It's Been Rough

I won't lie. This past week has been one of the tougher ones in my history. The only time I can remember crying this hard or being on the verge of crying this consistently I was in elementary school and my best friend had just died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. I find myself being a hermit because I loathe crying in front of people and just about anything can set me off.

I skipped out on my niece's second birthday party and feel horribly guilty for it but it was two days after my negative beta. I did what was best for me. If I had gone one or all of several things could have happened...

• a. someone would ask me when we're having kids  
• b. someone would give me that puppy dog look because they know about our failed cycle 
•  c. someone would comment about how my niece 'looks exactly like' me 
• d. someone ie (my brother most likely) would have said something stupid and I would have gotten violent very quickly and finally
• e. I would not have been able to show affection to my niece like she expects which would have upset her and in turn everyone else including me.

I know I'm a ticking emotional timebomb and I have no desire to explode in front of anyone or to take anyone out with me when I go. All of the above scenarios would have resulted in a lot of ugly crying, a panic attack for being seen crying, and alot of explanation on the part of others for my behavior. No thank you. I did however send gifts.  My brother in his amazingly clueless manner got vaguely upset because he thought it would be better for me to be around my family during this time. Uh no. If he can't see why that's a bad idea then he doesn't understand the nature of the beast. I can barely step inside of town without having to blink back tears because everywhere there's babies and pregnant women and overheard conversations about babies, pregnant women, and adoption. Just going into Joann's for fabric was hard because I saw all the cute fuzzy fabric and yarn that I was just dying to make baby blankets with.
I can't say that my negative beta blindsided me. I was and still am well aware of the stats. At best its a coin toss. I am blindsided by my emotional reaction.
One of the things that is particularly hard to resolve is the damage that I did to my foot while working in order to pay for this cycle. It has been a month and a half since I left work and still not a day goes by without some level of pain. I am frustrated beyond words that before I took the jobs to pay for IVF that my foot was the best it had ever been in my life. No pain, no limping, increased movement etc. And now it is the worst it has ever been consistently. I could have handled this sacrifice if the payout had been there. But now its hard to think of all that I have lost for the sake of that one cycle. I hurt myself perhaps permanently for nothing, I spent more money on that one cycle than anything else in my life save our house.
I keep feeling like I am being pressured to move on and make a decision both from without and within. I know how I feel now that I don't want to do another cycle especially not a full blown one. At our clinic that would cost meds and all somewhere in the $25k range. That is almost a third of our remaining mortgage. That is almost four times the cost of my car or two times the cost of my husband's. I know if it were to work it would be worth it. I also know that if it didn't work I would become such an angry bitter resentful old biddy the world would not be able to handle me. I don't even know if I could handle me. And it would take a minimum of 6 months to get there financially and that's a cutting so far back you're on a bread and water type diet. I spent the last 9 months living exclusively for this chance. I don't know if I can handle living another 7 or so just for it to fail again.
On the flip side we've a couple friend, actually our bestman and his wife, who are adopting. Their profile went live recently and they will have spent about $18k when all is said and done. We have almost 13k in the bank from the car accident and there's a chance that we could actually spend less than what they are.
Both arguments are compelling and I'm having a hard time sorting through them. I'm thinking of going to a counseling session just to have an unbiased opinion.
At the moment I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

