For Show and Tell this week I’m posting a little story. Years ago I used to write for fun, little snippets of silliness from the corners of my brain. I was sorting through some old files today and found this. It made me giggle.

Yeah, I changed the theme. I needed something… bigger. And newer. And different.

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Giving myself my own shots is… interesting. It’s just lupron, so it doesn’t hurt. But there’s still a moment when I’m holding the needle poised inches above my skin that I pause, thinking, this is really weird. And a little bit intimidating.

But – as with a lot of things in life, I’ve learned – it’s a lot better if you just do it quickly and don’t think too much about it.

There are times when I LOVE my body. Today I love it.

After the Breakthrough Bleeding Disaster of 2009 (aka “last cycle”) I re-set my body and had been having a very spot-free cycle, as normal. And then I started spotting – but very very lightly – my last four days of taking the pills. I ignored it. When I took no more pills I had no more spotting. I just sat back and counted down the days.

My period arrived tonight. I was expecting it tomorrow morning so it is off by a few hours, but tonight is possibly even better since I don’t have to spend tonight wondering if it’s going to be on time. Tomorrow I call the nurses, and friday I go in for baseline. This works out perfectly because I’m scheduled to go in late on friday so I don’t have to take any time off for the baseline or let anyone know that I’m starting now. (Next week I won’t be so lucky, but obviously there’s a point where it’s going to be obvious that I am cycling.)

I love that my body can count.

Of course I am still terrified. I am trying very hard not to think about fertilization, instead I’m just looking one step ahead. Starting stims, I can handle that. And stims will probably go well – although, different protocol, there’s reason to be concerned about that too. So basically, no thinking allowed this cycle.

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Seeing a therapist is kind of a weird thing to me. It’s not weird for the same reason that it is weird to most people: spilling out all of my innermost thoughts is more or less second nature to me. But saving them all up and then deciding what is important enough to talk about in the one hour I have, well that just feels unnatural. But it has caused me to think about things before I go. That can result in some interesting thoughts.

When I sit and think about my life and the way I lead it, I can’t really say that I’m terribly depressed. I can’t even say that I’m terribly sad anymore. I am underneath – I know I’m not entirely happy – but I just don’t live my days in deep sadness.

I don’t cry much anymore. I don’t think it’s because I’m suppressing emotions (I’ve never been very good at that, anyways). I’m not numb the way I was for many months. I know for the first few months I would alternate between crying heavily and feeling totally empty and numb, like there just weren’t tears left. And then I would cry again. They came easily, for little things, little reminders, little thoughts. They just came.

But now, not so much. Sometimes the tears will well up when I’m really bringing up old memories. Sometimes, in a dark mood when I’m writing from my inner soul, that’s when the memories and tears come bubbling up from within. But they are small tears now. The lingering tears of a hurt that just won’t go away, instead of the deep, unbelievable grief. I think it comes with acceptance. I no longer feel such shock at the thought that he is dead. I no longer feel such disbelief.

In a way I have adjusted to Devin being my dead child. He is my child, and I am happy for that.. But he is not here. It will always be painful. There will always be regrets and frustrations and sadness. But it doesn’t feel like a huge bandaid ripped off my tender inner skin. It’s a scar now. It will never look the way it did before I was cut open… it will always be obvious that I was hurt. But it has faded, healed a little bit. If you don’t look too closely at my soul you might even miss it. When I wake up in the morning I’m thinking about the alarm clock, not that my son isn’t here.

But I am carrying a huge hurt on my shoulders. I am angry, I am bitter, I am sometimes not very pleasant. I realized it’s because of the infertility. This is the pain that I am dealing with right now: my inability to get pregnant again. This is why I rant and rail in my head (and sometimes outloud). This is why my heart hurts so deeply when I see pregnant women.

I still sleep with the blanket I bought because it reminded me of Devin. And between our pillows are the sheep, the pillow, and the taggies blanket. I tend to touch them before going to sleep. Sometimes I pull Sheepie a little closer at night, when I feel like I need a little extra comfort.

When I think of Devin I smile, because the memories are so beautiful, because I had him, had that experience. Isn’t that ironic? My son died, and yet he is the one comforting me through this struggle.

A beautiful article about stillbirth and Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep: Newsweek: A vast and sudden saddness. Well worth a read and maybe even passing on to friends and family.

Normally when shopping for baby gifts you run across all kinds of very cute, very neat, very useless items. You think to yourself, what good would that do? The child would never get to play with that, it is simply not practical or fun.

