here we go

I'll be heading to the airport tomorrow at this time. I am feeling pretty nervous overall. I could tell because I was irritable beyond words last night, and that is a clear sign that I feel anxious and overwhelmed. I came close to biting Mr. A's head off when he slurped his soup at supper. STOP SLURPING YOUR SOUP...is what I didn't say. I still made it to my yoga class but was showing signs of irritability there too. Oh geez. I sometimes get tired of living inside my head.

I am trying to line up all the ducks before our Friday consult. I think there will still be documents to run after and tests to repeat once we get back here after the consult, but we've made some headway in terms of gathering what SG requires. I am dreading having to repeat the HSG or the sonohysterogram, but they may ask me to do that since both were done longer than 12 months ago.

Our family physician has once again shown herself to be a superstar in terms of supporting us on our journey. When the lab wouldn't take the blood work requisitions from the US, she immediately wrote the orders out for Mr. A while he waited. When the lab refused to fax the results to the US, she had them faxed promptly by her staff. I feel so grateful to have her support.

It's been interesting to read through documents from our file at the fertility clinic. It's really quite dreadful to see what my FSH and LH levels were at when last tested. Both far below one, akin to the levels a child would have. It's information I already had, but it still feels so hard to see in black and white. I realize that it's  part of integrating all the parts of my story, and grieving for what I didn't have/don't have.

The part about working with a new team still makes me uneasy, but I know that will change once I meet them. I found it helpful to hear about your stories of changing clinics and changing REs. And for those who have worked with the team at SG, it's been very helpful to hear about your positive experiences. I think overall, it's just hard to be so exposed (says the girl who writes about her most intimate feelings on a blog for the whole world to see). It's hard to tell the sob story once more. It helps me appreciate my patients experience when they have to retell their stories to me for the nth time. It takes a lot out of a person to hold themselves together while trying to recount the story of a hard journey, trying very hard not to leave any important detail untold. From a brain perspective, so much of the brain's functions are sollicited. And emotion regulation drains the system big time (in my case), leaving less cognitive resources for the telling, the remembering, the formulating of cogent arguments when asked to take lu.pron, etc.

It would be nice to feel hopeful, but as I've discussed here ad nauseum, hope is not something you can order online from J. Cr.ew like a moss-coloured cashmere sweater. What I predominantly feel right now is anxious. Maybe the hope will come later. Maybe it would be putting the horse before the cart at this point to feel very hopeful. I can just keep focusing on the tasks that need to be done to get us there.

Here we go.

Wish us luck.