What's a Soul Mate?

This morning I've found myself repeatedly asking the same question... does it ever get any easier?  Life, love, etc.  Last night I babysat my niece and found a girl I didn't really recognize.  She's about a year and a half old now and has entered the "Mine!" phase.  She kept snatching books out of my hand and then trying to tease me with them.  She threw bath toys at me from out of the tub.  I hadn't really seen her like that before, and it was a little unsettling.  Made me scared to have kids.  Then she turned into the sweetest child and fell asleep on my chest.  I was so happy and sad at the same time.

Yesterday morning a new co-worker and I got to know each other a little better.  We talked about our pasts and eventually she asked why my marriage ended.  I ended up telling that story with welled eyes again.  It never gets easier, and I always tear up.  It still hurts.  She talked about her past relationships and how she's been cheated on multiple times.  She's been married and a Marine wife for six months now, and her husband is set to go off for more training in a couple of months.  She's terrified he's going to be tempted while away, and this relationship will end the same as her others.  I mentioned how I'm scared I'm going to fall hard again for a guy it seems totally right with, then he's going to change his mind and forget his promises.  How do you let go of the fear?  I told her to do her best to trust in the love they share.  Will I ever be able to fully trust a love like that again?

Among many other things, we also talked about being nervous about motherhood.  She has PCOS and is scared she'll have trouble getting pregnant.  She spoke of how she wonders if she'd even be a good mother.  I said how I have the same fears.  I really do wonder sometimes.

When I was at the medical trial place I ended up quitting because the ex and I were going to start trying again.  One lady there pretty much told me that mothers that struggle with depression and the like aren't always the best.  Kinda harsh.  She even said "I'm not saying you'd be a bad mother," although it seemed she was heavily hinting at it.  I'm always scared I would emotionally damage a kid.  Or end up not knowing how to handle him/her and turn them into a "spoiled brat".

Last night I tried to figure out the best way to go about handling my niece's attitude.  I stayed calm.  I told her "No, that's not nice" multiple times and ended up taking away everything she kept trying to throw.  I distracted her with other things and activities, and that seemed to work.  It kinda seemed like a test.  Maybe I could do it.  Maybe I could raise a decent kid.

Babysitting duty wasn't over until after midnight, so I just stayed over.  I came home this morning, and once again the fella acted like he could care less.  He asked how it went and everything, but no greeting hug or kiss.  I ended up watching a movie, and at the end he sat down at the farthest end of the couch and played a game on his phone.  The end of the rom com had a speech about fighting for your soul mate and doing everything in your power to not let them get away.  I remembered telling the ex how I was going to fight for him, and he simply replied that his feelings hadn't changed.  I was scared to fight with him and I guess I gave up.  I guess he wasn't my soul mate.

Are those things real anyway?

Bullet Points

Got the appraisal back on the house and it's good!  The value is there and the house doesn't need major repairs.  We're now scheduling the actual home inspection, and I'm not anticipating anything huge.

I have a serious potential buyer for my old engagement ring.  It still hurts to sell it, but the money from it would wipe out about 75% of my credit card debt.  I could pay that off much quicker and actually start saving more.

I'm usually off Wednesdays but am picking up a few extra hours today.  We're short staffed right now, and I volunteered.  The extra moo-lah can't hurt.

After work, I'm coming home to soak up some more sun.  The tan is actually coming along pretty well.  I have a free outdoor chaise lounge thing on the way soon too.  No more laying on the brick patio.

Boxes are starting to take over the house.  The bf has started packing a few things, and I'm about to.  It's so weird.  I'm moving out at the beginning of the last month of our lease and he said, "So you'll be out and I'm gonna be stuck with all the cleaning, huh?" after I'd said several times before that I'd be back to clean and that I personally would shampoo all the carpet.  I hate how he does that.

He's been extra standoffish the past few days, although he was sweet this morning and even made extra coffee for me.  I guess he gets in his moods too.  I do care about him, but I am very much looking forward to not worrying about what a man is thinking all the time.  It's exhausting and emotionally draining.