When shopping for a dead child the last thing on your mind is grubby hands or broken parts. I skip over practical gifts – no need to feed a child, or clothe them, or play with them. All I need is to remember. The gift is not for the child, it is for me.

Tonight I am searching for a birthday gift for him. I was thinking maybe an ornament of some sort for his shelf. I was looking at things with little verses printed on them, and they were quite nice. I put them on my list to consider. I saw a lot of cute “first birthday” clothes and just kept scrolling – what good are those to me? They have no meaning anymore. Picture frames – but there are no more photos.

And then up popped a little silver train piggy bank. My eyes filled with tears at the little stab in the heart. Trains. My dad bestowed upon me a love of trains from a very early age. I had my own set, and I was very excited to get some for Devin when he was old enough. His baby book had a train on the front. It just represented so much hope and dreams for his future. It held so much meaning for me. So of course I immediately backed out of the page with the silver train and continued searching for an ornament.

But after the initial upset wore off I realized, wouldn’t that be the perfect gift to honor him? A symbol of all the love and dreams and hopes that I held. Something for which my first, sad thought was that I will never get to buy that train. And so, like the taggies blanket, I’m going to get it anyways. My hopes and dreams and love do not end with his death.

Devin will have his train.

Oh yeah, and I am to go in Saturday morning for baseline scan. Saturday, not Friday, the way I had planned it. So I’m going to be late to work and have to take sick leave. And also, I think this makes it more likely that the beta will be on or very close to Devin’s birthday… it all depends on how long I stim for.

This makes me annoyed – and yet not annoyed enough for me to call and ask them to change it. I am trying hard not to over-manipulate things… I spend so much of my time micro-managing everything, counting out days and plotting everything, I have been trying to surrender some of that and just let it be out of my control – that maybe things will just work out better if I’m not constantly struggling against it. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

So, Saturday I start Phase 3: The Big Needles.

I’ve always had an issue with the phone. A big one. Most teenaged girls glued their phone to their ear for the entire evening, and there I was, avoiding mine at all costs. I hated answering it, I hated calling people. My mom would get very frustrated and a little angry with me. “Just call and ask!” She didn’t see what the big deal was, and to be honest neither did I. I didn’t know why I disliked it so much, I just did.

Over time I have learned to prepare myself to use the phone. Speaking to people I know well is fine now, but for all other calls I have a process. I get a pen and paper ready, I jot down notes, I rehearse, and I have to have complete quiet.

I have had many years to ponder this issue, and realized that I have trouble hearing people. Or, rather, understanding them. Having a silent room to phone from is of paramount importance – any sound at all and I can’t understand a word that is said. It’s almost like my brain gets distracted… like the background noise garbles up the signal. I’m constantly asking, “Sorry, what was that?” Even when conditions are perfect, it is hard work. It takes all my concious effort to keep up with the conversation, and I feel quite exhausted afterwards.

I mentioned this offhand to my therapist last week, and she asked a few questions of me to get a better understanding of it. Do I have the same problems talking face-to-face? No, it’s much easier when the person is in front of me. Maybe it’s the connection I need, she said, that I don’t react well when it’s not personal. No, I countered – I love email and written communication… in fact, I prefer that over all else. Her suggestion was that the probems that I have on the phone I also have in face-to-face, but that I rely on visual cues to fill in the gaps. She said I might be lip reading far more than I am aware.

I’ve been paying attention for the week since then it all seems to make sense. I looked it up, and this is what I found: Auditory Processing Disorder. Well holy shit.

* It’s a processing disorder, not a hearing problem. Which explains my confusion all these years. I thought there couldn’t be anything wrong, since I have very sensitive hearing. But the problem is in my brain translating the sound to language.

* I have a hellish time understanding any kind of instructions given verbally. I always always have required it to be written down. Even if I only glance at it once, it still stays in my head that way. My parents used to argue with me and give me verbal driving directions and I would throw a fit… I just could not understand verbal directions.

* “need more time to process information” – This is one of the ways I’ve described what I’m dealing with. When I get verbal information I feel like I’m always three steps behind, struggling to process it all.

* “develop a dislike for locations with background noise such as bar, clubs or other social locations” – I despise them. I usually just give up completely. I usually end up just nodding and smiling a lot, because I can’t figure out what the fuck anyone is saying. Visual clues only get me so far.

Obviously whatever I have does not extend into other things. I am not autistic, dyslexic, ADD, or a language procesing disorder that extends into written words. It’s solely the auditory processing.

