Addictive personality

You know how I posted that after my Christmas break I would become saintly again? Yeah, not so much. I tried. I really did. And I managed to keep off the coffee for a whole morning and off the chocolate a few hours more than that. But it's been really stressful at work, I have had a bad few days for various reasons and I'm lame.

But the alcohol I have managed to stay off. Just. It has actually been a real struggle, and yesterday afternoon I was talking with a work buddy saying how the only thing getting me through the day was the thought that I could shortly have some red wine. I wanted it. I needed it. It was calling to me. Basically I'd gone 2 days without alcohol since Christmas day and I was in serious withdrawal pangs. He was a bit surprised because he didn't think I drank that much. Well, I don't - when cycling. When recovering from a negative result I have a big tendency to hit the bottle. So much that I worry myself. I haven't posted much about it here because after the "whole bottle in a single night" evening I managed to cut back enough to be able to function during the day. But I've had enough to get fairly sozzled every night and to need real, full blooded caffeinated coffee to make it all the way to lunchtime. I can't just have one glass if I'm on my own. I'm the same way with chocolate and sugar in general. Either I'm going at it, unable to stop myself, or I don't have any at all. It was the same way with, uh, mary jane. Not that I inhaled. Ahem. Haven't had any in well over a decade and don't want any, but when I was partaking, I had a lot. All signs of an addictive personality if you ask me. Am I an alcoholic or a chocoholic though? It's hard to say. I can literally go months without either. If I'm not having any, I don't want any. Well, perhaps I should rephrase that. I don't need any. And I can stop myself when I want, a lot of the time. If I go out to dinner with someone who I don't think will approve of me drinking much, I can limit myself to one glass of wine. Can't do that on my own though. I also limit myself if I'm out and have to drive home. Drunk driving is so not what I want to be doing. But both of those - limiting myself because of others or because of the need to get safely home without killing anyone or being arrested don't come without an internal struggle.

So, sadly, and with much mumbling and grumbling I decided yesterday that red wine really shouldn't be on the cards for the evening. Not when I had spent half the day desperately wanting some and counting down the hours. Not when I was worrying about sliding into alcoholism. So I didn't. I will allow myself a couple of glasses on New Year's Eve and that will be that. Done. No more until there's either another negative beta or a kid in my life. No more coffee or chocolate either. Sigh. Why oh why can't I be one of those people that can do things in moderation?

Liver talk

Hello world!

This is Liver posting. I have taken over control of Fingers from Brain so I can work this computer thing. I am not very happy with Brain today, because last night she poisoned me mercilessly with that red wine stuff. I am all clogged up and having to work overtime to clear all the toxins, and it's just not fair, I tell you. Nor am I very happy with Ovaries, because they are the reason that Brain felt the need to poison me in order to protect Heart from feeling all the hurt. I suspect that Brain wanted to check out too because she was having to do too much thinking. Who was thinking of me though? Always having to clean up after everyone else's messes? Nobody, that's who.

Most of the time we all coexist fairly peacably - in recent years Brain has curbed the excesses she used to put me through, what with the late night partying and the coffee drinking. I know Heart wasn't too happy with all that, as she used to enjoy going out and having fun but we all agreed that having a baby was more important than all that. But it means that I am just not used to handling so much alcohol all at once any more, so it freakin' annoys me that they can't get their act together and have just one glass and call it a day. I know Skull is also pretty unhappy today as I feel this dull pounding from all her whining and complaining. Eyes tell me that they feel pretty gritty too, and Kidneys are starting to complain as well. I mean, sure, Eyes had a lot of work to do yesterday, what with the crying and all, but I think all those other organs are just prima donnas when it's always me having to do the lion's share of the work.

I will get my revenge though. I know that Brain has been assigned a lot of extra work trying to figure out what we're all going to do next. Ha ha, I know, I'll send up a bout of biliousness every time she thinks about Ovaries' failure to produce any good eggs lately. That'll teach her.

Humph. Wish I could control Fingers more often. It'd be nice to bypass everyone else's complaints about having a shot of wheatgrass every now and then to keep myself ticking along. Mind you, Gag reflex would probably still get in my way though, and it might be too much for me to control all those systems at once. A Liver can only do so much, after all.

OK, better go. Gotta make some more cholesterol from that fatty cheese that got eaten along with the wine. There's never any rest for me around here.

Love,
Liver

Liquor store madness

You win some a-a-and you lose some
And you save nothing for a rainy day

This snippet of a song from Carter USM, a band I'm sure none of you have ever heard of, is going around my head today. It's not just the lyrics, it was the way Fruitbat sang them, dude. Such melancholy, such feeeling.

Trouble is, when am I going to win some?

