The Big 2013 Update

Whew, it’s been a while.  Every time I post I talk about how I’m going to update more often but then I fall right back into the habit of doing everything via Facebook.  Aaah, Facebook!  What a love/hate relationship I have with that site.  It keeps me in touch but is also one of the biggest sources of aggravation for me.  It’s also killing my blog!  Only because I let it, of course, but still…

So, I think my last post was in May or something.  That seems like forever ago, what a year this has been.  I’ll try to catch up quickly in all areas. Let’s see.

The IVF Situation

I’m going to discuss this first because it has had an affect on every other aspect of my life that I plan to discuss.  As you all know, the main reason for my weight loss surgery back in 2012 was so that I would be eligible for IVF.  In the Netherlands it’s fully insured, which is amazing, but there are restrictions.  You can’t have a BMI above 35 and you can’t be over 40 years of age.  Well, 2012 brought me well past the weight goal for IVF, so that was great.  I had to wait for a year after surgery before I could try to get pregnant, so in January 2013, it was on.

My doctors wanted to try more IUI again to see if it would work at a lower weight.  In 2011, after having lost 40 kilos on my own, I had six IUI treatments (for those that aren’t familiar, IUI is Intrauterine Insemination, otherwise known as artificial insemination).  Both of the IUI were unsuccessful, which really hit me quite hard as I was so hoping that the weight loss was going to make some sort of difference.  Initially they wanted to try three more treatments, but after the 2nd failed they decided it was time to move straight on to IVF.

After running some tests they determined that my AMH was very low.  This is the hormone that tells them how your ovarian reserve is doing. Unlike men and their endless supply of sperm, us gals have only so many eggs to last us for our lifetime, and the closer you get to 40 the worse shape they are in.  I was still in with a chance, but the chances weren’t that great.  For this reason, they decided to move forward full steam ahead, giving me the maximum amount of drugs they were legally allowed (4x the amount I was taking during the IUI).

For each egg retrieval I spent one month taking a drug to bring my own hormones to a halt, so that they could control everything themselves with other drugs.  This put me into a temporary menopausal state which was REALLY FUN (no, not really, that was sarcasm). Hot flashes, headaches, moodiness, tiredness… oh it was fun times in the Soldaat household.

After a month I started with the stimulation hormones, which I would take for about two weeks before the egg retrieval.  The egg retrievals are not at all pleasant but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.  From what I know, in North America they put you under for the egg retrieval. Not here in the Netherlands.  Over here it’s the usual “Suck it up, Buttercup” approach with a few painkillers to stick up your butt and a mild sedative.  All I can say is after my last egg retrieval, I really wish they had put me under.  I could have done without being awake for it all, but I will spare you the details.

So far this year I have had two egg retrievals.  The first one gave us only two eggs, which yielded one embryo.  We transferred the embryo and it failed.  The second egg retrieval gave us four eggs, which yielded four embryos.  From these four embryos we had three transfers.  After the retrieval we transferred two fresh embryos and the remaining two were frozen.  The two frozen embryos were transferred separately in my natural cycle. All transfers failed.

That brings us to now.  This year I have had two IUI procedures, two egg retrievals and five failed embryos transfers.  I have taken more drugs than you could ever imagine and spent most of my time just trying not to cave under the pressure and stress.

I am exhausted.  I cannot even begin to explain how stressful, painful, emotional, disappointing, frustrating, maddening, and just completely draining this experience has been.  We have spent almost an entire year on fertility treatments, which meant not only emotional but also physical pain for me in many cases.  I am completely spent at this point and have absolutely nothing left to give to this process, which is why we have decided to take a break until the new year.  We are both like walking zombies at this point and everything else in our lives feels like it takes more effort than it is worth.  We need time to rest, to breathe, to enjoy life a little and just try not to think about babies or fertility… at least for a while.

I think we both thought we’d be done by now.  I have spent most of this year telling myself that it wasn’t much longer, that 2014 was going to be better, because to be quite honest, 2013 has been one of the worst years of my life… and that’s really hard considering I came fresh out of the absolute best year of my life.  To think that I made the conscious decision to go from such an incredibly happy place, to such a difficult and unhappy one… yeah, that’s tough. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking.

