"It's Okay To Be Okay"

I had a visit with Gordon today, it was a really nice session - we talked a lot. It felt like it had been ages since I'd been there, but really it was only a few weeks.... I had to cancel my last appointment coz I dropped my beautiful MacBook Pro on my left foot, the edge of it landed right along the line where my toes meet my foot. It's been extremely painful and I've been on crutches and unable to drive. It does seem to be improving a bit now though, so fingers crossed I'll be able to manage without the crutches in the next few days.

This was the first time in quite a while that we have talked about returning to IVF and that kind of thing. I told Gordon that my head was so messed up about it and as the time increases since our last IVF treatments - I'm finding myself getting more and more comfortable with the idea of not going back for more treatment. I told him that it feels so wrong to be feeling that way, especially as I have always said that if there is even a 1% chance that it could work, then nothing would stop me. It's just not sitting right with me at all that I am starting to feel this way.

Gordon's response completely stopped me in my tracks, it interrupted my train of thought and made me re-evaluate how I have been feeling.

Gordon said "Anne-Marie, it's okay to be okay"

He reminded me of how the past 5 years have been for me, he talked about how IVF has completely controlled my life, he recalled everything that I have been through because of IVF, he talked about what I am still going through because of IVF... He told me that the fact that I have spent so long wanting to rush straight back into all of that, just wasn't healthy for me. He said that I needed to get to a place within myself where I can just be okay and not have everything revolve around IVF, and he said that he was really happy that I seemed to be achieving that level of 'being' now.

Gordon talked about how sometimes we just need to slow down, and when we are unable to do that for ourselves... Life can make us slow down - whether we want to, or not. I guess life is kinda making me slow down (or trying to, at least). Apart from the ongoing nerve pain I've been having in my lower left abdomen, for the past 6 weeks I have been experiencing horrible attacks of cluster headaches. They are like really really intense migraines that are concentrated around my left eye, causing it to weep and swell. They also travel down the back of the left side of my head and into my neck and shoulder. These cluster headaches are occurring almost daily, sometimes several times a day and are extremely debilitating. I mentioned these headaches to my Pain Specialist during the review appointment after the last Infusion, and he suggested that we can try a procedure called an 'Occipital Nerve Block', this basically involves injecting a series of anaesthetics and steroids directly into the nerves that cause the pain (in the back of my head), in order to numb or 'block' that nerve and reduce the levels of pain that I am feeling during these attacks. If this is successful, it could achieve an end to this attack of Cluster headaches (they tend to be seasonal, so could return around the same time next year), or at the very least - reduced levels of pain for a number of weeks.

I am scheduled to have my first Occipital Nerve Block this coming Friday morning,  followed immediately by my third Nerve Block Infusion. After the horrid experience I had last time, my Pain Specialist has agreed to keep the levels of Ketamine the same as last time (to hopefully keep the hallucinations to a minimum), increase the levels of Lidocaine (for increased pain relief), and double the levels of Propofol (so that I will fall asleep much more quickly). I'm expecting to be pretty sick and out-of-it for the weekend, but hopefully after 2-3 days, I will be feeling a whole lot better.

So, with an injured foot on top of all of that going on... maybe Gordon is right. Maybe I do need to slow down a bit.... and now that I am starting to notice that I can be okay.... maybe, just maybe I can work towards being okay to be okay... and if he's right about all of that.... maybe he is right that I will just know when I am ready to go back for more treatment, but not before I am just okay for a while.xx.

Friendship is........

One year ago yesterday, I sat in Gordon's Clinic. I wasn't able to concentrate, I was barely able to speak. I was waiting for news and I truly wasn't sure how I was going to react when I got it.
You see... my best friend (and colleague) had gone into hospital that morning to have her baby. She was having a C-section, so I knew that at some point that morning I would get a message, probably a picture... what I didn't know was how that was going to affect me. I didn't know what my reaction would be. 

The message finally came. it read 'Baby Eimear arrived at 10:14 weighing 6lbs 12ox. xx', accompanied by a picture of this beautiful little being, minutes old. 

I cried..... I don't fully know why I was crying, but gosh did I cry. I was so happy for my friend, she'd had a tough pregnancy and I was conscious that I had somewhat distanced myself from her pregnancy, even though we never spoke about it.... I know she was also conscious of not flashing her pregnancy in my face. There were times over the previous few months when I'd felt like the crappiest friend ever, times when she'd been admitted to hospital and she didn't even tell me until afterwards. It was only a few weeks ago that she even told me about the difficult time she had when she was having Eimear.

Infertility controls your life to such an extent, that not only can you not have your own experiences to enjoy.... it doesn't let you enjoy other people's experiences either... and then there's the whole aspect of how it affects other people. I know how uneasy she was about breaking the news to me that we had to cancel our overnight shopping trip because she was pregnant, I know how difficult it was for her to conveniently 'forget' to bring her scan pictures to work, I know what was going through her mind when she changed the settings on her Facebook page so that her scan pictures would not show up on my newsfeed.  She was pregnant, she was about to bring new life into the world, she was having a difficult pregnancy... she did not need the added pressure of having to protect me from her pregnancy.