Stopped at the liquor store yesterday on my way home from work. The two store clerks were all over me like a bad suit. I think it was a quiet day. That, or they knew they had a sucker on their hands who would be buying more than a 4-pack of strong beer. I stood looking at the Champagnes and sparkling wines. The clerks came over to try to help me. I said I didn't really need help, I was quite happy looking. The first clerk made a feeble joke about the Dom Perignon being available if I wanted that, that they had the "fancy-schmancy" stuff all right. Then he repeated "fancy-schmancy" several times. I think he liked the sound of his own voice. He asked if I could tell he had a New York accent from the way he said "fancy-schmancy". I said "uh-huh, yeah, right, I don't want the Dom Perignon, thanks." Then he tried to sell me some Californian sparkling wine. I was pondering it, as after all I'd also picked up the Chambord to mix in (thanks, Serenity, for the tip) so I didn't need the world's best-tasting Champagne to go with it. Then the second clerk recommended the "Voove". "Voove?" said I, with a raised eyebrow, and said in my snootiest English accent "what an interesting pronunciation. I've never heard it pronounced Voove before." What can I say, they were pissing me off already. The first guy started getting defensive. I said "sorry, it's just where I come from everybody knows it as Veuve Clicquot, sorry, verve cleek-oh". The first guy started saying that he couldn't speak French, apart from saying "haw-he-haw" as he practically brayed the stereotypical French utterance. I stared at him. He made a few more guttural attempts at being a Frenchman along the lines of "haw-HAW". I gaped. Then he said "doesn't Voove mean aunt anyway? Isn't it someone's aunt? Isn't there a story about how it got its name?" I pointed out that aunt would be tante, so I wasn't quite sure that Veuve meant that, but didn't know what it was supposed to mean as I wasn't a follower of all things Champagne. [Though I have since remembered that veuve means widow, so he was almost kinda sorta right.] I was starting to want out of there, fast. The Californian sparkling wine was starting to look mighty good, mostly because it was the nearest bottle to hand and I could make my exit quickly.

First store clerk was by now in his stride. He seemed to think he'd been incredibly funny with the French noises and launched into a tale of how people keep telling him he should do stand-up but they didn't realize how difficult stand-up comedy was to do. I made a polite comment or two, thinking that he would definitely bomb if I were in the audience and he tried to make me laugh. Then he starts telling me he is a cartoonist and had quite a successful cartoon on the internet for a while, but he ran out of material because there was only one character. And you know what the cartoon was called? Of course, OF FUCKING COURSE, it was The Angry Fetus. It was all about a fetus who likes kicking his mom to make her pay for doing yoga. And other such things. The guy started miming being an angry fetus and kicking. And then jabbing with his elbows. He was getting into his stride, laughing at how hysterically funny he was being, telling me it was quite a hit with the ladies. I grabbed two bottles of the Californian sparkling and stomped off to the counter to make him work the till and stop talking.

I ask you. The Angry Fetus. Can an infertile ever fucking not be reminded of these things? Especially on the day she finds out she won't have a fetus, angry or otherwise, because her embryos are now dead. D-e-a-d. Dead. No more. Deceased. Not to be. At the cost of a nice car, gone up in smoke.

So I drank a whole bottle of sparkling vino last night. The Chambord was nice, though I have to admit, I prefer creme de cassis as a mixer. The booze did not make me feel any better. It didn't feel like an anti-celebration. Just a bit squalid because the first few glasses were just downed in anger. And I promise I didn't intend to scarf the whole bottle. It just kind of happened. There I was trimming the cork so it would fit back in the half-full bottle that I would save for today, when I realized that actually far from being half-full there was only one glass left in the bottle. Oops! I couldn't put it back in the fridge with just one glass full in there, could I? Next time I shall go for the mojitos. Maybe that'll work better.

Needless to say, I'm a tad hungover this morning. And filled with a nice healthy dose of self-loathing and self-pity, which always come along with a hangover. And a smidgen of anger at this ridiculous situation. So at least the booze helped to free up some feelings, after all.

Drizzly Paris

I got up at the ungodly hour of 3.30 am this morning (which was of course 9.30 pm back in the good ole U.S.).  All in honor of the ridiculously early flight to Paris. And now I'm here, and it is all just as chaotic and crazy at Charles de Gaulle airport as it was coming the other way. There was nearly a fight at passport control between competing groups of American passengers who were all late for the Washington DC flight, and were all trying to jump the queue. While muttering loudly at the fact that the seperate line for EU passport holders was getting processed much more speedily. But they should realize that they'll have their revenge while we Europeans are held up for far far longer at the US passport control.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun on Tuesday night. Our reception was the best of the conference, even if I do say so myself. And it isn't just me that thinks that, as a lot of people told me so. The secret is a free open bar, a DJ and a late hour. I made sure that I was drinking champagne in order to screw the company out of as much money as possible. Har har.

I've been called gorgeous and a babe by two seperate men in the last day, which is always a nice confidence boost, and NEVER happens in the States. OK, both the guys are very married and old pals who I have known for over 10 years, but never mind that. The fact was that I felt appreciated. Have to say though, that Bare Minerals foundation is my new best friend. And may have contributed to the spontaneous expressions of my gorgeousness. I'm sure the un-made up pallid vision that has been greeting me in the morning, thanks to having consumed several gallons of booze with very little sleep, wouldn't have inspired people quite so much.

No action, though, which is as I expected. C'est la vie.
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Still alive!

I'm happy to report that I resisted the siren call of schnapps yesterday, so did not end up with any mental blackouts. It's a bit sad though, when people you were drinking with the night before (and of course I have no memory of the lengthy conversations I apparently had with these people) greet you with a shout of "you're alive!!" I managed to stick to white wine last night, which I don't like as much as other forms of alcohol so am able to sip it in a socially acceptable manner. However, I have now got blisters on the soles of my feet, which is not good. I had to stand all freakin' night, walked from reception to reception, and it just became agony by the end of the day. Oh well. At least the blisters forced me to call it a (relatively) early night, as I got back to my hotel room at 11.30.

