Me and My Dog

I Punched Him In the Face

Just kidding. I wish. But I did confront him.

I didn't think I could do it, I didn't think I had it in me. But I was urged on by your comments. It was pretty unanimous that I should confront him. And I had to admit to myself that it was the right thing to do. The problem was that I did not want to do it. Instead I wanted to bury my head in the sand. But then I thought, well, what if I did? It would be turning over a new leaf for myself, and maybe it was time for me to turn over a new leaf: the standing up for myself leaf. So, I decided what I was going to say, and I stuck a post-it to my computer with the 3 main phrases that I wanted to make sure I used: "not called for," "not appropriate," and "disrespectful." I spent 10 minutes repeating them over and over in my head so that I wouldn't forget, and then I called him into my office. As I waited for him my heart was beating so loudly in my chest I thought he would be able to hear it when he came into the room. But then... all of a sudden I started to get mad. Mad that I was sitting there with a post-it note and my heart racing all because he gets a power trip out of giving me shit. And when I got mad my heart stopped racing and I became calm. And he came in and I said "I just want to tell you that I didn't appreciate your criticism on Friday. It was not called for, it was not appropriate, and it was disrespectful." And then he apologized. Sincerely. He said that he had felt bad afterwards and that I was right, he shouldn't have criticized me like that, and then he apologized again. And so my anger melted away and I started to get anxious again (ugh!). And I said it wasn't a big deal and that I appreciated the apology. But my voice cracked a little when I said it. Luckily, I had already planned that as soon as I talked to him I was going to leave for the day, so I then said "Okay, I'm off!" and walked out the door!

Thanks for your supportive and encouraging comments. They really meant a lot to me. I'm so glad I stood up for myself. Such a little thing, but a step in the right direction (and, boy, I would never make it in the "real" business world, sheesh!!).

These Are the Bullet Points of My Life

I know I haven't posted in forever. The truth is that I seem to have over scheduled myself. I panicked a bit when I first realized this, but hey, maybe this is the best time to be over scheduled? Gotta keep busy, right? So, a bullet point post is in order, to convey my current bullet pointed life:

• Today is day 11 of lupron. I've been told if I don't get my period after 13 days of lupron, I have to turn myself in to the period police, er, I mean my RE. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. AF is due tomorrow, but I have been googling and it seems sometimes lupron will delay one's period by a few days. I am just starting to feel little twinges of cramps down there, which usually means that AF is still a few days away, so we'll see.
• At first I thought lupron was my bitch. But lupron is sneaky, and now I'm thinking lupron might have turned the tables on me. Headache: check. Irritability: check. Fatigue: uh, CHECK. Hot flashes: eh, not so much. YET, that sneaky SOB!!
• I have given up coffee, both decaf and regular, and am avoiding most caffeine. This could also explain my headache, irritability and fatigue. Yeah, so giving up coffee SUUUUUUCKS!! Don't let anyone tell you different. If you've been drinking coffee every day for the past 20 years, it is NOT fun to give up.
• I have taken on another volunteer position. This is a big part of me being over scheduled. It's only 6-8 hours a week, but on top of my other volunteer position, which is about 10 hours a week, it's kind of feeling like a lot. But I kinda flipped out that if I can't have a baby than I need to go back to grad school so I can have a REAL career and for that I need to be able to have letters of recommendation in the field I'm interested in, THUS, the volunteer position. If you want to make fun of me for wanting to go back to school at 35, I will not hold it against you.
• I made an appointment with an acupuncturist and will start going twice a week. I had thought about it before, but it wasn't until I read on someone's blog that acupuncture cured their teeth grinding that I decided to go for it. If she can make me stop grinding my teeth I will be so happy. I've been doing it for 4 or 5 years now (maybe longer, but it's been 4-5 years since it's affecting my day to day life) and my jaw and teeth ache all the time and I hate it. Oh, and if she can help me have a baby, that's cool, too.
• My fertile friend (the one with 3 kids and the only person I've shared our TTC struggles with) is coming to town in a week and a half and is going to stay with us for a few days. Not exactly sure where I'll be in my cycle then , but most likely I will be stimming and getting close to retrieval. Now, some would question as to whether or not it's a good idea to have a bunch of little kids running around my house at that point in my IVF cycle. I, however, just want to get my hands on her baby again. I think if I can just cuddle her baby for a few days, maybe my uterus will finally "get it." But, we'll see. My uterus is a hard nut to crack.

The last thing I'd like to write about is a workplace issue. Fun, right? And I'm just going to put it out there right now, so there's no question as to my purpose with these last paragraphs. I'm looking for some sympathy, people!

Ok, so I own a small business and I have employees. This is the first and only business that I've owned, and I've never managed employees before, so I don't know if this is common or not (any other employers or managers out there please let me know), but my employees kinda treat me like shit. One in particular. This is a story about that employee.

