April showers

My lovely D has been having a really hard time lately.  He's feeling really low.  As he tells me, all of his buckets are empty.  His career bucket, his spiritual bucket (largely because I've been very disconnected), his family bucket (he views as children), his health bucket (he views as how he is taking care of himself), his friendship bucket.

I try not to take it personally when he says this.  Especially because all I'm really thinking is "what about me? What about us? Isn't the us bucket good?"  It's kind of the one thing that I hold on too.  I've told him how I feel (similarly in many cases) but that it's the us bucket that keeps me going.  That if I didn't have him, if I imagine my life if we had never met, I would feel much worse than I do today.  I'm sure of it.

I've realized he thinks of the us bucket a little differently than I do - to him the us bucket is a lot about how I'm feeling.  Is this the old adage "happy wife, happy life". It makes me feel crummy that I can't be happier more often, for his sake.  I view the us bucket more about how in sync we are and how we are getting along on a day to day basis.

Last week was especially difficult for him because we were babysitting my best friend's two kids.  I've been encouraging her to go away with her husband since a year after her first was born.  They've only ever taken weekends away, and their marriage has been strained at times because of it.  They decided to take a trip, and I watched the children from 3pm to 8am.  During the day, they went to school and their baby sitter's.   D spent a few evenings with us and put the 2 year old boy to bed a few nights in a row.  The boy is cuddly, giggly and happy.  He has the brightest blue eyes and wavy blonde hair.  He's just starting to talk.

The little girl is the one who I measure our years by infertility by.  Her mother and I both started trying within months of each other.  She got pregnant right away.  I hate to associate something negative with such a beautiful little girl but it's hard not too.   She's in her first year of kindergarten this year.

I thought the boy liked me until I saw him with D.  He just loves being around men.  He cuddles with them, and wants to play with them.   My friend says he's a Daddy's boy.  So it's no surprise to me how much he loved playing with D.

They played so easily.  D even put him to bed was such a nice thing to watch.  It was also difficult from an infertility perspective,  as I know you can imagine.  This was D's most emotionally significant child care experience.  He told me that it made him realize even more about what we are missing.  And about what other people have.

On Friday, I went to my local clinic for my CD2 baseline blood work and ultrasound.  I've been doing the preparatory meds for a month and my blood work has so far been all been good.  I was feeling positive about the upcoming cycle.  I was thinking that this could be our time, maybe, just maybe.

During the ultrasound I was chatting away with the nurse.  I answered her questions about our new protocol.  I told her about our travel plans.  I wasn't even paying much attention to the ultrasound screen.  Normally I would have my eyes glued to it.  The nurse waited for a lull in the conversation and said "I think you have another cyst".

I looked up at the screen to see another large black hole on the ultrasound screen.  They took extra screen shots of it and sent me along with a package of information regarding the previous cyst and this new one.  It is on the same side as the last one, and slightly larger.

I was and am so confused.  I had the laparoscopy in February.  The doctor said he didn't see the cyst, that it had gone away.  I questioned the CCRM nurse about this and she said there is a possibility that the cyst was inside my ovary which is why he didn't see it.

I'm so pissed.  I'm wondering why they didn't do an ultrasound to confirm that it wasn't there. If it was why didn't they aspirate it?

My reaction to all of this is a hefty dose of numbness.  It's just another bump in the road.  I'm pissed and disappointed but not devastated. The nurse told me to wait until I got my blood work back to see if this was an estrogen producing cyst or not.   She said not to be so sure that the cycle was cancelled.

I came home and told D.  He was very angry and sad.  He told me (again) that he's done with all of this.  This time it was with an intensity that I haven't seen before.  Maybe that is because of how down he's been feeling, the babysitting, the other things going on in his life.  He told me he wants to foster. To do something.  Because in his mind this is not going to work.   Ouch.

That my friends, makes my heart sink more than anything.  He's always been more negative about all of these infertility procedures.  I've just accepted that as the way he copes.  And to be honest, he's been right.  Nothing has worked.  We've only been dragged through the mud for over 5 years.  Why should we think otherwise?  Why am I doing this to him?

Later in the day the nurse called back.  My estrogen was 33 and my progesterone was 1.3.  I regained a slight bit of hope.  When the CCRM nurse called though she said that the estrogen level was ok, but the cyst was too large to proceed.  Dr. Minharez (sp?) consulted on the case in Dr. Schoolcraft's absence.  She said that with a cyst over 15mm (this one was 17 x 21mm) that I can't proceed.  She officially cancelled the cycle.  We now are waiting for Dr. Schoolcraft to return.  Perhaps we will try a different protocol.  Maybe we won't.

Things I'm left wondering... Is this our final sign to move on to egg donation? Is D really at the end of his rope or was he just responding out of his frustrated and depressed state?