Third Trimester?!?!

I could have easily titled this post "irritation" or "frustration", but I instead decided to go with something positive. Amazingly, tomorrow we will be 28 weeks which, according to most sources, puts us in the third trimester! I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. Already? The truly frightening thing is that I'm planning based on 38 weeks because F usually doesn't make it to 40, and that is 10 weeks away from tomorrow! Eek! We are so far from being ready. We are so very NOT ready. I did register though it's a work in progress. Husband finally finished the hardwoods in the first room, capitulated and had my stepfather up to help last week and now the baby's room is halfway done. We are so behind schedule though. We haven't ordered furniture or anything. Neither of us can remember being this busy before and both decided to take this Friday off in order to get some stuff done. I need to work on some work and school stuff as well as sleep. He needs to work on floors. Together we need to work on taxes (we normally do those the first weekend in February) and baby furniture. To top it all off, my car needs $1200 in repairs, and we have been going back and forth today about whether we should bite the bullet and get something new(er). It's 11 years old and has 133k miles. It's also paid off. My big fear is that these repairs are the tip of the iceberg, but I think we just decided to repair the car and try to make it to the end of the year. Not that we want another car payment right now, but it was honestly a decision of convenience. We cannot handle making one more decision right now.

I don't mean to sound whiny. Overall, everything is great! I think we are both so freaking overwhelmed with life right now. F is doing well and sent belly pics last week; she looks awesome and told me that the baby has grown a ton b/c she is now huffing and puffing after climbing steps. We'll see her next Tuesday at our last monthly appointment and next ultrasound. I feel bad b/c we have been so busy that we haven't gotten to see her and her family very much lately.

Friends. Hmmm. I have a long overdue update on that topic. During the holidays, I kinda confronted friend K about how we feel left out and forgotten since we haven't heard from them. Friend K is the one with the almost-one-year-old, so I told her I understood that her life had changed, but that we just felt kind of forgotten. I also told her that I understood the hypocrisy of our wanting friends now but pushing people away when they were pg. This conversation stemmed from the fact that she had asked me if I had seen the previews for The Unborn, and I very tactfully told her I couldn't see that movie due to our vanishing twin. She wrote back an extremely contrite email, saying that she had realized her mistake and felt awful about it. I appreciated that. So, I emailed, K called me, we chatted, and since January, we have gotten together several times. We went to her house for dinner and then a couple of weeks ago she took me to Babies R Us to give me a mother's perspective on what I needed, and she also offered to throw me a baby shower. She is still a bit flaky, but I feel like we are repairing that relationship.

I also had a chat with friend J. To catch you up: J is married to another J who was Husband's best friend in high school, and Husband was best man at their wedding. J and I started down the IF path together when she got pg on her first cycle of clomid and I discovered that I had half a uterus and a hopelessly damaged tube. Anyway, that's been a rocky relationship. J and I met for lunch in late January, and the issue of our husbands came up. It turns out that her husband does harbor some bad feelings towards Husband. He resents that we took it personally that they "had a kid" as well as feeling like Husband pushed him away instead of letting him in to help. I was intrigued by her explanation because Husband went out of his way to ask about J and the baby whenever he talked to his friend and I guess Husband was supposed to let J know that he wanted his help? J couldn't have picked up the phone and called or emailed? Husband was supposed to do all the work? We had noticed weirdness on Husband's friend's part once they succeeded that we chalked up to survivor's guilt. It feels like the situation is at a stand-still. Husband isn't going to call his friend; his friend isn't going to call Husband. Frankly, I'm not going to force Husband to call his friend because honestly, why should we have to make all the effort? At least J and I can still email and whatnot. It was good to know, though.

Which now brings me to the irritation/annoyance part.

