A two tiered post!

An Afternoon At the Spa

So yesterday Reality and I spent the afternoon at the spa. It was glorious. It was probably the most luxurious pedicure I have ever had, and I have had dozens. I really really love pedicures!

It started with a leather heated, massaging, whirlpool chair. Despite the dozens of pedicures I have had, I had never seen a whirlpool chair before. Always the soak came from a tub of deliciously scented water atop a stool next to the chair. Then we were offered gourmet drinks and a heated neck wrap. It included a paraffin dip and wearing warm electric booties while the paraffin did it's thing. It was heavenly.

That paraffin dip thing was the bomb. I have never had softer feet. I have now been spoiled and no ordinary pedicure will ever be the same again. The results were not bad either, no?





















For a cute picture and a story about the background, check out Reality's post.

Since I can't think of any new pregnancy news that hasn't already been celebrated by a toe nail polish change on Gravida Zero's site, I am dedicated my pretty new "tribeca" colored toes to all the ladies cycling in September and October (which ironically includes me and Reality!) I hope this anticipatory toe nail color change brings a great round of positive pregnancy tests in the next couple of months! And for all those who have told me over and over and over again that I just need to relax, (not you on the internet of course) if I get pregnant this cycle I will direct a big F off in their direction if they dare bring up my pedicure as a reason we may have been successful.

Then we invited the husband's and all went out for dinner. We went for sushi thinking that it was light and low fat and wouldn't inflame Reality's already inflamed Gall Bladder. At last, I'm not sure that was so successful. But it was really, really nice to all get together. Reality and her husband are such a great couple and I am really hoping they they get some great news soon. My extraordinarily shy husband really enjoyed meeting them and have already asked what we will do the next time we get together.


My Mother

My mother and I have always been best friends. Well.... maybe not always. I think there was a time when I was 15-18, when I wouldn't have classified her as such and she would have classified me as an alien and asked where her daughter was. But with that rather minor exception we have always been best friends. I share everything with her. Always have, probably always will. We have maintained that friendship despite the fact that I have not lived at home, or even in the same province since I was 18 (14 years now).

Recently things have changed. When Rick and I first started trying we had no reason to believe it wouldn't happen. I come from an extraordinarily fertile family. My mother had 3 children and was on some kind of birth control for each one. She swears she was one of these women who ovulated twice each month because it didn't matter what time of the month she had sex, if she had sex, she seemed to get pregnant.

Now, she was very very young when she was this fertile. She was only 19 when she got pregnant with me (1 broken condom), 21 with my brother (first month of birth control pill), and 25 with my sister (actually taking the birth control bill). After that she sent my father for the old "snip-snip". So who knows if she had waited until she was 28 before she started trying, like I did, if she would have problems.

My dad is one of 10 children and each of the children have at least 2 kids and some more. Nope, no fertility issues in my family. I vaguely knew that it took some couples time, some had to try for a year, gasp! but I really really believed that I would be fertile like my mother. I had no reason not to tell people we were trying. And tell I did. Said stupid ass stuff like, "we are going to start trying in three months" "I can't make plans for next Christmas, I plan to be pregnant by then", or my personal favorite "Dad you better get that stair rail fixed at the cottage, next summer there will be a baby here". Honestly, first of all did I really think a fucking infant was going to crawl through the stair rail and secondly, how could I have been so bloody naive!

I look back on this and all I can think is "Bitch pulease!" or "Fuck I wish I could be that girl again"

At any rate, all this to say my mother was fully aware of our trying, our first consult with the RE, our medicated cycles and timed sex, our IUI's and our IVF.

Somewhere along the way though, I have stopped talking about fertility stuff with my mother. No, actually that is not true. She still knows the facts, she knows when we are cycling. In fact she is the only one who knows that we are doing a fresh IVF cycle this month. But I stopped telling her how hard it is on me.

I'm not sure how or why I stopped. I'm not even sure when it stopped. I think sometime after the first failed IUI.

