Infertility Vacation

I have had a lovely three months. No TTC, no charting, no obsessing during the 2WW.  After a year of thinking of myself as "the infertile one," I once again learned to see myself as a human being. Part of this was a tiny bit of self-delusion. I could almost tell myself that instead of being the couple without children, that we were the couple without children--yet.

But still, it was really good for me to have this time away from TTC. For one thing, after about a year of struggling with very low libido, my sex drive came back in full force after the surgery. I don't know whether this was because my body changed after the surgery, or because there was no pressure to have sex at a certain time on a certain day. Or maybe it was because we hadn't had sex in months by the time DH came home after working away, so I was just starving.

It was so wonderful to have sex just because we wanted to have sex and to reconnect with the idea that sex is pleasurable! and fun! Who would have thought? 

Another positive change was that now that for the first time in about a year, I'm enjoying my work again. Despite the constant drama at work, I really do enjoy what I do and I feel like I make a contribution to my field. 

The most positive thing is that overall, I have learned to love my life as it is. I enjoy good food, a loving husband, making music, my career, working out (I have so much more energy now that I'm not fighting iron deficiency all the time!), pets, church and prayer. I almost don't have time to enjoy everything. While I would like to be a mother and to grow our family, I no longer feel so desperate to have a child. I'm sure the dark times will come again, but for now, I am at peace.

A while ago, I read on a blog that "Infertility should be thought of as a terminal illness. Instead of destroying your body, infertility destroys your spirit." The blog has long vanished from the interwebs, so I don't know what became of the 29-year old whose ovaries had suddenly, inexplicably, and inexorably shut down. 

My advice is as follows: Don't let it. Don't let infertility destroy your spirit, steal your identity, and define your life. I was perilously close to spiritual death by infertility when stepping away from TTC saved me. 

Do what you have to do: adopt, commit to living child-free, focus on your career, hobbies, exercise. Whatever it is you have to do, do it. Just don't let infertility steal your soul. 

Separation Anxiety

My mom left today.

There is something abnormal about the way I process separation from my loved ones. The tiny prick of melancholy most people feel when a loved one goes home after a visit is an ocean of grief for me. When I was a child, I would beg my mother not to go shopping without me. I would imagine her death in a car accident; I would imagine her funeral; I would imagine being raised by my father. Twenty-five years later, my mother is not only alive, but well enough to care for me in the aftermath of my surgery.

And twenty-five years later, when she leaves, I sob as if I'm never going to see her again.

Sometimes I worry if my separation anxiety, which happens when DH leaves to work far away, or whenever I leave my family after a visit, will prevent me from being a good mother--the kind of mother who encourages her children to spread their wings, to take risks, and to explore the world outside of home. I will be the mother clinging to her child and howling on the first day of school while the kid looks around uncomfortably and says, "Jeez, mom. I'll be home at 4 pm!"

I wonder if my children will grow up fearful and anxious. And then I think that maybe it's best that I'm infertile, because I'm not sure I can handle the emotional rigors of parenting.

I know I need to work on this, but I don't know how.

I don't know what therapy or processing would make this grief more in line with reason and thus easier to bear.

Will Dr. F take me back?

Dr. F, my pelvic pain specialist, is my very favorite doctor. He's so smart, open-minded, thinks outside the box. We have all these interesting conversations together. If he weren't my doctor, I would want him to be my friend. And I don't even like doctors! But I've been feeling somewhat sheepish about telling him that I went off and had surgery with some other surgeon. Would he be hurt? Betrayed? Would he ask me awkward questions about why I liked Dr. S better than him?

Not wanting to spill the beans yet, I asked Dr. S if it would be okay to ask my primary care physician to remove my sutures rather than Dr. F. He said no problem, and my appointment with my PCP was today.

The only problem was that she didn't seem to know what she was doing. She couldn't tell the difference between a suture and a scab. She looked back and forth being my operative report and my pelvis before giving up and calling Dr. F for help. Dr. F!

Apparently, Dr. F is still speaking to me. He's willing to take the stitches out and do my post-op. My appointment is Monday.

Well, I guess I have no option but to go back to Dr. F. And it doesn't seem like it's going to be a problem that I didn't have surgery with him. Among all his other good qualities, he's humble.

Hrmph.

Wedding Bells

Thanksgiving Day, DH and I went for a long walk around my parents' neighborhood. Long in duration, not in distance as I am still not up to walking more than a tenth of a mile at a stretch. I caught a glimpse of our shadows; I was clinging to him, walking slowly and unsteadily. The band I wear to protect my incisions made my torso look substantially thicker than it is. In shadow, we looked like a couple in our seventies.

It struck me that DH and I have only been married a year and a half, but I feel like we've been married twenty.

We never had a formal church wedding. DH has been married before to a woman who left him after fourteen months with no explanation or even a good-bye. We were engaged and waiting for his annulment when my adenomyoma was diagnosed and the recommendation from the doctor was to postpone surgery until after I was done with childbearing.

