The good, bad and ugly

The good: I spent an amazing week away - seeing the family was great, especially since we are drama incarnate right now what with my stuff, Dad's prostate cancer, Mom's broken wrist and IBS, and B holding us all together, yet still managed to have a nice time, and as always time with Ellie just makes me happy. The last night I was there she called me Daddy and Grandma, so i think Aunt R is just around the bend. Seeing her makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time: laugh because she is so amazingly funny and cry because I get so much pleasure out of her and feel we won't ever have that.

The weekend with my Delta Tri sisters was just unbelievable. We had this amazing house, the weather was perfect, and we spent 4 days laughing and eating and drinking and reminiscing and catching up. Whatever you in blogland think about sororities, you have to give some credit to the fact that I met these ladies 20 years ago and we still connect like it was yesterday. We talked about everything from politics to family to careers to Rush 1990 to Ms Dodds. It was so fun that when it was over, and my good friend L dropped me off at B's, I cried. Like I was some homesick 18 year old. We plan to do it again in Sedona in 2009, and I can't wait. Those ladies are all amazing.

The bad: though I felt a lot better in Palm Springs, I came back to what feels like a shitstorm. Work has changed so much that i am wondering if I can stick it out. I am meeting a headhunter tomorrow for the first time in 5 years and while I don't want to leave, I just feel so lost there now.

I also feel like I stepped into "Pregnant Town" as everyone, and I mean everyone, that I went through IVF with is pregnant (and healthily so, thank God) as are multiple folks I just happen to know. On the one hand I am thrilled, on the other I am back in my shell where I don't want to see, touch taste or smell anyone else.

Except J. It is also bad because this loss has made me feel like i am going to lose everything, including him, so I find myself grasping for him in the middle of the night and feeling like I want to cry when we say goodbye in the morning. I am sure that is very attractive for him but he is tolerating it nicely.

We have talked a lot in the last day or so and I think I know what my problem is: getting pregnant is such an incredible pain in my ass (and leg, and ovaries, and stomach, and head) that losing the baby felt so much worse than I think it would've had we just been able to try again the next month and actually be able to get pregnant naturally. Yes, that would suck, but I feel like we get like 2 tries every fucking year and time is against me anyway.

The stakes are so high, physically, financially, and emotionally, that this loss felt like a complete dissapointment as we are waiting and waiting and waiting to try again, and it will be literally months. And I am convinced it will happen again, and i will have just wasted another 6 months in the life of my almost-dead eggs. I told the Nurse all this today, crying on the phone, and she is going to see if there is a faster protocol, but I know there is not. Perhaps she will also see if there is a nice padded place for me to "rest" for awhile.

I tried to back out of this process altogether today but J talked me out of it by nicely calling me a quitter, which of course made me buck up. I am not a quitter. I just choose other options. I just feel like we are pissing in the wind, and wasting 10s of thousands of dollars doing it.

The ugly: my betas are STILL TOO HIGH. For a body that hurried up and miscarried, I am sure hanging on to those good old pregnancy hormones. They can't discuss next steps with me until it goes to zero, which at this point may be before I turn 50. Maybe.

Bleh. Today is bleh.