Trigger

Trigger shot on St Gianna's feast day.

Hmmm, I think that God has a really great sense of humour.

This may be a particularly stressful 2WW.

[sigh]

St Gianna, pray for us!

p.s. Aunt K is doing better. She's come out of her coma, but is still in hospital. Thank you for your prayers!

Infertile TKO

Yup, total knock out.

It was that kind of day.

I woke up stressed out. Mr. JB spent most of last night getting our tax stuff ready and our paperwork is a scary abyss. I bought a proper filing cabinet last week and I hope that next year will be less taxing on my psyche. I panicked this morning because he couldn't find the receipt for our PR.IDE (adoption training).

I sometimes feel like my house works against me.

But that's not what this post is about.

I got to work all frazzled. I haven't been feeling well all week and the strange stomach flu symptoms that have been plaguing me since the weekend are starting to cause the grumpies. I've been bilking it with my class and I did work my tummy ache into my health and language lesson (btw, the majority of seven year olds think that I should get over-the-counter meds before going to the doctor, however, I didn't listen to them).

After almost eight years on the IF train, I've gotten numb to all things baby. Yes, the IF therapist that I saw helped, but I am not impervious to feeling. There's been a lot of good news lately and although it makes me feel incredibly guilty (yes, IF's double-edged sword), it's hard. My heart has pretty much given up the hope of biological motherhood, but my head hasn't caught up. Will it ever? I doubt it.

It hurts even more when I think of the thousands of dollars we spent in Omaha -- yes, we could've afforded a move to a detached home, or I could've gotten a new car, but no, I have plunged our family deeper into debt for surgeries that didn't quite get the effect we wanted. I believe the dollar amount was over $16 000 for 2012.

Argh.

Yes, I carry around A LOT of guilt.

About $40 000 worth.

I guess I should focus on the $3 500 that I will (hopefully) get back.

And being pain-free.

Yes, there's that.

So, back to the taxes.

Mr. JB texted me this morning to ask if I had grabbed our cheque book so we could pay our accountant (who by the way is not going to do our taxes next year, I'm planning to save $200 next year and do them myself!). Of course, I hadn't. I rushed home during my lunch hour to grab it and when I returned my formerly IF colleague was visiting with her newborn.

Great. I can handle babies, but newborns KILL me.

I sit down at the table with my lunch and someone starts talking about her daughter's IF struggles. I was trying to tune her out, but it was tough (thank you Rebecca for the distraction!). It took all of my inner strength to not lose it all over my pasta.

It's amazing how fast babies and IVF talk get me moving.

And the icing on the cake: our accountant commented that we were his first clients to ever have adoption expenses.

Yes, the first.

I'm sure he meant nothing by it, but my barren womb became that much more empty.

I'm not even going to get into the invitation we got from my cousin and his knocked up girlfriend. Or my pg childhood best friend who posted a photo of her new car that looks perfect for a car seat.

I'm going to try to hold it together.

Because I have an appointment with my Napro doctor in the morning.

And I'm hoping that the Lord will give me some guidance since I am not 100% certain that I can continue with more treatment. I already decided that I wasn't going to do the low dose HCG this cycle because injecting myself continuously is just not fun.

Infertility: 1 000 000 JellyBelly: 0

Now, where's the wine?

p.s. Aunt K is in a coma. We haven't heard anything else in a couple of days. Please continue to pray for her!

Prayers please

We just found out that Mr JB's aunt in Arizona had a heart attack (although another family member said stroke). She's been suffering with a myriad of health problems in recent years.

It doesn't look good.

St. Joseph, please watch over Aunt K!

Mental Health Day

I knew at the beginning of the week that I wasn't going to make it until Friday.

Don't get me wrong, I love my class. They're adorable and pretty easy to manage (especially now that I am student teacher-free!). I was starting to feel irritable and short with them and I hadn't taken a day off in a LONG time.

I had dreams of fiddling with the new filing cabinet that I bought earlier in the week, but I woke up with a headache and I just couldn't get the gumption to get to the basement.

Instead I made vegan quesadillas (Dai.ya cheese rocks!), read the paper and tried to avoid all of the news coverage of the bombing suspects in Boston (quite unsuccessfully).

The only things I accomplished was getting out of my pyjamas and a batch of cookies.

