Picking Up Where I Left Off. . .

OK, confession time. . . I wrote the previous posts a while ago. . . Like a long time ago.  I didn't realize quite how long until yesterday, when I decided to try this again.  It's been almost 2 years since I wrote the first 4 posts.  Another 2 years of longing, pain, surgery and spinning my wheels.  But as the previous posts were rather introductory, and still felt appropriate, I decided to publish them anyway. And now back to our presently scheduled programming. . .

Today 4/6/10, feels rather momentous.  I am writing this on my lunch hour from my laptop – with an aircard, it turned out to be the ultimate, if expensive way to thwart my employers' lack of Internet accessibility.  Anyway, rather than work on building my pet photo portfolio for an upcoming charity fundraiser I’m donating a photo session package to as I had planned, I went and read, in depth, for the first time, the RESOLVE website.

Now it’s worth noting that I had “secretly” booked-marked their site quite a while ago, with the subconscious suspicion that “I might need it someday”, but had not actively looked at it.  In fact, I think I quite deliberately avoided it. And I definitely had not signed up to it.   Heavens No!  We weren’t “there” yet.  And someone, maybe even Nate, might find out I was looking at such things. 

But I am coming to that place. Like it or not, we are “there”.  But I didn’t feel like I expected to feel upon reading through their site.  I don’t know how I expected to feel – a little denial, perhaps, maybe a little relief to find others out there like me; maybe hopeful to see new resources and answers to questions I hadn’t even posed yet.

But instead, I just feel lost.  I don’t know where I fit in. I wrote the first four posts  to this blog and then left off, convincing myself that I did not belong , did not have the right to blog, especially in this category. 

In the meantime, my niece, just starting college, started a blog.  I went to leave a comment, and innocently signed into Blogger to do so, not realizing it would link my blog directly to hers. To say I panicked would be an understatement.  Although I have used pseudonyms, it wouldn’t have taken her long to figure out who was behind this blog, and she was the last person I wanted to know about this side of me. Nate didn’t even know about this blog.  The reason I started it in the first place was to have a “safe” place to talk about this stuff and join others on this journey, whatever shape that journey may take.

But Nate quickly saw me panicking on the couch next to him, frantically trying to delete the message, then the link, then when both of those failed, finally the blog itself.  Without a word, he took my laptop and helped me.  He did not ask a single question, or show a hint of surprise that I even had a blog, much less one that I was panicking over my niece finding out about. He just dug in and helped, and fixed it.  Just one of the many reasons I love him so.

But the experience rattled me and served to convince me that even blogging did not offer a safe outlet for this. And I contented myself with that, until today.  When the feelings threaten to overwhelm and I am uncertain where to turn. Journaling is good, but still rather isolating.  And so I turn once again to those out there in the Internet, those I so boldly considered my sisters.

Here is the gist of the problem: as I stated in a previous entry, we are not actively trying to conceive a child. Although I have endometriosis and fibroids and cysts and absolute masses of scar tissue that totally re-arranged my insides, I cannot say those are making me infertile.  Am I infertile?  Although we have been aching for a child for more than 3 fucking years, we have not been actually trying to conceive one. The reason?  I cannot get healthy enough to conceive or sustain a pregnancy.

There are a myriad of issues at stake. As you saw by my previous entry, I have had 16 surgeries. A number of them were for my knees.  Especially the total reconstruction that went south and caused more harm than good, and almost resulted in amputation.  The medication I am on for that issue alone would endanger any child I carried.

But even more is the lower abdominal pain that cripples me approximately 5 out of every 14 days. 4 laparoscopies have uncovered 4 separate problems, but none have actually solved the problem.  Oops, except the last one this past September that other than the fibroids and cysts, uncovered “nothing that would explain the issue”.  I guess I should be thankful the Lupron and BCPs have seemingly kept the endo under control for the time being. That moment in the recovery room when my RE told me that (and then promptly dropped me like a hot potato), I knew we had reached the moment when I needed RESOLVE, and all the support it supposedly offered. 

But RESOLVE also “categorizes” everyone.  Am I infertile? The technical definition determines one to be infertile if, under the age of 35, you have been utilizing appropriately timed intercourse for a year without successfully getting pregnant, than yes, you are technically infertile.  But how does that apply to me when we are not using "appropriately timed intercourse" and I am on continuous bcps?  Technically, the doctors tell me my ovaries and uterus look healthy and should work well.  I’m not cycling, the issues I’m struggling with seem to go beyond the scope of gynecological, or at least what the gynecological professionals have uncovered thus far. Are we pursuing adoption? Well there’s a complicated nut to crack – yes/no/not yet/????  Are we pursuing a “childless by choice” lifestyle?  No.  I can definitively say that.

So where the fuck do I belong?  Anyone?  Anyone?