Humdrum

Well, so I'm settling back into life at home. I know, I was only gone for a weekend but it seemed longer because we did so much. And of course I mucked up my nice healthy vegan diet and swapped it for my old, unhealthy "fried eggs and ice cream are OK" diet. So it takes me a while to get back to healthy eating after giving in to temptation and having fun.

And of course there's always the reflection on the time away. Cali makes me feel inadequate because she's so smart and witty and full of amusing anecdotes. And me? Not so much. I'm the quiet mellow type that doesn't have all that much to say. So of course I'm all in awe of how Ms. Cali keeps everything together, what with looking after GM and all. But she has motivated me more on working on the "when I grow up" plan of figuring out where I want to live and what I want to do once my green card comes through/I have babies/my aunt's husband dies. You know, all that stuff. But there's plenty of time to get it all sorted out. And besides, I need to actually visit some of these cities that are on my short list of potential good places to live.

I went to therapy last night. I hadn't been for 4 weeks because the therapist had been out of town, although she swore she was only away for 2 weeks. Whatever. I felt like I'd accomplished a lot in the time she was away. I'd read a lot of books, I'd changed some of my thinking, I'd done lots of mind/body work. In fact, I probably don't need to go to therapy again. So why did I cave when she suggested another appointment? I'm not quite sure, except that I will say that it was good to have yesterday's appointment hanging over my head in order to keep me focused on changing things, as I knew I'd have to report back on what I'd done. And she wanted me to keep focused with the IVF coming up, hopefully, so that I go to NY really in the best frame of mind. Well, of course I know she also wants to get paid but I'm ignoring that aspect for the moment.

I still didn't really get into a lot of what I'm really feeling. Although I did own up to wanting to strangle the new RE when he did the old "you need to get clearance" thing. Hopefully she knew that I wasn't speaking literally! And I owned up to feeling jealous at being left behind yet again, and about being lapped twice by women who I started TTC#1 with and are now pregnant with #2, or are trying for #2. That hurts, and it's not their fault, but it makes it hard to want to have anything to do with them. So I tried pushing myself to reveal more of the darker thoughts that I have, and I did fairly well although was definitely aware that I was still doing too much of the "see how normal and well adjusted I am" type chatter.

The next appointment is in 2 weeks so I'll make a decision then as to whether it's time to move on or not.

Chitchats on the sofa

I had my second therapy session last night, and won't have another one for four whole weeks! Four weeks! The therapist is going to be away for 3 weeks, and I guess next week she's saving appointments for the really needy people. Not that she said that, but why else wouldn't she offer me a time slot? Aren't I needy enough?

Anyway, I have lots of homework, books to read, journals to write, thoughts to process, so it will actually give me an opportunity to see how well I do on this on my own, and whether I will need to go back for many more sessions after she is back in town.

As for whether I liked it any more, I don't know. I do feel a bit more positive about things, but is that due to the stuff I am doing, or due to her? Again, we didn't really get into any deep stuff. I wonder if part of that is my tendency to fill the time with any old fluff that comes out of my mouth so I can just prattle away any silent bits, or if she is waiting to pounce. Or maybe we'll never get into the really deep stuff? Not sure.

As for the relationship stuff, I said I was open to one, but that it was not my focus at the present time, and I think we successfully moved on from that. We talked about positive thinking, and seeing blessings in things, like trying to see that this is only a delay and the delay may bring me benefits such as giving me longer to get my body in good shape for the cycle, and get my mind in a more positive place.

She wants me to be doing positive affirmations and visualizations. She wants me to forgive myself for judging myself over past actions, to accept that we are where we are today and there's no point blaming myself for not starting trying to conceive earlier and various other things that I tend to blame myself for.

