Refining

I think I've posted before about how I'd like to be one of those minimalist types. You know, people who have 20 items of clothing in total, one laptop and this spare clean apartment with one sofa in it. Or something. But, I like shopping, so that's always been a problem for me.

But I set my mind on slightly reducing the number of possessions I have. Of course, this means that I have to wait for suitable moments of time and energy in which I can tackle such projects, but I am on a clothing kick right now.

Last week I reduced the number of casual pants I have to 40 (this includes all shorts, track pants, yoga pants as well as jeans and weekend stuff). It makes me cringe a bit to relate that I had to reduce to this number, as 40 still seems impossibly high. Why 40? It just kind of happened. I had 50 in my head as a number for pants overall (with the aim some day of having 50 pants + skirts, and then whittling the number down further). But I didn't have the energy to tackle work pants, so I started with the closet section that has casual pants in it, and once I'd tried everything on and put everything that didn't fit or I didn't like or just plain wasn't going to ever happen again on to the "donate" pile, it came out to 40 left. So I stopped there. More than 20 pairs of pants got donated. Eeek. So much STUFF. Too much.

This week I went on a shoe buying binge (hey! BOGO!), so it came time to tackle shoes. I have gone up half a size in shoes in the last 5 years or so (mostly I think due to gaining weight but I lost 22 lbs and have kept it off for ~18 months and the feet have not shrunk). So there are many shoes that I just couldn't wear any more without wincing. Onto the donate pile they went, and when I counted what was left, I had .... 39 pairs of shoes. Given that I like round numbers, one pair of shoes was rescued from the donate pile to make 40. It's weird how that number cropped up again.

Maybe 40 will be my number. Maybe I'll try for 40 tops next. [Well, being honest, it'll probably be 40 sweaters, 40 tops/shirts, and 40 t-shirts.]

Of course, the trick is going to be to reduce my shopping tendencies. Having limited spare time has helped with this, of course, and I am making a conscious effort NOT to just buy things mindlessly. I'd rather buy fewer, higher quality pieces of clothing that will last a long time, than keep consuming, consuming, consuming. But it's so damn hard to change ingrained habits.

All clear on the boob front

Thank you guys for hanging out with me, and sending me good vibes. It is good to know that you are there.

I got the letter on the boob issue today - no abnormal findings. Phew. Even though I was only saying today that I felt sure that there was nothing wrong - with every day that went by, it seemed less and less urgent, and logically I knew that I should be fine, still, I breathed a sigh of relief when the official word came.

Phew.

The finding

I have something in my boob, apparently. My new doc told me to get a mammogram, so I did, and now they're being all freaky that they can't provide me with a report until they get my baseline mammo from my old doctor and compare. Because there's a "finding." I expect that it's nothing, as if it was something serious: (a) you'd be able to feel something, which you can't, and (b) they wouldn't be sending me snail mail letters telling me to get the mammo film over to them, they'd be calling on the fellytone, and insisting on follow-up imaging STAT.

But still, the mind can't help but wander over to the particular corner of memory lane where jabbing oneself with fertility drugs is stored, and thinking...hmmmm. Ah well, all will be clear eventually I suppose.

And I don't feel that I can share with too many people because then it's like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, and demanding attention. But my work friends have been useless, frankly. One is a radiologist's wife, immediately freaked, and had me call her husband to discuss, who of course said "well, this could be perfectly normal," which is what I knew all along - it could just be some fibrous stuff that means nothing. Another has had many cystic things in her boobs, and thinks I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. Which I'm not. I just mentioned it. Gah. So that put me off mentioning it to other people outside the family, because most of them don't know me well enough to know my level of not freaking out but still being just a teensy bit concerned at the back of my mind.

So, here I am. Not that I have an audience here any more, but it makes me feel better to put stuff out there in the ether. Sharing without really sharing, as it were. I suppose I shall call my old doc again on Monday and find out if they've sent the darn records off yet.

It doesn't help that I got the second letter reminding me that they need to see the previous mammo on the anniversary of my mom's death. At a young age. From the big C. But a different organ. But still. Gah.

It's been a while

I went to a new GYN yesterday (I have switched to a practice that does not include any OB along with their GYN - much more civilized for the likes of me). She tried to talk me into doing fertility treatments while I still had time. Umm, yeah.

