Forced Break

Just when I thought that I would be quickly going through the motions of this study just to get it over with, I am faced with a forced break. 

After learning of our 33rd BFN this weekend, I started a new cycle on Thursday and went in for a CD3 baseline ultrasound and bloodwork on Saturday.  After the complete and devastating failure of IUI #7, I figured we would just finish up this study and reassess our direction.  I got the call later that afternoon that the study requires estradiol levels to be 95 or below and mine was 97.  Dammit.

I have to sit this one out.  I don't know what is more frustrating: sitting out a cycle that had you really optimistic (we have done this before a few times) or sitting out a cycle for which you had no hope, you just wanted to get it over with...

I had been feeling rather overwhelmed with the study and its rigorous protocol, and I was also becoming overwhelmed with people's curiosity and concern.  The further we have gone into this process, the more people in our lives know about it.  This is fine with me in theory, but each person has their own way of asking questions and showing their concern and support.  Some of these ways are really grating on me. 

At the beginning of the study, I had asked a relative to give me the trigger shot because it was much more complicated than the subcutaneous shot in the previous trigger.  Now, I somewhat regret that decision.  As much as I am comfortable with people knowing that we are IF and that we are in treatment, I don't really like for people to know our status.  Having to ask her for a monthly trigger shot makes her acutely aware of our status, not to mention the fact that she is perfectly comfortable asking all sorts of questions that others typically have not.

I have also found myself feeling really alone and alienated at work.  I keep reminding myself that I might be overly sensitive and that if I were a mother, especially a mother by very little effort, I would probably talk about nothing but my child, too.  But would I?  If I knew that a friend was years into TTC, wouldn't I be a little bit more aware?  Even if I wasn't IF myself?

In the past, my direct team of coworkers consisted of four women, myself, a newlywed, a single woman and a mother.  Later, the newlywed became pregnant and left the job.  The team also grew to accommodate an influx of middle schoolers, so it is currently six people - four mothers, a single woman and me.  I don't think I am being overly sensitive when I say that the conversation at lunch is entirely about their children and/or pregnancies.  I have thought about this a lot and I don't think that I am doing this to myself, but I really feel alienated. 

I used to pride myself in staying strong and not being as sensitive as some other IFers that I knew, but maybe I just wasn't infertile long enough back then to really feel the pain.  I still don't think that I have crossed over into a real basketcase, but it has become really painful and alienating to sit at that table and listen to them babble endlessly about their registries and room decorations and what their kids will eat and all the cute things they say and all the precious things they do.  It breaks my heart.  There has to be some kind of balance between the fact that motherhood takes over your life and thinking of something, anything else to talk about in front of your infertile "friend."