Irritation #1. J told me that she was on Clomid b/c they decided to go for baby #2. I was flattered she told me b/c she hadn't told anyone. Well, I emailed her last week to find out the outcome b/c the last time she and I talked, she had been convinced it didn't work, but I believed she was testing too early. I was right. Turns out that she is pg again from her FIRST Clomid cycle. Argh. Her pregnancy has stirred up a lot of feelings that I thought were buried. I'm a little down about it. It is sort of because I've been "lapped" but more because I'm worried how we will have baby #2 or if we will be able to. Unlike J, I can't pop a prescription for Clomid and have all my troubles solved. Our baby has come very dear. We have five frozen embies, and I hope, hope, hope we will be able to try surrogacy again--or even try with my poor uterus--but I wonder how we will afford it. I had told Husband last night that I wanted us to be ready to pursue something by the baby's first birthday. And it's hard not to feel a little resentful when we find out today it will cost $2500 to pursue the pre-birth-order paperwork and also pay $1200 in car repairs. I guess I just wish it were as easy for us. On the other hand, I'm actually kind of excited (deep down) about having a friend with an infant close in age. One of my big fears was that our friends would have moved on from the baby stage, and we would still be alone, so I'm excited about the possibilities for getting our babies together for playdates. I'm trying really hard to focus on that instead of my bitterness.

Irritation #2. My mother-in-law. Husband called her today to apologize for not returning her call yesterday, and she starts bitching about how she feels left out and that she wants to be part of the partying surrounding the baby. Ummm...what party? Husband and I are ridiculously busy. I put in 11-hour days every day last week. We're in meetings constantly. And on the weekend, Husband is working on the floors and until about 2 weeks ago, I had something to do every weekend. And MIL feels like copping the "I know your busy but why can't you spare some time for me" attitude? She actually said that she wants to join in the fun surrounding the baby. Um, what fun? I haven't had any fun yet. The first trimester was spent trying not to throw up from anxiety. The second trimester passed in a blur, and now the third is making me panic b/c we are so not ready. Where was she when we were looking for people to share our pain the last 3.5 years? So now she's ready to share in the happiness? JHC. We don't need this stress right now. Husband read her the riot act. I feel a little bad b/c I know she is excited, but it's not like we sit at home all day. She's retired. Must be nice! I wish I led half the life she thinks we do.

Which brings me to the topic of showers. It turns out that I might have 3 showers. I am amazed. My coworkers are throwing me a fabulous off-site shower in May. K stepped up, and she is supposed to be planning one with friend E. My mother wants to throw me one in my hometown that has morphed from a small affair at her house to a church fellowship hall function. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but we'll work it out. I don't know if any of you feel this way, but I feel really weird being the center of attention! I feel weird providing info for a shower. I'm glad (thrilled) to have them, but I just feel unworthy somehow. Does anyone else feel that way? I sort of felt like that when I was wedding planning.

But all-in-all, things are going well. 28 weeks tomorrow. We are getting close!

Strange Week

It has been a rather strange week. I started the week sort of dreading it because I had a ton of meetings and appointments and wanted to hole up in my office instead. Plus, my parents were coming in this weekend, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to rest until Sunday. Almost immediately on Monday, meetings and plans started getting cancelled or rescheduled, leaving me with an almost free week. Then my mother announced that they couldn't come after all this weekend because my stepfather has to work, and when I emailed my friend K to tell her that our plans to attend the county library book sale had just become a lot freer, she told me that she forgot the date and scheduled her daughter's dedication for this weekend. It was like dominoes falling. Suddenly, I am free! Husband and I have the entire weekend to ourselves, and I can come and go as I please to the book sale.

Oh, two of the appointments that were scheduled were our OB appointments. F had a flat tire on Tuesday that prevented her from being able to make the nurse's appointment, and the practice requires you see the nurse before the OB, so both appointments had to be rescheduled for next Monday. Oh well. We'll be almost 13 weeks then, and at least I'll be able to go into Thanksgiving having had another u/s that week.

Honestly, while I am perfectly happy to be able to go to the book sale on my own terms, I'm a little disappointed in K. We have been going to the library book sale together for years. We make an event out of it, always going on the Saturday of the sale because paperbacks are 50 cents and having a wine lunch afterwards with Husband. Last year she couldn't go because she was pg and attended a day-long baby care class instead. We went to the sale on the Friday instead and had only about 2 hours together, and I returned by myself the next day. This year, even though we had talked about it already, she forgot the date and booked it.

I'm telling myself that things are different now that she has a baby and apparently motherhood has increased her inherent flakiness, but to me it's just another sign that maybe I should just give up and back off. I mentioned that we would have to do something in December and that Husband would love to hear from her husband G and she replied that G would love to swap work war stories with Husband. Yeah, like anything will be planned. Correction: If we plan it, it is the only way it will happen. But I want to leave it up to her and I know we won't hear from them because Husband and I always had to plan everything. I'm just trying to understand what's going on in her head; it appears that there is a blank spot where we are concerned.

