MS Walk

My family has been doing a local MS Walk for 5 years now. My sister-in-law is living with MS. My grandfather had MS for over 50 years. If you could find it in your heart to sponsor me, I'd appreciate it.

I will keep the sponsor me link in my (un)Related Links category.

To donate, please click HERE.

Thank you!

eating

I love to eat. I find food comforting. I love good food. I enjoy fancy restaurants with well prepared meals and selective ingredients. I love "bad" food too -- doughnuts and fried clams and onion rings and cookies and greasy Chinese food. Lately, I have been eating a lot. Too much, in fact. I have been exercising regularly, but I have not lost any weight. It's been over a month now. But I find my desire for food has greatly increased. I don't think it's hunger. I think I eat to feed some inner emptiness I have. Whenever I feel unsettled, I want to eat. I generally allow myself to eat what I feel like eating. I know I need to stop -- I am eating too much and food that is bad for me and when I'm not even hungry. I suppose that what I eat concerns me a little bit less than how much I eat. If I only ate when I was truly hungry, I'd probably be okay. But that is just not how it goes these days.

I eat when I'm hungry. I eat when I'm not hungry. I eat because it tastes good. I eat because it relaxes me. I eat because I'm bored. I eat because I feel unsettled. I eat because I want a baby. I eat because I want to be pregnant. I eat because I don't have a baby. I eat because I know I'm probably not going to be pregnant. I eat because I have been pregnant and I lost those pregnancies. I eat to fill some sort of emptiness inside of me.

I can't make it go away. I know I do it, but I don't know how to stop. I have gained so much weight and I don't feel good about myself. Exercising is making me feel better, but I am just not losing the weight. I feel like I am denied so much in my life that I don't want to deny myself food. But I do want to find some way to stop eating when I'm not hungry. How do I do that? What can I do?

Announcements

The only other woman in my new hire class at work told me today that she's pregnant.

My stomach did not drop to the floor. I did not feel like I was going to start to cry. I was able to say, "Congratulations!" with a somewhat cheerful tone of voice (I think). I was pretty proud of myself.

But then she kept talking about it. Her lunch wasn't agreeing with her. Her husband was cooking more because he didn't want his kid to be fed frozen meals. She has started to have a distaste for certain foods. The thing about pickles is true.

I almost said, "When I was pregnant (the second time), I craved oranges." But I didn't.

This talk made me sad. I was okay with the announcement. I really was. But I just couldn't take the discussion. But we were sitting in a classroom and I couldn't move away.

Then when I came home I saw my neighbor. She's an older Italian woman and asked me when I was going to start having kids. I said I didn't know. She told me not to wait too long because I didn't want to get too old. I told her that sometimes it wasn't so easy. She took that to mean that raising kids isn't easy. She told me it was hard to put so much energy into them when all they want is for you to die and to leave them your house and your money. I didn't have a response to that. She told me that there are things she knows from experience. That made me sad too, though in a completely different way. Not all children feel that way. At least I know my brothers and I don't.

So, it was both a good and bad day. I was pleased with myself that I handled the announcement well, but these other discussions didn't go so well.

At least it's almost Friday. I'm looking forward to the weekend. We are going to look at beds at the furniture store and start filling out the adoption application.

Nothing is new

I'm here, just watching the days go by. I called the alternative clinic (it's a group of midwives, so maybe I'll call it that) and it seems that if I pulled everything together, I'd be able to do the dIUI there when I'm ready to ovulate in about a week. I asked them to resend me some literature, so as soon as that arrives I will probably be good to go. The only question with that process that remains is how to pick up the sperm. I think I may have to send T as my job is totally inflexible and the bank's hours are also inflexible.

The only question is, do I try to do the dIUI this cycle, or do we just try on our own for a month and organize it for next cycle. For some crazy reason, I just want to try on our own for a month and organize for next cycle. Maybe it's because I'm enjoying my time off. Maybe it's because it's a pain to coordinate work issues. Maybe it's because I'm deluding myself to think we could bypass all of this crap and get pregnant with a healthy baby that's genetically related to ourselves on our own. In any case, I think I just want to wait and try on our own. I mean, what the hell?

We do need to start the adoption process, though. I need to talk to T about choosing an agency (which I think we have) and filling out the application and just moving forward. I think we are choosing a flat fee agency because it's a bit easier on our end. I'm feeling very conflicted about that one. With this agency, we could even find a baby who was born in MA where we live. But T likes this agency, and since I don't feel strongly, I feel like we should pick that one.

