Now its time for a pity party blog.  Hooray!  But seriously.  I thought I was doing better about the whole infertility/doesn't look like children will be in our future thing.  I know that we haven't  been trying for as long as some couples that finally were able to have a baby, but I know a lot of those couples finally realized their dreams through IVFs, FETs, and the like.  We 1) don't have the money to do IVF or FET for one cycle let alone how ever many it takes to get one to stick and 2) don't know how we feel morally about it.  Let me just say that I have no issues with couples who do choose the IVF/FET route.  Everyone has to make that decision for themselves.  Every infertile couple has to chase every option they feel is necessary to achieve that dream.  But I personally would want to use every embryo that was created.  I know that a lot of them don't continue to develop or stick, but I would feel morally obligated to at least try.  I think it would make me very uncomfortable to have a bunch of frozen potential babies sitting in a freezer somewhere.  We could always donate any left over viable embryos, but with my history of loss and infertility, I don't know if they'd accept them. (Not really sure how the donor process for eggs and embryos works)  So at this point I'm slowly trying to come to terms with the fact that we very well may end up childless.  I've started letting go of any names I like for a boy or a girl and not adding to the list when I hear a neat name.  I've started trying to focus on the good aspects of being child-free and think about all the things that Mark and I can do if we don't ever have children.  I've started shifting my focus towards other things that I can do with my life that will make me happy.  And it seemed to be working.  Seeing babies and pregnant ladies hasn't been as painful.  I can actually walk by the baby department in different stores without feeling like I'm dying inside.  And then the damn sock monkeys popped up.  Sock monkeys have been a mascot for Mark and I's relationship for  quite a while.  After our first loss, Anthony gave us a sock monkey toy he had as a child to show that he believed it would happen for us.  And they are just really stinking cute, and I love them.  I wanted to include them in a nursery for our baby when those things were still contemplated and dreamed about.  And so of course when I saw a bunch of baby clothes in Cracker Barrel with freaking sock monkeys on them today, I almost fell apart.  Eyes filled with tears, breath stuck in my throat, and I'm sure I probably turned beet red as I tend to do.  I've been doing so well, and all it took was stupid baby clothes with sock monkeys on them to screw everything up.  Now I'm back to the woe is me, life isn't fair, why the hell can't it be my turn winy crap that everyone got so sick of hearing.  I got so tired of feeling like that and tried to focus on getting over it and feeling better, and then one stupid little thing has to go and screw it up.  Ugh.  Stupid bullshit infertility.  I freaking hate you.  Just go away so I can have my damn baby already, and dress it up in all the sock monkey baby clothes I can buy.

Alright. I'm going to stop bitching for now.  Here's your IFPSA of the day:

IFPSA: If you have any baby items with sock monkeys on them, keep them the hell away from me.  That is all.

Why is she crying??!!!  Zumba addiction is something to be celebrated.

Anyhow, I haven't made a post in about a week.  We went to Gatlinburg with Mark's family last Friday and stayed through Monday.  It was actually cold this year (last year it was warm and there was barely any snow at the ski resort), and I tried out the snow tubing.  The first time I did it was fairly traumatizing.  There is a belt that takes you up to the top of the tubing hill that is scary as hell.  I almost fell getting on to it, got yelled at for trying to walk on it (because I was feeling totally unsteady and about to fall any minute), and then stumbled off of it.  Then walking through the lines to get to the tubing lanes was wrought with holes for twisting your ankle in and teenagers needing to be yelled at.  Once you get to the top of the hill, you have to maneuver your tube and then try to sit on it without falling and/or sliding down the hill.  I am clumsy (as most of you know) and so I was expecting to tumble down the hill at any moment.  Once I finally got going down the hill, my tube kept turning me around (a blast once I knew what to expect and not so fun the first time) and I sat too far into the tube so my ass hit every little bump.  I was not a happy camper after that first run, and was not going to go back and do it again.  Mark forced me to try it one more time though, and I'm glad I did.  Once I knew what to expect and what to do, I had a blast.  It was tons of fun, and I can't wait to do it again next year.