I know I keep rehashing the friend situation to the point where you are all probably extremely tired of it, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about it. I mentioned my bitterness about my friends and their continuing complete lack of response to us to my therapist about 2 weeks ago, and she gave me permission to find new friends and write off the "friends" I have, accepting that maybe the friendships have run their course and that Husband and I deserve better. It was helpful of her to say that because I had begun to wonder what it was about me and Husband that friends seemed to drop us so easily. We're up to 3 sets of friends who have been able to write us off. I don't think we are awful people or unworthy of friendship, but it makes you wonder. So, I'm going to try to stop emailing K. I hope I'm not painting this picture of me as desperate and constantly emailing her. I've been updating her on our doctor appointments, but really, it's more out of loneliness than anything else. Other than family, with whom I'm not all that close, I don't have anyone else to talk to. But she's giving me nothing in return. Clearly, she's not very interested or able to be interested and involved right now. Better to accept that and move on instead of being hurt constantly. And it's not like I think she's giving me the friend version of "[S]He's Just Not That Into you"; she honestly is flaky and fairly self-involved. But I've been there for her, and she hasn't for me. Time to move on.

Who are these people who are able to have and keep lots of friends? I'm on Facebook, and that's what I wonder as I watch other people. I'm not innocent here. I have former close friends--definite kindred spirits--from whom I've drifted away, so I need to take a look at myself too. I think a big issue is that I've always been someone who has a few close friends instead of many friends. And now that's bitten me. I think a lot about this now that we are sort of ready to emerge from our shells and re-engage. Just where do you find friends? I have good candidates, but I've held back from them b/c they had kids and it was too painful to take it all the way. I'd been hesitant for a while to engage with RL IFers through Resolve because they often move on, and you never knew how long the comfort level will be there. I think that the situation will fix itself somewhat once the baby arrives and we are able to go to playgroups and such things. After Intending to Be Parents mentioned that she is member of a pregnancy after reproductive technology group, I checked and there doesn't seem to be one in my area. I don't know what I'm looking for. I miss the friends I had in high school. I miss the few close friends I made in college (of which K was one). I could try to reconnect with them, but their lives have unfolded so differently. Mostly I just wonder how I got here, alone. And what blame should I take for that?

I apologize for the length of this post. I'm just feeling a little alone and lost with the holidays approaching. I expected to feel different this year. I do, but some of the same hurts are still there. It's like throwing a party to which no one comes. But I have to remember that I have changed. The last few years have changed me...think cocoons and chrysalis and butterflies and that sort of metaphor. Only I don't feel as much like a butterfly as Kafka's cockroach.

My therapist also suggested I resume my anxiety medication. After this LONG, rambling, inchoate post, think that's a good idea? :-)

A bit of a milestone

Fingers crossed that we won't have more severe weather today. My weather radio woke me up at 2:30 this morning with news that my county was under a tornado warning. I was horribly afraid of tornadoes and storms as a child, so it is a testament to how much progress I have made that I didn't immediately flee to the closet! Thankfully for us (though not to the people in the storm's path), the storm was to the south of us and no danger to us.

We had our 3rd u/s at the clinic on Friday, and after waiting for almost 2 hours we finally got to see how much progress our wiggler has made. He was measuring 11w1d and we were 11w2d. I was amazed at how much like a baby he looked. He was asleep but soon woke up and started moving around. Happily, we have now been released to the OB, and we have our first OB appointment next Thursday. After that appointment, I will officially be in u/s withdrawal!

I discovered this week that one of my coworkers is going through IF. I had a feeling about her, and when she mentioned that she had a lot of appointments lately, I told her that I thought we should talk sometime. She came to me later that day, and we exchanged war stories. She and her husband have been trying for 4 years with a miscarriage along the way and were planning to have egg retrieval for her first IVF cycle on Friday (this was Wednesday). She is cycling at Wake Forest University, which is around 2.5 hours from her home. I hugged her and wished her luck, and then sadly, she came to me later that day and told me that her cycle had been converted to an IUI because she had started to ovulate. As you can imagine, she was devastated. I felt so bad for her. All that prep. All that expense. The hours spent commuting to Winston-Salem. She said, "It's ok" and I vehemently replied, "it's NOT ok. This sucks, and I am so sorry you have to go through it." I've always been a believer in acknowledging what you feel and accepting the bad stuff because often, you are the only one who will. I just felt so bad for her.