The last thing to think about is work. I haven't talked to work yet. I have planned to tell my boss that I have a medical condition that requires I be out occasionally for a last minute doctor's appointment, and that I only will know the day before. But I want to tell my boss this privately, and I haven't yet. I think that's part of the reason I want to wait. But something kind of crappy happened at work, and I just don't want to bring it up right now. I didn't get in trouble or anything, but I sent an email to the wrong person and it got escalated in this really bizarre and incredible way so that it got sent to a VP of the company. Anyway, it was a silly mistake (I sent it to a person with the same first name and the same last initial, but it ended up being in the wrong department) and the person who mistakenly got the email blew it completely out of proportion. I'm sure it will blow over just fine, but I just don't want to talk about time off right now.

I guess I just have to do what feels right for me, and right now it's trying on our own one more time this month. Maybe we'll win the lottery.

Starting over (sort of)

Thank you for all of your comments. I am feeling a bit better, though my sadness is still lingering in the background. Work, which keeps me busy and not thinking about my own problems, is a great help. I really feel I chose the right job for myself right now (so far). It is very helpful.

I did not take my bcp last night. T and I decided that we probably will try on our own this month. Whatever happens, happens. Most likely nothing will happen, which is fine. It is possible, though a lot less likely, that I may get pg and miscarry and even less likely that I get pg and it is healthy. But what do we have to lose by trying? We decided that I'm not even going to chart, though I can try OPKs if it moves me. I don't want to take my temp every day. It seems to stress me out.

I will need to organize everything for a dIUI at the out of pocket place for 6 weeks from now. I will need to get my test results faxed from the RE's office to the new office and I may need to go in for another meeting. I need to call them next week.

T and I talked last night about him getting the SA done and we agreed that he should, but as I type this I feel like I don't even want to do that. I just feel like fighting the insurance company is futile, and I don't feel that strongly about it, so why should I make myself angry and emotional when I have an opportunity to just move on?

What really bothers me about all of this is semantic. I am angry that T and I are not considered infertile. According to my insurance company, a genetic defect is not a qualifying event for the use of donor sperm. According to my insurance company, multiple miscarriage does not equal infertility. According to my insurance company, because we requested an IUI with FSH injectables, we cannot go back to just doing a monitored Clomid cycle because you are not allowed to go 'backwards' with your treatment. If I had the time and gumption I feel like I might be able to fight for some coverage, but at this time I have neither. It feels appealing that we will be done with all of these dIUIs in a mere four months from now. I just keep going back to that thought about us not being infertile, though. It galls me. But I guess that's what I get for trying to apply logic to a bureaucracy that tries to not pay for anything so that it can make money.

It has been 2 years since T's diagnosis, and almost two and a half since my first miscarriage. Cycling exhausts me. I need to use up the three vials of donor sperm we own, but I am feeling incredibly antsy and like I no longer have options. It seems that the bottom line is that we need to start a home study so we can move forward with adoption. If I am not doing injectables and whatnot, perhaps starting the home study process won't be quite so overwhelming.

The thing is, I feel like we have no hope to have a baby in less than about 2 years from now. I was pregnant for the first time when I was still 33, and it is a real possibility that we will not have our first child until I am 38. This disappearance of years of my life into a black hole of trying to start a family is devastating to me. I hear over and over that the 30s are the best times of your life. You settle down, work your job, start your family. I did one wonderful thing in my 30s, and that is marry my husband, T. He is sweet and supportive and I never thought I would love somebody the way that I love T. I really feel like our marriage is strong, even through this adversity. I don't want to diminish my marriage or my great relationship with T, but aside from this wonderful thing, my 30s have been hell. I have had a series of bad jobs, miscarriages and disappointments in trying to start a family. My grandparents all passed away, and I saw my delight in other people's children disappear.

I just want to have an average life with an average family. I am exhausted by this roller coaster, and I can't believe the wait and the roller coaster that lies ahead of us as we enter the adoption world.

Irony. Or not.

I talked to my RE's financial coordinator. She basically said we had pretty much no hope for being covered because a genetic defect is not a qualifier for using donor sperm under the rules of my insurance company. This is ironic because we were so excited to get my insurance so we could move on. I think we may have had coverage with T's insurance (though not at my current RE's office) and we were so eager to switch. We can't even go back to just doing monitored Cl0mid cycles with a trigger because now that our request has opened a can of worms and created a need for a semen analysis, they won't cover anything until they get that SA and T's SA will be normal.

So, we may have T do the SA, get rejected and have a lawyer write a letter. That is our only hope, and it is a slim one since according to the law, we are not infertile.

Or, we may go to another clinic and do a Cl0mid IUI using OPKs and just pay out of pocket.

Or both.

This is really hitting me hard. I kind of expected a rejection, but it's hitting me hard anyway. I am really coming to realize that although I have been pregnant four times, the chances of me ever giving birth to a child is extremely low. I will most likely never bear a child. Ever. Yes, I know that I can parent, but this loss feels huge to me right now. It's almost like finding out about our infertility all over again.

