Mixed emotions

Well, here I am. Patch day 1. The start of it all.

And my healthy eating has gone completely to pieces. It's like I start too early and run out of steam. Or the stress of getting close to the cycle causes me to not be able to maintain focus. Sigh. I will try again next week. No more pastries or apple pies!! Or cheese. Oh, lovely cheese. At least I have kept off the alcohol and caffeine, so that's something.

I feel very unprepared. A lot of that is because my house is still in chaos. Let's face it, I am a slob. I am not good at picking up after myself so inbetween visits by the house cleaner, it degenerates. And I have to have it clean because I'm going away and will have friends coming by to feed the cat. And one of them is I think somewhat likely to snoop. So not only does it have to be tidy, all the fertility books and paraphenalia has to be hidden. I spent much of yesterday trimming hedges in the yard. Which gave me a sunburn and sore shoulders. Yes, being a good hippy I used manual shears, and the hedges had not been trimmed in, oh, forever, since I cut the yard guy down to once every 2 weeks. He is taking it out on me by basically doing nothing, and I would have fired him completely by now if I hadn't been stressed about being out of town and the grass potentially growing to a foot high or something if I didn't have him coming by at some point. As soon as I get back, his ass is gone, though. Anyhoo, the hedges took a LONG time to trim, and I was trying to tell myself that when I get back I'll be pregnant and won't want to stand in the heat doing yardwork so it better be in good shape now. Today I am tackling the chaos that is my desk, as it has piles of papers strewn about that should be gone, gone, gone.

I had my last acupuncture appointment yesterday. Not that I told them it would be my last, but I am done with acupuncture. I have given it 2 years and 3 months. A whole year with the current acu. And I don't feel that we really fixed everything. I mean, some things have got better. I have more energy than I used to. I get EWCM. I am ovulating later. All good. But I cannot afford to keep throwing money away like I have been doing over this fertility stuff. $75 a visit on acupuncture, and $175 on therapy add up VERY quickly. And it used to be $100 a visit for acupuncture when I was taking herbs, and when I saw my second acu. If this cycle doesn't work, and if I do another cycle, I will find some other way to destress. Well, I might go back to therapy for a bit, as if this cycle doesn't work, I'm sure I'll have issues. But, I am tired of handing over authority for my treatment to other people. To acupuncturists who don't even tell me what they think is stagnated or deficient. To therapists who ask me if I'm open to a relationship all the freakin' time. Hello? I said yes, what is this, the CIA where you ask me the same question repeatedly to see if you can catch me out? But of course, it seems very much to be end-of-an-era ish to be stopping acupuncture, as it has been so intimately connected with trying to conceive. I basically started it after 3 failed IUI's so I've pretty much been doing it all along. Just think of what I could have bought with all that money!! I need to stop hemorraging cash over this baby dream, so it is done. I may try to go back to yoga, as at least that will help with my general fitness level as well as destressing me.

So. Then. Here we are. Patch day 1. Although I feel unprepared and have been putting bad things down my gullet, my eggs had better be prepared. I hope that they respond well to the meds, and I hope that they develop nicely and in unison. I hope that I have a good egg retrieval, a fantastic fertilization report, and a nice, easy transfer of great quality embryos. It is kind of out of my hands now, I feel. It's too late to change anything. Yes, I should have lost weight. Yes, I should have been more rigid with the healthy eating. Yes, I shoulda woulda coulda done many things. But it's not as if any of us really know if those things have an effect on cycle outcomes. So I will try not to stress too much. I will try to relax into the cycle, just breathe, and let the docs and magic lab of Big Clinic do their work. I wil try to believe that I have a good chance this cycle. I will try to hold on to that thought. Even when the knot of panic in my throat rises up and threatens to stop me from functioning at all. One day at a time, one hour at a time. I can and will get through this again.