I am bleeding heavier today. I am mid-cycle. I am on the birth control pill. I looked back at my notes from my previous few cycles and found that every cycle on the pill I have bled off and on through pretty much the whole damn thing. Lovely. So I called the nurses just to let them know that it was happening, in case it affected anything with the cycle or if they wanted me to switch pills or something. Thankfully she told me that it’s pretty normal for bleeding during pill cycles when your body isn’t used to being on it (which my body of course isn’t, seeing how I spend one cycle on, one cycle off, repeat), and that it won’t affect the cycle at all…. only my (dis)comfort level. Which, okay, is rather irritating… I don’t think I will ever be able to not wear panty liners ever again, I’m either bleeding, leaking progesterone, or producing ridiculous amounts of CM. And the bloaty shit is just plain annoying, I didn’t expect bloating until starting stims. But I’ll deal with it, as long as it doesn’t fuck up the cycle!

I got my paperwork in the mail today. I am having to make some adjustments to the timing, just to ensure that retrieval doesn’t fall on the two days that Den has his big thing at work, but here’s what it’s looking like:
Start Lupron on Aug 11 (this coming Tuesday!)
Last BCP Aug 14 (one week from today)
Expect AF Aug 18
Start Stims around Aug 20
Estimated Trigger Aug 30
Estimated Retrieval Sept 1
Estimated Blast Transfer Sept 6
Estimated Beta Sept 15

To be perfectly honest I don’t even know what I’m feeling about this cycle. A little bit of hope, anxiety, frustration, excitement, fear, relief…. all of it tumbled together. I definitely feel happy that we’re getting another chance at this, but every cycle that goes by I get a little bit more frantic, a little bit more hope lost. I was going to say desperate, but I actually think the desperation has faded somewhat from what I felt in the first year after Devin died… that was pure adrenaline-run desperation, a monster inside clawing at the walls, sobbing Give it back, give it back. Now it’s faded into a heavy ache… just a woman, arms around herself, with barely the strength to keep whispering, Please…

I was having a hard time with anxiety last week… not the kind of anxiety brought on by work or cycle planning, but just random general anxiety. I mentioned it to my acupuncturist on Monday, and when she placed some needles she said it should help with the anxiety. I didn’t think about it after that, until I realized today that I haven’t felt that kind of random, sourceless anxiety at all this week. Nice. Next time I’m struggling with something I’ll have to mention it to her.