I really feel empty inside today. I am feeling my losses so acutely. I don't have the will to fight anymore.

Last night T and I decided that I am going to go on bcps for one more month because there is no way I can scramble together an IUI in two weeks, and if, by miracle, we get the medicated thing approved I'd be all ready. But I'm not sure if I really should do that because the chances of an approval is so small. I want to stop taking bcps and just try on our own. I mean why not? What difference does it make any more?

I am so sick of making these decisions. I want to be done and have a baby on the way, but that is just not how it's going to be in my life. It is going to be finger prints and FBI checks and home visits and waiting and not knowing and possibility and rejection and more waiting. It's going to be money and more money and waiting and renewing and not knowing.

I just can't think straight anymore. I can't make logical decisions any more. Logic has left me. I am a bitter, angry shell. I'm paralyzed. I literally do not know what to do anymore.

Denied

Well, we've been denied coverage for the injectable IUI. Not sure what we're going to do next. We probably will appeal, but I am just so fucking sick of all of this that I really don't know what we're going to do. But I have to call my RE's insurance coordinator to see what to do next.

See, what really kills me is that we don't meet the definition of infertility in the state of Massachusetts. By law, we do not have to be given coverage.

But really, how can we not be considered infertile?

I sucked it up

Thanks for your comments, everyone. Your input definitely helped me think about what I needed to do for myself, and I appreciate all the advice.

The bat mitzvah made me sad on many levels.

I have had waxing and waning interest in Judaism throughout my life. I have a strong Jewish identity in a lot of ways. I very much identify with my Judaism as an ethnicity, but the religious part has always been a bit weird. There are plenty of ideas in Judaism as a religion that I don't agree with. I also have some ambivalent feelings about how interconnected Judaism with the state of Israel. I really don't want to get into all of this geo-political stuff on this blog as it's too huge and too sensitive, but I do want to express that my Judaism does mean a lot to me in many ways and has definitely influence the way I see the world and I believe it has had an impact on my personality and who I am as a human. I like a lot of the way Judaism talks about the world and its point of view, and I am especially fond of the liberal tradition in Jewish culture. I would like to make sure the liberal Jewish faction does not die. I had always planned on raising my children Jewish. It's not so much about God for me, though I do believe in god, though I don't think it's in the traditional, Jewish way of seeing G-d. But I have my own belief, and as a liberal Jewish person, I'm allowed to integrate my beliefs with my religion and my ethnicity and make it work the way I want it to. And that's one of the things I love about being Jewish. I can do that.

T is not Jewish. T is an atheist. He does not like organized religion. He is uncomfortable around it. He does not like to acknowledge or to do anything that may indicate that he believes god exists. He has come to a few services with me, and he doesn't mind coming as long as he can just sit there with his family and be part of a family thing. When it gets really traditional, he does get a little uncomfortable.

When we got married, I told him that I wanted to raise our children Jewish, and if he couldn't do that, I couldn't marry him. He agreed with that. All he wanted was that after a child was of a certain age (to be determined later) he or she could decide what religion he or she wanted to be -- or if he or she wanted a religion at all. That's reasonable. At some point your children become independent and make these decisions on their own, and that was reasonable to me. I can't make them be Jewish if they don't want to be. We still haven't talked about what that age was. For me, it's after the bar/bat mitzvah (13). I don't know if it's earlier for him.

Even though we agree on this, it still makes me sad that he can't identify with the coolness of Judaism. Fundamentally, he feels like an outsider in that community. He can't participate in the traditions without feeling like he's betraying his own beliefs. I respect that, but at the same time it makes me incredibly sad. I know that deep down inside our beliefs aren't that different. But at the same time, we come to them from completely different ends, and they just aren't quite compatible. T did not come to the bat mitzvah today because it was at a very traditional congregation and he wouldn't have been comfortable, so we decided it was better if he stayed home. I know it was the right decision for him, but I was incredibly sad that he couldn't be there. I want to find a way to make this work, and we can when we find our own congregation, but there is no way to control what the congregations that our family members belong to are like. It just worries me and makes me sad because I know he doesn't like not being part of family things.

Then there was the baby. My cousin brought the baby to the bimah (the pulpit, I guess) and she was holding him in the reception area. I said hi to her husband and asked how things were going. I found a time when my cousin wasn't holding the baby (because everybody wants to hold a 7 week old and he got passed around a lot) to go over and say hi and ask how things were. Then I high tailed it out of there. It worked okay

I'm sad now on many levels, as I mentioned before. There's the religion thing and there's the baby thing. I used to love babies. If there was a baby in the room, I would make a bee line and always ask to hold it. I wanted to babysit and take care of them and hold them and I would kiss their heads and smell their baby smell. Infertility has ruined babies for me. I see a baby now and I head in the other direction.