Emotionally, I'm feeling a little better than I was in the last post.  It's crazy how it comes and goes.  I got a voice mail yesterday from the place in Memphis where I did the clinical trials for anti-depressants.  The guy said they're just checking in to see how I'm doing, and I thought that I really don't know how I would answer that.

I'm looking forward to a relaxing summer.  I'll be living with one of my best friends, which will be good.  I'll have plenty of time in my new house to myself since she usually spends 3-4 nights a week with her boyfriend.  I have no real plans but reading, sun soaking, hitting the gym and maybe taking up knitting again.  I have no interest in following patterns, but I do like the act of creating something with my hands.  My plan is to make a bunch of scarves and donate them this winter.

So, yeah.  That's what's going on right now.  Time to get ready for work.

Stop, halt, cease, desist...

So I just re-read my last post and geez... paranoid much?  Every now and then I'll have a day like that and stress over every little thing.  Yesterday was just one of those days I guess.  It's over now.  I know I'm ready to do whatever is necessary to have a baby and start our family.  That is what I want with all my heart.  Be it through Clomid, laparoscopy, or whatever else, I'm ready for it.  We've waited long enough and the timing feels right.  I'm feeling hopeful again.

Apparently I took my last anti-depressant pills last night.  My appointment went very well today, except that it took a few tries to get a sample for the blood work... ouch!  I met with the doctor and went through all the routine questions, then together we decided it's okay for me to stop cold turkey.  So I'm done!  I have to go back in two weeks just for a follow up visit, but I'm done with the meds.  There's a mandatory 30-day period that I agreed not to get pregnant in, and after that we're free to try again!

I've decided to keep taking the birth control pills for a few more days or so for totally selfish reasons.  Exactly one month from today is my birthday, and the husband and I are meeting up with the in-laws in Nashville to celebrate my and their February birthdays.  As a gift, the in-laws have gotten us a room in a very nice hotel, and that is right about the time AF would be arriving again if I stopped the birth control today.  I'd like to enjoy that hotel room (wink, wink) so I'll wait a bit longer and try to time it so AF doesn't spoil the big 2-8.  You know what they say about the best laid plans though, and we all know AF will do whatever the hell she feels like.  Just keep your fingers crossed for me please... haha.  Seriously though, I'd appreciate it.

***I deleted the post referenced in the first paragraph because I got a little embarrassed when I read it again.  It was mainly me just sorting through some thoughts about starting TTC again, possibly taking Clomid, and the endo.  I figured I would save people from having to read that novel and then thinking "What the hell is wrong with her?".***

Exciting News!

We’re going to start trying to get pregnant again!! I am so ecstatic! And relieved… I think because it feels like we’re moving forward again. During our break I’ve felt stuck, like I was just trying to keep busy to pass the time until we were ready to try again. All I’ve ever wanted is to be a mom and have a family, and we’re actually going to be working on it again!

The talk with the husband this past weekend went really well, obviously. First we revisited the reason we initiated our TTC break… our financial situation. Over the past few months we haven’t really made any headway in that area, and we realized that we probably won’t anytime soon and that we don’t care anymore. We probably won’t be financially secure for at least ten more years, if ever, so screw it.

Then we moved on to how we want to go about it this time, now that we know we’ll probably need help. He said I should go first since I’d been chomping at the bit ever since that text message last week... he’s so sweet! I told him my ideas for a tentative plan of action, then he told me his thoughts on it all, and together we came up with a definitive plan.

First off is possibly getting “weaned” off the anti-depressants. There may be a taper-down period to ease the transition back to a “drug-free” life. After that, there’s probably a suggested minimum amount of time to wait before getting pregnant to let the meds leave my system, probably thirty days. I find all that out at my appointment next Monday. I guess we’re probably looking at about a month and a half before we actually get to start trying again.