I think part of the reason I was crying was pure relief. She could just be my 'friend' again, she no longer had to be my 'pregnant friend'. I think I had built up the anticipation of this moment for so long, so many times I had imagined getting that message and each time I had imagined myself reacting differently... I think I was so relieved that it had finally happened... baby Eimear had arrived safely, she was healthy and happy, my friend was doing well, all was going fine.... and I think I was relieved that on some level, I actually was okay.

Eimear was 9 days old when I got to see her, my friend simply messaged me that morning telling me that she had no visitors that day and Eimear wanted a cuddle. I drove to her house, an absolute ball of anxiety about how I was going to handle this.... but once I got there and she placed Eimear in my arms... none of it mattered anymore, she was perfect, it was all perfect and it was at that point that I knew that I could be okay and that everything was going to be okay.

I left my friend's house that day and I was proud of myself, I was so proud of myself, but also, I was proud of my friend. It had been difficult from both sides, but we got through it, and that's testament to her as a person, and the strength of our friendship.

Gordon asked me why this particular pregnancy had affected me so much, I've had lots of friends and family members who have had babies..... and I refused to answer him, I asked him please not to push me on this. He was surprised as I don't think I have ever asked him not to push a topic before, I usually completely trust him and am happy to go along with however he wants the sessions to progress. 

A few weeks later, I showed him that picture and he told me he was so proud of me. He then asked 'Can you tell me now?' I shook my head, and the subject has never been brought up again.

I can tell you now... the disaster that was the 'double transfer - ectopic pregnancy - emergency surgery - chemotherapy' fiasco... involved the transfer of 2 beautiful embryos, one day 5 blastocyst and one day 6 blastocyst. The resulting due dates for those babies was the 8th and 9th of July. That whole episode was quite honestly, the absolute lowest point in my life, and I've tried so hard to recover from that. I've tried to block it out as much as I can, and I promised myself that those dates now belong to my friend and the beautiful Eimear and I'm not gona let that date affect me anymore.

Yeah... you'd think I'd have learned by now that things don't quite work that way. I knew that I needed some time to myself yesterday evening, I knew that I had some crying to do and I really just wanted to be alone. I thought I was doing ok, when I got a Skype call from a very close friend of mine in the UK. As soon as I answered the call I was asked 'what's wrong?', I brushed it off as just having a bad day and tried to move forward with the conversation. This friend however, wasn't going to leave it at that. Again I said that I was just having a bad day and I wasn't able to talk about it, but I'd explain everything tomorrow. Still, it wasn't going to be let lie at that and eventually I just said that my best friend's daughter had her first birthday today, and it was just making me think about stuff.

Ok... so UK friend, knowing that I'd been trying recently to detach from external 'pregnancy related' stimulants, and had been telling myself repeatedly that 'this actually doesn't affect me', when I'd see pregnant women in the supermarket or wherever, and I seemed to be doing well with this approach.

UK friend responds with "You know, you've really got to find a way to stop letting what is happening to other people, affect you so much"... Well, I suppose I need to both apologise to, and thank this friend... because that comment sent me into a 20 minute crying rant of everything that was going on in my head and in my heart, and while it was said in terms of 'I can't believe you just said that to me', before I realised what was happening, I had divulged everything about those dates and why it was so hard for me. 

I lay awake for most of the night, not being able to turn off my head and my thoughts, and kinda feeling embarrassed about getting so upset and externalising my connection to those dates without really meaning to. It's funny how something becomes so real as soon as you say it out loud, and I was annoyed with myself for saying it out loud. I was annoyed that I couldn't just deal with it internally like I had planned, I was annoyed that I had reacted to that comment in the way that I did...but... I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and after allowing my thoughts to settle for a bit - I realised that there is actually no reason for me to keep that a secret, and maybe reacting like that was just what I needed to do.

So... I'm sorry I took your head off, but when it grows back... I'll thank you for being you and saying exactly what you were thinking, because otherwise it may have been another year or two before I actually faced up to the reality of this.

Life is hard, really hard at times and there will always be good days and bad days, the thing I still struggle with (yes, even after all of this time) is that I don't have to go through my bad days alone, I don't have to shut myself off, I don't have to lock myself in the bedroom when I feel like I'm going to break down and I need to cry. I have friends, I have the best friends in the world. I have friends who will shelter me from their worries, who will think of me and how things affect me even though they are going through so much themselves, I have friends who will let me rant at them for 20 minutes simply because they know I need to and will then apologise for upsetting me, even though I was completely out of line. 

I do not have a lot of people that I call my 'friend', but to the two that I have spoken about in this post...

Thank you for being my friend xx 

(Oh... and Happy Birthday Eimear xx)