Dealing with Paranoia

I love my daughter with all my heart and soul. She's my sunshine; I would not know where I would be without her. It sounds as if I'm preparing for a big BUT, but no. I just needed to say this. I love my daughter.

Today was sort of a sad day for me. It was sunny and warm and a beautiful day, but I felt rather gloomy. I know why. I am scared of the upcoming IVF. It's as simple as that. I may be looking at the end of my road. Another negative cycle (and that is provided we even get to a transfer, nothing I take for granted) and my clinic and my husband will put an end to this madness, an end to my dream. In my last post I mentioned that I don't have a plan B at this point. Neither donor eggs, nor surrogate or adoption feel right to me or my husband for various different reasons at this point in our life.

But I was wrong. I do have a plan B. Plan B for me is to go on Antidepressants. Lovely internet, I feel as if I am at a breaking point. Never in my life have I felt this way before, not after my father's terminal cancer, not during graduate school, not at any other time in my life. After my father had died I was tremendously sad, but I wasn't depressed, bitter, or angry. And while I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder during graduate school (along with half my fellow students - or so it seemed), I didn't feel the need to medicate myself. Now I do. I feel beaten to the pulp. I can’t go on like this for much longer, without any positive (what a punt) sign in sight. Infertility has become a central part of my life, of my identity. I feel like the desert my uterus has become. Lifeless and barren. Infertility has robbed my husband of his wife, my daughter of her mother, my mother of a daughter, my friends of a friend. It can’t go on like this much longer.

But I not only felt sad and scared of the upcoming (hopefully) IVF today, I also felt generally anxious. Almost panicky. And I believe part of why I feel like this has to do with on of my coping strategies, which has backfired, leaving me rather paranoid. My strategy to cope with the continuous demise of my reproductive health was partly to put the focus not on the parts that were not functioning, but on the parts that were. I call this the “At least” strategy, as in “at least I still have a healthy uterus (haha)”…I tried to lay out here why I believe this strategy is backfiring:

1999: (initial diagnosis of endo, no visible damage of reproductive organs)
healthy right ovary, healthy left ovary, healthy left tube, healthy right tube, healthy uterus, healthy cervix

2001: (removal of first endometrioma that appeared out of nowhere after 6 months of Lupron)
healthy right ovary, healthy left tube, healthy right tube, healthy uterus, healthy cervix

2003: (partially ruptured uterus, C-section)
healthy right ovary, healthy left tube, healthy right tube, healthy cervix

2004: (cervical dysplasia treated by leep)
healthy right ovary, healthy left tube, healthy right tube,

2005: (diagnosis of second endometrioma & Asherman’s syndrome, blocked tube)
healthy left tube

2006: (recent laparoscopy)
Anatomically everything compromised, IVF last resort, but only as long as compromised ovaries still function in an acceptable range. Gosh, can you believe it? These days I am overjoyed when I get my period, simply because that might indicate that AT LEAST my ovaries still ovulate…of course, giving the paranoia I feel about my AT LEAST strategy, I’m so paranoid –and I’m serious- that even that may end sooner than it should.

None of these blows have been particularly devastating in themselves, but the accumulation of them is wearing me completely out. It’s getting harder and harder to pick myself up after yet another blow. My optimistic coping strategy of “AT LEAST” as got me exactly nowhere. Worse, it has backfired and made me deeply paranoid now. Whenever people try to be helpful (I believe they mean well, even though I’d like to smack them) and say “be thankful, AT LEAST you have one child”, lovely internet, I get so incredibly anxious, I get so fearful that something terrible could happen to her. I start sweating even writing it down here. I love her so incredibly much. I don’t feel safe from random life shit, quite the contrary. I feel the “AT LEAST” strategy is cursed. Hell, to be honest, I feel it's ME who is cursed -reproductively speaking that is.

You see, why I think a bit of Prozac may not be such a bad idea?