Working in (my own personal) Hell

Honestly I must have been on bad mammer-jammer in a past life because things around here keep getting worse.

I'm already having to see one coworker who is due in December flit around all happy (and why shouldn't she be) and now this morning my boss announces that she too is pregnant. My coworker only knows a small bit of my story but she was kind enough this summer to text me to tell me so I wouldn't find out via a group announcement. My boss knows most of my story and has a sister who did IVF and she still didn't have the decency to warn me. It was like someone hit me in the head and ripped out my guts.

I'm supposed to be on a prep right now but I can't concentrate. I'm so over this place. There is another coworker who I think may also be pregnant (I suspect she did IVF at the start of September and given that she didn't seem too upset by the announement I think she might be... Then again she might have a great IF face like me). There is yet another coworker who got married this summer and is inching up on 30 - they lived together for two years already so it wouldn't surprise me if she got pregnant soon too.

And then it will be me alone. The one married young-ish woman in the place without kids.

I'm hoping this is our month but not holdin my breath. FF has changed the day it thinks I ovulated 3 times and the one it keeps going back to means we are out of luck completely. The other two possible days at least put us kind of in the running, but I never got a positive OPK this month so I'm thinking it probably didn't happen at all

I'm seriously thinking of ordering Cl.omid online but I'm kind of hesitant.

At this point I'm so sad and anxious all the time and I actually dread my job these days.

Sigh

Blog name change!

So for various reasons I am considering changing my blog name. When I created it the name seemed to fit but I am no longer in a "what happens, happens) place in my world.

Some of the idea poking around in my head are:

     • a little too late

     • a start to late 

     • too fat to parent

     • my bmi battle

     • empathy not judgements 

Any other ideas please send then. When I find one I like I'll make the changes. Hope to hear from you.

The verdict

No! That's right she said no. She didn't even bat an eye when I told her about 40 lbs and she said that she thinks it is ridiculous that I'm seeing multiple doctors. She went on to say that ifthe specialist   (RE) didn't want to deal with it, why would a generalist. Them she said that I started a bit too late and might be right that we will run out of time.

The whole appointment left me sad and empty. I've seriously thought about just ending it all tonight. I'm physically and emotionally exhausted. The thought of getting through tomorrow make me sad. Everything just hurts.

All the things that the doctors are saying ate just like the things the bullies used to say... So now I'm back to being the scared little girl. I need to get past that.

Anyway,the answer is 100lb loss, that's all I can do.

I fucking hate my life

The verdict

No! That's right she said no. She didn't even bat an eye when I told her about 40 lbs and she said that she thinks it is ridiculous that I'm seeing multiple doctors. She went on to say that ifthe specialist   (RE) didn't want to deal with it, why would a generalist. Them she said that I started a bit too late and might be right that we will run out of time.

The whole appointment left me sad and empty. I've seriously thought about just ending it all tonight. I'm physically and emotionally exhausted. The thought of getting through tomorrow make me sad. Everything just hurts.

All the things that the doctors are saying ate just like the things the bullies used to say... So now I'm back to being the scared little girl. I need to get past that.

Anyway,the answer is 100lb loss, that's all I can do.

I fucking hate my life

Leap of Faith

So I'm sitting at my GPs office. Have I mentioned how long the waits here are? Waiting an hour is average. I walked in five minutes before my appointment to find six people in the waiting room still ahead of me. 40 minutes later and we're down to two ahead of me (not including those waiting in exam rooms). She is always so far behind but she's great so people wait.

Anyway I'm sitting here because I want to change my blood pressure meds. She told me last Feb that if I got pregnant or was trying that I needed to change meds. NO I'm not pregnant (unfortunately)... But I have an appointment this afternoon with my OBGYN and I'm really hoping that she will agree to let me try tracked cycles with Clomid.  I'm very nervous and quite sure that she will reject me as too fat like the rest of the doctors have. I'm at the point of not having much hope anymore. 

As you may recall, I saw the RE in June and was basically told that I was too fat. She wouldn't help me until I lost at least 100 lbs (she wouldn't give me an exact number, just told me to come back when I lost 100 lbs and we'd talk about it then). You would think that REs would know that infertile women are on the edge, but I guess not.

So I've been working my ass off. And even though I was on crutches for nearly 7 weeks, as I this morning I'm down 40 lbs since the end of June. My BMI has dropped nearly 6 pts and I've lost 6 inches off my waist. All good things but they will mean nothing to me if nobody is willing to help me get pregnant.

So I hope that the OBGyN helps me out, but I'm steeling myself for another disappointment because it really seems like the world doesn't want me to get pregnant or be a parent.

So you had a bad day/month/year

That song keeps running through my head, but I keep replacing day with life.

Things have not been so good in peg-world lately.  In fact, right now I'm in the middle of a major cry fest.

Oh, where to start...

So, I mentioned before that the Fertility Specialist won't even consider helping me until I lose at least 100 lbs.  For the record I'm current down 35 lbs since the end of June.  So that's a bonus, but when I see that there is a minimum of 65 more to go (and really there should be more than that to get to a really healthy weight), it seems hopeless.  I've been watching my calorie intake really closely, consuming no more than 1500 calories per day.    I haven't been able to work out at all in the last six weeks either... and by that I am not making excuses... I have my leg in a cast.

