Amazon delivers

My new book and CD arrived last night, and I have to say that so far they are both pretty promising.

The book, Conquering Infertility by Alice Domar, seems to be a very well rounded look at the emotional aspects of infertility, and includes various coping strategies. I'm only up to chapter 5, but so far so good. I have definitely resonated with a lot of what she says in there about depression, frustration and stress. The CD, Guided Meditations Help for Infertility by Belleruth Naparstek, also seems very good. I've only played one meditation so far, but it left me with tears streaming down my face, sobbing and crying out "yes....(gasp, sob)......yes....(gasp, sob).......yes" in agreement with everything she was saying. I have tried the Anji meditations, but unfortunately often fall asleep before they even get to the guided imagery part (far too much general relaxation stuff ahead of the good stuff if you ask me), and I've borrowed and played Julia Indichova's CD which was better but still not really my style. So I hope that I'll be able to get a lot of use out of this CD. I played it again this morning, and managed not to sob, so we'll see how I do.

I definitely needed to work on the mind-body stuff, as I need to get my hope back before the next cycle. It's currently taken a little holiday, and while it might occasionally send me a postcard or two, saying "hey, why not us?", so far it is staying away. I'd like to think that I can still do this, and still make it work. I try to think about the people I have heard of who did multiple multiple IVFs and succeeded eventually. The trouble is, I know of painfully few people who did multiple multiple IVFs and then managed to have a successful pregnancy. I wish I knew of more so that I could think about them and hold them out as an example to myself. While doing one or two IVFs is very very scary indeed, continuing on past 4 cycles is so unbearably scary that it really does require a level of bravery that I haven't had to call on before. Except maybe that time in Vladivostock where I hid in the toilets for a few hours shaking before boarding the trans-Siberian express a day early with no food or roubles, because the Russian travel agent messed up and put me on the wrong damn train. And thought I must be a man as I was traveling alone, so had booked me to share a compartment with "other" men. And warned me that I'd probably be raped or killed, and I must be completely crazy to be a woman traveling alone. Yes, that type of bravery. Or is it bravado? That's the level we're talking about now. The type of courage that you have to pull from the deepest recesses of your soul, so that you can square your shoulders and walk into battle knowing full well that you may never come out of it again.

And yes, I had a lovely time on the train, thankyouverymuch. One of my compartment mates was a small time gangster who changed my dollars into roubles, and the other was a general in the army who spoke English. By the time I got off in Moscow a week later, I had a military escort to my hotel, had had ice cream on the platform in such icy Siberian weather that it hurts your lungs to breathe, had had wonderful food that the other passengers shared with me, watched a Belgian porn movie in first class with my buddies, had learned a few words and phrases of Russian, learned a new card game and had generally been taken care of.

If only I knew that this would turn out positively as well, squaring my shoulders and walking into battle would be a lot easier. But that's the problem isn't it? You just don't know in advance, and while it's OK to breathe a sigh of relief after it's all worked out OK and tell yourself that you knew it was all going to be fine, you're really kidding yourself. Nobody knows in advance whether they are going to come out OK or not OK. And that's why it's hard to put one foot in front of the other.

In clinic news, I've emailed my RE asking him for his recommendation of where to go for a second opinion. Hey, why not? I think he'll be honest. No response yet, but then again, I don't think he's really up on the whole email thing. I called Cornell, and found out that only 3 of the doctors do telephone consultations, and I couldn't get myself excited over any of them really. I know it is the protocol, and the embryology lab, that will make the difference, not the actual doctor, but it's so hard to think of someone else, when I happen to think my RE is pretty darn great. Oh well, there's plenty of time to figure this out.