My last day of anti-depressants will also be my last day of birth control (yay!). That next month will allow my body to rid any residual stuff from the meds and also (hopefully) to return to my normal menstrual cycle. During that time I’ll contact my wonderful lady doctor to confirm that she still wants me to try the Clomid. If so, we’ll give that a go for a few months, and if nothing, I’ll send my records to the endometriosis specialists in Atlanta to see what they have to say. But not before the husband gets a semen analysis… he wasn’t too happy about that, but agreed that he’d definitely do it before surgery.

I’d had concerns about possibly taking Clomid since I already ovulate on my own, but I feel better about it now after reading more information. Apparently if the endo has affected either of the ovaries, it’s possible the egg doesn’t fully develop before ovulation, meaning it couldn’t be fertilized. The Clomid boosts the hormones, hopefully making a more mature egg and therefore causing a “stronger” ovulation. I’d heard that term before and not fully understood what it meant, so yay for learning new things. :)

Sorry this has been another long one… I’m just so excited! Hope everyone had a safe and wonderful New Year’s celebration! 2011… wow. I’m so hoping it’ll be a good year!

Early Experiences

When I was somewhere around five or six years old a stranger made a snide comment to me in the middle of a mall, and I think it scarred me some. I was there with my mother and grandmother, and we ran into a sweet old lady who lived across the street from us. My grandmother had taken a dish over to her a few days or so before, and for some reason I asked her, “When are you going to give us our bowl back?”. Definitely kinda rude, but hey, I was little and didn’t really know any better. My mom got really mad. She took me aside, sat me on a stool and scolded me in front of everyone in that area of the mall. Sensitive kid that I was, I started to cry. And I cried some more after she walked back over to the neighbor. As I was sitting there, crying, a woman who hadn’t seen or heard any of what happened was passing by. She looked right at me, narrowed her eyes and nastily said to me, “Spoiled brat!” I can only assume she thought I was crying because my mom wouldn’t buy me a toy or something. I don’t really know but I’ve kept that with me all these years.

I’ve been thinking about my past a lot lately. Things like that when I was really young. I keep wondering how much of what you experience when you’re tiny sticks with you and contributes to who you are as an adult.

When I was in first grade I had a few friends in my class and a crush on one of them… a little boy named Lucas. One day one of those other friends, a boy named Timothy, came up to me and asked if I liked anyone. I didn’t want to say, but he kept assuring me that he wouldn’t tell anyone. So I did, and of course like little boys do, he did. He went right over to Lucas and told him. I was mortified. Lucas made a face, and they both started laughing. I remember that being the day I realized I couldn’t really trust anyone. First grade… how sad is that?

I wonder if my social anxiety comes from occurrences like those. I get embarrassed just thinking back on them. I remember it really kicking in during second grade. We moved to a new town, and I started school in the middle of the year. No one really liked me. I dreaded going and faked being sick all the time, but my mom only bought it every now and then. The summer after that I was enrolled in a YMCA summer day camp during the week. Every day I dreaded walking into that building. While all the other kids were playing together with toys on the far side of the room, I would hang out in the book section on the opposite end and read, or pretend to just so I looked busy and content by myself. One of the counselors came up to me one day and asked if I wanted to play with the other kids, and I said I was fine reading. I remember thinking that I wanted to more than anything, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk over there. I never had anything to say and no one ever wanted to play with me anyway.

I’m still like that. I’ve been like that so long now that I don’t know how to be any other way. I want to more than anything, but I’m not sure I ever will. I keep hoping these anti-depressants will magically help, but I don’t think they work that way. I don’t even know exactly what I’ve been expecting them to do, but I’m not sure they’re doing it. I don't even know if they'll work at all since it's an experimental drug. Maybe they are working, I don’t know. Sometimes I feel just fine, but then I get a day like today where I’m paranoid and all over the place. Maybe the upped dosage will kick in soon and help some.

Happy Things

Hope everyone had a magical holiday! We awoke Christmas morning to a winter wonderland! It had snowed overnight (in Mississippi!) making for a white Christmas! It was so thrilling! We immediately took the dogs outside, and they had a blast romping in it all. We cooked some wonderful food and had a very relaxing day. It was perfect.