OK, so I had tried to fudge my history with the nurse a little bit when they were setting up their new patient screen, by saying I'd done "a few" IVFs and downplaying the whole thing. Eventually, the truth will out, of course. But I did like the way she tried to imply that my fertility problems might have been my partner's, and that these days you can "order out" while you're single and use a donor. Ha! After I explained that I was "ordering out" and had tried three different donors, she finally got the point.

And once the whole sordid history ["how many cycles?"] came out, she sat back and said "Ah. I see." And I said "really, I am at peace with it. I am FINE if I never have kids. If I meet someone new and I manage to get pregnant, I'll be THRILLED. If not, that's OK. I'm not doing any more treatments." And we moved swiftly along.

But will I be fine? Someone recently told me that they saw me working with children in the future, especially those with ADD/ADHD. And I immediately died a little inside, and wondered how I could handle that if I don't have kids of my own. Of course, I still may adopt. Still could do donor egg. Still could have a miracle. Still could climb Mount Everest.

I suppose I had always seen myself doing infertility work due to my particular background, but you know, I've been looking around at doctoral programs, and at the people jumping on the infertility bandwagon, and it isn't really appealing, to be honest. I think these days I see myself more as a generalist - a little infertility, a little back pain, a little geriatric work, a little pediatric. But then again, maybe I should be a brain specialist. I do think so much infertility is actually a brain/heart/mind thing as opposed to a plumbing problem. We're under so much stress that it really does mess everything else up. I look back now to see how tightly wound I was going through those IVF cycles, and how I am much looser and freer these days (in spite of my crazy schedule), and wonder if things would have been different if only I'd got the stress, the grief, the depression, the crazy dealt with first. Not that I didn't try. I tried damn hard. But I didn't know how, and people telling me "just relax" and "open your heart" stressed me out even more. So maybe I could tie it all together - infertility, depression, ADD/ADHD, anxiety, it's all in the mind. Maybe that's where I'm heading.

Crunch. Time.

You know how when you are impossibly busy, something else comes along, and you think "holy crap, how am I going to fit this in as well?" And then you fit it in somehow, and then something further comes along, and you think "Oh Lord, another thing, how on earth is this going to work out?" And then it does...

Hopefully.

So, hahaha, in addition to my impossibly busy schedule, I am about to start a herbal internship program for one day a week. I think I have gone slightly crazy. But, it was an opportunity too good to pass up. This is the opportunity about which I was already wondering how to finagle even the possibility of getting an interview for in my third year. This is the opportunity that you apparently have to be reccomended for. This is with the most respected acu doc in the area. I am super lucky that someone in the program recommended me for this opportunity now. I may not get another shot at this, and I would be insane to let concerns about my schedule prevent me from going for it. Insane. I can't not do this. I will make this work somehow.

In other words, I'm thrilled. But frantic schedule reshuffling will now commence. I think if I move my work start time an hour earlier, and the finish time an hour later on Mondays and Fridays, and drop a clinic session at school, I will be OK.

Imaginings

I find that, slowly but surely, I am starting to imagine what my future life might be like in acupuncture. I am finding what floats my boat, and what I care not-so-much about. Of course, I still have a long way to go, and a lot of things to learn. But it is nice that my imaginings are starting to take shape.

So far I am liking the gentle Japanese-style of acu (as opposed to Chinese-style "no pain, no gain"), herbal medicines (though the classes are boring and with a TON of information to learn), ear acu (I cleared up my own backache in 5 minutes just jamming a probe on the right points in my ears). And, actually, I like learning the "western" medical stuff. Some of my classmates are dismissive of western medicine because we're doing the eastern spiritual/energetic stuff so why should we have to sit through pathology classes? But I like it. Partly because I have always liked gross medical stuff, although of course I am always imagining I have whatever we're studying - I have a spot on my arm that has in my mind been both skin cancer and MRSA within the course of a week. And every time we talk about skin diseases or infectious diseases I come over all itchy, which is not terribly reassuring. But partly I like it because I know that patients will be coming in with western diagnoses. They won't be saying "oh, I get dizzy now and again, and sometimes I am thirsty and sometimes I pee a lot." They'll be saying "I have high blood pressure and diabetes." And I want to be able to understand the disease, and to be able to speak in terms that the person can understand. I also want to be able to understand prescription drugs, so that I can know which drugs and herbs react/interfere with each other. Most doctors will just say "I don't understand herbs, so I don't know which ones react, therefore don't take any." If I can counter with appropriate information for the patient to take back to their doctor, all the better. But it would be nice not to have to fight with patients' doctors. It would be nice to work in an integrative setting with a doctor that is not dismissive of this stuff.

