Focusing on the task at hand...

Thank you all for your kind messages of support these last few days. Being a loss blogger, I have come across several posts from other BLM's about mean "anonymous" comments that people have sent them, and grieving in such an open forum I half expected at some point to receive words like this from a stranger, but never, ever, from family. Both hubs and I appreciated your messages and the validation they gave to how we were feeling about this particular couple's actions.

More than forty five of you commented on my last post, and one theme seemed to be unanimous in all that you wrote - further contact with this couple will only cause more stress/pain.

Are we hurt like hell that something (someone) that was so important in our life meant nothing in theirs? Of course. That being said, hubs and I have decided that any relative who chose not to be there with us in sorrow, is not someone we want to have beside us in joy anyway (even though we are fairly certain that their response to our joy would have been equally selfish.)

I know that Jesus said to "turn the other cheek," but after the insults to my child, my husband, and myself, I am out of cheeks left to slap, so its time to turn away from these people and their hurtful words and actions altogether, and focus our full energies instead on the task at hand... making our rainbow baby(ies).

So now... onto more fun stuff.

We started Follistim injections Tuesday evening. These injections, for those of you who don't know, are subcutaneous and can be inserted into an area of the thigh, or the abdomen. We chose to do them via the abdomen because, for some reason, the idea of shooting myself in the thigh gives me the willies.

Hubs played doctor the first night, performing the injection as I laid out on the couch (like a total weenie) shielding my eyes with my hands. His reaction was something along the lines of, "wow that was harder to insert than I thought," to which I responded, "that was it?" Really, for anyone out there facing this particular injection (I can't speak for the others yet) the pain falls under the NBD class, for No Big Deal.

A few minutes after the injection, the area below my skin started to sort of burn and ache. This lasted maybe five to ten minutes, then subsided. I think that sensation must have been from the drug spreading out but am not sure.

I must have handled the whole thing pretty well, because last night hubs got invited to a Rangers hockey game, and tried to coax me to join him and do my injection in the middle of Madison Square Garden. I told him that wasn't really an idea that appealed to me, so the topic turned to whether or not I felt up to the challenge of self injection. Until I actually did it, I wasn't sure how I would handle it, but that too fell under NBD status. There was a little prick with very little pain or blood, followed a few minutes later by a burning ache.

Tuesday I had an ultrasound, and was given some good news, and some "I don't know what to do with that" news. The good news is that I have 20 follicles in one ovary, and 15 in the other, so, as the nurse explained, I am "very fertile for being so infertile." Comments like this make me mentally wave my fist at the air and yell "damn you c-section!"

The "I don't know what to do with that" news, was that my uterus, which has always been a little tipped, is now tipped and twisted. I don't really know what that means. Have any of you dealt with a twisted uterus, and if so, did it pose any issues?

Between the progesterone to start my cycle, and these injections, I have had a few side effects, mostly leg cramps and bloating, but today when I woke up, I was extremely nauseous, dizzy, and just feeling blah. The IVF nurse assured me that this is probably a bug from the constant change in weather we have been experiencing, and not something having to do with the meds. If she is right, I am hoping to feel better in the next few days.

So there you have it. More forward momentum. Sometime next week I will go in for the retrieval, and then 3 or 5 days later, return for implantation. As most of you know, getting royally kicked in the gut by the universe a few times in a row, the way we have, will leave a person lacking optimism. That being said, for some unknown reason, I feel really confident about this cycle. I am just sort of expecting that it will work. Someone told me not to get my hopes up too high, but honestly, my hopes have nowhere to go but up.


**I wanted to mention, too, how incredibly behind I am on my reading. I had some Google reader issues that seem to have remedied themselves, but now there are hundreds of posts in there. I have been going through them, just reading some, reading and commenting on others, and want you all to know that just because you may not have heard from me in a few days, does not mean you are not in my thoughts.