It was also a little weird for me because it was my first occasion as "the other." I know that realizing that you have moved to have a different category and that others may find your altered status hurtful is one of the cliche posts in IF land. It's just taken me a little longer to get there because we are doing surrogacy. Yes, so far we have been successful. But since I am not the one throwing up or dealing with all-over fatigue, it's been easy at times to forget that we have achieved some level of success or that others would consider us to have moved on. I suddenly understand how easy it is to appear to forget from where you came...I almost offered to show her our u/s pic for heaven's sake (during our first conversation, not the second after she had found out that her cycle was being converted--even I'm not that insensitive)! I still feel like I am straddling two worlds. Do I keep my "street cred" since I am not actually physically pg or have I moved on as well? How have others handled this? I guess I feel like my reactions are lagging behind our new reality.

And, if you could, please keep my friend L in your thoughts. I met L while we were cycling at the same clinic and through some mutual Resolve friends last year. We fought in the IF trench together. L was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery on Monday. Her diagnosis was like a kick in the gut and a reminder of how unfair life is that this wonderful person and her family should have to deal with cancer on top of the everything else. L is a great, generous person and a reader of my blog, and I want her to know that I am sending her all the strength and positive thoughts I can. I am so angry this is happening to her but in awe of her spirit and strength in dealing with this situation.

Musings

Yay for it being Wednesday and another week down! The clinic called on Friday and wanted to reschedule our u/s for Nov. 1 due to a doctor conflict! Ugh! Thankfully, after I reminded them that they have two doctors in the practice, we were able to reschedule the u/s for Oct. 28 and with the doctor with whom we have been working all along. So only one day longer to wait.

My mother emails me at least once a week to "check in." I have some mixed feelings about it. I tell her what I know/have heard from F, but beyond that, I'm not sure what she's asking. I assume she's asking about the, um, happy situation. Is she asking only about that or is she checking in on me as well? I usually also tell her how crazy work is, how busy I am with school, etc. I know she's excited, but it's a little weird for me b/c I'm not the one experiencing the happy situation, so I'm not sure what to tell her and what she wants to hear. How did others going through surrogacy handle such inquiries?

I'm a little irritated by a close friend--someone who considers us best friends-- and her reaction to our news. Basically, she responded "awesome" and then went on to talk about herself, and I haven't heard anything more from her since. Well, I've heard some about her new job. I'm trying not to be oversensitive, but I guess I thought that maybe she would...I don't know...be a little more engaged? Even though it hurt, I engaged with her when she was pg. I suppose I thought that since our friends hadn't really been there for us during the dark times, maybe they'd be there for us during a happy time. I guess I was wrong on that as well. I know it's early, and I know she's busy with her new job and 5-month-old. I also know that she is and has always been somewhat flaky. She always tells me what a good friend I am, but it's never reciprocated. I hesitated even to post about it b/c I'm not exactly talking much about our situation yet and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But it's really bothering me.

I think the bigger issue is that even though I'm more cynical than that, a part of me hoped that maybe things would magically spring back to normal with our friends if we had success and all the stress on those relationships (naturally caused by our inability to you know, just get over it and act like everything was hunky dory as they proceeded to journey to the next stage of life) would be repaired. And that Husband and I could and would forgive and forget all the hurts they caused us by never calling, seldom emailing, changing the subject if we expressed sadness, anger, or bitterness, not acknowledging birthdays, basically not being what we consider friends when we needed them most. We aren't the same people as we were 3 years ago, though. We've become accustomed to being alone, and that's ok. And I really don't want to focus on this friend and her behavior and count only the slights when this is a great time for us and so many people have been genuinely happy for us. Hopefully writing about it will help me exorcise some of the anger I feel.

I don't want to end this post on a nasty note, so here is a picture of my mums in full bloom:

Off to a Good Start

May is already going better than April though I hesitated to write that in case I jinxed it. I heard from F, our surro, yesterday, and she had the lump removed and biopsied, and it was a limpoma (fatty tissue) after all. Whew! Yay! One hurdle cleared.