We got married immediately, in a court-house.

We are still waiting on DH's annulment. Apparently, in the diocese where he filed, the wait is three years. (The priest at DH's parents' church told us it was eight to ten months.) We haven't even seen a "thank you for your application" form letter. DH is done with Catholicism. Reliving the worst thing that ever happened to him only to be met with silence and indifference broke his relationship with the Church, and I'm not sure it will ever be fixed.

Meanwhile, I was learning that I could not go through the worst thing that's ever happened to me without the Sacraments. I could not go without the Eucharist. I could not have my surgery without the anointing of the sick. I started going to an Episcopalian church. That church has been my rock these many months.

DH and I will be married in that church this winter. In front of God, our extended families and our friends, we will promise each other that "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health," we will be husband and wife.

I'd say we've already had more "worse, poorer and sickness" in one and a half years than many couples have had in twenty. I know that when I hear DH say those words, I will be thinking that through infertility, through pain, through surgery, through depression and through despair, DH has stood by me.

Recovery Update

Turns out that I did have diaper rash--but when you're an adult, they call it a yeast infection. I've just begun a course of Diflucan and should be feeling better soon.

I'm still tired and high on painkillers most of the time, but every day, I walk a little farther, I take fewer painkillers, and I'm conscious for a greater part of the day. This is progress, frustratingly slow though it may be.

DH left my parents' house this morning and I have been feeling emotionally vulnerable and weepy ever since he left. Though he had a bad cold, we have a lovely Thanksgiving, just the four of us. I also love seeing how my parents love my husband. I know that they loved him before, but after my sojourn in the hospital, something has changed with his relationship to my family and to my parents. He is one of us in a new way.

My mom and I are flying back to my city on Tuesday. I'm not ready to go back to work a week from Monday, so I will call Dr. S's office tomorrow to see about getting another week off work. I'm trying not to feel like I'm malingering, but every time I think about going back to work in a week, I burst into tears.

Oh, I'm not sure I mentioned this before, but DH and I are benched from TTC for the next three months. My uterus needs time to heal before it could sustain a pregnancy. In a way I'm relieved to have the time for DH and I to focus on our relationship and sex lives without the stress for TTC.

On recovery and regression

According to the information on Dr. S's website, laparoscopic surgery isn't that big a deal. I should have been discharged from the hospital after twenty-three hours (sooner, if I wanted), able to travel after seventy-two, and back to work in two weeks.

Lies, all lies.

It always sounded unlikely that I would be able to get up and waltz on home right after having my uterus shredded and surgically reconstructed. Twenty-three hours after my surgery, I still couldn't walk or pee on my own. The walking, I expected, but no one warned me about the pain of having a distended bladder in the middle of the night, crying on the toilet as DH ran to get the nurse who would inevitably drain me with a catheter so I could repeat the whole scary process a few hours later. I have a fear of catheters.

When nothing worked to induce me to pee, they put a catheter in connected it to a large bag and sent me back to the hotel where my family was staying, hoping that a few days of complete "bladder rest" would enable me to pee on my own again. I ended up traveling back to my parents house with the catheter. I was scared that I still wouldn't be able to pee during the drive and then my family would be driving around rural _____________ looking for an ER to drain me.

The irritation from the catheter made my vulva swell up to twice its size. On Monday night, when my parents' neighbor (thankfully, a urological nurse!) came over to remove it, I cried from the relief of finally having the catheter out and the remaining anxiety that I still could not void. But I woke a few hours later with a full bladder and used a tip that the nurse  suggested: I sat on the toilet and poured a bucket of warm water over my vulva and I was finally, finally able to pee. My mom did a little dance in the bathroom in celebration and my dad sent a text message to my DH.

Now, my vulva is still swollen and covered in a rash. Monday night, I ditched the mesh hospital panties for my regular cotton underwear and pads, and now I'm wondering if that was the best idea. Could I have diaper rash?

If there is anything more infantalizing than having my dad change my pee bag and having my mom in the bathroom with me cheering me on as I try to pee, it would be a case of diaper rash.

Surgical Findings

1. NO ENDO: Anywhere, at all. The choice phrase from the surgical report was that my ovaries, fallopian tubes, and entire pelvic cavity were all "grossly normal."

2. Adenomyoma: The mass in my uterus was larger than expected: 10 centimeters. It was all across the top right hand side of my uterus and a bit on the back side of the uterus as well. My uterus was the size of a sixteen weeks pregnant uterus! This meant that the surgery went longer than expected: six hours rather than four. I'm so glad that I went with the more experienced surgeon, despite the expense and inconvenience that entailed. What if a less experienced doctor had called my uterus a lost cause and performed a hysterectomy?

So for Thanksgiving, I'm feeling very thankful. For the health of my ovaries (despite the DOR, which I guess is really DOR), tubes, and newly reconstructed uterus. For the expertise and compassion of Dr. S. For the support of my parents and DH upon whom I was until very recently dependent for even my most basic bodily needs. I am truly thankful.