Devastation and Despair

            So my test results were not great. Okay that's an understatement. They are awful but we are going to try anyway.
            IVF consists of three little simple letters. The reality is so much larger. The physical, emotional and psychological toll is immense. We go to Cleveland and they teach us how to do the injections. Small insulin type shots in the belly twice a day and after the egg retrieval then 1.5 inch long shots in the butt nightly for 10 weeks. They call the small shots liquid gold...because gold would actually be cheaper to purchase!
            I start my shots and we make the three hour trip (one way) to Cleveland every three days so they can monitor my progress. Cleveland attempts to hyper-stimulate my one remaining ovary to get it to produce an abundance of eggs that can be fertilized and or frozen. After one week I have 6 follicles. YAY!!!
             We are not telling Sam's family anything at this point. He is afraid they will get their hopes up and if this doesn't work then he doesn't want them devastated. It will be hard enough on us.
             We are scheduled for a BIG appointment on Sunday, June 19th...Father's Day. Everyone tells us this is a great portent. Constant monitoring is required because this is a delicate procedure and over stimulation of the ovaries can be a major medical problem requiring hospitalization. I still have reservations. There is a small nagging voice in mind telling me that something is wrong.
              We have the appointment at 9am on Father's Day. They might need to monitor me the next day but we won't know until the results of my blood work come back in an hour. We stay in the area. No point to drive most of the way home if we have to turn around. We ate breakfast at Eat N Park and sit next to a hugely pregnant woman. I take this as a good sign. The doctor hadn't called after an hour and a half so Sam and I find a little park nearby where we can relax and wait.
             The call comes and the doctor says for some reason my estrogen is dropping. He made them rerun the test and the second time it was even lower. There is no point to continue. It's not working. The only way we will have a baby is if I use an egg donor.
              I am devastated. I never should have gotten my hopes up.
              If we want a child it will not be genetically related to me. I can carry the baby but it will belong to Sam and some other woman.
               I inform my friends and family of the situation.
               It was a tough ride home. The advantage of having a nervous breakdown in rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike is that at least everyone else is traveling too and I won't have to face them ever again. It's not like I lost it in Minteer's in Claysville and will hereafter be known in our community as the crazy girl!
                We stop in Canfield Ohio on the way home and get a motel room. After a nap Sam wants to go see the car show in the parking lot adjoining the motel. I swear every person at the car show had a baby. Babies in strollers, babies in playpens. At one point I think I saw a baby holding a baby.
                 But I am resilient. When I get knocked down I might scream and cry for a few days but I get back up and keep going. I think the gas leases were an excellent preparation for the whole IVF process. I can't count the number of times we had to pick ourselves up and find a new way. The times we had nothing and somehow turned it into gold.
                 Someone once told me, "There is no quit in you." It's one of the best compliments I ever received. Okay it's one of the few compliments I've ever received. Sam says it's not a compliment...it's a critique of my stubbornness.
                 So the big question that I ask repeatedly is, "How do I pick a woman to have a baby with my husband?"
                 No one has an answer for that...not even Bossman.

                  

TMI

I know it's been a while but when last we left the drama...or is it trauma that is my life, Sam and I were getting ready to go to Cleveland to see about IVF treatments. I personally don't know anyone that has gone through IVF. I know people that have adopted. I know people that took shots and got pregnant. I do know however that we will both need medical work ups and in Sam's case that includes a "sample" of his "manness" (insert giggle here).

We've done the "sample" thing before but we that time we just took it to Wheeling. They said it ok. That's all the info we got and because it was 9 years ago I'm pretty sure he's going to have to "give at the office".

We go to Cleveland and they are very nice. They discuss the tests that they are going to run. A Cystic Fibrosis test on Sam, our blood types, STD's, and something I mishear as an Anti-Maleria Hormone. Several things amaze me about these tests. One is that anyone on the street can get pregnant and not have to have all these tests and I know don't have malaria so that should be a simple no...right? HAH

We both go for the blood tests and I get into a fight with the lab technician. We are waiting for our money money from Chesapeake and I am actually emailing the leasing company from the clinic trying to find it. The money is due in our hands in two days and no one knows where it is. I mention to Sam when she is drawing his blood that the money isn't here. The tech starts looking at us oddly so I said to her, "We are waiting for a check from a particular gas company to fund all of this. Have you ever heard of the Marcellus Shale?"

She proceeds to go off on how horizontal wells kill everyone and why would we do such a thing and didn't we read the internet and we should have had a lawyer.

My retort was coal companies kill more people than natural gas wells, I needed the money for IVF, I read the internet reports, we had three lawyers, and did I mention I NEEDED THE MONEY FOR IVF?

She keeps arguing and I, in my usual pissy way, answer each question with,"but they paid me a lot of money".  All of her arguments are countered by my apparent greed.

Everyone has a right to their opinion. You can agree with Marcellus wells or not. One day I may look back and regret our decisions but I will never regret helping my family or my community. I didn't really do it for greed...I did it for IVF.

