swatface384

[swatface384]

When your chips are down

I haven’t necessarily been worried about the success of my upcoming egg retrieval. My doctor has been incredibly encouraging about the likelihood of a solid retrieval. That’s why, when Vera (the nurse coordinator) called me on Wednesday (day 6) and said that she thinks I could be ready to trigger this weekend, I wasn’t super surprised. I have a lot of follicles and I generally treat my body pretty well in terms of my diet, sleep, etc. I couldn’t help but be disappointed, when 2 days later, Dr. Okeigwe when she said that I wasn’t quite ready yet. I wasn’t moving as quickly as she had thought 2 days prior. 

I know it’s not a big deal. She said things are moving along and I’m doing everything right, so nothing to worry about. But, I can’t help but feel frustrated. This is a stretch, of course, but it feels analogous to everything in my life. Hurry up and wait...I entered the process thinking the retrieval would be towards the middle/end of the second week so I don’t know why I'm disappointed. It’s falling into place, but it’s just like so many other things in my life; I get some preliminary exciting news and then the excitement quickly dissipates because it doesn’t work out as originally presented. 

Maybe I need to learn to temper my excitement about things, but I have to say that I’m not generally an excitable person and see the glass as half empty. I haven’t had progress in years. When is it going to be my turn to celebrate without general disappointment? 

[swatface384]

And we’re off!

3 days of injections down...6-7 more to go. They really freak you out about what could go wrong - mood swings, bloating, nausea, etc., but I feel pretty ok. Feel like i’m losing my strength and starting to get a little soft, but nothing quite as dramatic as I had expected it to be. 

What has got me shook is whether or not this will go well. Because I haven’t felt terrible, I feared that my estradiol test would indicate that this isn’t working well. Then there’s the fear that I’m doing this for naught, that I won’t meet someone to spend my life with and start a family with. Would I donate my eggs? This is another topic for another time. 

I watch my friends and cousins living their adult lives - taking care of their kids, doing household chores, spending time with their SOs - and I can’t help but feel like I'm useless, like I'm not doing anything of significance. It makes me listless and unproductive, like I'm not earning my keep as an adult. I find myself envying their most mundane of weekend activities. 

The combination of these feelings has made it hard for me to have a positive attitude, which I know is particularly critical so that this energy leads to a successful retrieval. I find that it’s difficult to be positive when I don’t see progression on the horizon. Where is that person who I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with? Is that person just me? I already know that I like me. I’ve long accepted who I am, where is that other person who accepts me for who I am and wants to spend time with all of this on the reg’? 

For now, I guess I’ll have to find satisfaction with a solid number of frozen eggs.