age carrying a pregnancy with her eggs?

I try really hard not to judge people for the choices that they make.  I understand the desire to have a baby.  I understand wanting to do whatever you can to achieve that goal.  I also understand wanting to test the limits of nature and science.  But there has to be a point where doctors step in and say "enough."  At 65 years old the human body isn't designed to carry a pregnancy, otherwise we'd see pregnant senior citizens walking around all the time.  Just my two cents.

Infertility torments me, even in my dreams

I don't dream often, or at least if I do I don't remember the dreams.  Or maybe I just don't sleep enough to dream.  Anyway, last night I had two infertility related dreams that shook me up.

The first dream was weird and completely unlikely to happen.  I was at a press conference.  I got the distinct impression that it was at a hospital because I was in a hospital gown and there were doctors beside me.  I don't know what the press conference was about but all of the reporters were asking me if I had kids, when I planned to have kids, why I don't have kids, etc.  Finally I started crying and telling them that they weren't supposed to ask me those questions.

The second dream was very realistic and not completely unlikely to actually happen.  In the dream I was talking to my youngest sister about her daughter (my oldest niece) going to preschool.  I was outlining all of the positives of attending two years of preschool as opposed to one when my sister dropped the "you're not a parent, you can't possibly know anything about when is the right time to send a kid to preschool*."  This hurt, even in the dream.  I got the distinct impression from the dream that I did not plan to talk to my sister again anytime soon.  *I try to keep this blog at least semi anonymous, but I feel compelled to point out here that yes, I actually do know a lot about best practices in the field of education.  More than most of the general population in fact, and definitely more than my sister.

I woke up in tears and drenched in sweat, courtesy of my nightly night sweats (a term that I don't think adequately conveys the true miserableness of them).  Even after the tears receded I couldn't fall back to sleep because I was thinking about the dreams.  So I got up.  At 3:30am.  It's going to be a long day.  At least it's Friday.  Ugh.

It's bad enough that infertility finds some way to torment me on a near daily basis in my awake hours, but I really wish it wouldn't infiltrate my dreams too.

March Reading, Spring Cleaning, and Surviving Easter

One of my goals for 2015 was to read at least two books each month.  To help keep myself accountable I'm keeping track of the books that I read here on my blog.  So without further ado, here are the books that I read in March:

• The Last Letter from Your Lover by: Jojo Moyes-Another Jojo Moyes book, and another that I really liked.  This book is the intersection of a love story and a historical fiction.  The plot is simple enough that you don't have to think too much while you read but engaging enough that it kept me going.  I read the whole book in about two days.
• Breaking the Rules by: Barbara Taylor Bradford-I checked this book out from the library.  I selected it because the description on the jacket it looked interesting enough and I was in a hurry. Boring and predictable are the first two words that come to mind when thinking about how to describe this book.  This book gets a solid two thumbs down from me.

If I'm not miscalculating, I've read 7.75 novels so far this year.  Not bad considering I've already surpassed my total from last year (maybe even combined with the year before too).

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Hubs and I cleaned our whole house over the weekend.  One of the advantages of not having kids is that our house is relatively tidy on a day to day basis, but we had to do all of those tasks that nobody likes to do but they need done.  Like washing walls and baseboards, dusting, and shampooing carpets.  We also purged the long forgotten TTC/baby items that remained in the house.  It felt good.  I even found a box of unused pregnancy and ovulation tests in a seldom used drawer and rather than being reduced to a puddle of tears, I took them outside and smashed them with a hammer.  I had Twisted Sister's "We're not gonna take it" playing in my mind.  I also jokingly told hubs that they must have been from early in the TTC journey because there's no way I would have paid for the good tests (you know, the ones in the plastic casing) by the end.

I still can't face getting rid of the crib (I wrote about it at some point but couldn't find the post to link it and I'm too lazy to devote more than about two minutes to looking).  I know this is highly illogical, but I just can't face it.  Not yet.  So it will remain in a closet until such a time when I can rip the proverbial band-aid off and send it on it's way.  No rush.

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We survived Easter.  We had a quiet, low key day at home where we spent time together and largely avoided social media and the news.  We called our nieces and nephews and our parents in the morning and then turned off our phones.  It was nice to be "unplugged" and spend uninterrupted time with each other.  For dinner I convinced hubs to make chicken parmesan (being married to a third generation Italian American has it's perks!) and we shared a good bottle of wine that we'd been saving for a special occasion.  The lead up to Easter was pretty tough but the actual day wasn't so bad.  Like we did at Christmas, we put ourselves first, and I think this is a holiday strategy that we are going to continue in the future.  :)