Dudes, there is so much going on, I don’t even know. For one, I’m exhausted. I blame it on the femara and the having been out of town the last five weekends, oh and the stress. The stress! The stress is driving me crazy and getting me both coming and going — there’s the stress itself and then there’s the stressing about stressing.
So we had our fourth and final IUI on Monday. I had the day off, for which I am so grateful, so I spent it huluing and catching up with some friends on the phone and taking a nap. I was rested and at peace and felt that — as best as I could — I was keeping my body in a calm place to receive good things the next couple weeks.
But by bedtime reality came rushing back in. There is drama going down at work and with my family and it needs some attention, but honestly I don’t want to give it. I want this two week wait to be mine and not to be stolen from me by others and their anxiety. Meeting with my supervisor Tuesday she told me to please table this stuff for the two weeks and keep only good thoughts and helpful hormones running through my body. I agreed, but then got pulled into it the very next day. Stress management is really such a challenge. We live in a dynamic world and can’t escape for two weeks into a troubles-free bubble.
I can’t keep stress entirely out of my life. I can’t keep life from happening, my dog from eating everyone’s Halloween litter on our walk and amnesia-ing about “drop it” so I have to straddle him in the middle of the street and pry the wrappers and twix chunks out of his mouth. Every block. I wonder how other people find this balance between needing to continue to engage in life but also protect themselves from undue negativity flowing through their bodies. Better boundaries? More saying no? Actually locking oneself in the house for two weeks?
I began acupuncture since I last blogged and am finding it to be very lovely, and on this front in particular. After my first treatment I went back to work quite sure that I looked like I was on something, yesterday I actually drove the speed limit on my way home. This stuff really works! For relaxation anyway, let’s hope the same is true for fertility. Hopefully it will help me to do some managing of life since controlling it is out of the question.
Maybe what’s behind all of this is that it’s setting in that this is our last shot at a biological child without IVF and/or a miracle (and IVF falls into the miracle category in my book), and I’m feeling scared. I’m worried about how devastated I will be if in two weeks it’s a negative. I worry I somehow won’t be able to take it. I’m also beginning to wonder whether I could even handle IVF, it is just so demanding. I’m worried it will be too hard or that I’ll feel all alone in it or that the desperation will eat me alive. I feel like I will need a lot of things from a lot of people to make it through in one piece, but I’m not even sure what those things will be. And I worry I won’t do a good job asking for them or that I’ll overburden people or that perhaps I already have.
My hope is that I can find my zen-like state amidst these worries. While I’m all-but-fixated on the two week wait and the impending answer, the rest of real life inevitably continues on around us and involving us. I can’t avoid it or separate myself from it, that lesson that I’m not in control from yet another angle.
So what I can have some say in, I will try to choose for myself daily. I’m bummed blogging has taken a backseat the last couple weeks but hope to make time for that outlet more often. I’ve been working on cutting out sugar and processed foods, I’ve decided to be a sleep nazi this week, and I’m trying to be present, breathe, and maintain some hope. Like thoughts arising in meditation, noticing the negative and letting it float on by like a cloud — but not taking up residence in my mind.