Of course, thinking about working in a doctor's office doesn't stop me from constantly looking at buildings in my city and thinking about whether they would make a good clinic. Particularly old stores with apartments above them. I really dig the idea of living above the shop, as it were. I don't know whether this is just because it would save money to have one location, or because it appeals to a sense of history. That's the way people used to run their businesses - out of their homes. It just seems funky and cool. Of course, it does mean living on a busier road, as such stores are not generally on quiet residential backwaters, but hey, that's the price you pay.

Whoa. Freaky.

So, right, akashic record thing. They said I had to open myself up to other things, especially to learning about areas that are adjunct to or complementary to what I'm learning with Chinese medicine. Maybe other healing modalities, other herbal medicine traditions. Whatever whets my interest. I shouldn't cry off about not having enough time, I should just do it. Go to the seminars or classes or whatever. And broaden my horizons. Not the least because the more things I go to, the more people I will meet, including (I hope) the future Mr. Sarah.

Right. Just do it. Easier said than done to someone who is chronically worried about being time-deprived.

Well, we were leaving the school clinic on Saturday when I got persuaded to go to the home of some fellow students to learn about an energetic healing class one of them is doing. I said no to start with, true to form. But they pushed, they said there would be food, and that it would only be a few hours and besides, I had nothing else planned for Saturday night. So with the "just do it" motto floating around my head, I stepped out of my comfort zone and said yes.

We had a nice dinner, and then sat around discussing this healing thing, and I've got to say, I was a bit skeptical. It involves what basically appear to be mirrors. And some colored threads. And some other things that I couldn't figure out. Yah. Like I said, it wasn't floating my boat any. But the guy that has done the class decided to do a treatment on me to demonstrate. And.

Whoosh is all I can say.

I felt this energy from these darn mirror things. I felt my chakras, especially the ones where I have blockages. I felt fear bubbling up. I felt many things. And then they left me for 10 minutes to relax, and as I was lying there, all these insights came to me. Insights into the whole infertility mess and my mother's death. About how things happen to us that we can't control and plan for. And I felt at peace. It was like these two aspects of my life were mirrors - my mother got ripped away from me, and so did my child. Or, at least, the child I thought I was creating with my carefully planned SMC backup plan. You can't plan. Things happen. Sometimes things happen to teach us a lesson in a fairly brutal fashion. But it was like, here, here is this 30-year period of your life in which you were miserable. Bookended by two miserable events. But for the first time, I came to see them as bookends. A beginning and an end. An open and a close. A start and a finish. And that I can close that chapter of my life, and look on to the next with happiness. Because I don't need to drag the misery around any more.

And then my friends came back in the room, and continued the healing, and we got to a point where my head opened up and I got dizzy from the vastness of space that was inside my head.

Um. Yeah. Whoosh.

Don't worry. My head went back to normal again. I think...

Blurt

Before the crushing exhaustion of a new semester at school begins again, I thought I'd jot down a few random thoughts:

***

I had an amazing psychic/akashic record reading type thing done over the weekend. It has given me hope again on many levels. I'm not sure I can write about it adequately without sounding like a complete fruitcake, but I believe in what happened, and I believe the message I got that there is a soul waiting for me to be its mother. And that it doesn't necessarily have to be through adoption. So I am again thinking about this whole motherhood thing rather than remaining child free. We asked if this soul was born yet, and got the answer that it has not. But, anyway, first I'm going to look for my husband/boyfriend, who I also believe is out there somewhere for me. And then we'll see what happens.

***

Are you a regimen type of a gal? I mean beauty regimen here. I have always been a random collector of products tried and not stuck with. But I have been thinking about the number of chemicals we expose ourselves to on a daily basis, and am thinking that this random usage of different items might expose me to more types of chemicals than if I stuck to one range of things. Surely items from one brand that are meant to work together will have underlying basic formulae that share ingredients? So if I switched to a complete regimen, might this cut down on the number of different chemicals? Anyway, I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to try being a regimen following lovely. And on that note, do you have any natural beauty brands that you love? Skin care, hair care, make up. Or even cleaning products?