Other than the trip, I've been working and going to the gym.  I'm enjoying my job, and I'm apparently doing really well at it.  I've gotten a ton of stuff back, and the doctors' offices actually seem to want to cooperate with me.  People at work say its because I sound sweet and southern, which probably is the case.  So I'm going to continue to be sweet and southern and get people to do what I want!  Zumba went well this week, as did yoga and belly dance.  I actually got to go to belly dance on Monday (thought we would be out of town) and learned that I really need to be practicing the dance we are doing (for the hafla in March) outside of class.  And I need to start thinking about costuming.  And wing making.  Lots of prep to do before it rolls around.  But I am excited.

Well, that's really all that's been going on.  I will leave you with your IFPSA of the day!  Until next time:

IFPSA: When asking a couple why they don't have children (RUDE!) or when/if they plan on having children, please do not ask them if they don't have children because they don't like children.  I actually had a family member ask Mark and I this a couple of months after one of our losses, and were she not ill at the time, I probably would have told her in horrible graphic detail exactly why we haven't had a baby yet.  There could be so many reasons why a couple has not had children yet, and normally, hating children is not on the top of the list.  So please, when talking to your friends or family members that are childless, if you absolutely have to know the state of their family planning, be gentle.  They may be struggling harder than you can imagine to have a baby, and hearing your opinion on the matter isn't helpful and can be painful.

Good grief, I am all sorts of sleepy.  Sleepy doesn't really even cover it.  I think its closer to exhaustion, but not quite.  Fascinating stuff, I know.  I just can't figure out why I am so tired.  I've been like this since last week.  I'm wondering if its stress.  In fact, I'm betting on the stress.  I finally got another job.  Which is a relief in some ways, but in other ways its terrifying as its commission based at the moment.  So as long as I'm able to be persuasive and authoritative and basically force doctors to send back the paperwork I need them to send back, I'll be ok.  But I am relying on DOCTORS OFFICES as a source of income.  I have a hard enough time getting them to do what I need done when I'm the patient, let alone when I'm calling on behalf of a company that shares the same patient.  And speaking of doctor's calling me back, mine have yet to call me back to let me know when I have to do all my pre-op  stuff.  And the fact that I don't know when it is, is stressing me out.  They told me when my surgery was scheduled for, but without having those other appointments made as well, I feel like I'm going to call the week before my surgery to find out what's up, only to find out there will be no surgery.  I called yesterday morning to make sure my pre-ops weren't still going to be this week, and she assured me they weren't but couldn't tell me when they would be!!!  Frustrating! And then the whole surgery thing itself  is stressful.  What if they don't find anything?  I KNOW that something has to be wrong. There's too much going on symptom wise for there not to be anything wrong. (Oh, there will be symptom descriptions later on for those of you that don't gross out easily at the TMI) But what if they can't find it?  Or what if they find A LOT of endo.  Like, the endo has eaten all my organs, and there's nothing they can do?  And then of course I'm worried that I'll require another surgery, as my doctor is only able to handle endo up to certain stages.  So if its advanced, I'll have to do it all over again with another doctor.  And then I start thinking about it, and freak out and get all morbid, and am like, what if I have a reaction to the anesthesia?  What if it kills me?  What if I go in for a simple outpatient procedure and never come out?  What will Mark do?  What will my mom do?  Dear God, what will my dogs do??!!  Overly dramatic, yes, but hell.