I'm not good at being lazy, but my body needed it today.

I've had a lot of thoughts going around my head: my adoption fears, the fact that two of my unmarried cousins have gotten their girlfriends pg, my crazy mother.

I need to let the thoughts percolate further.

Instead, I am going to remind all of you that the novena to St. Gianna starts today. Her feast day is April 28th. I wish we lived closer to her shrine so we could make a pilgrimage.

Btw, please include these wonderful bloggers (Amy, Marie, Kat) in your intentions, we need to cover these women in prayer!

And lastly, our lovely Rebecca has organized an IF retreat. Go visit her blog and get more details!


p.s. Please pray for Mr. JB's teaching assistant. Although he doesn't have all of the details, he knows that they have found cysts (but he isn't sure where) and the doctors are checking for cancer. She's a wonderful, faith-filled woman. St. Peregrine, pray for G! 

Blergh.

It's CD1.

I suspect that despite all the freaking needles which included a trigger on CD15, that I didn't ovulate.

Argh.

It also doesn't help that we're attending my crazy mother's 65th birthday/retirement party this afternoon.

Have I mentioned that I'm not the best at pretending that all is hunky dorey?

I'm trying really hard to focus on our homestudy.

Biological motherhood is not the only way.

But it always still smarts when AF arrives.

I'm just saying that there may be wine this evening.

Perhaps an entire bottle.

Blergh.

Here's Where the Story Ends

Yes, I am a great appreciator of all things Brit pop.

So the saga of the horrible student teacher is coming to an end. 

After a disastrous math lesson (which was not that complicated -- I had taught it two times before and it was fun and straightforward) that she did not quite understand the expectations since she doesn't have a very good grasp at the French language -- yes, she told her university and myself that she wrote and spoke French. Um, nope, not so much. 

The lesson went so badly that she almost started to cry at the end.

Now, in ten years of elementary education I've had lessons bomb. All teachers have had lessons bomb. But this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I have quite the long list of problems: she lacked motivation, she never circulated in the class or helped me when I taught (even when I pointed out which kids needed help), she's messy (the kids had problems reading her printing), she had no classroom management (she didn't need much, my class is very well-behaved), and her language skills were extremely lacking.  And to top it off I couldn't share any of my constructive criticism because she's emotionally fragile. For example, a colleague joked to her about her poor parking job back in February and she hasn't been able to make eye contact with him since!

Needless to say, she was not a very effective student teacher. 

I e-mailed her instructor and reiterated my concerns. I had a long correspondence with her before the March Break because I was writing a very unfavourable review of her progress (which totally took my student teacher by surprise since she doesn't have a firm grip on reality), so she was aware that the placement had not been going well. I had to advocate for my wonderful students since they weren't getting taught the concepts properly nor were they seeing someone that modeled French very well. 

I got news yesterday that she is being moved to an English placement at another school and I am so relieved. Part of me wishes that I was more proactive and that I had dealt with this sooner, but I'm a fixer and I was hoping that things would get better. Unfortunately, things got worse and it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. 

She is returning on Tuesday to finish up, although I am not going to let her teach a thing. My principal suggested making a card and wishing her well. I did send her an e-mail reiterating the concerns I shared with her teacher, but she hasn't responded. I figure she won't make any contact before Tuesday.

So how does this relate to my IF struggle?

When does someone know when to stop? Since starting the homestudy process I've been half-a$$edly doing Napro treatment -- low dose HCG, trigger shots, post-peak progesterone and HCG (yes, I am a human pincushion!). My heart just isn't in it anymore, but I continue on since my doctor is just so hopeful. 

Last July, I thought I was finished, but my doctor was so excited to see that I wasn't ovulating properly. I'm convinced that my main issue is ovulation, but who the heck knows after all this time (and money and surgeries and needles and tears and pills and supplements -- I can go on forever)? 

Our social worker said that we could continue on with treatment while we start the adoption process. There is a thought in the back of my mind that once we adopt that I will miraculously fall pg -- yeah right, dream on JB! I'm starting to feel like I need to give myself a final stop date. 

So how do I choose? Should I stop treatment when we're done our homestudy? Before? I have no idea?

So friends, do you have any advice?

 p.s. Happy 700th post to me!