Not the best year when it came to the IVF and our general mental and emotional state.  It has definitely taken its toll in so many ways, for both of us.  There are times we ask ourselves why we are still doing it, if we are crazy… but at the end of the day we both feel like we’ve come so far and the end is so near (one way or another) but there are also times when we can’t seem to see any light at the end of the tunnel.  Our lives feel like they have been on hold for so long, and we’ve been living in a state of uncertainty for as long as I can remember.  Baby or no baby, at this point we are just really looking forward to it all coming to an end so we can plan for our future and know where our lives are going to take us.

We have one more egg retrieval, and who knows what that will bring us. We will start again in January or February and likely spend the first half of the year continuing to tread water and try to keep from drowning, much like we spent most of this year.   How we will find the strength and motivation, I don’t know… but it will have to come from somewhere.

On the plus side, this has (amazingly) just made our relationship stronger.  I think many couples struggle a lot and often relationships bear the brunt of this kind of stress and sadness, but that hasn’t been the case for us at all.  I am amazed at how this has brought us even closer.  I think if we have gotten through this together, we can get through damn near anything.

The WLS Situation

Not a whole lot to report there. It feels like forever ago that I had the surgery and at this point it’s just about making it my regular life. The honeymoon period has definitely ended, meaning I no longer feel that thrill of the newly operated, losing at the speed of light WLS patient.  After a year the losses slowed down, which was inevitable, and while I still have about 10 kilos to lose it really has not been my main concern lately – obviously.  I really only have so much mental and physical energy to go around and the IVF has really tapped me.  I knew from past experience, having gained 20 kilos back during my previous IUI treatments (before surgery), that I had a rough road ahead of me in regards to the hormones, bloating, my moods, food cravings, etc.

What I didn’t anticipate?  Being on 4x the amount of drugs that I had with the IUI.  Holy fuckballs.

I had to get really realistic with my expectations in regards to my weight loss over this year and how much energy I was going to be able to put towards it.  Thankfully the surgery has given me the benefit of not being hungry like I was in the past, but it didn’t totally squash the emotional eater that taunts me in my head.  The year after surgery helped to train me to ignore that voice, though.  I have actually done amazingly well there, with the food and controlling the head hunger.  My eating definitely changed in that I can eat more now and I’m trying to ‘normalize’ and follow the ‘everything in moderation’  plan my clinic has set out for me, but between the hormones and my steadily decreasing energy levels as the months passed, my weight loss ground to a complete halt.   So I knew I could either concentrate on maintaining my weight and sanity at the same time, or drive myself crazy about not losing and completely wig out.

At this point, I consider maintaining a win.  Ok, by maintaining I mean fluctuating anywhere within a 3-4 kilo bracket of my lowest recorded weight, depending on the time in my cycle, the drugs I was taking at the time, bloating etc… but there has not been any significant gain, I still fit into all my clothes and I’m still within 10 kilos of the goal weight my clinic set out for me.  I know that when all this passes I will be able to knock that last 10 kilos off, so I’m not concerned.  It sucks to not lose for a year, but it’s a world of difference from the six months and 20 kilo gain I experienced during my pre-surgery IUI treatments.  A drastic improvement and still something to be proud of, I think.

The hardest part for me right now with the WLS and IVF is feeling like I’m in a holding pattern while everyone around me is moving on.  My girlfriends are all having children and many of them have that common bond of being mothers.  My WLS friends reaching their goals weights, having their skin removal surgeries and moving on with their lives.   Yet everything is on hold for me… no child, busy with the IVF, everything being put off until we know how all of this is going to pan out.

In many ways makes me feel like that loser in high school, ya know?  It’s like on both sides (WLS / IVF) people are being invited to these great parties and then I sit at the lunch table on Monday listening to them rave about how much fun they had, how great it was, all the new friends they made and I feel completely left out – because I wasn’t invited.   It’s all inside jokes and stories I wouldn’t understand because “YOU HAD TO BE THERE”.   Sure, I could try to talk about the movie I watched on Saturday night or the socks I knitted and they may be interested for a few minutes… but BACK TO THAT PARTY – OMG IT WAS SO AWESOME.   It makes me feel, I don’t know, left out? boring?  less than, somehow?

I just don’t know how to connect sometimes.  How do you feel included and really part of the crowd when you can’t connect on the same level that they all connect with each other?   How do you not feel left out or discouraged when you know you probably won’t be invited to the party next weekend either, or the one after that?  When your life becomes a series of those Mondays?   How do you get them to remember that you are there and how alone you feel without coming across as though you begrudge them their happiness?  I mean, if I went to a great party I’d rave about it too, so I can’t blame them… but at this point, if you continue with the metaphor, I’ve never been to a party so I just cannot relate or join in.

