Have it Uruguay!

Mr. Star and I leave for Uruguay tomorrow for the Christmas holidays.  Did you say Uruguay? Yes, Uruguay, South America.  It’s that little country directly south of Brazil and north of Argentina.  That is where his family is originally from.  It will be my second time going to visit and first time during the holidays.  Being south of the equator this is their summertime which means it is beach season.  Yeah!  To prepare I’ve been ramping up the Spanish for the past two months with a tutor and splurging on random comforts like new inflatable neck pillows for the impending marathon flight in each direction.  While I am gone it will be a bit quiet here on the blog.

Here’s a quick update on the baby-making front.  On Sunday I got a BFN.  It was the day after my cat died, so double boo!   This time I went straight to the lab instead of relying on the old pee sticks which failed me before.  It was our first month of trying since our new Immunology Dr. (from the Dr. Alan Beers Center) gave us the green light and first attempt since miscarriage #5 in July.  I am crossing my fingers for month #2.  I was able to see my RE doc today for my Day 3 ultrasound to get the green light from her for a prescription for Femara.  The last three pregnancies were all Femara assisted with success on the second month.  Well, here we are again going into the second month.  Will I get luck a fourth time?  When deciding if we try again naturally or move on to more aggressive treatments (like IUI or IVF) I had told myself we should at least try Femara again as it was so effective before.  If we get a BFN again this month I am going to have to consider plan B.  It seems like I already got lucky getting pregnant five times naturally, what is the likelihood I could get pregnant so easily again?  Each time it seemed like a miracle. Something worked!  Even though they all ended up the same way, it was reassuring that SOMETHING was working offering up that little sliver of hope each time that maybe this time will be different.  I don’t know why but part of me worries that I’ve had my five chances and they were squandered.  I feel almost greedy expecting a sixth one.  Trying to get pregnant naturally a sixth time after five losses defies a certain sense of logic, esp. as I am now four years older than when I started this.  Feeling completely undeserving of another try, we cross our fingers and try again.

Note-  The house is SO empty now without our little kitty.  I am so grateful to be going away even if it’s going to be an intense experience with the in-laws in a foreign land.

Goodbye Kitty

1994 – 2011

 

Putting Kitty to Sleep

Thank you all so much for your support!  It helps to hear your comments.  Despite all our losses this is one of the most difficult losses I’ve ever had to experience.

We saw the vet once again today and made the very difficult choice to put him to sleep this weekend.  We have only two more days with him before he goes in.  We planned for Sat. morning so we could have some alone time to mourn on the weekend.  It is going to be really really hard.  In the meantime we are trying to spoil him with all his favorite treats and spend as much quality time together as we can.  He deserves it.

Little kitty is on his ninth life

Our seventeen year old cat looks like he may finally be on his ninth life.  He has a very slow progressing form of small cell lymphoma and was diagnosed almost two years ago.  They estimated he would live on average two more years.  Sure enough he is starting to dwindle.  His weight was dropping so our oncologist put him on a new chemo therapy and he has not been the same since.  He barely eats and we are even syringe feeding him (yuk!).  He is stable, but doesn’t have great hope for a turnaround and the stress of this is really killing me.  We have a trip planned for Christmas for two weeks coming up and I can’t stand the thought of him alone in our house during that time with just someone stopping by to check on him.  I feel almost cruel leaving him.  I’ve thought that maybe we should consider euthanasia now as I worry about him each day and can’t bare to see him suffer.  Mr. Star seems to think he’s ok and he’ll be fine while we are away.  What I am recognizing is that even if the cat is somewhat stable, I am meanwhile feeling drained worrying about him and all his medical needs.  I know he doesn’t have much time left and I don’t know when the right time is to say good bye. I got the nerve up to ask the vet about euthanasia but left the office overwhelmed with tears.  Even now the tears are coming.  I can’t think of any scenario when saying good bye is going to be easy, but every day now I wonder if he is going to be ok today.  I hate the thought of putting him down, but keeping him alive and comfortable and fed is increasingly difficult and draining.

Meanwhile I have been getting pregnancy symptoms during my second week of the two week wait: fatigue, nausea and lower back cramps/aches.  My brain is SO hopeful that just maybe we got lucky and are on the fast track this time.  We waited almost six months to start trying after our last loss (in July) because we were pursuing these time consuming immunology treatments.  With those behind us and after such a long wait to get back on the horse we are really eager to get see some results!

What happened to watching TV?

I was feeling down and wanted to get my mind off of my worries so I sat down to watch one of my favorite sitcoms (How I Met Your Mother) with Mr. Star and holy crap, what just happened? That was the single most depressing episode ever.  It was cleverly called “Robin will never be a pole vaulter”.  It starts out with the character Robin finding out she is pregnant unintentionally.  Here is an episode recap.  As this is going on I am thinking “Great!  The only two characters on this show are now BOTH pregnant.  Yeah!  Just what I want to watch right now”.  But then it takes a turn and she finds out she isn’t pregnant followed by the doctor telling her that the tests found she will NEVER be able to have kids.  Holy shit!  What tests are these?  While I appreciate they didn’t go the saccarin sweet route of having another happy-go-lucky pregnancy on the show I felt SO incredibly sad about this character.  It’s essentially my greatest fear, right?  Finding out all of this will NEVER work.  I just got back on the trying wagon after a way too long break while doing questionable treatments that may or may not have any affect whatsoever and feeling at my lowest counting the months and years I’ve spent trying to make this work (it will be 4 years when the year ends).  The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that it just might work someday.  Watching this show just felt like a shot in the face.  The message they were trying to communicate (I think) is that not everyone has kids and that is ok.   Unfortunately, what it sounded like to me was there are people who can and people who can’t.  Which one do you think I seem to be?

TV is just another thing that has started to suck for me.  The topic of pregnancy and pregnant characters pops up so much.  Before this all started I found it all so sweet and charming.  Now it just kills me and I find myself feeling actually angry while watching the shows instead of laughing and enjoying myself like I used to.    The character “Pam” from “The Office” is another one I used to like and now I can’t stand.  Going out and socializing with your peers is hard enough during this, but it seems like an extra insult to have to give up TV too.

Clearly I watch too much TV and need to be doing something more productive with my time.  Video games anyone?