taking my life back - one zombie infested mile at a time

A little under a year ago I was celebrating my 29th birthday. Though we had recently gotten some pretty heavy news about our odds of conceiving a child and I was facing surgery for my endometriosis, I decided to  treat myself to a nice day out and about. I went out shopping and found myself two coveted pairs of jeans that fit nicely, tucked into my first salted caramel mocha of the season, started the last book in a series I'd been reading since I was 14 and took a trial boxing class at a local gym.

Fast forward almost twelve months later. The jeans don't fit, the book was a little bit of a let down (sorry F. Paul), I gave up boxing out of fear of popping an ovary and I've got no baby to show for any of my efforts.

shake it off - Bee & Puppycat

While my "monthly visitor" is no longer as crushing a reminder of our failures as it once was, it still thoroughly sucks. I mean, can't I just have my uterus out at this point?

Annnnnnnyway, here's some internet cartoon awesomeness, garunteed to make just about anything better.

*new reader disclaimer* Shake it off is my semi regular, "oh great, I'm not pregnant again" series. They are little micro-doses of internet awesomeness designed to scientifically decrease your life's suckitude. WITH SCIENCE.

Happy ICLW!

I'm just going to go ahead and lie
 here until someone casts heal

Just wanted to post a quick hello to everyone here from September's ICLW.

Here are two good posts to get any new reader's up-to-date:

Our IF diagnosis(es...essssss... oh god there are so many diagnoses...)

http://inconception.blogspot.com/2012/12/obligatory-its-been-awhile-post.html

7 (ish?) IUI's and 0.7(???) IVF attempts later, we tapped out:

http://inconception.blogspot.com/2013/08/shit-weve-gotta-get-your-sperm-out-of.html

What started here as a place to talk about treatment, is right now becoming a place to talk about not being in treatment anymore. While adoption is on the table for us, we are pretty beat up at this point. The plan right now is to head back to the inn to sleep the last fight off, then we might go grind a few levels to max out our HP, do a fedex quest or two, then get out there for the next round. Yea... video games...  

taking my life back - one cup at a time

Steel yourselves, kind readers, because I'm about to wax all kinds of poetic about a coffee maker.

First off, meet my new friend:

just in case you guys don't start to think I'm too brave

Since for me adoption is still on the table, stopping treatment didn't mean that we were deciding not to parent. However one of the things I realized I would have to face eventually was the reality that I would never use "mah lady parts" to conceive and carry a child.

Up until now I've been resolutely refusing to consider that fact and distracting myself with all the joys of not actively trying to get pregnant (caffeine and alcohol and allergy medication and intense exercise - yay!) but this morning that all kind of came crashing down around me and I had a wee bit of a freak out.

tapping out - why I stopped treatment

Prior to making the BIG DECISION I'd read dozens of well meaning, but ultimately vague and unhelpful articles about how to know if you're ready to stop treatment. They're all basically short lists that can be condensed into one sentence:

 "You're a hot fucking mess."

Now that the BIG DECISION has been made, I thought I would be done pondering all the reasons we decided to walk away. Over the past few days the overwhelming feeling has been one of relief. I've been enjoying all the things one cannot enjoy while actively trying to get knocked up (caffeine and alcohol and allergy medication and intense exercise, ohmy!)

shaking hands with the elephant

I was looking into advice and help coping with the BIG DECISION top stop treatment last week and stumbled upon this podcast about living child-free.

While adoption is still very much an option for us, we're both pretty damn broken right now. We don't feel ready to start on another massively difficult undertaking and we have no illusions that adoption, while it may well be wonderful in the end and is very likely going to be our route to parenthood, will not be a massively difficult undertaking.

Anyway, I was mostly looking for a "how to" guide for getting through these first few days of figuring out life now that I'm not actively trying to get knocked up anymore. This podcast is way more than that, and definitely worth giving a listen.

It made me realize that prior to this I was among the many infertile people who refused to acknowledge a pretty big elephant in the room: those of us who walked away from treatment without a baby.

Those people always seemed so sad to me. Like they'd given up, weren't strong enough, or that their circumstances forced them to no longer to be able to keep fighting to conceive. I was so tempted by thought that we could stop, but also so scared by it. It felt like it was the "weak" decision.

The reality of it is, now that I've made it, walking away from treatment is one of the bravest decisions I have ever made in my life.