She obviously knew how upset I was about the miscarriage....for the first couple of days....there was no hiding that. But I didn't share the dark months that followed that miscarriage. I have never told her that I am sure I was clinically depressed in January and February.

As a result of the fact that I no longer tell her about my emotional state (and let's face it, there is no point in pretending I have an emotional life outside infertility), it seems we talk less. Whereas we used to talk 4-5 times a week, we now often go a week or more without talking. It is like we both know that what we talk about now is artificial and often irrelevant.

You can probably guess how much this upsets me. I am crying just typing it.

I am not sure why I stopped sharing with my mother. Probably because I was so sure she wasn't getting it. I mean, how could she, it was so very far from her own experience. She was always very supportive though. No assvice from her. Or if there was I would tell her so and she would immediately apologize and never say it again. I know she knows that this is hard on me because every now and then she will say things like "how are YOU really" or "Honey, I know how hard this must be on you, we are so very worried for you". But I usually pass it off and she doesn't mention again for a while.

It might be that around that time I found blogs. I found a whole community of people who understood my emotions. I have sort of told my mom about blogging. I have told her that I have a group of friend online who are all going through infertility treatments, that we write journals and chat with each other. I'm not worried about her finding me, I don't really believe she knows what a blog is.

But I really miss sharing with my mom.

This morning I called them to say hello and my mom told me that while visiting my grandparents, a cousin that I have not seen since I was 10 or so, pulled her aside and started asking her all about my treatments (all of my family knows that I have gone to a fertility clinic and am doing "whatever it takes" to try to get pregnant). This cousin is 29 and tearfully confessed to my mother that she has been trying for two years with no luck. She told mom that she has ovarian cysts that the doctors are treating but other than that she has had no medical assistance with trying to get pregnant. She hasn't been offered any either. My mom was telling her all about my treatments, clomid, IUI's, IVF, the poor girl had never heard of most of it. You have to realize that she lives in a very rural part of Newfoundland. Even in the bigger city, there is no clinic to do IVF. If you want to do IVF you have to go to a different province. But in the smaller towns I am willing to bet that most of the doctors know squat about even the most basic fertility treatments.

My mom said to me "Krista, I told her as much as I knew about the treatments and the fertility specialists and then I told her that I thought that the hardest part for you was the emotional side and how isolating this was and how there is just no one that you feel comfortable sharing that with". Excuse me while I go sob......

I told her that she was right and that I would like her to get this cousin's email address so that I could email her. I told her that no one should have to go through this without someone to talk too who "gets it". And then we changed the topic.

And now I am upset. I want my old relationship with my mom. I want to call her and tell her not what I am doing but how I feel. But I don't know how.

It is important to me that my mom see me as a strong, independent person. I am the oldest, have always been very responsible and .....

I just don't want her to know how out of control I feel sometimes. I don't want her to know that I am afraid this process has changed the person I used to be and that I might never be able to be that person again. I don't want her to worry about me. Or at least not anymore than she already does. And trust me she would. As much as she thinks she knows how emotionally hard this is, I doubt that she could really even grasp the depth of my emotions on it unless I told her. My mom would give anything for me to have a child. She has said "If I could have one for you I would do that". She means it, and that is quite the statement for someone who had Hyperemesis gravidarum for the whole nine months of each of her pregnancies.

And even if I wanted to tell her, how would I. How do I say "I have been holding back from you", even though I am sure we both know it and feel it acutely.

So many times I have thought about telling her about this blog. About inviting her to read it.
I know if I asked her to keep it secret from everyone else she would. But then I come back to the real question. "Do I really want my mom to know how much this hurts." She can't do anything about it and she would be really, really worried about me. And I know our relationship would change. Right now, I am the child she doesn't worry about. I have a great and happy marriage, am financially secure, and very responsible/capable. If she knew how this shit knocked me on my knees on a regular basis...... Well let's just say, I would no longer be the child she doesn't have to worry about.

I don't know what to do, but today I really really miss my mom and I long for the emotional relationship we once had.