I guess I should be reporting something about Sweden. Well, it's very nice. Pretty mild temperatures, pretty buildings, nicely laid out city. All that good stuff. Absolutely freakin' full of women with strollers, prams and large pregnant bellies. I guess when you have a nice long maternity leave, what else are you going to do but stroll around town parading your good fortune?

The Swedish language is remarkably foreign to listen to, but oddly it is relatively easy to tease out some information when you look at it in print. For example, "värm äppelkaka med vaniljsas" (with a little circle above that last a, but I can't find that on the keyboard) turns out to be the pretty easy to understand "warm apple cake with vanilla sauce". Of course, I guess "vanilla sauce" is probably custard, but hey, you can get the gist of it. And, as a vegetarian, thank god for the Italians - "grillad focaccia med mozarrella, tomaten och basilikum" is also pretty easy to get. Apologies for Swedish spelling mistakes there - I'm going off memory so I'm a bit hazy on some of it. More complicated stuff is way over my head though. But everyone speaks English, so it's not too difficult to get by. There're also a lot of English shows on TV, which are shown with Swedish subtitles, so I've managed to catch up with The Amazing Race, and some old episodes of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Ahhh, yeah, well, beggars can't be choosers, as my grandmother always used to say.

All in all, I wouldn't even mind coming back on vacation one day. But not with the assholes who are here from my company. Team spirit is sadly lacking - not that that surprises me, but I'd hoped for better.

At the czber cafe

This post is being brought to you by the letter z, and the conference cyber cafe. The blackberry isn't working, so here I am surrounded by people diligently checking their work email and generally being productive members of society. And did you know that on Swedish keyboards, the letters y and z are swapped from their positions on US keyboards, and the punctuation marks are all in the wrong place? Or, as this first came out...did zou know that on Swedish kezboards, the letters z and y are swapped from their positions on US kezboards. And if I trz to do an apostrophe, I get this: à.

So, Air France sucks ass. The seat was chronically uncomfortable, they didn't honor my seat request made when I booked, and I had quite possibly the worst airline meal I have ever had in my life. I mean, you expect the French not to be able to comprehend vegetarianism, so I wasn't expecting much, but my entrée consisted of over-boiled vegetables and white rice. Not a bit of flavoring or protein to be seen. At least the rice pudding had 4g of protein, and the teeny portion of camembert must have had some too, but honestly, it was baaad. They don't even bother to serve water during the flight, instead leaving bottles out in the galley for you to help yourself from. Which is easier said than done when you're stuck in a middle seat and have to climb over someone to get out. The yogurt that came with breakfast tasted like chemically processed goop. Then, at Charles de Gaulle airport they had the plane taxiing for so long and so far, that I figured they must be parking us at Orly aiport. Or possibly somewhere in Belgium. We had to take a bus all the way back to the most confusing airport terminal I have ever been in (and I've flown to/from weird places, such as Vladivostock and Bandar Seri Begawan, so trust me when I say it was bad). Then there was another bus ride out to the flight to Gothenburg. Hey guys, why not think about parking the planes AT the terminal? It might make life a bit easier. At least the snack served on that flight was palatable, having presumably been made in Paris, and not in Miami. Of course, when I arrived in Gothenburg, my luggage was nowhere to be seen. It seems to be a regular occurence, as it happened to 5 people on my flight, and when it arrived at my hotel later in the day, there were at least 3 bags that arrived with it. It's not so good to hang around in your dirty clothes for most of the day after an overnight flight. Mmmm, stinky!

I have to report, though, internet, that even with all those annoyances, Saturday was a lot better than Sunday. Yesterday was not my finest hour, people. I had 4 receptions to go to, but I got so steaming drunk at the first one, that I didn't make it to the other three. There was schnapps involved. Schnapps + Sarah don't mix. I fell down some steps going into a bar with some other reprobates who were getting boozed up at the reception. The BRUNCH reception that was from 12.30 to 2.00. You'd think that falling on the way IN to a bar would have alerted me to the fact that I'd consumed way too much alcohol already, but apparently not. But I'm not sure how much more I drank because the rest of the day is pretty much a complete blank. I have a brief memory in the bar of realizing that I could no longer speak coherently. I also have a brief memory of panicking on the streets of Gothenburg because I didn't know where I was. I have a brief memory of struggling mightily to open my bottle of Aleve back in my room. And then I woke up. In bed. At 10pm. Lord knows what the good people of Sweden thought of me staggering back to my hotel room at 4pm (or whenever it was) blind drunk. Thankfully, I appear not to have been mugged or raped, but my left ankle is fucked, and I have bruises all up and down both legs. Nice. Didn't manage to meet up with anyone else from my company who is here, but then I was expecting to see them at the receptions last night. That I was passed out for.

Hopefully tonight I will be more restrained. At least I only have two receptions to go to tonight, and they don't start until 6.30, so no lunchtime drinking required. I'm sure it's not exactly good for fertility to pickle my liver like this, but oh well. There'll be no more drinking after I get back home prior to the next IVF cycle. Or czcle as the keyboard wants me to say.

Procrastination

So, what do you do when it's 6.30pm on a Friday night, you've got another 20-30 hours of work to get through before you go on vacation on Sunday afternoon, and your Saturday is already booked up?

