V for Victory

What’s up with UTIs (besides being awful, of course)?

I really have nothing profound to say about this, except that I have one and it sucks. I’m pretty sure I got it from the doctor poking around in there during the Mock Embryo Transfer. I started feeling symptoms a day or two after the MET, but I dismissed it as my cervix being irritated by the iodine or something. I wish I had listened to myself. The symptoms have grown steadily worse in the week since and now my bits basically feel like this:

*

I’m attempting to drown myself in cranberry juice while I wait for the nurse to return my call. I’m hopeful they can prescribe something over the phone so I don’t have to go in to have them tell me what I already know. I’ve had plenty of these in my lifetime, honey; I know what’s up. And it is a lady garden on FIRE. Just gimmie the drugs (ok, antibiotics, but drugs sound sexier) already!

*V for…vendetta?

Hope, or Something Like It

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

– Emily Dickinson

Some days I think it will never happen. That it will never come true. That’s I’ll never see the second line again, or it will never go past a few weeks. Sometimes, a tiny voice, barely more than a whisper, tells me to give up. To stop trying. That it isn’t meant to be.

And other days I’m filled with Hope. Emily D. describes Hope as a thing with feathers “that perches in the soul”. In my mind, Hope is like honey. Sticky and thick, it oozes into the nooks and crannies of your soul, rather than perches daintily.  And like honey, Hope is almost impossible to fully clean up, wipe off, get rid of. I’m always thinking that this vitamin is IT! Or this shot will do the trick! Or this procedure! Or this new donor! But it never is.

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I’ve been kind of down the last few days. I don’t know if it’s the weather (crappy) or the birth control pills (still barfy) or just the feeling that I’m sitting still while the world races on without me. I think that the birth control pills are contributing to my sense of stalling out. At least with the injections and the blood work and the office visits I feel like I’m DOING something. I’m actively WORKING toward having a baby. Being on birth control pills goes against every instinct I have, and my sub conscience is screaming at me.

My parents sent me a card this week.

The inside reads:

Here’s Hoping.

Birth Control Barf

I started BCP yesterday. It’s kind of a screwy, manipulative cycle in which I’m taking BCP for two weeks, stopping to get my period and then going BACK on BCPs, but whatever. I’m starting the IVF cycle.

We also decided to do Option B – and thank you for all of your advice and suggestions! Basically, we viewed the extra 5k as an insurance policy, and it was worth having to pay it back. And if I get pregnant on the first or second cycle (and it sticks) I’ll be much more focused on the pregnancy and baby than five thousand dollars.

Does birth control make anyone else barfy? I took it last night before bed and woke up this morning feeling extremely queasy. And almost 8 hours later I still feel sick. How can I go through injections to the stomach with no side effects and one teensy-weensy pill makes me a blubbery/barfy mess?

Hormones are weird.