Santa was good to me! I got the camera I wanted! My wonderful husband and parents went in on it together, and I absolutely love it. I took a ton of pictures and can’t wait to sit down and learn all the ins and outs of it!

My wonderful husband gave me kind of a late Christmas gift last night. He was at work and sent me a text completely out of the blue.

"I think we should do your surgery.”

I didn’t really know how to respond to it, but said “Okay baby. We can talk when you get home. Everything ok?”

“Yep, I just want a family with you.”

How amazing is he?! When he got home he was telling me how everyone at work was talking about how great Christmas with their kids was, and how he wanted to have that. I got so excited. We were both exhausted last night and he’s got a crazy week, so we’re going to talk about it this weekend. I contacted the Center for Endometriosis Care in Atlanta for some info because if I have surgery it’s going to be done by a specialist who actually knows about the condition/disease and the right way to go about it. They do free phone consultations and could give me a price quote during it. I hope they have a payment plan.

I’m trying not to get my hopes up, and we’ll probably talk ourselves out of it again because we’re still nowhere close to being financially ready, but it’s just so exciting to think about TTC again! To find out the status of my insides where the endo is concerned.

But I also wonder if it’s a mistake to jump right into surgery. We only tried for nine months… should we try longer and see if anything happens? I’d definitely want the husband to do the semen analysis before surgery… I hope he’d be on board with that. Should we try the Clomid for a few months like my lady doctor wanted first? Although I really don’t see that helping as I have always ovulated on my own. And I think she just wanted us to give it a try before sending me to an endo specialist, because she knows it’s pricey and I’m insuranceless. I just don’t know.

If we do decide to start TTC again I’ll have to leave the depression study. I’d be okay with that though because I think stopping TTC is what brought on this last bout of it all. I had another appointment yesterday, and they upped my dosage. I was feeling a little better on the lower dose, but not as much as they’d like. So up I go.

My mind is racing with all this. This weekend can’t get here fast enough.

Virtual Preggo Eggos and Actual Creaking Knees

It seems like every two to three weeks someone announces they’re preggo on facebook. Most of these people I haven’t seen since high school, and even then we weren’t great friends, but it still hurts to see all the time. Another one of those came yesterday morning. Then yesterday evening I was watching one of my regular shows and one of the main characters found out she was pregnant. She and her somewhat estranged husband had been trying for maybe a month or two, and I’m thinking the “session” that got her knocked up was (impromptu and awkward in a boat house!) a kinda angry make up sex thing, she thought, and a whatever kind of thing in his mind. I think... it’s all very confusing. Anyways, I totally know that these are fictional characters and none of it is real, but I absolutely LOST IT as I was watching.

It got me thinking how often that really happens… plan to have a baby (or not!), have sex whenever they feel like it for a few months, sometimes only once or twice, then BAM… it happens. When for so many other people, they have to deal with medical conditions getting the way, plan their lives around fertile times, obsess about when to have sex, how often is too often or it not happening often enough, etc. It just stinks that it’s so difficult for some people. I’m still angry that it didn’t work so easily for us. I know I sound like a broken record.

Onto other things. I’m out of the study I was in… apparently I wasn’t depressed or suicidal enough for it. But I’m into another for moderate depression now. I’m guaranteed the actual drug for twelve weeks, then I’ll either stay on it or get a placebo for the rest of the trial, the decision of which is completely random and neither I nor the doctor will know which I’m taking. Sounds so freaky.

Oh, and they told me my cholesterol is high. How freakin old am I?! My back hurts, my knees creak when I squat down, I can’t hear sometimes, I need to get a stronger prescription for my reading glasses, and now I have to eat a shit-ton of oatmeal. Seriously, on paper I could pass for 57 instead of 27.

I'm In

Into the study that is. I went back last week on the day before Thanksgiving (crazy traffic!), and my drug test came back negative (I was too paranoid to take anything, even cold medicine or ibuprofen, that whole week before), so I’m in. I went back yesterday for my first real study appointment.

I had to fast for it. My appointment was at one, but they didn’t do the physical and everything that goes with it until around three thirty. I’m not one to miss meals often so I was HUNGRY! Afterwards they gave me a tiny bag of chips and a Coke.