You go home and drink wine, is what you do. Fuck it all. Why should I torture myself when it's not all going to get done anyway. I'll get some of it done on Saturday night and Sunday morning, and the rest can just wait until I get back.

Blood draw

It was the best blood draw ever. Except it hurt, but hey.

The guy turned up at 6.55am, sat in the car for five minutes, came in a 7am and was gone at 7.08am. He drew six vials of blood for the immune/clotting tests, and will FedEx them off to the lab today. I'd managed to get dressed in my walking clothes, clean my teeth and comb my hair. I looked fairly presentable for 7am, I think. Of course, I didn't actually go walking after the guy left, as I thought it wouldn't be very good to faint while out of the house so I slumped on the sofa and read a book while munching toast and marmite. Not that I was in danger of fainting, as I've had way more than 6 vials drawn without a problem, but it seemed like a plausible excuse for toast-munching at the time. I have no idea when I will get the results. Presumably sometime in the next two months. I'm sure someone will tell me if things are bad.

It was so so nice to have this all done at my house (apart from the cleaning I ended up doing last night, but at least I have a nice sparkly house now). So much easier than traipsing to the RE's, hanging about in the waiting room forever, getting the blood drawn, hanging out to check out just in case you have to pay, schlepping back through rush hour traffic, being stressed because you're late to work.

Of course, now I'm secretly worried that the glass of red wine I had last night will make my blood all thin and make the clotting tests inaccurate, because I won't be drinking red wine at embryo implantation time. And I was secretly worried about that yesterday, and still couldn't resist pouring myself a glass. I did limit myself to one glass though, but sometimes I seriously wonder if I have an alcohol problem. Why couldn't I just have not had any? Sure, I can give it up with no difficulty. I've gone months without drinking (when I thought that little things like that would actually get me pregnant). But if I'm in a drinking phase, sometimes looking forward to that glass is what gets me through the day. So I drank some. So there. Oh well, if I have a real clotting problem I'm sure the revasterol in one measly glass won't turn it into an "all clear" result. I hope.

She who delays drinks Evian

So, I did nothing at all yesterday to prepare for the storm, apart from drink too much red wine. OK, that may not count as "storm preparations" to you, but maybe we can chalk it up to mental preparation. And of course, the projected path swung around, meaning that instead of hitting the west coast of the state, it's now supposed to be coming straight for us. The good thing about this, I guess, is that it's projected to have a lower strength because it'll have less time over warm water, so I won't have to evacuate and it hopefully won't cause as much damage.

Anyway, jobs done so far:

Checked current hurricane supplies.
Bagged up all the ice from the freezer's ice maker. Set the ice maker running to make more.
Taken DVD's back to Blockbuster (yes, this counts as storm prep to me! Don't want to forget and then end up owning any Disney movies).
Got cash from the ATM.
Been to Publix to stock up on water. Unfortunately, because I didn't rush to the store yesterday like a good girl, all that was left was either really little bottles of water, a few large gallon jugs of the cheap shit that tastes like plastic, or 1L bottles of Evian. As I already have 6 gallons of the cheap shit left over from last year (and it tasted gross then, so who knows what 10 more months in plastic containers has done to the taste), I went for the Evian. Hey, at least I'll be living large with the fancy mineral water!
Bought baby wipes, air fresheners and paper towels.

Jobs to do tonight:

Get completely caught up on laundry.
Ditto with dishwashing.
Shutter/screen up the windows at the back and sides of the house, leaving the doors and front windows open. Move the potted plants to safe spots behind the hurricane screens.
Take ALL trash and recycling out to the curb.

Jobs to do on Tuesday:

Pack up the office (presumably).
Move all the patio furniture, garbage cans and other miscellaneous outdoor junk inside.
Finish shuttering up.
Hunker down.

***Edited to add***

Forgot the Monday weigh in!

Today's weight = 177. Down 2 from last week, down 1 from start, up 2 from this week's target.

It was 176 on Thursday, so I slipped a bit at the weekend. Oh well. There's always this week.

Also, I have been dealing with ridiculousness at work over the jackass. They decided that his demands for staying were just way too much, and asked him on Friday not to complete his notice period, but to just leave (yay!!!). He was walked out of the office. Normally, the security codes to gain access to the office would have been changed immediately. It wasn't done because the guy that normally does it was out. I didn't feel comfortable coming in at the weekend, in case the jackass decided to put in an appearance. This morning, I asked the office administrator if the door codes were going to change, and cc'd the guy who normally changes them. That got me into trouble, because she got all uppity that it was an HR issue, and I shouldn't have involved anyone else, and she didn't see the need to change the codes. She also tried to tell me that the jackass had NOT been asked to leave immediately, but that it had been a mutual decision, which is not what he told people on Friday. She said it wasn't the policy to change the code (bullshit). I asked if they could be changed because I felt uncomfortable. She blew me off. I went over her head to the managing lawyer, who demanded to know if I felt physically threatened at the thought of the jackass coming in to the office to attack me. Typical lawyer! Of course, I should have just said yes. But I explained how, no, logically I didn't, but the thought was in the back of my mind. I explained how the policy always used to be that the door code was immediately changed any time someone left on bad terms. I explained how a friend of mine who works at a different law firm had told me that she'd heard this guy hated me. I explained how I didn't want to come in at the weekend because I was worried the jackass might make an appearance. I explained that I was worried about him coming in and doing something to our files. I asked if they could just change the door codes because I felt uncomfortable, and wasn't that enough? He said he'd check the policy with the head office. I mean, for eff's sake, I still work here, I sit close to the door, if I say I'm uncomfortable, shouldn't they put my peace of mind ahead of any confidentiality issues of not wanting to imply that the jackass left on bad terms? Hello? I still work here, he doesn't. My needs should come first. They finally decided to change the door codes, but in typical bureaucratic fashion have asked the building management company to do it, instead of the guy in our office who knows how to do it, so it probably won't happen until next week now because the building maintenance guys are busy putting up shutters on the ground floor windows. Oy.