Now, I don't want to tell you what business I'm in, since I'm trying to remain somewhat anonymous, but I'll just say that on some days I will do the same work that is expected of my employees, and I believe strongly in the "lead by example" motto, and so when I'm doing the same work that I ask them to do, I do it well (if I do say so myself). But I have one employee in particular that likes to criticize my work. Which leads me to yesterday's incident. It was a busy day yesterday, and I rushed to complete all the tasks that needed to be done, but was not successful. This was not necessarily my fault: I was on my own, with no help, and different things kept coming up all day that were getting me more and more behind. I knew at one point that there was no way that I would be able to catch up. When my employee arrived at his designated time and he saw that I hadn't completed everything, I made the comment to him that "it was a busy day." He then said (sarcastically) "yeah, right, lot's going on, huh? Real busy? Isn't it always for you?" And I said that, well, yes, it had been busy, actually, and what's the big deal? And he said the big deal is that I'm the only one that doesn't get all the work done when it needs to be done and that I'm always coming up with "slacker excuses." At that point I just walked away.

Now tell me that that isn't a super disrespectful thing to say to your boss? And he says this stuff to me all that time. And, I hate to say it, he makes me feel really bad. He is always questioning my decisions, often in a subtly mocking sort of way ("How many of [product x] did you order? You really think we need that amount?") or asking me to do things for him ("Can you get [product x] from the back for me?"). And I don't know what to do about it. I would really like to fire him, but we are a small company and 1) I know it would rock our little world if I were to fire someone; 2) I don't have the time or inclination to hire someone new and train them; and 3) I don't know if I have it in me to fire someone.

I would like to just ignore this behavior, and to just not engage him when he acts like this (I am guilty of trying to defend myself against his accusations in the past, which he usually just turns into "oh, excuses, excuses."). But maybe I need to confront him?

Anyway, I was in tears much of last night due to him accusing me of being a "slacker" yesterday and I, for obvious reasons, don't need this BS right now.

******And finally, please go say "congratulations!!!!" to Egg over at Such a Good Egg on her long awaited BFP!!!******

Would Anyone Sign This?

I was reviewing the IVF packet they gave me and found that they'd included the "Research Subject Information and Consent Form." This is the consent form for the "research study" that I was "invited to take part in" that would allow them to use our "discarded, non-viable sperm, eggs and embryos to further [their] research towards understanding and advancing reproductive science." A worthy cause, indeed. But I refused to sign because of the following sentence:

"Should we ever provide your cell lines to anyone else for research or commercial use, it [sic] will do so in such a way as to try to protect your privacy and confidentiality as stated in the confidentiality section of this consent form."

Yeah, you read it right, they're gonna "try" to protect my privacy. Uh-huh. Sure. And commercial use? What, exactly, does that mean? (If Mon.san.to's going to start splicing my genes into soybeans so that they're no longer able to reproduce, thus protecting their intellectual property, well, maybe that could work, but I would be totally against it.)

Sheesh, are they able to get anyone to sign this?

Or am I overreacting?

Ignorance is Bliss, But Sometimes It's Not

Heather at "Can I Get Some Sugar With These Lemons" recently weighed in on this article in Elle written by a woman who became pregnant with twins after an IUI and then struggled over whether she should undergo selective reduction. Heather wrote a scathing but altogether reasonable reaction post here, mainly criticizing the author's ignorance of the multiples risk that was inherent in the procedure she chose to pursue, and also speculating as to the negative perception of infertiles this article would produce among the general public.

And I totally agree with Heather.

But, I can't say that I am at all shocked by this author's ignorance.

Because, here's the thing: I think that infertility bloggers tend towards the opposite end of the spectrum. We are the over-informed consumers of ART. We not only know that a doctor "transfers" embryos instead of "implanting" them, we also know what E2 is, we know how much of it you need per follicle for there to be viable eggs, we know how big those follicles generally need to be to hold viable eggs, we know how high our progesterone should be, we know what FSH is, what MTHFR is, what endometriosis is, what RPL stands for, we know about thyroid problems, we know about PCOS, MFI, morphology and motility. We know based on a beta number and the number of days past ovulation whether to cheer for a fellow blogger with reckless abandon, or whether to cheer for her with words of encouragement and hope. We know that cramps mean nothing. We know that boobs mean nothing. We know that google lies. We know that google tells the truth. We know too much. And I dare say, we may be the outliers, and the author of this article may represent the average IF patient.

Do most IF patients trust their doctors? Do most IF patients get all their information from their doctors? Do most IF patients base all their decision making on what their doctors tell them? Is this a reasonable way to go through IF treatments?

At this point I'd like to relate a story from my own journey through infertility. After 6 months of trying on our own, using OPKs and charting, and having nothing to show for it, I took the first step of making an appointment with my OB/GYN to ask about next steps. The appointment lasted, oh, 5 minutes. He said to me "I'm going to give you a prescription for something that helps a lot of women get pregnant. Take this for 3 months and if you're not successful I'll refer you to a fertility doctor." The prescription, of course, was for clomid. I had never heard of clomid, I didn't I know what it was or what it did. When I got home and told my husband that I had a prescription from the doctor that might help us get pregnant, my husband asked me if it would increase our chances of twins. I remember telling him that I didn't know, and I remember thinking to myself "Duh! It probably does!" At that point, I started doing my own research.