I know that I also mentioned my clumsy fall down the stairs nearly two years ago.  I managed to sprain my ankle quite badly causing a bone chip to be torn off of the joint, one ligament to be torn off nearly completely, and two others to be stretched out to the point of being useless.  Surgery to repair it was supposed to be this coming Dec/Jan, but I got a call in August that there was an opening if I wanted it.  I jumped at the idea - well not exactly jumped because jumping hurt my ankle.  Anyway, in I went for surgery and out I came with a cast to the knee and a pretty pair of crutches to keep my upright.  I get the cast off in a week and I'm really happy about that.  I can't wait to be able to move around better and a get a good night's sleep and a proper shower.  Leg casts suck! I can't even imagine how gross it is inside this cast with all the dirt, etc.  The pain wasn't too bad initially.  It hurt mostly at the incision point which was still open inside the cast.  I've lately been walking around a lot without the crutches without much problem, so I'll be glad to get the cast off and start to get back to normal life.

The big thing that has just happened for us is that my mother had a major surgery on Monday.  She's had a horrible tremor in her hands and head for at least twenty years.  Every time she asked about it she was told it was a side effect of her other medication.  So she went on living (or not living well) with the tremor.  She can't do much for herself and it is stressful for everyone involved.  After going through a LOT of doctors, she finally got in to see a specialist who is world renown for this type of thing.  She got in to see him and was scheduled to come in for surgery less than two weeks later.  The procedure is kinda cool.  They implant a probe into the brain which is controlled by a transmitter that is put under the collarbone.  The transmitter sends impulses to the probe which tells the brain to stop telling the body to shake.  She had the probe and transmitter put in on Monday and they turn the whole system on in about a month, after her brain has healed up.  It was a long three days but she is home and she called me this afternoon and she's feeling good.  So that's a bonus, but I"m just exhausted.  I feel like I've been hit by a truck.

The topping to all of this is that this past week I found out that three of my cousins are expecting.  Once again, I'm on the sidelines.  I get to hear all the great things about them having more babies (this is baby 2, 3, and 4 for them respectively).  I'm so tired of everyone but me getting pregnant.  I feel like I should just give up because it's not going to happen anyway.  I've been in tears on and off for days about all this.  I like to think that I'm a strong person but this is getting to a point that I can't handle.  I've been at a stress level of 10 for the last couple of weeks and I'm supposed to handle the rest of the things that life throws at me... I'm not sure how to do it.  I considered finding someone to talk to, but I don't want to take more time off of work and I don't even know where to start looking for someone to help.  It just all sucks.

I feel another crying jag coming on and I need to try to figure out how to compose myself before I return to work tomorrow.  I have a feeling that it's going to be a long two days until the weekend.

Healthiest Unhealthy Person in the World

So a bit of background...

In a previous post I had mentioned that my RE is determined that I am too fat to have a baby because I am too unhealthy. How does she know this? Well isn't it a known fact that if you are overweight you have a myriad of other health issues too? Did she do any tests? No, but really, it should be safe to assume that I have blood sugar issues, cholesterol, blood pressure problems, fatty liver, and the list goes on.

So after being told that I needed to lose at least 100 lbs before she would help us get pregnant, I started looking into extreme measures. By that I mean gastric bypass surgery. I don't particularly like the idea of doing that (but the more I find out about it and its results the more I'm softening toward the idea). The problem is that I'm not getting any younger and each passing month makes my eggs and chances of conception a little bit lower. I could potentially lose all the weight on my own but the chances are slim (see what I did there?). A few years ago I lost 80 lbs with diet and exercise but I was 8 years younger (we all know its harder to lose weight when you hit 30. I also had a job where I walked away at 4:30 and didn't have to deal with it again until 8:30 the next morning... No three to four hours of at home work after getting home at 6:00. I had a workout buddy and was living in a place where I could be at a gym in about 5 minutes.

Fast forward to today. I work until 4:30 or 5:00 each day and then have a 45 minute commute to get home. I have to cook supper and then put in a few more hours to do planning or marking - the joys of teaching English, when you assign a class of 25 kids essays it means you have to mark those essays. Another big obstacle is that I live at least an hour from the closest gym. I know there are other things I could do but the gym was motivating to me and I like variety. Right now my biggest hurdle is my ankle. I broke it and tire ligaments about 20 months ago. It hurts if I do even 5 minutes of walking so exercise is seriously painful. I'm about a month from surgery on it so hopefully that will help.

I know this all sounds like excuses but these are very real problems and barriers to my weight loss success. Since my RE appointment on June 20 I've lost 15 lbs which I know is good but nowhere near what I need to lose.

So what is my whiney point? Well in order to move forward on the gastric bypass you have to be referred to the bariatric clinic here (there is only one in the province). I asked my GP for a referral and she was happy to do it saying she'd support me any way she could. She ordered a full battery of blood and urine tests because she said they usually ask for those. I also had her test my hormone levels.

So today I went back because something came back wonky and she wanted me in. So given what the RE said I should have been in for really bad news right? Nope... Diagnosis: very low vitamin D.  So I have to take supplements. The doctor said it's obvious why I'm low, I'm very pale, I've often referred to myself as translucent in fact. Given that I always use a ton of sunscreen or I burn horribly... And sunscreen blocks vitamin D absorption.  No biggie. Vitamin deficiency is easy to fix, dealt with those before.

So what about everything else? Totally and completely normal numbers. Cholesterol, liver, sugars, all perfect.  Yes I am on blood pressure meds but the doc figures given my family history that I would be anyway (nearly every relative and my parents and my grandparents all had high blood pressure) she is pretty sure it's not a weight related issue.

So where is this unhealthy person that the RE is so concerned about being pregnant. This GP and two other before her have commented on how may be the most healthy overweight patient they have ever seen. Sigh. But it doesn't help me to get pregnant.

At this point I have two hopes. The RE has me scheduled for an assessment with the high risk pregnancy clinic in the city to see what they think. I'm hoping they give us the go ahead. Failing that I am going back to my original OB/GYN and asking her for help. She didn't have a problem with my weight a couple years ago and I asked if it was an issue and she had said absolutely not... So hopefully she still thinks that way.

So there you have it, the healthiest unhealthy person out there!