The rest of the appointment was rough. I did a phone interview with an automated dude on the other end about suicide. I talked to two very nice ladies, with a third observing, for a couple of hours and had to answer some very personal questions about a lot of aspects of my mental state that I normally wouldn’t ever discuss with anyone. I cried whenever the questions hit on an extra sensitive subject. It was really awkward discussing all these personal things with complete strangers just staring at me. I felt like they were judging me, but I guess that’s their job. It was all really embarrassing.

But it was worth it. I was given study drugs and I started taking them last night. I hope they help. So now I have a standing appointment once a week for a few weeks, then every two weeks until the three month mark when the study is over.

They decided since I’m not a druggie in one sense they can give me drugs of another kind. I just think that’s funny.

They think I'm a druggie...

I drove to Memphis this afternoon and had the initial evaluation at the clinical trial place, and it went okay. I guess. I arrived to an empty waiting room and was only in there a minute before I was escorted back and briefly interviewed. Apparently they don’t have any social anxiety trials open now, but the lady thought I would be good for one of their depression ones. After the interview I peed in a cup, had my blood pressure taken and was led back into her office. She sat down, looked at my file and said, “Well, your drug test came back positive for opiates and methamphetamine.”

Damn, they got me.

AS IF! All I could think about was freakin poppy seeds, which I haven't had any of. My face went blank and all I could manage to get out was a stammered “What?” as I saw her looking at me trying to figure out if I was lying to her. I told her about the cold I’m just now getting over, and she asked about all the medicines I’ve been taking. Then she disappeared to talk to the lab person again. When she returned she said that the opiates thing was a mistake and that the Nyquil I took could have caused the methamphetamine positive. So I get to go back next week and pee in a cup again. Oh joy.

I feel like this isn’t a great start for me there.

If I do get into the trial, it’s possible I might only get a placebo. That would suck. It was a nice three hour round trip drive though.

Rejection

Great.

The only prescription medication I’m on is freakin birth control to keep the endo from getting worse, and it costs a whopping forty bucks a month. Oh my, what a high cost for them. Not that they would even be paying for it because it wouldn’t come anywhere close to the deductible. Geez. I certainly don’t know much about insurance company policies, but come on. I guess I can't really say anything about the endo, not that I could if I wanted to. It's a shame though.

So no luck on that front, but maybe on another. I’ve been wanting to see a psychiatrist for awhile now. Everything just seems to be building up again, and I’m breaking down on a regular basis. It feels hard to get through each day. Remembering the $300+ per session quote from a doctor I called several years ago, I figured I’d just have to talk to a counselor. But I really think that I need some sort of pharmaceutical help too. I’ve been trying to deal with all my crap since high school, with some stuff from way earlier than that playing a part, and I haven’t really been getting anywhere in all these years.

Yesterday I saw a commercial for a place in Memphis that does clinical trials for new medicines. This particular commercial was for depression, and it really felt like a sign. They pay for everything and even reimburse you for travel, which would be nice since I’m an hour and a half away. So I looked them up, and they do trials for all sorts of conditions including social anxiety, which has been my main problem since I was really young. I filled out a form and I have an appointment for an initial evaluation tomorrow. That seemed too easy. I hope it’s legit and that it works out. This would be so awesome if it does. I’m not sure if therapy-type sessions would be included, but if they’re not and I still wanted to talk, I could go to a counselor here that’s about $60 per session. Much more doable.

I’m definitely nervous about potentially taking a medicine that’s not fully approved yet. I was in a trial for Yaz a few years ago to see if it could be used and marketed like Seasonale (four periods a year), and it went really well. Yaz was already FDA approved though, so I felt it would be pretty safe. Apparently it caused a ton of problems based on the commercials I’ve seen lately, but I was always fine on it. It was nice to get a year’s worth of free birth control and regular exams then, and it would be nice to be able to do something similar now too. This one would come with a whole mental and physical exam, the latter I haven’t had since before I was old enough to remember having one.

Wish me luck please.