***

Do you love to-do lists? I remember blogging previously about trying out a web-based to do organizer. Well, I gave up on that one pretty quickly, but I am now trying out http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ So far, me likey! I ever have this dream of being organized. And, talking of which, my house is still tidy, which is probably a record for me. I am trying my very best to morph into a neat freak. I don't want to hire someone to clean for me - I tried that out before, and while I liked coming home to a nicely mopped floor every other week, it didn't satisfy me on a fundamental level. Strangely, making small but incremental progress in cleanliness brought about by my own actions is satisfying.

***

I spoke to a woman yesterday who is from England and has been in the States about the same length of time as me. And she's a year younger than me. But she still spoke with a very English accent, but me, not so much. I have really modulated the way I speak over the years, and I wonder what this says about me. Or her. It was a very noticeable difference when we were talking. You say skedule, laugh at the way I say shhedule, and it won't be long before I'll say skedule too. Same with yoggurt and yohgurt. Same with any number of other words. Do I just associate more with people that are not terribly tactful and burst out laughing at my strange "mispronounciations"? Or am I more sensitive to people laughing at me? I hate it. Hate, hate, hate. And I know they're not laughing in a mean way most of the time (although when I said urEYEnal to a room full of people recently instead of Urihnal, that got some pretty harsh laughter and teasing afterwards). I'm not trying to put on an American accent. I still stand out, but I say many words in an American way. And there are some words I am incapable of saying differently, like bahth, and cahstle. I guess those are ingrained somehow, whereas the other words are easy for me to say differently. Are the people that stick with their accents incapable of changing? Do they just want to hold firm and be the obvious English person? Am I just scared of standing out?

The Happiness Project

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, aided by an oh-so-short 2 week break from school. Of course, you know me, there was some thinking about children in there, but mostly I was thinking about happiness.

On the children front, I still vacillate between thinking I will adopt when I have graduated, and thinking that I will remain child-free. I was recently, uh, pursued (in a nice way) by a guy who appeared very interested in dating. The problem was that his personality rubs me the wrong way, and I just don't see myself wanting to spend all that much time in his company. However, of course, my ovaries piped up, and there I was thinking "well, I'm 41, so if I really want to prove that I might have some fertility left in there, maybe I should just date the guy for a while and see..." But, thankfully, sanity reasserted itself, and I decided that I didn't want to have some callow sperm-stealing relationship on a whim to prove multiple RE's wrong. I decided that it was more important to me to date the right person, or parent the right child (however that child comes to me), than to go for some desperate attempt to conceive. I've tried enough desperate attempts at conceiving, thank you very much.

So, it was an eye-opener to me that I was able to back away, and rest easy in the knowledge that the longing for a genetic child really is ebbing away. And I am feeling more comfortable with both the idea of adopting and remaining child-free. I don't know what I will do, but I can see happiness in my future with either.

Neatly (or not) segueing into the happiness project...

One of my wishes for myself when I decided to give up the infertility treatment lark was to make a life for myself that involved me being happy. But of course I had spent so long imagining a life with children that I couldn't picture what happiness involved if it didn't include children. I have therefore needed to really think about what would actually make me happy. So I routinely now (when I have time) jumble up all my daydreams and imaginings and try to figure out how to get from here to there.

Damn, it's hard, though. Even when I think my happiness wishes are pretty basic. But they include things like "coming home to a clean house" which means I have to try to actually keep the house clean. And I have a slob streak a mile wide, I admit. Every time I think I'm getting better, I don't empty the dishwasher on schedule, and then the dirty dishes pile up waiting. And then it makes me grouchy. But do I go and empty the darn dishwasher? Not always, no, and it'll get overwhelming very quickly. But I am trying. I am trying to be better. I want to be the type of person that keeps a clean house all the time. I don't want to rely on a cleaning lady. I want to be the clean freak. I am hoping that by rephrasing cleaning as a way to increase my happiness, rather than as a chore, it will work better this time.

Do you have any housekeeping shortcuts or tips? Spill. I need 'em.

Do you have any happiness suggestions? Bring 'em on. This is going to be an ongoing project for the rest of my life, whether I have kids or not, so any and all suggestions are welcome.

Here's my happiness list:

Love - connect with friends and be better at it. Ditto family. Ditto partner in life.

Laughter - see above re relationships. Take time to laugh.

Place - I have moved around too much. I want to feel rooted in place, so, work to establish connections in the neighborhood, town, state.

