Thanks

Thanks for all your well-wishes. Yes, I'm blogging again. My MIL just left after being here for a week and I have to get some things out there.

First, I wanted to acknowledge what Holly said in my comments in that though I am not thankful for my infertility, I do think it has changed my perspective on things and I am much less likely to take things for granted. That is absolutely true.

Now, I just want to gripe about my MIL. She would stare at Henry and point out the tiniest physical flaws. The one I remember most clearly is that he has one pointy ear and one rounded ear. (?!?)

Then I showed her pictures of CC and O. to show her how much he looks like O. Then she said two things which I wish I had a response to. "I don't know how they did that. I could NEVER give up my baby." That one I've heard about and though it caught me off guard I blurted out something about circumstances and you just don't know what you would be able to do in a different place. It wasn't good enough and I didn't talk about what a loving choice it was. I was disappointed with my response, but I was just not prepared.

The second thing she said was, "I'm just so glad that they gave birth to him and didn't have an abortion." Ummm.... I just don't know how to respond to that. I have NOTHING to say to that. How do you respond to that?

I hate how much she drives me nuts, but she really really does. I hope it didn't show through too much. She did enjoy her time with Henry despite her saying constantly how she doesn't know anything about babies any more and she doesn't know what she's doing, and about how fat and what a blob she is. She's a hypochondriac and comes up with all these insane theories about why she doesn't have any energy. I have never seen her where she didn't say, "I'm feeling better than I was, but I just haven't got my energy back." Seems to me she hasn't had her energy since I've known her, but whatever.

Anyway, enough b1tching on my part. Thanks for listening. Let blogging break commence again. :)

Xmas

Still no bleeding.

My MIL has kind of stopped cleaning things. We drove her around last night looking at Christmas lights and playing Christmas carols in the car. She seemed to really enjoy that.

My parents and one brother's family are coming over for dinner today. It should be yummy, and I'm looking forward to it. It will be nice to have someone else around aside from just MIL. She is a lovely person and wants the best for T and me, but it's just tough to have her living here. She really drives me a bit nuts. She drives T a little nuts too, but he is much more used to her than I am. She is just opposite how my family is and that makes her a little hard to understand and relate to. I see ways that T is like her, but mostly he seems really different than her. I just don't get it. I feel like I am much more like my parents that T is like his. Having never met his dad (he died before we met) I guess I only know 50%, but still. I think in some ways he strives to be different.

She's obsessed with FlyLady and is constantly telling us how we have a 'hotspot' there and need to do something here to clean up our house. Personally, I've been too emotionally (and physically) exhausted lately to care about cleaning. I've tried to tell her that, but she thinks she's being helpful by giving us 'pointers.' She once told us she and her husband tried for 7 years to have a baby and she had just about given up by the time she got pregnant with T. I don't get any inkling that she remembers the pain of that time. I can't imagine it didn't hurt her to think that she would never have a baby, but she doesn't seem to have any recollection of how it affected her life. Maybe it was too long ago to remember. Or maybe it was different before all of this technology we have know. We know so much more about things these days. Maybe it's because she grew up as a toughened farm girl, and she is just incredibly stoic. I know she's sorry about our troubles, but I wish she could just let some of this stuff go.

Tomorrow is the big blood test. I'm trying hard not to hold out any hope, as I thing there isn't much hope there, but I still can't help hoping a little. My b00bs still hurt and as I said there has still been no bleeding. But I know the chances of this ending well is so, so slim. I have been looking at betabase and there have only been a handful of heartbeats with levels like mine. People's hcg at 16 dpo are generally 100 points higher than mine was at 20.

I just don't understand why this has to be so difficult for us. There are others I see online who have been through so, so much as well and it breaks my heart. But I'm at the point where I'm getting jealous of people whose second or third IVFs seem to work. That just seems like such a cake walk to me at this point, even though I know even getting to that place where you need to do IVF is so difficult. I understand that the pain of infertility is strong and is there for everyone. I am just so angry and bitter that I most likely am having my fourth pregnancy loss, even after doing 3 unsuccessful IVF procedures and deciding to sacrifice my husband's genetic connection to our child. I mean, what the hell? This most recent IUI being a flat out failure would have been so much easier than this.

I guess we'll know more on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. And peace to everyone.

As if things weren't bad enough

Today is T's birthday. He's not very happy about it. In fact, he's feeling quite sad. And we woke up this morning to his mother cleaning up our kitchen. She put dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on. While I wish she would just let me take care of things, this is not that bad. She washed my dish drying rack (and ended up breaking it) and then she was cleaning my counters with the poisonous cleaner that the old owners left behind. Then she started scraping an old sponge holder that I've been planning on throwing away with one of my good food knives.

It makes me feel like complete shit when she cleans my kitchen. It makes me feel like she thinks I can't take care of her son. It makes me feel like I am a bad house keeper. Okay, I am kind of a shitty house keeper and I know it, but I don't want her cleaning my house. I can't stand it. I work, I have blood tests, I have been trying to make a baby for 2 years and I am most likely staring my fourth miscarriage in the face. I wish she would just leave my house the fuck alone.