Monitoring Ultrasound #4

Well. Very mixed results. My lining hadn't really changed-still around an 8, which is good, I guess. Heck, at least it didn't shrink again! And STILL no measurable follicles! Can you believe that????? I might just be a freak of nature. My estrogen is back up into the 60's. It was a 49 on Tuesday and it's now a 64. So up 15 points. I don't know if that's a good rate of growth or not. It still seems kind of marginal. But again-at least we didn't slide backward.

We talked about where to go from here. The nurse whom I met with today was great. She feels I should keep moving forward with this cycle (rather than cancel), since my blood work on Tuesday showed me basically still at baseline levels. I guess, because no growth has really occurred, we don't really need to worry too much about long stimming cycles and the affect on egg quality (since pretty much nothing has grown enough to "age"). So, I've been bumped up to 225 units of Gonal and I go back on Monday for another ultrasound. If nothing happens by then, I really don't know what we'll do....

I asked the nurse if they have ever had a woman who does not respond to Gonal. She said no....said it's just a matter of getting the "magical" dosage. Darn-I hope I'm not about to prove her wrong.

So I was pretty sad driving to work from that appointment...which is not how I like to start my work day. Sad, frustrated...annoyed.....sad. For some reason, I kept remembering something a fellow mental health practitioner used to say when dealing with grief counseling: "sometimes, all you can do is sit with the pain".

Sometimes you just need to sit with the pain. And so I did. I let the sadness wash over me and didn't berate myself for feeling sad. I didn't try to talk myself out of it or bargain or plan a next cycle or next route of action. I just sat and felt the pain. I didn't make excuses for feeling sad. I just sat and weathered the moment. And for whatever reason, sitting with the pain worked and I felt like I could go about my day a little bit easier. Perhaps it came down to me validating my own feelings. Perhaps, there is something powerful in acknowledging that you're in pain and being okay with it, even and especially if you cannot fix it.  Because, really, when you get down to it...what other choice is there but to function, to be okay with it?