10w5d – Therapy today.

Just a couple more days and I’ll be at 11 weeks.  8 more days and I’ll get my ultrasound to check on this sweet baby.  I continue to be absolutely terrified.  I cannot wait until next Tuesday.

I had therapy today – I can’t say I accomplished much in that session, yet it was helpful.  Sometimes it is hard to see that the sessions that appear that least productive are actually the most productive.

She asked at what point do I feel like I’ll be more hopeful and less anxious of the worst case scenario?  Honestly, I have no idea.  I thought if I made it to a heartbeat I’d feel good.  Then I thought if I made it to 8 weeks I’d feel good.  Today I feel like if I make it to 12 weeks I’ll feel good – but I honestly don’t know if I’ll just change the date next week.  My doctor told me he finds 16 weeks is when it begins to get better when IVF is involved.  So, maybe then?  I begin to feel better and then a post pops up in my IVF Pregnancy Group on FB – Today’s post – “U/S shows we lost the baby between last week at 10w6d and this week.”  There have been a lot of posts this week and last of ladies that have lost their babies between 8 and 10 weeks.  Euploid embryos.  Embryos that were determined to be the gold standard we all hope to get.  Those embryos should have made it.  It isn’t fair.  It’s awful, devastating.

Those posts put me right back to my paranoia.  Yeah, I should feel safe at 10 weeks.  The chance of a miscarriage is less than 2% at this point.  However, I don’t feel safe.  Especially knowing of the lost perfect embryos.  Knowing my embryo was a low level mosaic and has a higher miscarriage rate.  Etc.  We went over in therapy my need to “reframe it”.  To take this intrusive, negative thoughts and refrain them into something different, something less anxiety provoking, something less terrifying.  That’s hard – I know in reality those of us doing IVF are doing it for various reasons.  The ladies losing babies may have other underlying health issues, immune issues, lining/uterus issues, issues that contribute to RPL.  I do know my main issues were my horrific, garbage tubes and age/DOR.  Carrying wise I tested negative for everything.  I have shown no reason in any of the testing on why I can’t carry a baby.  Thus, I need to focus on the fact that I can hopefully carry without issues and don’t have those extra things that would increase losing a baby.  That if I miscarry it’ll most likely be due to genetics and that is not within my control at all.  To remember that this baby actually has less than a 1% chance of truly have mosaicism.  If she’s made it this far, she has a 99% chance of being perfectly healthy.  When the doubt creeps in I’ll just keep repeating that for the next week – or longer.

She asked what I’m doing for coping tools now that I have no medications and/or fun – Nothing, absolutely freaking nothing.  Showers?  Baths now that I can FINALLY take them again? Sleep? Far too many TV shows?  Basically anything that will provide me with full brain distraction.  My coping tool is avoidance and I try to just forget.  I’m truly struggling without anxiety medication and so frustrated when it comes to the inability to drink.  In the past if my anxiety was bad and I didn’t take a Xanax I’d have a beer.  Now, I have nothing, zero, zilch.  No numbing drugs.  Just reality.  This may be the longest time in two decades I’ve been THIS level of sober.  It’s rough.  We went over coping skills, to remember to use the things I’ve learned.  She feels I should try to engage with life a little more, I feel I should disengage even more.  We agreed to just continue on for another two weeks and then we’ll revisit.  Hopefully once the second trimester hits I will find my lost energy and won’t just keep going to bed to avoid the anxiety.

Max asked me at lunch if I want to do something after work – Disc Golf, Walking, Hiking, Anything… No? The only thing my mind thinks of all day currently is for the end of day to get here and to crawl back into bed.  I’m exhausted.  This week I’m so freaking sore it isn’t even funny.  I worked Saturday at the restaurant.  A usual 9 hour opening shift.  It was busy, but it’s always busy.  Made fabulous money.  Yet, I have barely been able to walk since then.  Literally.  I was dumbfounded Saturday night and Sunday that I could hurt THAT bad.  It doesn’t make much sense.

However, they did have me quit prednisone on Thursday.  They had me taper for a week and it was just 1 less pill and then completely done.  Google and my therapist feel that this could be a result of quitting it too quickly and the intense fatigue, muscle/joint pain and headache are related to this.  I’m already on day 5 without any so at this point I’m doing to just tough it out and make it through.  I was to quit estrogen and PIO too – However, I’ve read nothing good about cold turkey quitting and not tapering these too.  So, I refused and we’re tapering instead.  It won’t cause any harm (except my freaking sore ass).  So, I’m down to 2 pills of Estrogen, Thursday I’ll drop to 1 and I’ll have just one week left.  PIO I dropped to .75 and I’ll drop to .5 Thursday and just keep dropping it .25 a week until I’m done.  At 12 or 13 weeks they said  I could stop progesterone inserts but again, I’m paranoid and I’m going to drop it down a pill a week until I’m done.  I’ve put way too much into getting this baby here, there is no way I’m rushing anything because it would be far more convenient or less pain for me.

So, back to Max – I know he’s disappointed I don’t want to do anything.  He does NOT understand.  I don’t even know if I understand.  I didn’t think growing a baby would be this hard and time consuming.  It sure seems to be though.  Until I have energy I don’t care about doing much.  I’ve also been fighting getting sick it feels like since Friday (unless that’s the steroid withdrawal too) and I just need to rest until I’m 100% again.   He’s got a super chill job that he works hard for 6 days and then has 8 days off – repeat.  So, of course he’s got all this energy and time to do stuff.  These days off he was maxed out on leave time so it starts 2 days earlier and he only had to work 4 days and now has 10 days off.

This girl is dead.  I do not ever get 10 days off.  My one day off this week I cleaned the whole house and did 3 loads of laundry.  Obviously, if he’s going to have 10 days off he needs to help more.  I may be slightly jealous over this long vacation for him with nothingness.  He then mentioned that he could have cashed out the time but he only could have cashed out 20 hours and still would have needed to take 4.  Uhhhh, then take 4 hours off and cash out the 20?  That’s like free money essentially.  Hell, that would buy a crib or a stroller or more.  Dumbass.  I haven’t said much since then as I’d of totally taken the cash out option.  I ALWAYS take the money option.  Always.  He offers to pick up shifts so I’ll work less – but doesn’t take advantage of the cash out when available.  Unless he’s cashing out 20 too.  I guess I didn’t ask as I was annoyed and left.  He accrues hours like crazy with his schedule.

When I went to work Saturday all I could say was – just 15 more Saturdays.  Literally feeling that.  I only work every other weekend generally – which is 15 shifts before my due date.  I most definitely do NOT want to be scheduled after this baby is born and would like to just fill-in as convenient to me.  So, now we’re at 14 more Saturdays and 29 more Wednesdays/Thursdays… That’s just 72 more shifts – But who’s counting!  Ha.