Unfortunately, we did not receive the contract last week. Husband called the attorney and the attorney's paralegal said that they were under the impression that time wasn't of the essence since we couldn't do anything until June?!?! Okkkkk. We could begin testing! So they hope to have something to us this week.

My best friend had her baby on Sunday after a normal labor. Husband and I went to see her yesterday, and the baby is adorable. I was worried I wouldn't be able to handle it, but I was. I sure hope that this time next year our roles are reversed. I've been keeping J, my other friend, apprised of the situation, and I bet she's probably noting all the things I've done for K (going to her shower, visiting her in the hospital) that I didn't do for her. I know I would be. I want to say something to reiterate that I am in a different place now than I was when she was pg, but I don't know if that's a good idea or if I should just leave it alone.

Oh, my projects are turned in, and I am reveling in free time!

Me, Grungy?

Kate and Kymberli are correct: I am indeed a child of the 90s. I graduated from high school in 1995 and was a grunge-loving teenager. I didn't wear flannel, though. I liked to dress up and seldom wore jeans. My favorite shoes were my clunky patent-leather Mary Janes :)

I like music, but I don't love music if that makes sense. I have fairly pedestrian tastes; it's actually kind of embarrassing. I'm not a big fan of concerts either...too many people, too expensive. There are only a few bands I would leave my house for. I did attend a Hole concert in high school and procured a "doll part" as a souvenir. I never went to Lollapalooza or OzFest. I felt alternative and weird in high school, but I had friends who exemplified that movement much more than I did and was proud when one of them was voted student body president. Imagine my disappointment and dismay when I discovered that they were assholes just as much as the old-guard preppy, popular types had been. The flannel and Birks were just a costume.

But I digress. Someone, please tell the trees to stop fornicating. Allergies are killing me!

Is there a shift in the wind? My friend J with whom I've been struggling for the last year over her successful transition to motherhood after 50 mg of Clomid has emailed me TWICE in the last week. That means that since July 2007, she has initiated contact three times. I have been the one to initiate all contact, something which has pissed me off for months. Are things changing? Is our presence at her child's 1st birthday party paying dividends at last? Too early to tell.

PG friend K has invited me to two of her baby showers. She said that right things about hoping I can attend one or both but would understand if I couldn't. I'm going to try to attend at least one. But I'm going to buy her gift online. I'm not going anywhere near Babies R Us.

Reaching Out

Last week I had the best conversation with my estranged friend J that we have had since her baby was born. Quick reminder...she is the one who dealt with some slight IF at the same time I have been dealing with it, got pg on her first Clomid cycle and had her baby last year. We haven't been talking much because Husband and I couldn't bring ourselves to meet the baby (b/c it was painful), a fact which hurt and angered her, and we felt she and her husband were completely lacking in any empathy to our situation, which sort of prolonged the estrangement.

Anyway, we had an nice email conversation. She seemed truly happy that we are moving on to surrogacy and things seemed if not normal, more normal than they had been in a long time. Buoyed by good feelings, I somehow accepted an invitation to her daughter's 1st birthday party. It wasn't quite as impetuous as it sounds. I thought about it for a long time and finally emailed back that we would love to be invited and would try to attend. In some ways, I feel like I had no choice but to accept the invitation. It felt like she had extended an olive branch b/c she was saying all the right things about how she would like to invite us but didn't want to make us uncomfotable b/c she understood that we might not be ready...and I felt like if I didn't respond appropriately, that was it for the friendship.

I don't mean to give the impression that I was in any way coerced. I wasn't. It amuses me, though, because a few weeks ago during a sleepless night during my blue period, I fantasized about the scathing response I would give to such an invitation: lack of empathy, how alone we were, how the friendship apparently doesn't mean much to them since all the effort has come from us, etc. And when the opportunity arises, what do I do? I cave. It seemed like she really was making an effort and cared about us. I've been burned before, though.

I think we will go to the party. It's going to be a big party, so maybe meeting her baby will be easier with a lot of people around. I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to it, but I think it's something we need to do. Maybe we can get in and out quickly. I'm trying to get back to that state of mind in which I understand and accept that people have children and that my life is good right now and eventually, my life will be different.

In non-IF news, Husband and I saw There Will Be Blood over the weekend. I'm not sure what I thought of the movie, but Daniel Day-Lewis was great. He truly deserves the Oscar.