Today I printed out that article on delayed hCG and oocyte maturity and poured over the details. And then, when I was done that, I looked up the articles it referenced, to see if any of them would be helpful to me. I spent a while looking things up, downloading, jotting down notes.

Den came up behind me and suggested I take a break. “You should take a break before you crash. You do that, you know.”

I looked at him blankly and blinked. “That’s why I need to get this done before I crash.”

“Well, maybe you could avoid crashing if you take some time off from the researching….”

I stared at him. He stared back at me.

He sighed. “I forgot who I’m talking to.”

I went back to reading.

::

He is not wrong, though I see it as less of a “crash” and more as me reaching the end of my objective and moving on. This is how I do things. Maybe it’s not entirely healthy, but it’s effective. I’ve learned to take advantage of it and push until I reach the end. It’s how I clean. It’s how I learn. It’s how I get things done. I have tried doing a little at a time, spread out so as not to overwhelm me. It just doesn’t work well… I waste time, I get confused, I totally lose motivation. I do my best work when I’m kicked into high gear, invested thoroughly into whatever project I’m doing.

I am also doing everything I can to avoid thinking about where I’m at in my current cycle. I have not touched my chart – or opened it – since our appointment. I have not written anything down. I have not checked my cervix. I have not counted days on the calendar. This, I realize, is my way of avoidance. I figure if I stuff enough things into my brain it won’t have the time or capacity to be conjuring up images of a surprize BFP.

Staying focussed on my IVF cycle really has done me a world of good. It’s shifted my mental energy over and set my sights on the future. I am now working towards something, not just drifting aimlessly waiting for “something” to happen. I now have a timeline I can work with. I have some real hope.

I remind myself that it could take two cycles to get pregnant again. That would suck, but it would not be the end of the world.

I’m really struggling with the idea that I won’t be pregnant before Christmas. And thinking that it’s possible I might not even be pregnant by Devin’s birthday. I know, I know – stop worrying about things until they happen. But we’re not getting insurance until mid-november, and knowing insurance it’ll take some time to kick in, so hopefully starting IVF in December. Transfer in Jan or Feb. :( This makes me so upset. Maybe in a few years it won’t matter so much, but the waiting just really seems to magnify our loss. A whole year without Devin, and without any baby. If we’re not pregnant by his birthday… I just don’t know what I’ll do. It won’t be pretty.

Before I was mourning my loss, and hoping I wasn’t still infertile. Now I feel all the old anger and frustration of being infertile come rushing in on me on top of the loss grief. It makes me so damn angry. I can deal with one. I can deal with the other. But for fuck’s sake, don’t give me both at once.

This is why I bury myself in research. No time to sit and feel sorry for myself… and it allows me to have hope in this, that this will all work out. I need to keep busy these next three months, or I am going to go insane. Oocytes and embryos and hCG and meiosis… so very much easier to think about than the fact that I do not have a baby.

I want my little boy so bad. I want another little boy. And I know I will be happy with whatever I get – sex seems like such a petty thing to be upset about – but oh holy hell I want a little boy so very badly. Not to replace Devin, never to replace him. But I got used to it. I looked forward to it. And seeing Devin’s little brother toddling around would help heal my heart a little bit.

It’s been 5 months today. It hurts less. It’s become more of a dull pain. Always there. You kind of get used to it, in a way… you forget how it felt like to not have this ache always with you, tucked in your pocket next to your heart. And it feels more unbelievable every day. Speaking of loss becomes commonplace. The world is so different now… my world is so different. I say things like, “I want at least two live children,” and, “After we lost Devin.” There’s only a slight pause now. It becomes a part of your vocabulary. Your life gets re-defined in a major way and, somehow, us humans get used to it.

I don’t like to think about time, at least not beyond planning for the coming week, and yet it seems to take up a good portion of my thought processes. The time since Devin died, the time until IVF. Sometimes I forget, and then I see something, hear something… how BabyH is 2 months old. That means it’s been 5 months for us. I look at BabyH and realize how she’s changed already. Time is forward, time is cumulative… time reaches towards her future. For me time diminishes, it takes away. Time takes me further from him.