She finally gives up after repeatedly banging her head on the brick wall that is my stubbornness (Sam calls me Irish for a reason!)...and we move onto "THE SAMPLE!"  (giggle)

Now I am not allowed to tell you everything that happened. No blow by blow (pun intended) descriptions. I have been sworn to secrecy about some things. BUT I can tell you Cleveland has a room they send you into to get the "sample" (giggle). A room that has a bed and an adjoining bathroom and I get to go in with him. This sounds cozy right?? WRONG Everyone on the whole floor knows what the room is used for and there are people walking back and forth down the hall the whole time chatting about their day. At least block off the hall with caution tape and those wet floor cones. It's enough to put a guy off his game!

Cut to next scene where I emerge from the room triumphantly holding his "sample"...in a cup...I'm still a little confused as to why I had to carry it. It's not like he was tricking them into thinking it was mine.

Call in one week.

 I call to get the following information: Remember that AMH that I mistook as Anti Maleria Hormone? They were actually saying Anti Mullerian Hormone. It's a number that shows your ovarian reserve. They like the number to be 1 or above. Mine is .19....my blood type is O+...as in OH no we're + this isn't going to be easy.

Sam I am informed has super swimmers. They like the numbers to be 20 million. His are 52 million....his blood type is A+...apparently he deserved an A+ for having super swimmers.

It's one thing to think you're the problem...it's devastating to have it confirmed over the phone.

So I guess if I hadn't screwed the lid tightly on the cup then his "swimmers" would have escaped and randomly impregnated women throughout the Cleveland area.

It's like a horror movie.

Starring me.

Bossman and Babies

          So when last we met we were discussing the "Taco Story". In hindsight it's entertaining. While it was going on...It was less with the hilarity but more with the cursing and crying and punching . The reason it irritated me so much was because I was on the verge of getting the money to do IVF. Okay... I "thought" I was on the verge, what I didn't know at the time was that it would in fact take 9 months from the "Taco" incident to work a deal. 9 LOOOOONG months and then 5 more months to get the money.
          Slight back story here. So 3 years ago our neighbor "Bossman" got a lot of the neighbors together and we negotiated a pipeline agreement. After the deal was done he casually mentioned we should all get together and negotiate the next gas leases together too. Casually and in passing he mentioned the biggest thing to take over our lives since...oh I don't know....maybe facebook?
          So February of 2010 during the big blizzard we embarked on a rollercoaster of trouble and torment. It would have been easier to rob a bank. Bossman said the other day we should have have a filmmaker follow us around just so we could remember it all. We should have.
        It had all the elements of a Hollywood movie. Marcellus Shale gas is discovered...boy convinces girl to help...boy and girl and boy and boy and boy get all the neighbors to stick together....girl takes so many notes she gets carpel tunnel...meeting occurs in which girl calls someone a bad name...more meetings...even more meetings...more paperwork...maps...few more meetings in which we become jaded and probably sarcastic...finally an offer to sign with Chesapeake...negotiations...more negotiations...no Thanksgiving or Christmas...signing date...threatened by lawsuit...signed, sealed and delivered. A lease not a baby.
       It would have been easier to rob a string of banks and theft would have required less planning and a lot less paperwork.
       And through it all I never told Bossman what I was going to do with the money. I never wanted it affect any of us while we were negotiating. There is business and there is personal. I never told anyone until the day of the signing when at the end of the night I told Dave and Cindy Hall. They are wonderful people. Our first meeting he had 6 weeks left on his lease and he hung with us all that time. You can't buy that kind of loyalty. I told them and she cried.
        But just like in the movies there were still some twists and turns. Bossman got punished by our deal because he was the only one they could hurt. So he started a company and asked me join him. I think he was bored and maybe he missed me a little. This is where he would say, "Yeah, right, HA!"
        But no matter what happens from here on out we did a good thing...all of us together as a community.  There are still good people in this world who think about more than themselves, people who try to protect those that cannot protect themselves, people who help each other out and not try to knock each other down...and those kind of people I am proud to call my family, my friends, and my community!

How Tacos Saved Me From Jail

   
If you want to read "How tacos saved me from a lengthy jail sentence" then you must request it from me at sassycroft@gmail.com or request it on my facebook page. I had to remove it due to sudden family interest that can have negative consequences. I do however stand by my story and every word of it is true!

My Anniversary

Today is my anniversary. Not my wedding anniversary but the anniversary of it becoming official that I can't have children. I'm not one to dwell on dates of bad events. That was my Grandmother's job. We'd be sitting having a perfectly nice dinner and she'd suddenly announce that today was the 54th anniversary of her Mother's second amputation. Statements like that tend to kill dinner conversation...and appetites.  I only remember this day because it's my brother's David's birthday and 8 years ago I ruined it. I went to a doctor's appointment that morning and two hours later I was in surgery. I had been telling the doctor I was in pain but it had gotten unbearable that week. There was discussion going into surgery about the possibility of a full hysterectomy. Sam felt I couldn't live with that. I told him given the choice between surgery or death...I'd take surgery. So it turned out I had a cyst the size of a softball that was leaking fluid into my fallopian tube and distending it. By the way that's a lot more painful than it sounds! The removed one ovary, both fallopian tubes, and all hope of ever conceiving naturally. So it was over...and I ruined his birthday...and he never lets me forget it.