I also am going to try to start seeing the next cycle as my last one. But not in the way of saying to myself that it is the last one and that's it, finito, done, no more, but more in the sense of giving myself permission to stop after the next cycle. That I think I've done enough and tried hard enough with my own eggs, and that after the next cycle I will be at the stage where I won't be having any regrets of "if only I'd tried this or that". The therapist said I should also think about it being the last one because maybe it'll work. Well, duh. But I suppose with my incessant need to always have the next step planned out in my head, maybe I have not been allowing myself to believe that the cycle may actually work.

So, I dunno, I'm still sort of trying this because it's the one thing I haven't tried. You know, seeing if all that mind stuff really does make a difference. And maybe she'll keep me on the straight and narrow as far as not giving up on the relaxation and visualization exercises. But it's a very expensive pastime if I'm just going to have a genial chat once a week. Aren't I supposed to be feeling more like I need it? Or maybe I'm still in the phase of trying to impress her with my normalcy and am still hiding the bitterness. Oh well, we shall see what happens at the next appointment. In four weeks.

Thinking out loud

Thank you for the thought-provoking comments. I tend not to delve too deeply into some of these issues, so it is good to be prompted to think about certain things. Heh, you never know, maybe the blog will become my therapy because you guys will prompt me to think more about stuff!

First, about the therapist. Yes, she was recommended by the not-so-nice acu, but she was also recommended by the lovely acu. The reason I keep going to the same acu office is that I love one of them to pieces, and I rarely have to deal with the not-so-nice acu. Unfortunately, the lovely one is the junior acu and hasn't been out of school too many years so has to defer to the senior acu on treatment plans, etc, and is I guess not as experienced in dealing with bawling patients. On the whole, however, I think if the lovely acu says that patients have a great experience with this therapist, it is worth giving her a few sessions. Irrespective that she may also be recommended by the senior acu.

And she is experienced in infertility. She wrote her PhD thesis on infertility, and went through infertility herself. Now, she never actually did any treatments as her and her husband made the decision not to, so her perspective of IVF is not that of someone who has been through it, but she tried to conceive naturally for many years. In fact, she said right up to menopause last year at the age of 54 she would mourn each cycle. And she got married and started TTC at 39, so that's quite a long period of time, although I think by 42 she had given up really trying. She says she has many many infertility patients, some of whom travel to Big New Clinic like me, some of whom travel to other out-of-state places, and she has done seminars on mind/body aspects to infertility with docs from my old RE's office.

She has promised that we will do a lot of mind/body stuff, and will be working through a lot of the exercises from Alice Domar's book, so I am hopeful that that will involve lots of coping strategies. So I hope once we get down to work next week, that it will be less fact finding, and more helpful. If not, I don't have to go back again.

She may very well have an agenda on the relationship thing. I will be more alert to that. But I think (I hope) that the focus on being open to a relationship is only temporary. It's the first thing to suggest if someone takes a look at my life as a whole and sees that I'm not happy, and once I start saying (and believing) that I AM open to a relationship, hopefully the focus will move on. I figure that I can be "open" without actually needing to go off in a frantic search for someone. Being open is not the same as actively doing. OK, I may need to put myself out in the world a bit more, but that doesn't necessarily have to involve meeting future romantic interests - maybe I'll end up meeting more female friends. Besides, nothing is going to stop me from cycling at Big New Clinic, unless Big New Clinic themselves refuse to treat me. So, nothing will deter me from that course. However, the next cycle may very well be my last IVF, and my last attempt at conceiving with my own eggs, so there ARE a lot of big picture, whole life things that are affecting me right now. Facing that last cycle, and knowing when to stop is all very scary to me. There is going to be an "after" the next IVF, which may involve a baby (or preferably two), or may involve a bleak future filled with problems. The need to deal with the latter of those two scenarios weighs heavily on my mind, so I do need big picture help as well as immediate coping strategies.

But, of course, everybody has a bias, and I have reporter's bias. I often zoom in on the portion of what a person is saying that makes me most uncomfortable. So I came away thinking all about the "open to relationships" thing because that hit a nerve with me. I have not been open to a relationship. Therefore, when I perceive someone as criticizing me for that (she was not criticizing - just putting my emotional reaction on it here), it hits me more than her saying that she also thought of trying on her own before meeting her husband, or anything else that I may have perceived as agreeing with me. So I could have skewed the importance that she placed on the relationship issue.