It's cloudy today, and I think I'm just going to stay home and be sad for the rest of the day. Maybe I'll drink. I hope tomorrow is sunny and a little bit warmer so I can find a way to lift my mood a little.

Sitting here in limbo

Do you know that Jimmy Cliff song? It's mellow.

Except for relaxing, I did all of the things on my list. I had to schedule that pickup before writing this post so I could say that. I even managed to clean the bathroom. Yay me!

Things are okay. My job is pretty good and is keeping me busy, which I like. It's also good because when the clock hits 5, I can leave and not feel bad that I'm leaving. My time is all recorded on the phones, and my time is my time and that is it. It's great that way.

I got my letter from all my test results through the RE's office. It says I should contact a specialist regarding my MTHR: +2 A1298C (which means I don't absorb folic acid properly), but my RE didn't tell me I had to do that. So I'm not sure what's going on with that.

Still waiting on hearing from the insurance company, hence the limbo. I'm sick of limbo. I'm finishing the active pills on my pack of bcp's and I'm not sure if I should stop for the week and bleed or if I should keep going in case the insurance company approves. I'm leaning toward taking the break. It will only delay it for a week or two if that's the case. Right?

Right?

I'm going to a cousin's daughter's bat mitzvah this weekend and I realized that one of my cousins who had a baby will be there with the baby. It's her niece's bat mitzvah. My mom told me I'll have to go over and see them with the baby because I can't avoid them. I'm not sure I can handle that right now. They don't know about our issues. I know that they had issues and I'm sure they did IVF. Should I email the new mom and let her know what's going on with me, thereby basically telling that whole side of the family that doesn't know? Do I say nothing and avoid her? Do I suck it up as best I can, go over say mazel tov and high tail it out of there? I think I need some assvice.

Insurance freak out

I'm really worried that we are going to be denied coverage for our IUIs. If that happens I'm ready to sic lawyers on them, though, because we have previously been approved to have an injectable dIUI cycle with this insurance company (right before my most recent miscarriage) and because I'm certain they would approve and IUI with T's sperm and their expenses aren't any different from that scenario because we aren't asking them to pay for the donated sperm. I'm just worried about the time it will take and my emotional state if we do get rejected.

I know I shouldn't worry about this stuff and worry just makes things worse, but I am a natural worrier by nature and I just can't help it. I try to stop myself when I find myself freaking out about it, but so many things I do at home allow for a lot of internal reflection, and I just think and worry. Sewing, knitting, cooking and cleaning all allow for a racing mind.

We better watch a movie.

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I'm feeling sad. I feel like I'm surrounded by people who are pregnant and having babies, both infertile and not. I feel so left behind in the process of starting a family. We are no further along than we were over two years ago, and we still have a year or two more to go before we could possibly even begin to have a family.

And I mailed something to my niece and I guess I didn't seal the envelope properly and I guess the thing fell out of it or someone took it. I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it just feels like another way I've failed. I understand that this is pretty stupid, but it's a card for an old digital camera, and we're not sure if those cards are available anymore and because of my stupidity and carelessness, my niece may never be able to use the camera we gave her.

I just feel so useless sometimes.

Meme and more

I've been tagged by Almamay.

Step 1. Reference back to the blog that sent you.
Step 2. Make a list of 5 things that you have to get done this week, no matter how small.
Step 3. Get 2 other people off their asses to get their shit in order.

1. Finish our taxes. We've started, but they have to be done.
2. Get some thread so that I can finish the curtains that I've started. I'm nearly done.
3. Call my mom. It's her 70th birthday on Saturday.
4. Set up a pickup for the clothes we have to give away. We still have some leftovers to donate to charity after the big clean.
5. RELAX!

I know I'm supposed to tag people, but I really don't know who's done this meme or not, and I don't even really know who reads this blog or not. So, if you want to be tagged, you're tagged. Oh, and I want to tag my husband, even though he doesn't have a blog. :)
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Got a message from my RE's office today. My insurance company wants a semen analysis from T. Now, a semen analysis doesn't mean shit for us. T's semen analysis is normal. He doesn't have male factor infertility. In fact, his numbers are pretty strong. After all, he knocked me up three times in 13 months. This isn't the issue. The issue is his DNA. A semen analysis will guarantee no coverage for us. After 5 unsuccessful dIUIs, 4 miscarriages and 3 failed IVFs with T's sperm, you think they'd have enough evidence that we need a little help. But no, that would be too logical. So now my RE needs to write a letter to the insurance company to explain all of this. This is especially frustrating because it's the same damn insurance company that PAID for ALL of that treatment! Feh. Nothing is easy.

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Update:
Yes, the insurance company should know about the BT already. I cannot explain the stupidity of that bureaucracy.

Also, I forgot to mention cleaning the bathroom. I really, really need to clean the bathroom.