The silent T

Thank you for your comments and words. I haven’t felt this defeated in a long time and to hear your care and concern is invaluable and gives me strength. I imagine I will have a lot of rambling in my posts as I figure my way out, so I hope you bear with me.

Mr. Warrior has been trying to get me out of the house and he finally convinced me to go out to dinner. I haven’t felt like eating much, but the fresh air and different scenery was good and I was able to finish half my dinner. He is such a wonderful man, I don’t know what I would do without him.

I’m trying to make sense of why I feel so lost. Knowing now that my highest chance of success for a live baby is donor eggs, the road ahead is clear, right? I want more than anything to have a successful pregnancy and a screaming baby that will keep me up at night. I know I will love my babies no matter if they have any genetic link to me or Mr. Warrior, so why the lost feeling?

Maybe it’s not that I feel lost, but I feel loss? I suppose that make sense. Though I had worked through some of the loss before, when I first tested with high FSH, I see now that I was still harboring hope of having a baby using my eggs. And Dr. No Face’s optimism fed that hope, gave me more confidence in it. I was still not completely trusting of his optimism, but I wanted to. I was scared because I was basically the one diagnosed myself DOR (diminished ovarian reserve). I had to fight for getting an FSH test done because they felt I was too young to worry about these things. But, I’m no doctor. This is not my training. Yes, I work in science and know how to read a research paper, know the limitations of the studies, but I don’t have the experience these doctors are trained in. So, why should I trust my book learning more than the doctors’ first hand experience? Why not trust the Dr. No Face’s opinion?

Last cycle, when I went in for my baseline u/s I was cautious. I wasn’t convinced they would see any antral follicles. But, they did. They saw a “good number.” I think because I so wanted to trust the doctors and because the news seemed to be good, I put aside my skepticism and doubts and I trusted Dr. No Face’s assessment of what a “good number” was. I had been so tired and scared after reading study after study about DOR and POF (premature ovarian failure) and the low chances of pregnancy and high chances of miscarriage. I needed to put my trust and faith in someone else. I wanted and needed to feel less alone in this struggle to understand why my body is the way it is. So, when the good news started pouring in, I trusted and shushed my doubts. I told my doubts they have every right to express themselves, but NOT too loudly. Afterall, Dr. No Face’s opinion was that I had a good chance of getting pregnant. That it was just bad luck this time that I didn’t.

When I asked the doctor this cycle if there was any note of how many antral follicles they saw last cycle, there was no record. Dr. SIL who was there both times remembered 3 or 4. How could that be a “good” number? Then I asked about the 3 mature follicles and that was when I heard about the 28 mm follicle. At that u/s they saw a 17mm and 20mm in one ovary and one they didn’t tell me the measurement of, but which Mr. Warrior saw it was larger than the 20mm. This must have been the 28 mm. If I had known then how large that follicle was, I would have known it was not a good sign. Why did Dr. No Face make no mention of how big it was? Why didn’t I ask? Because I wanted to believe in the good news. I wanted to believe that the high FSH was a horrible mistake and lab mix up. And in light of Dr. No Face’s optimism, it was easy to do that. And I felt relieved not to have to carry the weight of my infertility for awhile. I wanted to trust, to believe and to be unburdened just for a little bit.

I don’t blame Dr. No Face for his optimism. I truly believe he wanted the best possible scenario for me. But as we all know in Infertility Land, hoping is no guarantee for a good outcome. So maybe this feeling of loss is not just of the little hope I still had to carry a pregnancy to term using my eggs. Maybe I am also feeling the loss of trusting the professionals for the care of my infertility. You always hear about how you need to be proactive in your own care, to always question, to stand up for yourself and what you believe, to push for tests and whatnot even when the doctors are doubtful. I did that before in my initial diagnosis and I suppose I will be able to do that again. So, I know that place and how to be in that place.

But, I also know that being a warrior can be lonely and scary.