Evading the needle - for now

First, thank you all so much for your kind comments and emails.  It means so much to me and just reminds me how good it truly is to be able to connect with you.  You're all so wonderful!!


and now the nonsense continues...


Driving back to Dallas Thursday night, I noticed that my right boob was starting to hurt and I had a BB-sized nodule of pain under my right arm.  Yup, the right bazooka decided to join the pain party and the left one, no longer the center of attention, packed up its toys and left.  I thought I was going nuts - how could the pain migrate like that?  Around 9pm, the doctor from the cancer center called to tell me it is definitely absolutely not cancer.  "Cool.  What is it then?" I asked him.  "Fibrocystic changes," he told me.  That's a fancy way of saying 'your body is retarded and I have no idea what the hell is wrong with you.'  He wants me to do a follow-up mammogram in a month with a breast surgeon here in Dallas.  Awesome.


Today I have no pain in either breast, the lymph node is still there but it's nowhere near as tender to the touch.  I have no idea when my period is supposed to start, so I can't tell if the slightly achy feeling I have is due to that or my mind is playing tricks on me.  When you're trying to conceive, the slightest twinge, ache, snap, crackle and pop is noted and questioned.  Is my period coming?  What kind of cramp was that?  How would that be classified?  Is it nothing?  Is it something?


Cut to Friday afternoon, where Drew and I visited with the fertility specialist.  He's the same one I went to when I got my FSH results and I didn't end up going back because I turned out to be pregnant.  I didn't feel my OB was being aggressive enough with a treatment plan/plan of action post-miscarriage number two, so I didn't wait for the referral and made the appointment myself.  This time I wasn't leaving without some answers or at least a plan - something better than heparin shots, or as I like to call them 'I ain't sticking my uterus unless you're 1000% positive I have to.'  Yet, I have a sense of futility because there is still no real way to figure out the true cause for the miscarriages and it still could be just really really horrible terrible awful bad luck.  He could do all these tests and still come up with nothing.  However, I do feel better being under the care of a specialist, knowing his sole reason for working is to help women get pregnant.


His plan is to cross everything off the list in the order of least- to most-invasive.  This means drawing my FSH again, checking my tubes to ensure that they're completely open, checking the uterine cavity and doing an endometrial biopsy.  Even though I've been pregnant three times, with two recent losses he wants to leave no stone unturned.  There is a small possibility that I have scar tissue in my uterus, preventing proper implantation or that my uterine lining doesn't get thick enough to properly hold an embryo.  When you think about all the places that a pregnancy can go wrong, you start to wonder how in the world it ever goes right.  The miracle of life indeed.


In the meantime, I'm looking into ways to get over my fear of needles.  It's horribly inconvenient, I hate the helpless feeling and if these appointments are any indicator of the future, I'm going to need to become best friends with the needle.  


Unfortunately, I feel like I'm going deeper into battle and my conviction is no stronger.  I still waver between wanting children and being ambivalent.  The 'no' is not present, it's just the 'yes' is so weak.  I'm doing the tests because I feel like it's the responsible thing to do.  What if there is a medical cause for the losses and it can be fixed?  I couldn't be satisfied with not doing it.  But if all these tests find nothing?  I still can't say that I'm gung-ho ready to jump to the next stage - whatever that may be.


I keep reminding myself that this is not my timetable, that I'm not in the driver's seat here.  Events will unfold according to a purpose much higher than mine.  I remind myself of that because I get so scared.  I'm scared that since I'm not desperate for a baby, willing to do anything under the sun right now, that must mean I'm not meant to be a mother.  I'm scared that Drew and I will become an infertility/trying to conceive statistic and we won't make it and then I won't have a husband or a baby.


And then I HAVE to stop because I can hear the whistle for the Express Train to the Loony Bin coming for me.  


I know I'm stronger than this.  I can overcome my fear of needles.  I can decide how far I will go with this and whatever is meant for me I will accept with grace and courage.  I can do this.


I may just need a reminder now and then.  You know, when I get scared.