Beta 2 Tomorrow

Beta 2 is tomorrow and the spotting has come back today. Just a little, and no red, but I am terrified.

I want this baby so badly. Please, God, let tomorrow afternoon come quickly and with good news. Please, little embryo, keep growing. I already love you.

Finding Patience

Today I am struggling to find patience: with myself, with my body, and with those around me. It’s difficult to tell whether my patience has improved over the past two years, but I certainly have more tolerance for waiting, if that makes sense. I view patience as something that you possess that you can access when needed. I have just become passively accustomed to playing the waiting game.

I am 9 DPO today. Yesterday I spent most of the day trying to figure out when to test. I now know better than to symptom-watch, so I’m left with very little to obsess over. One thing I’ve been struggling with is exercise in the luteal phase. I’m a long-distance runner, and have signed up for a half-marathon in May, which means this Saturday I should be running 6 miles. I can’t help but worry though, if I’m pregnant and don’t know it, and run, and what if the worst happens, I can almost guarantee that I will blame myself. I waffle between those thoughts, and thinking “I have to live my life. I can’t let this struggle control me.” I know realistically that doctors say it’s okay to continue running during pregnancy if you were a runner before you became pregnant. However, if you’re going through IVF, exercise is usually forbidden. This leads me to believe that at least to some extent, there is a risk associated with exercise during the first trimester.

On another note, last night we attended a meeting about adoption, and I’m still processing all of the information. It was a lot to take in. The most important thing I got out of it though is the fact that you should have exhausted all of your fertility treatments, whatever that means to you, before you can pursue adoption. We are pretty far from that at this point, as we are giving ourselves until September before we will start to consider moving to IVF.

On a positive note, I’ve decided on my next tattoo, which will be located on my right shoulder blade. It’s a lyric from one of my favorite songs, “Impossible Soul” by Sufjan Stevens. It’s incredibly epic, beautiful, and seems fitting: “My beloved, you are the lover of my impossible soul.”

Smells Like Infertility

My RE’s office has a very distinctive smell. It’s not bad by any stretch, but it’s potent enough that as soon as I step in the door I’m overwhelmed by feelings of hope and disappointment–two emotions I’ve felt intensely in alternating two-week intervals for the past six months. It’s a sterile smell, but doesn’t remind me of a hospital. I think it’s the combination of brand-new-berber-carpet and too-fresh-paint-smell. It’s so strong that it stays stuck in my nostrils for the remainder of the day, and my mind wanders back to the waiting room at random moments when I inhale too deeply.

I can almost smell the office when the nurse calls this afternoon. We have to skip our IUI for the second time in as many months because I’ve already ovulated. Apparently I’m a lovely anomaly who has such a short LH surge that it’s difficult to be detected by an OPK. “Next month,” she says, “if there is a next month, we’ll bring you in early for your ultrasound and probably trigger you so we can time the IUI.” If there is a next month? Sometimes I feel like my RE’s office has way more faith in my body than I have. Even with perfectly timed intercourse and four follicles last month, I did not become pregnant. Why should it be any different this time?

The truth is, I’ve been trying to have more faith in my body, but it’s difficult when I feel so betrayed month after month. It’s as if I think I’ve figured something out, I’ve got the solution to why I’m not pregnant after two years, and then my body laughs in my face and throws me another curve ball. Another obstacle to surmount. Another piece of this million-piece puzzle that slips through my fingers.

This is where I am today. Overwhelmed by odors before I’m even pregnant, and trying to reconcile my brain with my body. Or my body with my heart. In any case, I really wish they’d all get on the same page already.