It does explain a lot, though. I like it when the puzzle pieces of my brain fall together a little bit more. Like when I was sorta-diagnosed with OCPD. Little things that basically explain who I am and how I function.

I should probably get formally tested and diagnosed with this APD, but to be honest, I don’t feel like shelling out hundreds of dollars in copays for something that have had all my life and have learned to cope with. I simply don’t see any benefits to being officially diagnosed. It’s not like depression, that you can “fix” with a medication. I know how to best structure things to my advantage – and I know my weaknesses. That’s pretty much the best you can do anyways. Most of what I find online is about school-age kids, and I’m a little bit past worrying about it being an issue in school.

Some people probably think I’m being overly dramatic and looking for things that aren’t there. But it is what it is, and I don’t really care if it’s something you can pin a name on or not. (It just makes it a little easier to describe and understand!) I have troubles understanding verbal speech and need to work a little harder than most people. That’s pretty much what it boils down to.

Baseline went same as usual. More than 15 antal follicles total, thin lining, everything hunky dory to start. I didn’t get a call, which means my E2 was also completely normal.

Which is good, since the lady taking my blood had to poke me twice. I warned her about my veins, she tried, she rooted around, found nothing. Then the same in the other arm. Thank the light she found it there, because I was really wincing from the fishing for the vein. She had started eying the veins on the back of my hand, and I was politely trying to dissuade her from trying that. Oh nooo you don’t. No hands. Painful.

I did mention to the nurse that I was a little worried that my body wouldn’t respond to the menopur-only protocol. She reassured me by reminding me that menopur is half FSH, half LH. In every 75iu bottle there is 37.5iu of FSH. I’m doing three vials a day, so it’s basically like doing 112.5iu of follistim. That made me feel better. And it is a lower dose than before. This is good.

The hope is that the extra LH will all go to my little eggies and whisper in their ear.

Oh, also she mentioned that they recently (within the last year) changed their freezing protocol to only freeze embryos cultured to blast. She confirmed that if our second embryo last time didn’t freeze it was because it didn’t make it to blast. Which reinforced my belief that those embryos took a hit to quality with the overstimming… which I think also explains why the first embryo didn’t implant. It probably didn’t make a good blast either. Kind of makes me wonder why they transfer at day 3 at all…. using the same logic, they ought to wait and see if it’s a worthwhile embryo first.

I go in Tuesday morning for bloodwork to see how my E2 is doing. That will be the first clue that things are going well or not. Today was somewhat a “gimme” (as much as they can be, in this game)… but seeing if my body is responding appropriately, that will be the first big question.

A beautiful video for the Supreme Court, saying “Don’t Divorce Us!” Watch, read, and sign the petition against Prop 8. They will NOT win this one. Equality in love, for everyone.

Weekends oppress me. All week I look forward to my day off, when the pressures of work finally let up and I can breathe for a day. I go to sleep Saturday night feeling gleeful and relieved. I even wake up feeling serene, light streaming in the windows, a dog nose next to mine (eyes peering into mine, questioning if I am actually awake or not). But very soon the silence sinks in a little too much, the boards I visit have nothing new to say, and I start getting that panicky feeling. I have nothing to do but think… and thinking is what I do not want to do.

I am still very appreciative of how fast the weeks go by when I am working so much. Every week I mark off on the calendar is another week that I survived, another week closer – I hope – to when I will have a new life to cherish. Right now there is nothing but the waiting. Anything that makes it go by faster is a balm on the countdown that repeats over and over again in my heart.

The weekend is, of course, when the internet is quietest. Other people are off spending time with their families. Even sites like lolcats seem quieter (though that may just be because I refresh the page every half an hour, looking for something new).

Typically I get bored, since my very short list of stuff I keep up on during the week is quickly exhausted with all this free time and I start poking around. Whatever happened to so-and-so? I look around places I haven’t seen in a week or more. That’s usually when I start running across the pregnancy announcements. Expected, but it still stings. She’s pregnant now, and so is she. That one I knew about, but she’s already that far along? And she’s pregnant too already?

I shut it all off, it just hurts too much. Not for them, but for me. It should have been me last month, announcing. Or the month before that, or the month before that. I have no idea if this month I will be the lucky one, but it stresses me out too much to think about it. I am not that one today, and that’s all that really matters. So I sit here alone and turn on the TV.

I could get up and do something productive, but my body is tired from the work week. It is my mind that is tearing loose. Maybe I’ll go grab a book… and some lunch.