I'm not afraid of giving blood any more.
When I think about all the ways my life has changed in the past year, I always think about the big, obvious ways. And then I find out I have to have more blood tests and think 'Weird. A year and a half ago, I would have been filled with dread.' Everything changed, I guess, big and small.
Will I ever overcome my fear of dentists? No, I will not, so let's not even bother talking about that.
More tests. That's the first thing that came out of meeting with the RE. Some of these tests I think have already been run, but he wants to run them himself. Fine. Who cares. I've met with five doctors in the past year, all of whom have run their own tests and send them around to each other. So more tests, you say? OK, I'm in. Do what you gotta do.
He's trying to figure out if something's wrong with me. Low level weirdness on autoimmune tests that have been done. Low level weirdness on thyroid tests that have been done. He suspects that my body is attacking any babies that grow in me, but that whatever I have is some weird combo of things that don't readily show itself in testing.
I think I stopped listening after he talked about my body possibly rejecting the baby. That thought makes me sick. I do not have a poker face. Twice in the meeting, the doctor stopped and asked me if I'm okay.
I did not say I'm okay. "It's fine," I said. "I can handle it. Let's keep going."
And so he told us more. An hour and a half worth of more. I don't remember most of it. My husband was there with me, he can fill me in on anything else that was said that's important. My husband will also be reading the documents in the emails the doctor sent as a follow up - Documents with titles like "Why Your Eggs Are Too Old to Have a Healthy Baby", "Why Your Body Hates You and Your Babies", "Have You Considered That You're Kidding Yourself and This Will Never Happen?"
OK,those are actually my mind's interpretation of the titles of the documents. But why bother reading things that will just stress me out more?
So we're here, doing this, hoping for the best.
"I think he can help us get pregnant. He has a plan and this is the start of the plan," my husband said as we left the appointment.
I smiled and agreed. A plan. It's nice to have a plan.
But what I kept to myself is this: So he can help me get pregnant. What then? How do we know that baby won't die too? Getting pregnant would be wonderful, but it's only the beginning. It's probably the least stressful part.
I smiled and agreed to the plan.
And then I cried in my car all the way back to work.