Ok, enough with the sleepy/stress/freak out talk.  I have bigger fish to fry.  And that nasty, stinky, slutty fish is none other than Kim Kardashian (again).  Now I am going to add big fat (ok, she's not fat, but still...) freaking liar to my description of her.  It seems that in order to make her pregnancy more socially acceptable and to garnish more attention, said attention WHORE is lying and saying that her pregnancy was shocking because she has infertility issues.  Um....NO!  For one, Ms. Kardashian has been on birth control for several years, just got off bc, and had to explain to Kanye how exactly she was pregnant when she was supposed to be on birth control.  So yes Kim, BC causes infertility WHEN YOU ARE TAKING THEM!  That's the point of the damn pills, moron.  I also have it on good authority (from someone who saw the whole Kim drags Khloe to a fertility clinic and ends up freezing her eggs episode), that the doctor she talked to told Kim she had no issues and would easily be able to have her eggs harvested.  Yeah, that sounds really super serious Kim.  I can't believe you got pregnant shortly after getting off of birth control with those serious problems.  How about trying for a year, or two, or three unsuccessfully and then tell me all about your infertility problems.  So not only is she KU by someone she is not married to while still being married to someone else, she is LYING about being infertile.  Poor poor Khloe.  Poor poor me.   Poor poor all those women and couples who are actually affected by infertility.

And now for those of you who don't want to read my bitch out about my uterus because it is too personal (and gross), here is your IFPSA of the day:
Please do not tell women suffering from infertility to just "relax and it'll happen".  I know that sometimes its hard to know what to say, and you feel the need to say something, and so "relax" comes flying out.  I will have you know that RELAX is one of the most hated words in the infertility community.  Hearing it actually causes stress, and if the word disappeared from the english language, none of us would care.  And honestly, it doesn't help.  Relaxing will not fix my uterus or make my endo (if its there) go away.  Relaxing will not help the woman who has high FSH and poor egg reserves lower her FSH or magically produce more eggs.  Nor will it help someone with recurrent miscarriages due to autoimmune disorders or chromosomal issues hold onto that baby.  If a woman has been trying over a year (6 months if she is 35 or older), she has bigger problems than stress and needing to relax.  She has real MEDICAL issues that can't be relaxed away.  So please, for the love of God and all that is holy, do not tell people with fertility issues to relax.

And now for the fun, way too much information portion of my blog.....

I hate my uterus.  I hate that cold hearted bitch with a passion.  Not only does it deny me the one thing I want more than anything else by expelling my offspring far too quickly, it will also not allow me to get my Zumba on as hard as I would like.  For those of you who don't know, I love Zumba.  So. Much.  Seriously, I am going to get certified to teach so that I can make money doing it, and maybe one day make it my career if at all possible.  But sadly, my uterus wants none of it.  Take last night for example.  Tuesday night is Zumba night, and my mommy has finally decided to join in the fun!  So of course, like all children who has a mommy watching them do something, I decided to do my absolute best.  I really threw myself into it.  And then I wanted to die.  It always starts off as little cramps.  Little cramps that I think I can handle.  Little cramps that I try to convince myself won't get worse if I keep doing what I'm doing.  Then they start to get bad.  Not quite the agony of period cramps, but close.  So I then decide that I'll drink some water, maybe go pee (cause peeing helps cramps evidently), but by then its too late.  By then they kick in full steam and leave me crouched in the corner in the sportsplex bathroom attempting to crunch myself into the smallest ball possible.  And then I try to stretch and end back up in a ball.  By the time all is said and done, I have cramped so hard I end up with period type bleeding for a couple of days even though Aunt Flo is not due for 2 weeks (I haven't even ovulated yet, ladies and gentlemen).  It makes it really hard to exercise (or you know, move) when you have this going on all the time.  I'm so sick of this mess, and I really hope that its endometriosis related and the lap(s) can fix it.  If that's not the problem....well.....shit....  They haven't found anything else that could be causing it, so I'm hoping this could be it.

And that's all folks.  I did tell you this portion would be waaaay too much information.  So if you are sitting there thinking, "WHY DID SHE TELL ME THIS?!", I did warn you.....  Til next time....