Home - I like the idea of clean minimalism, of no clutter, of airy open spaces. Of loving my house instead of thinking "I hope nobody sees the dirty laundry lying around." Be clean. Keep clean. Love my home. Replace things I don't love with fewer, better things.

Travel - stop waiting for other people to be available to travel. Stop making excuses. Get out there and see places!

Body - strong, healthy, bendy. Exercise, do yoga, eat to nourish myself. Preferably be thin, but at least get to a healthy weight.

Mind - be the lady that frequents the library, keeps up with news, movies and theater, and has interesting conversations. Meditate.

Simple, right? Hahaha, it seems a bit overwhelming when I type it out. But it's not so so bad really. And I'm focusing on small things at a time. The focus this term at school is on cleaning house. Each semester so far I have cleaned in the break, and then let it fall into disaster the rest of the semester because I have no time. And then I end up in semi-squalor by the time finals come around. I have launched grandiose plans and schedules for cleaning, only to have them fail because they were too much to cope with. I have planned to get a cleaning lady, but put it off for so long that I talked myself out of it. But no. Not this time. This time I will figure out how to make it work, damn it. My happiness depends on it.

My notes, my choice.

I am, it would seem, a bitch. And I don't care.

We have this class on Saturday mornings which is hard. The prof. gives us an overload of information, and gives us two tests every week. Every week! Two! And I feel like I struggle. I write reams of notes, I study, I read the text book. And each week those tests are damn hard. I have a suspicion that two people in the class have got hold of old tests from other classes and are cheating. But I am not saying anything about them to anyone in charge, because eventually they'll get theirs. If they're not properly learning the stuff, they'll suffer in the end on one exam or another. And frankly, if that's their attitude to learning medical stuff, they'll suffer in their careers because they won't know what's going on when a patient comes in and says "I have X disease, can you help?" At least with acu they won't kill people if they treat wrongly, but it won't necessarily heighten the reputation of acu for the rest of us. But, whatever.

Anyway, there's this subset of people in class who have chosen not to take notes. Including the cheaters. But also including the party girl subset. I mean, I do have some sympathy for them - it's hard to get up early on Saturday after you've been out the night before. They sit there and listen (most of the time) or stare blankly at the wall thinking about their headaches. While I, and most others, didn't go out on Friday because we were effing studying. We worker bees are all getting pretty pissed about the whole thing.

So this week one of the "I have no need to take notes" people asked me if she could borrow my notes and copy them. And I said no. It would be a different matter if she'd missed the class because she was sick. Or if she struggled with taking notes, or with English, or with anything else. I have no problem in helping people out, because I know it is often easier for me than it is for others. But sitting there in class, choosing not to take notes? While I, every week, end up with a sore arm because I am writing so much? Ah no, you do not get to have me as your secretary taking dictation for you.

Heh. She's pissed at me. I wonder how long she'll keep it up for, but I am unrepentant. You're an adult, dearie, it's time to take responsibility for your own actions.

It's the herbs, man

I am feeling so much better in the last couple of weeks. This semester (trimester actually, as there's 3 of them in the year, but as an infertile, I hate that damn word) has been so damn HARD. I have been battling crushing exhaustion for 8 full weeks, which is even worse than when I first started at school. I was getting miserable, crying in my yoga classes out of the suckiness of it all, and generally living in a disgusting pig sty because I didn't have the energy to clean. And now I'm finally crawling out of the pit. The house is slowly becoming respectable again, and I have energy left over to do more than simply exist.

Of course, a lot of it is just getting accustomed to the new schedule, which is a lot tougher this year and involves a lot more standing while working in the clinic, which is hard when you're used to sitting on your butt all day. Some of the improvement is diet-related - eating more fruit, not letting myself get quite so dehydrated while working in the school clinic (yay for coconut water), and stepping up the protein intake. [Sadly, I have not cut back on the chocolate intake, but you can't do everything at once.] But some of it I think is herb-related. I have got back on a regimen of tonifying herbs, and also herbs to help my immune system. And that's got me really excited about herbal medicines again, because I definitely feel like they are working and giving me a boost. Prior to deciding on studying acupuncture, I had briefly considered studying herbs, but there didn't seem to be any formal recognized training programs for "western" herbs. So I figured I'd study the Chinese herbs, and then try to supplement my knowledge after graduation. But then school intervened, I got a bit disheartened about the sheer amount of memorization that studying herbs would require, and I got a bit annoyed about the teaching methods. The herb classes are, to be honest, boring and uninspiring.