Queasy like Sunday morning

Arrival of period with bad cramps + dinner at friends house + desire to consume as much red wine as humanly possible = hangover.

I'm going back to bed.

The morning after

Thanks for the kind words, it really helps. Now the reality is setting in. I really have been through 2 IVF cycles and I have nothing to show for it. If I was unclear before about whether I was infertile (and for the record, no I wasn't), this is really rubbing my face into the pile of infertility dogshit. This is the universe setting up a billboard opposite my home with 20-foot high words on it saying: You Are Barren.

It is better and worse than the failure from the first IVF. That first cycle, I had hope. I mean, IVF is supposed to work, isn't it? So, it was devastating when it failed. But then, most people have success on IVF#2 if they don't succeed on IVF#1, so while this is less devastating in certain ways because I was less hopeful, it is more devastating because I must be more infertile than the average person if I can fail twice. There's more of a panicky feeling of "what if it NEVER works?". There's more of a realization that I may have to face life after infertility without a baby in my arms.

But I am not ready to give up. I'm only 37 for eff's sake. My eggs shouldn't have completely conked out by now. I should still have some fertility left. Somehow I just need to make sure that I grow the magic golden egg, that it fertilizes and that it implants. Seems simple enough, huh? If only there was an instruction book that came with all this.

Anyway, I was quite restrained with the wine yesterday, I think. I had three 6-oz glasses. Which is way less than I'd normally have had using my bucket-sized red wine glasses. See? I'm learning restraint already. Although I did have some ice cream, but they were Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches, so it wasn't as bad as having a vat of full-fat gorgeousness. I spent the night reading "The Sonoma Diet" which arrived yesterday from Amazon. A friend of mine has been raving about it, but to be honest it looks pretty hard to do because a) the portion sizes are teeny weeny, and b) it isn't exactly vegetarian friendly. But I'm going to give it a go, with a few modifications, because it is at least based on healthy food, which is what I need to be eating. So, it's off to the supermarket tonight to stock up on veggies and such. I can and I will do this. I think that's my new motto. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and if I can stick 1.5" needles in my own butt and go through IVF, I can damn well be hungry for a few days. I can damn well get off my arse and exercise, and I can damn well cook something in the evening rather than nuking a pre-prepared meal.

***Edited to Add***

Ever one to take the bull by the horns, I figured I might as well book my post-IVF follow-up appointment now. I'd rather do it early, even though I don't intend to cycle until November, because a) they might charge me for it if I leave it too late, and as this is the only free appointment they do I'm not about to pass up the opportunity to save some moolah, and b) I'm going to ask (yet again) for lots more tests, like immune system tests and a sonohystogram to see if my polyps have come back, so it'd be nice to have time to get those done. My appointment is for September 1st.

Well, I tested

And it was negative.

Stark, staring, white negative.

Surprisingly, I'm OK with it at the moment. After all, I've told countless people that 12DPO is too early for an accurate result, so I still have a tiny bit of hope that it could turn around for me. But then again, as I figured out The Plan for what to do if this cycle fails, I've also got some clear idea of what I have to do next for if this result is real.

Now, as it gets up to (and including) my beta test, I reserve the right to pout, sulk, whine and sob unattractively. And start drinking red wine again. But as it is, I'm starting my diet today to try to lose some of the IVF weight, and am about to pull my shorts on to go out walking. I haven't done much exercise basically since the last IVF cycle because I just couldn't deal with anything except drinking alcohol and eating ice cream for a while there, and then I just got lazy. But I HAVE to lose this weight and get healthy again.

The pit of despair

I started to post yesterday all about the shitty time I am having at work, particularly dealing with one jackass in particular. But then I decided that I didn't want to get Dooced so I canned it. Sigh. I can't stand working with jackasses, and this one takes things one step further by blaming absolutely everyone else for his difficulties. So he hates working with me because I am always on his ass about getting the work done, and he passively aggressively bc'd the big boss on an email he sent to me full of excuses about how its our fault that things have been inefficient. And for the record, I'm not always on his ass, but when it takes 5 or 6 iterations to get a project correct so I have to spend hours correcting his work when it should take me 20 minutes to review and approve it, I'm going to start getting pissed off. I'm also not going to want to see the same project day after day after freakin' day and at some point am going to ask for it just to get out the damn door.

Heh, maybe I'm a bitch, maybe not, but someone needs to have their ass fired around here, and it's not me. Well, actually they probably should fire me for the amount of time I spend thinking about my ovaries and not doing productive work, but that's another story. At least I'm not disruptive to others.