It’s a very difficult and confusing situation.  I’m at a bit of a loss with it right now and have been for a while.   I’m just hoping that once we are out of this holding pattern that it will change.  We’ll see.

Moving on…

My Self Portrait Project

I think the last time I posted about that was in May (Days 114-121) so I got way behind there.  I didn’t end up finishing the project, which is a shame.  I did get up to about day 200-something and lost my steam in August sometime.  You can see the rest here, if you like.

Honestly, just one more thing I let fall by the wayside because I just didn’t have the energy for it.  I know, I sound like a broken record but get back to me when you spend years TTC, having WLS, and have as much drugs pumped into you as I have, then we’ll talk!

It sucks, I was really looking forward to completing a project, especially since it’s on my 101 list.  Damn it’s hard to come up with a self portrait every day, though!  There only so many “Hey look at me smiling in a mobile selfie” I could do and I was just feeling unimaginative and unmotivated in all areas by August.  I think if it were just a regular project where I could take photos of anything at all I would have been ok.  It was not being arsed to continue to come up with ideas for self portraits that killed me in the end.

All was not lost, though.  If you remember, my reasons for doing the project in the first place was to get used to how I looked after the weight loss, stop hating photos of myself and to get over my bad body-image and lack of self confidence.  That was a huge success and for that the project definitely served its purpose.  So no regrets there!

Perhaps I will try again in 2014 but just a project where I can take photos of whatever I want.  So I’ve been a 365-dud three times now, at least I don’t give up.  One of these times I will finish that damn project, mark my words!

Life in General

So what has been going on besides the IVF, adapting to life after WLS and continuing to be wishy washy when it comes to projects?  Not a whole lot really, just regular life.  We’ve been plodding along, spending a lot of time together while still trying to get out and be social and have a life.  I think when dealing with something difficult my instincts are always to stay home and go into hermit mode and I’d be lying if I said that urge wasn’t still there… but I fight it. I still make myself go out and be social, see friends and do things.  I know I need that and I’m always glad once I do get out.  Like with everything else at the moment I just have to be realistic and keep it in moderation.  The extent of my exhaustion at the moment makes socializing difficult at times. I have a very short attention span and I find it difficult to interact and pay attention to people. I don’t want them to think I don’t find them interesting or that I’m bored, I’m just tired. So fucking tired.   Also, as I mentioned above, sometimes I find it hard to find my place and connect, which can also be difficult and tiring.  So I try to find that happy medium between getting out and being social but still making sure I have lots of down time where I can just veg out on the sofa, knit or do whatever helps me relax and prepare for that next hospital visit or test result.

Oh! There is one thing that has changed that’s really great!  I’m getting my drivers license!  I know, it’s about time, right?!  It’s hard to believe I have to do a driving test all over again.  Not just that, but lessons too!  When I came here I used to bitch and moan about how I couldn’t just exchange my driving license and hated that I couldn’t drive.  I was furious that in order to get my license we’d have to spend about 1000-1500 euro in lessons and exams, but wow, now that I’m doing it I’m actually glad I have them.  Ok, I wish they were cheaper, of course… but they are definitely necessary.  I really underestimated how different it would be to drive here and how much more there is to watch out for.  Compared to driving in Rotterdam, you pretty much don’t even need a license to drive in my hometown.  I’m pretty sure I could drive there in my sleep now!

Seriously… huge roundabouts, tons of traffic on the roads at all times, and the cyclists. OH MY GOD the cyclists!  I think I will spend every minute I’m behind the wheel terrified I’m going to hit someone on a bike. They are everywhere, they come out of nowhere and they scare the bejesus out of me.

I already have my date for the exam but I’m not going to say.  Yeah, I’m that afraid of failing that I don’t want people to know when the test is so I don’t have to say “I FAILED” haha I will let people know when I pass.

Oh yeah, and it’s December 1st weekend, so you know what that means. It’s time for me to get my Christmas on!  Time to convert Casa Soldaat into Santa’s Workshop.  If the Christmas atmosphere can’t boost my mood and energy levels, nothing will!

Ok, that’s all I have to report for now.  Sorry for being so quiet, but I just wasn’t feeling it lately and if I had blogged regularly it just would have been a lot of pissing and moaning day after day and who wants to read that shit?

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods, if anyone is out there reading!