It's been a few days since my last post.  I figured if I posted every day people would get bored, and I would have nothing to say.  It'd be a blog about me waking up and eating breakfast.  Excitement.  Then I would resort to throwing in what I ate for lunch to spice things up, and no one would read it again.  EVER.  So I have resisted the narcissistic urge to talk about myself every day and only made it to Saturday.  Ah, well, at least I tried.

So first and foremost: Surgery.  I had to call my doctor's office and finally got a date (I think.....) of February 15th.  Happy Valentine's Day!  Let's cut a hole in your tummy!  Whoot!  They initially wanted to do it next Friday, and that was all sorts of not possible.  For one, that is way too soon.  I am not ready.  Mark is not ready.  My mom is not ready.  Plus, we are going to Gatlinburg for the semi-annual family trip with Mark's family next weekend, and I would much rather be on vacation than chilling out at home with holes in my tummy.  So she moved it back a month.  They were supposed to call and confirm and give me the time and dates of all my pre-op stuff, but that has yet to happen.  I figure I will call on Monday and try to get it figured out.  Hopefully everything will be confirmed soon.  I hate being in limbo.

In other news, (haha, I think my life is news...) I did Yoga for the first time on Wednesday and LOVED it.  It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, and I was surprisingly sore afterward.  But people were right, it is very relaxing.  I felt so relaxed, and de-stressed, and carefree once we were finished.  I would really like to start doing it twice a week and as luck would have it, the Sportsplex offers it on Sundays and Wednesdays.  I'm turning into quite the little gym rat, but I love it. I also went up on weight in Bodypump on Thursday night and although I'm a little sore, I'm not as sore as I thought I would be.  I'm also moving a little closer to my goal of teaching Zumba and have found a certification course in July in Atlanta that I will be attending.  I still have to sign up for it and pay for it, but I'm holding out to make sure that the surgery (or surgeries if she cannot remove everything) gets rid of the issues I've been having while exercising.  Its a little difficult to teach people (or you know, move) when you're balled up on the floor trying not to die because your uterus is staging a coup.

Ok folks, I have been ignoring my poor husband long enough.  I will go ahead and leave you with your IPSA of the day!!

IPSA: When talking to a couple (or a person that is part of a couple) that is having difficulty conceiving a child, do not ask them whose fault it is.  For one, that's incredibly rude and insensitive and for two, it implies that someone did something wrong and is to blame.  It is NO ONE'S fault, and to have it implied that it is, is incredibly insulting.  Also, many cases of infertility aren't as cut and dry as that.  About 1/3 of infertility cases are attributed to both the man and the woman, and in 10% of the cases, no problem can be found (oh the joy of unexplained infertility).  For more quick infertility facts, go here.

So, I'm a bit annoyed right now.  My doctor's appointment went well.  She agreed that doing an exploratory laparoscopy is the best move to try to figure out for sure that I have endometriosis.  If I do, and its only at stage I or II, she can remove it while she's in there looking around.  Anything more advanced would require a second lap with another surgeon.  She told me that she we will be doing the lap the second Friday in February, but she would have to call me today and let me know for sure as the O.R. scheduling people had left for the day.  Well, it is now after 5pm their time, and I have yet to hear anything.  Call me crazy, but I would like to know when I am having it done so that I can start preparing.  My mother and Mark have already said that they will be more than happy to help me out the first week after the procedure but of course need to know when said procedure is going to be.  The sooner I let them know, the sooner they will be able to ask off of work or move their schedules around.  So basically everyone is on stand-by until they call me to let me know when they are going to open me up. So I sit here, by the phone, waiting and waiting.  But alas, no one is calling.

In other news, I am starting yoga tonight and am super excited.  For years everyone and their brother has been telling me to do yoga.  It seems I'm always tense and stressed, and they feel yoga will help.  We shall see.  I also have an interview with a temp agency tomorrow.  I'm thinking short temp jobs would be just the thing to do until all this surgery mess is over and done with.