Anyway, onto baby-related things. I have fallen into the despair pit, and I can't get out. I can't imagine this working with just 4-cell embryos. I see so many people with all these gorgeous over-achieving embryos and I worry about my little slow pokes. I worry about my egg quality and if this ever going to work. I worry about my clinic and if they're any good. I mean, they're big and they get plenty of people pregnant, but their success rates aren't exactly stellar. I'm wondering whether to cut my losses and run to another clinic now, or whether to give them one more opportunity. If I go to another clinic, it'll be an out-of-state one so I can do an IVF vacation, so that'll have to be next year. During the waiting period I could fit in another IVF here. But then again, should I be doing that? Should I go back to unmedicated IUI's in the waiting period? It seems like they have as much chance of working as an IVF. But each unmedicated IUI is like $1400 a cycle because my clinic wants to do two IUIs each time, and two vials of sperm don't come cheap. I could be using that time to save money for the next IVF. Ugh, decisions, decisions.

And, I know, it's just too damn early to be thinking the doom and gloom thoughts, but that's the fault of the despair pit. It's just full of the dank dark stench of failure which insidiously pervades my brain and prevents me from thinking happy thoughts about my babies. I must, I must be happy and optimistic. If anyone has any quick and easy "get happy" ideas, I'd love to hear them. The vat of ice cream I downed yesterday didn't help and alcohol is verboten, so I may have to move on to chocolate today. Sigh. My waistline is not going to thank me.

Oh. My. God. What an awful night

I can't even begin to say how I am functioning today. I had a terrible night last night, and am running on empty.

I guess it started last week, when my city decided to flush extra chlorine through the drinking water to kill bugs. As I don't particularly like drinking swimming pool water, I started slacking off on my drinking. And yes, I do have a filter, but even that wasn't cutting it. So I think I started getting dehydrated by the end of last week. Then I went out of town to Alexandria, where it was super hot and I was wandering around like a tourist, sweating and with my feet swelling. Not a pretty picture. I tried drinking liquids at every available opportunity, and believe me, I downed plenty of cold water and iced chais, but I could tell I was getting run down and dehydrated. I figured I'd catch back up when I got home to the land of decent air conditioning, but I also figured that most of my tiredness was due to the fact that I'm not as fit and healthy as I used to be, so maybe the extra walking was too much.

But here's the thing, my brain plays tricks on me. Once I start getting dehydrated, I don't drink enough. For some reason, I was drinking less than normal once I got back home. I was busy, trying to catch up from two days out of the office - I didn't have time to run backwards and forwards to the kitchen. So that brings me to yesterday afternoon. I noticed a headache threatening to invade my brain. I recognized it as a dehydration headache (I am prone to them for some reason) but then the big boss called me into his office just before I was supposed to leave for acupuncture and I didn't have time to chug any water. Then I was late for acupuncture, and had to fly, so again, didn't have time to drink. I was really beginning to feel it as I was driving to my appointment, but didn't have any water in the car. I chugged as much water as I could when I got to the acu, but it didn't really make a dent. Then I had my treatment, which included being on a Migun thermal massage bed. Yup, that's right. Treatment such as acupuncture realeases toxins. You're supposed to stay hydrated so you can flush the toxins out of your bloodstream. Mine were just about to explode into a brackish swamp of nasty poisons.

I got home, chugged some water, and had dinner. Then I was bloated and nauseous from the food, I guess because of the dehydration thing. So I couldn't bring myself to drink much more water because it just made me feel worse. I tried to have some before going to bed, but by then my head was splitting, my stomach was complaining and I just felt like shit. My mouth started feeling really dry. I figured I should take some Tylenol, but when I went to the medicine cabinet, there wasn't any straight Tylenol in the house. I had some Tylenol PM in there, but I figured that was overkill. I should have taken the Tylenol PM.

I woke up a couple of times early in the night with someone drilling into my head with a power tool, padded to the kitchen, got a glass of water, and went back to sleep. But at about 2am I woke up to an excruciating headache. I couldn't bear it any longer, so I hit the only headache medicine I had in the house - Excedrin Migraine. Which has caffeine in it. Oh well, I figured, I wouldn't get back to sleep with that pain anyway, so I just started drinking as much water as I could possibly manage. I got up to 6 14oz glasses before the pain started to ease. But by then, what with the pee trips to the bathroom, and the refill trips to the kitchen, and the caffeine, I was wide awake. I thought about going for a walk, but in the end decided to do some reading. And drink some more water. I think I finally fell asleep again at about 4.30. I drank 140 oz of water overnight.

I woke up this morning, still with a very dry mouth, still with a headache, though just a dull ache, and with bleary eyes. Not fun. I feel like I've been on an enormous bender, and yet haven't touched a drop of alcohol. I've been drinking more water since I got up, but it still hasn't made much of a difference. Why oh why did I let it get to this state? When I should be being careful of my health because I need my eggs to be good? Sometimes my stupidity amazes me - I know I am prone to bad headaches when I'm dehydrated, I know the signs, and I ignore them. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

But, today is cycle day 1. Finally! That last cycle was 48 days, and I certainly felt every one of them. I will be going for my baseline ultrasound tomorrow morning, and will also start lupron tomorrow. Which gives me headaches. Oh joy! But at least we're off and running...

See you later, gators

Going to Washington DC for a conference, and will be back on Wednesday. The next time you see me, blogosphere, I will be a new woman, because I will be OFF the BCPs! Hallelujah. And I will be counting down to my IVF, which I'm finally getting excited about. I just can't wait to get started - this time period on the BCPs has been sooo long. But it WILL work this time, damn it! I can blog about follicle sizes and injections and all sorts of other fun stuff, instead of having to bore you with my random observations about trucking companies.

