What Fresh Hell

I don't know what to do with myself.
My bad foot is acting up something horrible. To say that it scares me would be an understatement. I panicked on Monday. Full fledged, took my sock off and started to cry, panic.
My foot has never been something pretty to look at. I remember very specifically this one time my mom and I went shoe shopping. I was a teenager, probably looking for dress shoes. I was sitting down with the socks off while she went to go get me a different size and I happened to look down at the mirrors. I stared almost stunned at how ugly it looked, I'd never really thought about it, never really looked, never been subconscious until that moment. By the time she came back my eyes were filled with unshed tears and I was shaking. 'It looks so different," I mumbled, "So bad. It'll never be normal. Why can't it be normal?"  My mother, usually so composed, broke into full blown sobs right there in the shoe store. I was so shocked by her reaction and my very basic need to have her be happy that I stomped on the feelings I had at the moment and tried to console her. "It's okay, don't cry. I can walk, at least I can walk. It doesn't have to be pretty, just as long as it works. And it does okay, so don't cry."
Remembering that day and the fear I feel now brings those tears back. When I took my sock off Monday night after a day of hobbling on it, it looked worse than it has ever been with one exception. A huge blue black bruise circled my 'knot' spreading down towards my big toe out as far as my third toe and halfway down the foot. Darker purple ribbons of color snaked throughout and it was swollen everywhere. The pictures do not show the full extent of how badly it looked and they certainly do not capture my panic. For you see I didn't do anything to it, but walk. I didn't bump it, stub it, or drop anything on top of it. It appeared with no seeming cause or correlation. And the pain that comes with it is nothing to scoff about it. A heavy blanket on top hurts. The new orthopedic shoes I bought last weekend. Yeah you can forget about it, I can't wear them. I'm so lucky I bought three pairs of shoes on that last trip, because only the very last pair I picked up the ones I almost didn't buy are the ones I can wear.

I have been icing it every day twice a day, once after work and once before bed. As you can tell it has improved significantly, but its still swollen and there are still those odd dark ribbons of color on my toe. And it's still very tender. And that knot isn't the only place it's hurting, it isn't even the worse place it hurts. My ankle is so stiff and painful. The tendon that goes down the outside of my ankle is where I feel the most pain and its so swollen there I can't even see that tendon anymore. I limp constantly, wincing from the pain. But most of all worse than the pain is that I'm still scared. The thought of going to the doctor for it scares me. The thought of surgery scares me. The thought of amputation being suggested scares me. The thought of a wheel chair scares me. The thought of never being able to walk scares me. I am so scared right now, I don't know what to do.
This development is making me question so many things. I wonder if I can keep working. I wonder if its even right of me at all to want children, what if this is genetic and not positional as my mother's doctor suggested and I pass on this terrible burden to a child. What if pregnancy is the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back and I can no longer walk? What if there's a reason we're infertile? What if by the time I'm 30 I'm stuck in a wheelchair?
Ontop of all this, Dh's doctor bills came in. He owes a little over a 1,000 dollars. It's going to have to come out of the Fund. In a few days it will drop from almost 5k to 4k. If I do have to go to the doctor that will also have to come out of the fund. I'm never going to reach my goal. The more that has to come out, the more I have to work, the more damage I do, the more scared I get that something is going to have to give and I don't know what it'll be. My body or my heart.

A Daily Struggle

It seems like anymore every day is a struggle because if it isn't one thing its another.
My hubby's health seems up in the air as always. After a couple of weeks of fluctuating symptoms that could have been an UTI he finally went to the doctor. After discussing his symptoms she threw out a couple of possible diagnosis, uti, kidney stones...cancer. He told me on my lunch break and it was hard as hell to keep it together and hide from my new coworkers that I just wanted to run away kicking, screaming, and bawling my eyes out. After a few very tense days and way too many tests we got the verdict back. Thankfully he's cancer free and uti free and kidney stone free. In short they don't have a clue what's wrong with him. However the doctor noticed he had an abnormal amount of red blood cells. She thought that perhaps that might have been the cause of his wacky symptoms. Tonight he's spending the night away for a sleep study due to suspected sleep apnea. I've been telling him for years that it seems like he stops breathing in his sleep and that it worried and scared me. He's always dismissed it out of hand. I hate that it takes a doctor telling him something for him to take it seriously. When is that man going to learn that I'm (almost) always right, lol.
The good and the bad of the situation is that we've now met his deductible and everything for him from here on out will be covered. The bad is that bill or bills is just hovering out there in limbo waiting to flood our mailbox.
Poor Claire has started pulling her hair out again. Try as we might we can't get her to stop. While we wait for his doctor bills to come in we can't take her to the vet to get a steroid shot. I feel bad for my sweet furbaby.
As for me I'm struggling too. The new job is putting me through my paces and I'm afraid I'm coming up wanting. For the first time in a very long time I'm truly feeling like my surgically corrected club foot is a real disability. Not just frustrating but really disheartening. I haven't had a pain free day in weeks. I searched out a club foot group hoping to get some insight into others dealing with the condition. What I've learned scares me even more. So many members of the group have opted to amputate. They claim that it was the best decision they ever made, that they have no more pain. A fair portion of the others are wheel chair bound. While I always assumed that might one day be my fate I suspected it would happen in the later years of my life, 60's or 70's or so. Instead I'm seeing a lot of 40 year olds who can no longer walk for the pain. It is so scary. I worry that I will lose my ability to walk if I continue working this way, but I can't reach the IVF fund goal without working. One problem feeds off the other like an oroborus. I worry that the damage I do now will haunt me even if we succeed on this hell bent course. What if I can't pickup my child or run and play with them. I'm thinking of finding a good orthopedic doctor but so few have experience with the problems of a post club foot patient and that's more money that will get taken away from the fund which in turn means more time that I have to work. Vicious vicious cycle.
My grandmother gave me $150 for the fund this past weekend. My mother added in another $50. They keep turning the problem over and over in their minds thinking if they can just get  up the money I'll give up working and go back to being almost pain free. They know I won't give up otherwise. I am so grateful for their support.
I've also put in my first portion from my first paycheck into the fund, $197.