Well ladies and gentlemen, that is really all the news I have at the moment.  I will leave you with a short Infertility Public Service Announcement (IPSA).  I shall be doing one per blog with the exception of yesterday.  So the IPSA of the day is:

To all health care professionals (and anyone else interested):  If you are responsible for completing questionnaires with a female patient and you must ask her how many pregnancies she has had, please do not assume that pregnancy automatically equals children.  It is extremely awkward and uncomfortable for the patient to inform you that although she has had 2 pregnancies, she does not have any children.  So just stick to the "How many pregnancies?" followed by "How many live births? (Because birth does not always = living children either)".  It will help to avoid any awkwardness or potential throat punches if said patient is having a bad day.  

So....I'm going to try this whole blogging thing.  I've got lots of opinions, and thoughts, and random outbursts of bitchy-ness that need not be shared on Facebook.  I struggle not to be that girl that gives out waaaaay too much TMI, even though I seriously NEED to, darn it!  I'll see some stupid piece of celebrity trash news that infuriates me (*cough* Kim Kardashian's pregnancy *cough*), want to bitch about it on Facebook, but then realize that bitching about it will bring up private family issues that the general population on Facebook just really doesn't need to know.  So I sit on my opinion.  And I stew, and stew, and stew.  And think about posting something and then stew some more.  I finally came to the conclusion that a blog would be a good outlet.

So, now I am going to calmly discuss celebrity pregnancies.  I do not give a rat's ass about which celebrity is sporting a baby bump.  I do not care.  Duchess Kate pregnant and puking?  Don't care.  Drew Barrymore just gave birth?  Love her work, still don't care.  "Look at what these celeb moms wore when they were pregnant!!!"  NO!!! I DON'T CARE!!!  And now, to make things infinitely worse, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are having a baby.  For one, why in the hell is Kim Kardashian even considered a celebrity?  She has done absolutely nothing that calls for celebration.  The woman entered the public spotlight because of a sex tape.  Ooooh, you're a pretty skank that doesn't guard your privacy.  And now you're famous.  Great.  From what I understand, she is still married to the guy she had an over-the-top wedding with and then left 60 days later.  Not the best role model and not the best mother material.

Now I know what some people are going to say.  "Oh Sarah, you're just a bitter infertile that can't be happy when anyone is pregnant."  And yes, this is my way of coming out of the infertility closet.  It sucks in there, btw.  And that is simply not true (for the most part).  I did not care about celebrity pregnancies before I found out that I have a broken uterus.  I didn't care about their marriages and divorces.  Now it hurts to see, because yes, it is a constant reminder of what I don't have and may never have.  Before it was like, "Seriously, this is annoying, and I don't care."  And now that same sentence is used but is spoken more bitterly (and with expletives!).  The whole Kim/Kanye reproduction story just brings out the worst side of it.  She is still married to that Chris guy but pregnant with someone else's baby.  That stings because I am married and devoted to my husband, but thus far have been unable to give him a child.  Her sister Khloe, has been struggling unsuccessfully to conceive a child with her husband for 3 years, and BAM, her sister gets pregnant out of the blue.  And this all happened right after Kim froze some eggs for when she's ready to have a baby, because she is "older than [Khloe] and going to have way more problems".  And even though Khloe is happy for her sister (as are all "bitter infertiles" when a loved one gets pregnant), she is extremely sad for herself.  Its just one more reminder of this horrible stupid condition. So because I'm going through what Khloe is going through (but she's rich and can afford all sorts of ART (assisted reproductive technology) unlike moi), I feel her pain and I truly hurt for her.  And then I hurt for myself.

Ahhh, catharsis.  I feel better getting that off my chest.  I've been wanting to scream this at anyone who would listen since the story broke.  So for all of you listening, thank you.  And now, I'm going to quit ranting and go be productive before my doctor's appointment.  We get to talk about surgery today!  Yay!  I'm actually quite ready for it and will let everyone know how it goes.