complicated

Clearly I haven’t become a better blogger. Sigh.
So at that first ultrasound, the lining was thin as expected, but there was a cyst on one side. And for the first time it became apparent how annoying it is to coordinate between clinics in vastly different time zones – it wasn’t until 36h later that we actually had a plan (continue Lupron, start patches and hope for the best). Then, at the lining check 2 weeks later, I was only at 6mm, and no striped pattern in sight (the cyst was gone though!). After another back-and-forth across timezones, it was decided that I should add estrace vaginally. Of course by then it was in the middle of the night, so I had to wait until the next day to actually ask my local clinic for a prescription and pick it up. Today we’re at 6.7mm… so that’s an improvement, but still not quite where it should be. All this worked way better with SB’s transfer – but then, I wouldn’t trade places for anything. I find it so much easier to handle this less-than-stellar performance, knowing that I have a baby to cuddle when I come home.
The main point of contention is that I am still nursing SB. Essentially, only at night, but who knows whether that has any detrimental effects. (I haven’t even told the clinics. They’ll just tell me to stop, and I see their point, but also, lots of women get pregnant while nursing toddlers.) But now H has enough, he wants to do everything we can to make this transfer work. I struggle with taking something from my one living baby that she clearly loves, but… I also understand him. Perhaps it is time. And as I’m leaving for the west coast on Monday, it literally is only a question of 2-3 more or fewer days of nursing in any case.
Wish us luck.

languages, emotions, and other complicated things

A few weeks ago I went for genetic counseling. Both my mom and her mom died from cancer, far too young, and there is a good chance that it has hereditary components. My RE and MFM had pointed this out, but didn’t push the issue when I declined. Basically so far I had taken the very mature head-in-the-sand approach… but I’m getting too old for this (less than 10 years until the age at which my mom was diagnosed) and now that I actually have a living baby toddler I want to see grow up, I finally pulled myself together and went.
The appointment mainly went over family and medical history, and was all in Nordic. This kept my brain busy with the language, so that I didn’t really have any capacity left to get overly emotional or too scared to chicken out of the blood draw. I had previously noticed, in fact often thanks to this blog, how I can speak or write about difficult issues in English much more easily than in my native language, even though I’d say I speak them (almost) equally well. On the flip side, this makes me wonder whether there are layers of unprocessed emotions around, say, the birth of A&C, because I very rarely speak about it in my native language (basically I don’t, other than to H). And, following this train of thought, I wonder how refugees handle their experiences, the unspeakable (!) things they may have witnessed, when thrown into an environment far from their native language, and with many other urgent issues to take care of…
In the meantime, the results came in. I had really hoped to escape this, alas, that doesn’t seem to be so easy. I don’t know any details yet, but they did find mutations, known to increase the risk of cancer. Well, f*ck. I’m all over the place between terrified and willing not to let this control me, and confused. Including the question of how to handle this from a social perspective. I mean, is this something one tells people? Friends? At work? I don’t want to be pitied, and I don’t want endless (or perhaps any) discussions, but if I, say, have surgery to preventively remove my ovaries, then I’ll be away for a bit and may need, or want, to explain this.
Of course another aspect, with an extra sting for the infertile, is that of growing our family further. I would love for SB to have living siblings, and it hurts to see that we may be running short on time. Given that we have several frozen embryos, the ovaries are not even my main concern (although, as you will all know, there are no guarantees). But I’m still nursing her, and she is still very attached to Mama Milk. And I still love it, most of the time, at least – for once, my boobs are doing something useful, instead of scaring me as they have so many years before. But between IVF and my preterm birth history, nursing during pregnancy is not an option. So I’ll need to wean her before any such attempt can begin. And she doesn’t seem ready. But, time constraints, see above. And I would love to nurse her siblings, too.
In time, we’ll know more. I’d just rather go back to ostrich mode.