Moody

I don't know what is up with me lately, I seem to swing wildly between moods. I was doing just fine yesterday until I went to acupuncture. And cutie acu was telling me about one of his fertility patients who had been in an hour before - she is now very pregnant apparently, and doing well. He likes telling me about the successes. Which is very nice and all, but it doesn't give me hope any more so it just makes me sad that I may never join them. And then we were talking about me starting the lupron this cycle, so he was saying how it's been shown that acupuncture really helps the response versus doing it without acupuncture and we'll hope for lots of fat, juicy eggs. Ummm, yeah, again, all very lovely, but I've been doing acupuncture for every single one of my IVFs. Just how do I hang on to hope that this time I will get the magic response? So I get sad that even his illustrations of how I should have hope actually make me sad.

And then of course on the other hand, I do realize that I am doing better this time. I can definitely tell that I have changes in my energy levels and in day-to-day pain levels. My digestion is improving more. It is all good. I suppose I am feeling a bit down because of the period not being as I had hoped. You know, I was hoping it would be a perfect turnaround, a perfect flow, as Randine Lewis loves to tout in her book, of the "her cycle balanced within weeks, and she was pregnant the following cycle" success stories ilk.

It is just so so hard to hang on to hope. Obviously I have hope, because I am going forward with the cycle. But it is a tenuous hope. A feeble hope that flickers like a candle flame in a breeze. I try to focus on what I am doing differently, and twice-weekly acupuncture is one of the differences. Previously I did once-weekly acupuncture. Will it be enough, though? Will I actually get the golden egg, or am I just doomed to failure because I am using donor sperm and therefore not trying every month. Did I pop the golden egg last month and waste it because there was no sperm there to meet it? Was that my last chance and I blew it?

I think the pressure has ratcheted up because of my self-imposed "this is the last cycle" stuff. I am so paralyzed with fear that it won't work and I won't have another cycle to try again. I just can't face the thought of giving up on my family's genetics. But I have to stop at some point. It is just not healthy or realistic to keep going indefinitely. Not to mention the fact that I can't afford to keep going indefinitely. And yet, I just really don't feel ready to say that this is where my grandparents stop. Where my parents stop. That their genes don't get to travel forward into the future, into this grand experiment that is humanity. That they become a stunted branch of the family tree that will wither into nothing. I think in many ways, this would be a lot easier if I had other family members that were procreating. But we are a small family, and have too many people that are not having kids for various reasons. Between me, my brother and my 4 cousins we have produced one kid. And that may be it, because even the fertile one may not have any more due to some quite nasty birth complications. I feel this crushing pressure to try everything I possibly can, but it is just stifling at times. Like now. It is hard to breathe.