Lost

Yesterday was beta day. I was ridiculously excited and afraid at the same time. When we stopped for breakfast after what had to have been the most painless easiest blood draw ever I had to restrain myself from buying little baby booties to surprise my husband with. I walked out empty handed on the grounds of I didn't want to jinx it.
The day seemed to go on forever. Hours passed and no phone call. When it finally did ring at 3:00 pm almost 8 hours after the draw, I hesitated. On this side of the phone call I was PUPO, on the other who knew. I took a deep breath closed my eyes and pushed the button. "Hello?" I know my voice wavered a little. I shut my eyes at the very perfunctionary tone at the other end as my stomach sank. My nurse Candy told me that my HCG came back negative. Inside I shattered. She went on her spiel about stopping my medications and asked if I wanted to speak with Dr. Scotchie since Dr. Murray wasn't in. I took another deep breath and tried to marshall my control. "What's the point?" I failed miserably and my voice shook and cracked. In my head I'm going really what is the point what is she going to say to make this better. Candy was silent for a moment before starting back in 'well lets go ahead and set up an appointment to talk to Dr. Murray.'  "I'd like to talk to my husband first," I choked out. Candy apologised and said she'd see me next week. I thanked her for calling, which is so wrong to thank someone for shattering your dreams with a simple sentence. As soon as the phone was off I slumped over my desk, burrowed into the crook of my arms, and started to sob. My mom who had fallen asleep on the couch after our early morning drive woke up and came in. I pulled myself together and stood up, stomping down and locking up the pain for later examination. She tried to pull me in a hug and I growled out, "No." She looked hurt by my refusal but I know that the fragile walls I had just put up would collapse in her arms and I would let out the very ugly cry that would hurt her to see. Instead I put on my shoes and invited her on a brisk walk. Any activity to keep the hurt at bay. When the pain in my legs began to fight the pain in my chest for recognition I turned back. I got inside the house a minute or two ahead of her and closed the door. Knowing she wouldn't see, I slammed my palm into the side of the refrigerator so hard that all the magnets fell off and clattered to the floor. I hide on the other side of the frig and flexed my hand making sure I hadn't broken anything because I'd used way more force than I had intended to. A few minutes later and I finally convinced her I was fine and she should leave. I waited til her car drove past the house and then let the walls down. I lay in the middle of the floor and cried so hard I couldn't breath. I don't know how long it took to get the worst of it out but then I got up and systematically removed all signs of our failed cycle from the house. It hurt the most to remove little acorn's picture from the fridge and drop it into the box with all the rest of the unused meds and needles. I crawled into bed and turned on a video game. Something mindless. DH come home an hour or two later. The excitement as he came through the door cut me like a knife. I just shook my head because the words were too much to say.
We hugged then went out for ice cream. We talked alot in the car. When we got back we both crawled back into bed even though it was barely 7 o'clock and went to sleep.
I'm so glad that I didn't buy those stupid little red booties. There is no doubt in my mind that they would be flung out into the middle of the woods right about now.
We took this major gamble the biggest one of my life, and we lost. I don't know what to do now.

Furbaby

I feel like a bad furmomma. I really do. I've been so caught up in this whole IVF process that I didn't even notice Claire was having an issue shedding her claws. On Friday afternoon I noticed she'd licked the fur off of two of her toes. I went to investigate and discovered that her poor little toe pad was being pierced through by one of her claws. I examined it for a good few minutes and determined that I couldn't fix the issue myself without hurting her. And of course it's a weekend so I have to wait a few days and stew in my guilt. On Sunday I looked at the rest of her feet and discovered another claw that was very very close to piercing its toe pad and a tiny itty bitty baby claw that looks like she'd pulled out almost at the root, which had to have hurt so badly. I feel really guilty.
So Monday we took her to a new vet. She did remarkably well with them. Never hissed, never blew, never growled, never even meowed or struggled. She just kept an eye on me the whole time. Poor baby bled like a stuck pig when they removed the offending claw. Her poor little foot pad. She shook the first bandage they put on her off in about 5 seconds. Flew all the way across the room. They put the second one on nice and tight but told me I could take it off that night. They surprisingly didn't fuss too much at me for her being overweight, a whopping 15.6lbs!, but did suggest I put her on a diet. Uh she's been on a diet for well over 6 months now.
I think she had a worse time of it in the car though. She just lay on my lap leaned up against my chest and panted. I turned the air up on high just in case my body heat was making her uncomfortable. She was very happy to get home til she realized she couldn't shake her pink bandage and then she hid.I tried to help her take the bandage off before bed time and she got irritable with me, so I finally cut it the rest of the way off and let her get the super sticky part free.  She got sick a couple times during the night which makes me wonder if I should continue dosing her with her antibiotics. I think maybe she just didn't eat enough yesterday cause there's still plenty left in the bowl.
Sometime during the night she decided she wasn't still mad at me and crawled up on my leg to sleep. Good. I hate it when she's mad at me.
Oh at the store I had to pick up some special litter for her til her foot pad heals and without thinking I bent over and picked up this huge bag. I guess it was probably a 30 lb bag. I didn't think anything of it til I turned and saw my mother's horrified expression. Oh shit. I quickly handed it off to her. Really really hoping that I didn't screw something up.