Monday Blahs

I really hate Mondays. I'm sure that's a universal sentiment. It's especially bad right now because I'm in the thick of my grad school semester, so weekends are spent trying to do that work (because I can't get my ass in gear during the week), so they seem very short, too short. Plus, my next holiday isn't until Memorial Day. Sure, I have vacation, but I'm a hoarder and I'm trying to save it as long as possible and I just took a day two weeks ago when my mother and stepfather came to visit. But I really, really want another day. Sigh.

Anyway, long story short, all of the above is combining to make me have a pretty bad case of the Mondays. On days like this, I listen to the dark, moody songs on my iPod which also have been what I listen to when I'm feeling really blue about IF. Here are a few heavily-played songs:

• Fade to Black (Metallica)
• One (Metallica)
• Ridiculous Thoughts (The Cranberries)
• Blow Up the Outside World (Soundgarden)
• Hate Me (Blue October)
• Yellow (Coldplay)
• High and Dry (Radiohead)
• Karma Police (Radiohead)
• Let it Be (The Beatles)
• Patience (Guns N Roses)
• Sour Times (Portishead)
• Sweet Dreams (are Made of This) (Marilyn Manson version)
• Violet (Hole)

Quite a depressing list. But I like it. I think that it's healthy to acknowledge and wallow (briefly) in those feelings as an antidote to the relentless commands from clueless people to think positively or be positive. By nature I am not an optimist (I prefer realist), so these songs are my catharsis.

I'm in an interesting place right now. We have a surrogate. We are working on the contract. Things are progressing. I might cycle as soon as June. And EVERYONE is so freaking excited. Sometimes I get excited too. But then I remind myself that as usual, there is no guarantee that surrogacy will be our answer. As with IVF, surrogacy works for some and not for others. In some ways preparing for surrogacy isn't any different than the preparations I went through this time last year to prepare for my own IVF cycle. The only difference is that our surrogate has an intact uterus and 4 pregnancies under her belt. Which is a BIG difference! But still it's very similar yet so very different. Husband and I have noted that we are going to have to manage expectations from our friends and family. And maybe even our own expectations.

I feel like I'm giving everyone the impression that I'm OK. That I'm FINE. That I'm OVER all this IF stuff and have found a path that will work for us. But I'm not. I'm truly in a better place than I was last year, and I am looking forward to cycling with our surrogate. Who knows? Maybe it will work! But at the same time, I'm not that ok. Not much has changed in our situation other than our attitude (which is huge). We're still babyless and might still be babyless after we cycle. This new treatment direction doesn't really change anything about our situation.

Mondays. Blech. So what's on your dark/sad/moody/IF playlist?

More suffering

There is a fellow local IFer I met on a message board a few years ago with whom I became friendly before either of us knew we were dealing with IF. We both cycled at the same clinics, and she became pg from her first IVF. She has hinted all along that some things haven't been progressing completely well with her baby's development and her fluid, but she didn't go into details. At 30 weeks they put her on bed rest in the hospital with the hope of her making it to 34 weeks, which she did. Last Thursday she gave birth to a baby girl. Today she told us that her baby's kidneys aren't functioning at all. I don't know what that means. I don't know what the prognosis is, but my heart goes out to her. Just as I can't imagine the horrific pain of a late pregnancy loss, I cannot imagine what it feels like to carry your baby knowing that the baby will have significant problems when it is born. My friend mentioned a month or two ago that she has been so depressed that she couldn't even get up the energy to prepare the nursery.

Again I ask...why is so much pain heaped on the same people over and over? Like many IFers, this much-wanted baby was the result of many years of IF. At what point is your bucket of suffering full?

Please keep my friend and her family in your thoughts.

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.