1,000 Things, Part 1

Suddenly I have 1,000 things to say. Very few of them are related to each other, and most don’t seem like they rise to the level of being worthy of their own posts – either that, or I’m just feeling too frantic to write separate posts for all of them right now – so here they are, in no particular order.

Continued Happy News
My friend’s second beta continued to rise appropriately. Hurray for her! Her first ultrasound (at 5w2d) is on Friday.

Doggie Update
The pooch seems to be doing a bit better, although we had to make another trip to the vet yesterday. I finally felt okay with leaving her home alone on Friday, so I worked in the office that day. When I got home, there was evidence she was relapsing a bit, but not as bad as what we came home to earlier in the week. The vet gave us an antibiotic to add to the other two pills she’s already taking.

I hope this clears up before we have to leave for the cycle. I’ve never been away from her for more than seven days before, so this is going to be a stressful experience for her and for me. I thought about bringing her with us, but she hasn’t traveled with us overnight before, and I think that would also be stressful on top of the cycle. Plus, R will still be here with her for the first week, then she and the rest of the zoo will be over at my mom’s, who lives two miles from the vet and has pet-sat for us hundreds of times.

On Being a Bad Sister
I’m in a fairly good place right now, feeling peace with our decision to cycle and where to cycle. I can be happy for my friend, because I know what she went through to achieve this pregnancy. But today, when my brother called, I saw who it was on the caller ID and I told R to let it go to voice mail. I haven’t listened to the message yet.

I do not know my brother well. And I’m even less well acquainted with my sisters. They are full siblings to each other from a marriage of our dad’s prior to him marrying my mom and having me. It’s a bizarre situation – we didn’t grow up together, I’ve only ever seen them in person a couple of times in my life, we’re very different people in many ways. Still, my brother deserves all the credit for working to keep our relationship (if you could call it that) afloat, and I do love them all, even though I don’t quite understand that since I don’t really know them.

The thing is, my brother and his girlfriend are expecting sometime this month. It wasn’t planned. Neither was the pregnancy that resulted in his daughter with another girlfriend several years ago. My brother knows what R and I have been through. He doesn’t mean to be insensitive, but he just doesn’t get it. When he called to tell me a couple of months ago, he must’ve said “My girlfriend and I are going to have a baby” at least five times. Everything in the conversation ultimately made its way back to that point. I managed to force out a normal-sounding “Congratulations,” but I got off the phone as quickly as I could.

Today is the second time he’s called since that conversation. I’ve been avoiding him. I didn’t even listen to his message yet this time, because I’m afraid he’s going to tell me the baby was born. And as much as I want to be happy for him, I feel like I need to protect the peace I’m feeling about our cycle right now. Even if that means being a terrible sister.

Missing Out on the ‘Lush’ Experience
I first discovered Lush when I read about it on a fellow infertility blog (I wish I could remember whose) several months back. I love bubble baths, so I decided to go check out the store that’s in our town. I wound up buying a couple of terrific-smelling soaps and a few irresistible-sounding bath bombs.

This was back in the beginning of February, and I still haven’t used the bombs. Cycle day 1 showed up unexpectedly a couple times, then I got sick and didn’t feel like sitting in a hot bath tub when my stomach was bothering me, then the surprise pregnancy, an insane work schedule, etc. I thought for sure that once I started the BCPs, it would be the perfect time. Then came the breakthrough bleeding. That finally went away, and this week I thought, “I’m going to do this on Sunday, for sure.” It’s not too close to the cycle that I’ll worry about overcooking my eggs or anything.

But now it’s more than 110 degrees outside, and even though it’s not quite that hot indoors, I’d be more tempted to load the bathtub with ice cubes than bubbles at this point. It’s 87 degrees in our pool right now. Maybe I should just toss the bath bombs in there and soak away…

Believe it or not, I have yet more to say. But I will save some of it for later, because there are things I’ve been putting off (like work) that I really should at least attempt to make some effort toward.

Eight days until lupron begins…Do you suppose this has something to do with the sudden frantic wordiness? That perhaps if I just keep prattling on, somehow the train won’t barrel down on me? Nah, couldn’t be.