Friday, my husband and I went back to the doctor to have follow-up blood work completed after three weeks on the estrogen treatments. I have learned not to get my hopes up too much before we head to Dr. Smith’s downtown Houston office. His office has become menacing. It is a large, skyscraper-esque building, complete with lots of traffic and a large parking garage. The building has changed for me. I used to see a bright building full of hope, but each visit the building has grown darker and darker. It is no longer a place of hope. It is a place of fleeting dreams. A place of heartbreak. A place of hurt. And, I feel all of these things before we have even had a chance to try a single fertility treatment. So far, Dr. Smith has been focusing on my “crazy hormone levels”, because at this point my body will not respond to treatment. I respect and support this treatment approach, but he doesn’t always exhibit the best bedside manner. He is a man of jokes, and I am a fragile girl who cannot handle them. Since this visit was to be short, only long enough to discuss that I have not had any side effects on the estrogen, I didn’t expect much in the way of a new treatment plan. There can be no plan until he has read my test results sometime this week. I didn’t even want to ask him what was next. But, I ended by saying what I usually do, “I’m really praying this works, because I really want to be a mommy.” Dr. Smith laughed and said, “With testosterone levels like yours, you’re almost a daddy.” My mouth fell open, and my heart sank. I held it together enough not to cry at that moment. My husband wrapped his arms around my and whispered in my ear, “I love you.” This is always his answer when things get me down. It used to feel like it was a copout, but lately it’s the only thing that gets me through. He loves me enough to hold me when the world falls apart, which is something that happens more frequently than not with fertility treatment.
But, Dr. Smith’s one sentence sent me into a downward spiral of despair the entire weekend, not a good thing considering we had company from out of state, and I was appearing in a Christmas play. Who would not have been hurt by those words? If you read my blog regularly, you know that the high testosterone levels have begun to make me feel like less of a woman. I questioned everything about my life. Am I not a girly girl, because I have too many boy hormones? Can people tell that I have high testosterone? Will my hips ever pear-shape like a woman’s should? Will I have less of a sex-drive when the testosterone levels come down? This weekend, it took everything in me to hide how I was really feeling in order to perform in a play, and be a good host to my friend. It was exhausting. And, I didn’t do a very good job at it. For someone that has ridiculously high testosterone levels, I am pretty damn emotional. The worst part is that since there was so much happening over the weekend, my husband and I really haven’t had a chance to process the new information, however little there was.
The current plan, as I understand it is to wait and see how my test results come out. If it looks as though there is some balance, we will probably start Clomid after taking Provera to induce a period. If there isn’t… there is no current plan in place. I am a planner, and the waiting, not knowing, uncertainty is killing me. I wonder if it would be a good idea for us to begin the process to adopt. My husband says that he isn’t ready to give up on my body yet. And, that isn’t because he doesn’t believe in adoption. In fact, we both believe adoption saves lives. He doesn’t want to give up on my body, because he knows that I selfishly want to carry a child. I have two friends who were adopted, and I believe their lives were better because of it. I know I’m being selfish by wanting to exhaust all our options for treatments first. I know we run the risk of extreme stress on our marriage as sex becomes a chore prescribed by a doctor, and as doctor’s bills go unpaid by our government issued insurance. I know that there is a better way to spend the kind of money we could be paying out in the end, but I am selfish enough to not care about any of it. At least my husband is supportive, and I am very appreciative. But, I wonder if his role will become passive as mine becomes pregnant by any means necessary. Will he resent me? Will he resent our child?
On a related note, my life has been consumed with fertility talk. I enjoy writing this blog, because it is free therapy for me, cathartic. But, people ask me about it a lot in my personal life, and I can’t seem to not bring it up in relatively every conversation. I am a woman obsessed. I fear it will become a draining burden on everyone around me. I am a Debbie Downer. And, I really don’t want to be. So, I am hereby granting permission to change the subject. Just because my life is consumed by fertility overload, doesn’t mean the lives of all my friends has to be too.