Oh, and on the question of whether I want a baby because I really want to have an intimate relationship. No, I want a child or children. I want to procreate. I want to spawn! It is unrelated, in my mind. Sure, I may or may not be closed minded about wanting a relationship with a guy, but I do not see a child as any sort of substitute for an intimite adult relationship. So I don't think I'm trying to fill a void, I really don't. Well, the void of not having children, but to my mind the relationships you form with children and a loving partner are so totally different that I don't equate the two. I do have loving relationships with other family members, and I do have relatively close friends, so it's not that I don't have love in my life. What I don't have right now is a supporting, loving person that really understands the pain of infertility and who can say something useful in support.

In related news, I finally checked just how much insurance coverage I get for counselling. And it is crap. I hate my insurance! I get 50% of what I pay for sessions, but only after a $750 deductible has been paid, so the first 4-5 sessions are only going to be building up the deductible. Insurance companies are evil. How could you ever afford therapy if you didn't have a good job? I mean, sure, this is an out-of-network benefit, but the in-network benefit for therapy was only 60%, so it wasn't much better.

On the therapist's couch

So, I did it, I went to my very first therapy session ever. Which is an odd thing to me as I've always prided myself on being able to work through my issues myself. But, I went.

Veni, vidi, vici. As they say. Maybe. If I have my latin quotations correct.

Except I didn't conquer. I'm not sure what I really thought of the therapy. Of course, it was only the first session. It was more of a fact-finding session really, for me to explain what I'd done and where I thought I was at. She asked a few questions but I don't even remember what most of them were.

The big thing I came away with was that she wants me to be open to having a relationship in my life. That I need to be focussing on things other than infertility, so that if I never get pregnant, I have some sort of a life to pick up and can see some future in. But mostly I need to be open to a relationship. Because, after all, maybe I can try to conceive with a partner. Except I don't really see how you can meet a guy and be trying to conceive the next week - don't you usually wait a couple of years? I don't feel like I have a couple of years to see where the relationship goes. My eggs need to get fertilized NOW, before they shrivel up.

Here's the big secret, though. I'm not really open to a relationship. I'm safe in my little solo bubble. OK, it's boring a lot of the time, but it's safe. I'm really not interested enough in the positives of a relationship for the want of those things to outweigh the desire to remain safe. Or at least for me to want to go out and actively try to find a relationship. Opening myself up to someone has only caused hurt in the past, so it's something I tend not to want to do. So, it is something I need to work on, I guess. I am trying to repeat to myself that I am open to a relationship. I am open to a relationship. See, I said it.

You know, I could be open to a relationship with the right guy. Do you think it's OK to start off with being open to a relationship with a skinny dorky pacifist vegetarian who doesn't mind women with some cellulite and chunky thighs, who's into being green and can hold a decent conversation. And who likes red wine and dark chocolate. I'm not sure if guys like that exist, and if I'm just looking for a reflection of me (well, except the skinny part - maybe that's just a reflection of who I'd like to be) but maybe if I start off thinking I'm open to that, maybe I can expand my horizons to more realistic types of guys as I get a bit more comfortable with the theory.

But as far as coping strategies, I didn't come away with any. Except homework to read Alice Domar's book, and a promise that we will work on some of the mind/body stuff together. Oh, and I'm supposed to journal. I said I blogged, and asked if that counted, but the therapist thought that blogging was too public, and I need to do some free writing and just let things pop into my head.

I don't know. I don't know if this is going to work. I don't think I'd be going if I hadn't already tried pretty much everything else. I don't think I'd be going if I hadn't reached the point of crying far too easily over set backs. But what have I got to lose? Except yet more money, but hopefully insurance will reimburse me for some of it. So I'll see what she can do for me.