I promise to try to limit my alcohol consumption while I'm away, but I can't guarantee that I will be successful. Which is a shame, as I've been completely off the booze and coffee for a while (hey, for me, a week or two qualifies as a "while", so stop laughing) and haven't missed it at all lately. But I bought a small bottle of my lovely Bolthouse Green Goodness to take with me, so that I can keep up with my vow to have 8oz a day of the stuff. See, I'm trying to be good!

In other news, and in proof that miracles really do happen and you should always test even if you think you've got your period, check out CJ's blog. I'm hoping for a very sticky bean for you, CJ!

Damn it all

Calliope is not pregnant and I have to give up caffeine again. K. is sitting in her office smugly still pregnant despite all my dire warnings about taking it easy, and will no doubt be all "I told you I was fine" all day. Damn it all. I can tell its going to be a cruddy day again.

I went to the acupuncturist last night, and we had one of our review sessions. Where she basically tutted yet again about me doing IVF, not giving her enough time to "fix" me, and horror of horrors, being on BCP for six weeks so she has no way of monitoring how things are improving because I won't be having a period. Hey ho. I'm not changing track now. So, she can whine all she wants and I'm not going to budge. But we discussed all my latest symptoms, the biggest one of which is that I seem to be in permanent PMS-mode since starting the BCPs because I'm so freakin' irritable all the time. But she got it out of me that I'd taken up drinking coffee again. And diet coke. And iced Chai's from Starbucks. Well, you know, I'm on BCPs. I figure it's my time to be bad before I have to be super good as I get close to starting the shots for IVF. Of course, the acu basically blamed all my new issues on the caffeine, so now I have to quit the damn caffeine again just so we can see if it's that, or a new underlying issue, or a hormone issue from the BCPs. How's that supposed to help a girl's irritability problem if she can't even have a nice cup of coffee in reward for dealing with a world full of idiots?

Blah. So I had two huge glasses of red wine last night in order to steel myself for my day of no caffeine. Um, yah, I suppose I'll have mentioned somewhere previously that my vow never to drink again lasted about as long as all my other no-drinking vows? Ahem. Anyway, great thinking Sarah, because of course, the first thing I want when I wake up after drinking booze is....coffee. Gimme gimme gimme. Need to remove the tongue fuzz, and wake up some. Nevertheless, I am standing firm. I have compromised with one cup of decaf. And that shall be it. No more! I will be the Queen of restraint today. Well, excluding alcohol, that is, because you don't expect me to leave an opened bottle of red alone on a Friday night, do you?

Showers and nasty surprises

I just got back from my friend K.'s baby shower. I used to loathe baby showers with a passion, because it was a reminder that it wasn't my shower. Especially as I've pretty much given up on the idea of ever having a bridal shower, the baby shower took on greater importance. I used to be eaten up with jealousy and sadness because it wasn't me in the spotlight. Now I don't mind them so much, as I know (hope) one day it WILL be my turn. And maybe I'll have twins because I'm doing IVF so it'll be twice as good. And it'll be so much sweeter because of all the pain and heartache along the way. So the last couple of showers I've been to, I've actually enjoyed.

However, this baby shower was a little different. Before I even got in the front door, K. wanted to know ALL about the drunken evening I'd had on Friday. Apparently P. had called her at midnight, asking for the security code for the women's bathrooms at work because he thought I was in there puking. Yes, she works with me too, but dude, she's 32 weeks pregnant, you don't call her at midnight! Luckily, her husband was out of town, but K. had told pretty much everyone else that was going to the shower about the midnight phone call. So I was instantly infamous, and had to tell the entire sordid story to the assembled crowd. And then K. dropped the bombshell that P. had taken a photo of me with his camera phone while I was puking, and had sent it to her. At least, he'd told her he sent it to her, but it wasn't on her phone. Presumably he sent it to her work email address. So now everyone will have fun on Monday morning looking at an incriminating photo of me.

Now that's beyond the pale! I mean, I'm an adult, I have to take responsibility for my own actions, but honestly any other friend would have not let me drink as much, and would certainly not have egged me on as P. did. But then to take a photo? He is so not in my good books today!

Oh well, let that be a sobering lesson to me that at nearly 38 it most definitely is not dignified to get wasted and blow chunks in the work kitchen sink.

So that's it. I can never ever do that again. OK, I've said it before (many times), but honestly, at my age? Drinking that much is criminal. Most people have maybe one story of the time they got hammered and can't remember some of the evening. I probably have 20. It's not big, and it's not clever. However, I have been pondering today just exactly why I felt the need to get drunk 3 times in the last week. I mean, I wasn't this bad the first couple of weeks after the BFN from the failed IVF cycle. I cried, I wailed, I moped, I had a glass or two of wine, nothing major. I thought I was dealing with it. And yet suddenly I seem to have fallen apart in the self control department. Is it because the next cycle is approaching? Is it because I didn't really deal with the bad feelings at all, but repressed them? Is it because I repress everything, and sometimes need to let loose? Is it because I'm a lush? Have an addictive personality? I honestly don't know. But I'm never going to find out if I jump straight into a bottle every time I want to have "fun", so I need to figure this out somehow. And my kidneys hurt, which is never good. Man, the acupuncturist is going to be annoyed with me!