One small positive on this roller coaster ride is how much we are enjoying our little 'break'. I like not temping, not obsessing, not scheduling. We still haven't gotten our 'groove' back but without the pressure I feel like its only a matter of time.   

Where am I?

I used to pride myself on knowing who I was and where I stood. I was a constant. I wasn't swayed by peer pressure or the things on tv because I knew innately who I was. I assumed that self-awareness would carry me through the rest of my life. I would always be the old soul. Like so many other things Infertility seems to have taken that away from me. I don't know where I stand anymore from moment to moment.  The latest ground that seems to be crumbling beneath my feet is on the subject of adoption.
I always thought that adoption was an amazing option. I thought growing up that it would be nice to adopt someone. So when trying to conceive started taking longer than anticipated adoption naturally came up. I started doing research, lurking on an adoption board, preparing myself mentally for the realities that would come with that choice. When we were officially diagnosed with male factor infertility, the adoption option became more real. We knew that IVF simply wasn't cost effective. Not to mention the invasive procedures and copious amounts of drugs that are necessary in a single IVF cycle. I don't take tylenol unless the pain makes it hard to function. Together we ruled it out. Then as the journey progressed and I did even more research, we ruled it back in. Adoption became further down the line of options. With my husband's last SA even IVF started to look like a pipe dream. Adoption inches closer.
Last night my husband came home from visiting with a friend. I've been trying to get him to go and talk to this friend for months. I know he needs someone to talk to as much as I need my dreamers. I was relieved that he finally went. His friend is starting the adoption process due to male factor infertility. Hubby came home in a whole different frame of mind then he left that morning. He was excited, exuberant even. I was happy for him. Glad he had someone to talk to. Then he said, 'Hun, how bout we skip all this treatment stuff and go straight to adoption.' I'll admit I'd rolled that thought around in my head more than a couple of times in the past couple weeks. But when he said it aloud and excited, something broke inside me. The tears started welling up immediately, my throat clogged up, I couldn't talk without my voice cracking. It wasn't til he said it out loud that I realized how much I'm not ready to go there. I surprised myself completely with my gut wrench reaction to a simple suggestion. I don't know who I am anymore. Now I can't help but be over whelmed with guilt. And I don't even really know where it's coming from.
Hubby keeps asking these questions. "Is it just that you want to experience pregnancy?" "Is it just that you want a kid that looks like us?" Is it just.... JUST. It's not JUST anything. It's everything all together. Never experiencing pregnancy or childbirth,no maternity pictures, no baby shower, not being able to see myself in a child, having to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars, having someone judge me and my ability to be a parent, the possibility of a failed match, especially a last minute one where I've loved that baby for 2 weeks or more before the revocation period is over, having to have that talk with the child, hearing them say even once that I'm not their real mother, knowing that eventually they'll want to find their bio mom and me feeling like I wasn't enough if they need that. Yes they grew within someone else for 9 months but I was there for 18 years! I'm their real mom. And you can forget about those huggy feely open adoptions where the bio mom comes to visit for Christmas and birthdays. No..no..no you can't have your cake and eat it too, darn it. Not in my world. And what bio mom is going to pick closed off me over open Sally over there. All at once all these thoughts came crashing down on me and they were real not just nimbusy what-ifs. And I realized that I'm terrified. I'm really really scared. And I shouldn't be, right?
Maybe lurking on the adoption board wasn't the right thing to do but I watched these women experience incredible heartbreak from failed matches. I cried for them. They bounced back and tried again and sometimes tragically they had to do it all over yet again. I know that a late failed match will destroy me emotionally. I will not bounce back. The husband agrees and said, 'Well if that happens its the ultimate cosmic signal that we just shouldn't have children at all'. That didn't help at all, though I'm sure he thought it would.
I don't know where I am because the landscape is constantly changing around me, and through its changing its changing me as well.
My real life experience with adoption was limited. The closest I got was a kinship adoption, when my parents took in my 15 year old cousin. For three years she was my sister. I was young, I don't remember the time before her. The day she turned 18 she packed her bags and left, didn't even stay for the party we planned, didn't open her gifts, or eat cake. I didn't see her again for years and by then she had a kid of her own. By then I was angry. I'm still angry with her for leaving us, for taking our love and pretending we were family and then leaving the first chance she got and fracturing my youth.
I used to think adoption was helping someone. But knowing that what I want is infant adoption, I can't help but feel that I'm not really helping someone. There are waiting lists a mile long for infants. If I don't do it, you can darn well bet someone else is eager to take my place in line. And then there are the adopted kids who grow up and talk about how adoption ruined their lives, even if they were placed with loving families. I'm having a hard time seeing the positives anymore.
Rationally I think this is all part of the grieving process. Irrationally I feel like a bad person. The husband has since assured me that he's not ready to start the process either, not yet. That I shouldn't feel bad, but I do. I've always been supportive of adoption, why can't I be supportive of it for me?
I feel like I'm floundering and just plain lost right now.
If you would have asked me two weeks ago, heck even two days ago, about adoption I would have been overly positive and optimisitic, hopeful. Where did that person go? How did she just disappear into thin air?
I could really use some insights, some positive experiences, some reassurance that my emotions right now are normal, anything to shed some light on the situation while I fumble around in the dark.