It's entirely possible that if my husband hadn't said anything that I would have continued being as ignorant as the author of the Elle article. But as soon as I started doing my own research, I started questioning everything. Clomid was supposed to be for women who didn't ovulate (or so I read), so why was I being prescribed this when I seemed to be ovulating fine? I also read something that said that clomid can cause cysts, and cautioned against taking the medication without being monitored by ultrasound throughout your cycle. I had previously had two cysts discovered during regular check ups (with a different OB/GYN), and so I began to worry about taking this drug for multiple cycles without being monitored. I actually called my doctor and expressed this worry, told him about my history of cysts, and he dismissed it immediately. But I didn't trust him any longer and after just one unmonitored clomid cycle, where I had a lot of pain and discomfort around ovulation, I decided to move on to an RE right away.

And I haven't trusted doctors since, because now I don't believe anything they tell me! (Kidding! I totally believe them, but only when they say things like "I don't know how much that costs, you'll have to talk to our financial department.")

Speaking of financial departments, I also wonder, if this was all being paid for by my insurance, as it was in the case of the author of the Elle article, would I have a more relaxed attitude? Because as it is, a big motivator for me to be my own advocate is the very real financial risk that my husband and I are agreeing to by undergoing an incredibly expensive treatment (IVF) that only has a 44% success rate (at our clinic, for my age group), and of course the multiple not-quite-as-expensive-but-still-more-expensive-than-an -iPad procedures that we underwent that only had 10-20% chances of success (IUI).

So did her insurance coverage have some influence on her relative ignorance?

I guess it's just hard for me to understand how someone could enter into IF treatments so carelessly. But, at the same time, it only took her one IUI to get pregnant, so it's not like she ever got to the point where she felt she needed to step up and take matters into her own hands.

But here's where I end up: whether the patient is informed and aware of the risks or not, IF treatments increase the rate of multiples. And as such, there are many many women who are finding themselves in the same situation as the author of this article, having to make a heartbreaking decision (though more likely they are pregnant with 3 or more, not just with twins). And until the precision of IF treatments is improved, or the underlying causes of IF are treated rather than just "worked around," women will continue to be faced with the decision to reduce, after working so hard to get pregnant in the first place.

My IVF Anthem

Since my issue with this company is ongoing, it seems that being put on hold and listening to the song "Eat For Two," with its "baby blankets" and its "baby shoes" and its "baby slippers, baby spoons" and "walls of baby blue," is now just a part of my everyday life.

But after listening to it today, for the... um... 5th time in 4 days, it seems that I am now, officially, immune to the song "Eat For Two."

Go ahead, make me listen to it again, it's okay. It's kind of catchy.

In fact, perhaps I'll make it my IVF anthem. I'll sing it loud, and I'll sing it proud. Just because I don't already have my "two," doesn't mean that I'm not already living for my "two." I quit coffee cold turkey (ow! my brain!), I quit drinking cold turkey (ow! my... okay, not as hard as the coffee, but still), I take my pre-natal, my folic acid, my extra B-6 and B12 every day, I am trying to do low impact exercise for at least 30 minutes every day, I am trying to de-stress and am thinking about trying some deep breathing and relaxation techniques (anyone have experience with Circle + Bloom?).

So, yes, I eat for two, walk for two, and breathe for two, now.

In your face, Natalie.

Perspective

I've been feeling pretty sorry for myself lately. I don't like this stage of life that I'm in. I just wish I could move on to something new - either a baby (please, please, please!), or other stuff (to be determined, but if we don't get a baby, it's kinda going to change my whole outlook on life, and I may have to: a) move somewhere else; b) go back to school; and/or c) become a drunk).

It's easy for me to get into that woe-is-me way of thinking, but it's not a healthy place. I'm trying to get it all out of my system now so that I can buck up when we actually start meds (August 4th!!). My goal, then, is to be in a zen place by August 1st. Okay, yeah, we'll see how that goes.

But, it certainly helps me lose the bad attitude when I'm confronted with the lives of others who are undergoing their own hardships.

There is a certain popular blog that I read (and if you read it too, which I bet some of you do, you're going to recognize which one I'm talking about). This blogger will, on occasion, and with much compassion, write about families that are dealing with challenges of their own:

• Today she linked to the blog of a woman whose baby was born with a rare genetic disease. The woman found out when she was 17 weeks pregnant. Her daughter, now 3, has to have round the clock care and so lives permanently in an assisted care facility.
• About a week ago she linked to the blog of a young mother of 6 who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had just died, only 2 1/2 months after finding out she was sick.
• The blogger's own sister, a mother of 4, was horribly burned over 80% of her body in a plane crash. She survived, but is permanently disfigured.

I can't help but ask myself, even though I want so desperately to be a mother, would I trade my plight for the plight any of these women, all of whom have achieved motherhood?

***Oh, and BTW, I had to call that company again today. Guess what song I got to hear TWICE MORE while I was on hold? Eat for F-ing Two. I hung up the phone and asked my husband to shoot me and put me out of my misery.***