In other news, Aunt Flo has come to visit, so tomorrow morning I have to get up early, go down to the RE's office for my day 2 ultrasound and pick up my prescription for birth control pills, which I will be on for the next six weeks. Six weeks is enough time to unpickle my liver, right?

Hammered, part 2

I spoke to P. on the phone, who told me that we did actually go out to eat to a pizza place. I had three bites of mine, and wandered off to throw up outside. At which point a guy ambled up to him, asking if he was going to eat the rest of my pizza. So P. sold him it for $1!

And apparently earlier in the evening I had told the head of our department that I refused to meet their performance targets as they were completely unreasonable.

I have no memory of any of this - clearly not my finest hour. ;) Not quite sure what I'm still doing alive, but at least P. was amused by the evening as he hasn't ever seen me that drunk.

Regularly scheduled TTC saintliness will resume shortly.

Hammered

My love affair with alcohol is over. At least until the England v. Paraguay soccer match next Saturday.

Last night I got more spectacularly drunk than anyone has a right to get. It started out innocently enough - a work happy hour at Morton's steakhouse. I was drinking $15 glasses of Petite Syrah that my employer was paying for. Civilized, right? I was going to go home after 2 glasses, but my work friend P. persuaded me to have one more on the basis that we'd go out to eat in order to soak up the extra alcohol. After that, I only have snippets of memory. Far too much of the evening is a complete blank. We never did eat, I think mostly because P. had had plenty of Morton's free steak sandwiches that they give out to bar patrons, and which I as the resident vegetarian don't eat. I remember making P. hold my hand on the way to bar #2 because I was already too drunk to walk straight. I remember ditching P. at the bar and staggering, nay weaving, back to work. God knows what I said to the security guard to get in to the building. P. found me in the kitchen at work, asleep at one of the tables. I then threw up in the sink. He drove me home, even though he was hammered too. I woke up this morning when my alarm went off at 6.30 to a bowl that I'd placed by the bed in case I threw up again, a 3/4's drunk glass of water which was actually on a coaster, and a trail of clothes leading to the bedroom.

Deciding I had too much to do today to wait for P. to come and take me to work to get my car, I decided to walk. It's 5 miles. It's Florida in the summer. Yes, I'm clearly still drunk for thinking that was a good idea, but I thought I would sober up on the way. And I wanted to check if we'd managed to clean up the puke from the kitchen sink. It took me 2 sweaty hours because I was walking so slowly. But I did reward myself by getting a diet Coke and a Milky Way (or a Mars Bar as my English self prefers to think of it) at the 7-11 which is at the half way point. Man, I never knew how busy 7-11 could be at 7.50am! It was packed with hispanic dudes getting their breakfast on their way to work - the smell of the coffee and the various meat-filled hot breakfast sandwiches they were buying almost made me vomit again.

And now I have to decide if I can possibly get in the car and try to function. I think one more diet Coke is in order before I face that...

Red wine, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Urgh, another evening of debauched drinking under my belt, and I'm suffering slightly this morning. Even the detox foot patches couldn't keep the headache at bay, but it's pretty mild, so who knows if I would have been incapacitated without them!

I absolutely have no self-control mechanism with booze once I've had that first delicious sip, so its either all or nothing with me, I'm sorry to say. Unless I'm out at a restaurant with people who do have self-control, that is, as then I can usually stick to one glass of wine so as not to appear to be a complete lush. But I only restrain myself for appearances sake, and so I don't kill someone by driving drunk. When I lived in England and public transport was freely available at pretty much all hours of the day and night there was generally no stopping me, however.

Of course, as I was lying in bed awake this morning at 5.20 because the booze doesn't like me sleeping to my normal wake up time, I was mulling over whether all this alcohol consumption over the years has affected my fertility. I mean, the acupuncturists say that my Liver Qi is stagnated, among other issues, so could the abuse my liver has taken over the years really have fried my reproductive system? I suppose all infertiles indulge in the "why?" questioning. Why am I having all this trouble conceiving? Was it something I did, is it purely random chance or has it been visited on me by a vengeful or testing God or even bad karma? And if it was something I did, was it the boozing, or the eating of cakes, pasta and other carbs, or maybe too much dairy? But then, isn't your liver supposed to be pretty good at healing itself, so the fact that I do quit drinking every time I am trying to conceive (several times for months at a stretch, before permitting myself maybe a glass or two for Thanksgiving or some other occasion) should have helped already if it was going to help, no? In other words, I am scrabbling around for an excuse to permit myself more boozing before I start shots for the next IVF.

Not that I'm an alcoholic, you understand. I just like alcohol, particularly red wine. No, wait, that makes me sound completely like an alcoholic! Giving it up isn't hard, and I certainly don't drink every night or even every week, but after a failed IVF, I just want to indulge. And is that so wrong? My current acupuncturist wants me not to booze, drink caffeine, eat wheat or dairy, but also wants me to have fun and destress. To be entirely honest, I don't quite know how to have fun if I'm not allowed any of those things, so what is better? A fun evening with friends eating and drinking, or a virtuous night at home on my own? For IVF#2 I boozed up until shot time, and had a MUCH better response than with IVF#1 where I was practically a saint for months beforehand. Doesn't that say something? That maybe enjoying myself and destressing with a few glasses of wine is better for me than trying too hard to be perfect?