But now I have some more energy going through me, I like to dip into the herbal textbooks at random and read about the herbs. And it amazes me that people found out so much. Not just that they tried to eat every plant known to man (because if you're starving, you would). But that they tried all the different parts of the plants - some of them have different actions in the body depending on whether you are taking the root, the leaves, the fruit, the bark, etc. And then tried cooking them different ways, and realized some have different actions depending on how they are prepared. Man, those people must have been in tune with their bodies. I mean, nowadays would we even recognize the action that a herb is having on us? There's no way that we'd be able to sift out the different responses from all the daily "noise" of living. And the other thing I find amazing is that we still haven't figured out all the compounds that are present in some of these plants.

Then I go off into little reveries about how stunning it is that here we are, on this planet, and soemone provided us with all these different plants that can help cure our ailments. That there are all these substances out there that can help us if we only would try them. Makes you start thinking about the existence of God all over again.

Life, death, and reflection

I'm still here! BUT I will say that this semester is harder and more crushingly exhausting than the last. Which was harder and more crushingly exhausting than the previous semester. And so on, and so forth. So I am only just emerging from the pit of despair and exhaustion that I created for myself with this change in schedule.

Anyway, so much for fate. I haven't had any infertility patients since I last posted. Weird. But that's OK. I'm building up my confidence, reviewing my acu point locations and needling skills, and generally mostly enjoying it all. When it all comes together, I will know my way forward and what I am supposed to work on. Or maybe I'm not supposed to specialize. There is, after all, something profound about helping someone who is in pain. Whether that is physical pain or emotional pain. It's all very amazing to see someone get off that treatment table looking relaxed and saying that they feel better.

We are doing a lot of "western" medical stuff this term at school. And we've done some recent work in different classes on cancer and also on respiratory diseases (among many others). Now, for me this has been hard, and yet eye-opening. My mother died from lung cancer at a very young age, and yet she was not a smoker. One of the pieces of anger that I'd carried around for many years is that she was initially misdiagnosed. I mean, when a 37 year-old female non-smoker walks in with a chronic cough, I don't suppose your thoughts would immediately go to a not-terribly-common-but-aggressive form of lung cancer, would they? No, indeed. And her doctor's thoughts didn't go there either. She was sent away twice with a diagnosis of bronchitis before they realized what was going on, as she was going downhill so rapidly. I knew this, and while for many years I have known that I shouldn't have expected anything else, and that this really wasn't malpractice or anything but just the expected course of events, there was still this anger that perhaps she'd have got better if it had been picked up earlier.

Now I know differently. Now, learning this stuff on cancer, and her cancer in particular, I know for certain that she would be dead by now whatever happened. At most, she'd have got a few more months. Maybe a year or two if a miracle had occurred. The 5-year survival rate is abysmally low for that cancer, even with the best treatments. Even now, 30 years after this all happened, it is very hard to treat. This was a nasty, nasty cancer. They could not have prevented her dying.

So.

That's that. It's kind of horrible to learn, and yet that little bit of anger is evaporating. She was destined to go. We couldn't have done more, and perhaps it was better to go so quickly and not draw things out.

'S funny. I never thought that going to acu school would do these things for me. And yet, it is changing me. Day in, day out, there are changes going on inside of me. And that is something to be grateful for.

Fate?

It was my first day in the student clinic yesterday. In the morning I just observed on some simple pain cases. In the afternoon, I got to work on my first patient (in tandem with a more experienced student, and two doctors). And the first one I worked on? Yup, an infertility patient.

It was like the giant hand of fate was pressing on my head as soon as I walked in the room and realized what she was there for. It was saying "you SHALL work on infertility cases whether you want to or not." Not that I don't want to, necessarily, but sometimes I'd like the illusion of having a choice.

God, the poor woman. I knew exactly how she felt as she started crying in despair at the conflicting instructions from her RE not to take Chinese herbs, and the exortations of the main clinic doctor to take herbs and just give them three months. What is a person to do when these forceful personalities are all saying that you have to follow them to the letter and NOT do what the other forceful personality is telling you to do. And then the exercise/don't exercise question cropped up. And of course somebody in the room told her to relax and she'd get pregnant, and she wailed "but it's been two years." Deja fucking vu all over again. I hope I'll be able to tell her soon that I've been there, and to actually help her.