To BCP or not to BCP

I got myself a new RE. I did not make an appointment well in advance, as I should have. And so, she will not see me until this BCP cycle is over.

My fault, really. I should have hurried up, but alas, I've been very busy with the new house (it's ours now!) and preparing the move, so I kept that in the back burner and now... well. Another wasted month.  OK, NOT wasted, NOT wasted, we're in recovery, we needed a break, we needed to think things through, etc.

I thought really hard about whether or not to continue taking BCP for another cycle while I wait for the appointment. I function better when I take them, but I do not want to jeopardize any tests or what I hope will be a following ART cycle.

And then, for that same reason, I don't want to give my ovaries another chance to develop cysts. I am really crossing my fingers and hoping that the cysts will be gone by now. Staying on the pill will certainly prevent more cysts from forming.

Luckily, I don't have to go to Dr. Mediocre for another BCP prescription. Back in January he prescribed the usual 12 refills. The antidepressants are another issue entirely: My prescription runs out really soon. I started tapering myself off with Dr. Funny's approval.

And in the meantime, to cheer myself up, I made a pair of socks to wear at my next RE appointment:

Due to socks being the only item of clothing one can wear from the waist down while riding the stirrups, I like really clownish and colorful ones. They make me feel a little bit less exposed.

Let my ovaries decide

Last week I was approached by two different recruiters. One position is in the ideal company I should be working for, given my training. Still, the commute would be horrible because it's 30 miles away from where I live. It's also a terrible company to work for. There is a lot of job insecurity, and employees are always disgruntled and complain about long hours.

The other position is also related to my background, though not so much. It would be closer to home, about 6.5 miles away. I don't know much about how happy their employees are, but I do know that there were horrible layoffs recently.

Finally, there is the company I am working for under contract, and which might hire me permanently after three months. It's seven miles away. It's a Fortune 500 company, they're doing pretty well and everybody I know would love to work for them. The thing is, what I am doing is only partly related to my training and experience. Let's say that 50% of my work requires my knowledge and experience, but the other 50% of the time I do lab monkey work. As in, "¡Monkey, press the button! ¡Blow the whistle!". So I cannot say I get a warm feeling of professional accomplishment everyday. There is a huge part of my expertise that has no application whatsoever in this place.

I do get to knit at work, between pressing buttons and blowing whistles. I am about to finish my third pair of socks. In contrast, in my last job I was busy all the time and could hardly afford bathroom breaks. Maybe that's why I ended up with kidney stones. So this is an improvement, professional accomplishments be damned.

The thing is, if I were them, I would split my position in half. I would keep the biochemist part-time, and hire another part-time assistant to do the monkey work. I've been here for a month, and nobody has mentioned anything on whether they will keep me or not.

So of course I sent my resume to the two recruiters, and am already planning to come up with excuses at work if someone decides to interview me. I want to keep all my options open.

But I do not know what it is that I really want. There is no good wind if you don't know where you want to sail to.

Precisely at the end of my contract I will get another ultrasound scan to confirm that the ovarian cysts have been reabsorbed. If so, I will have to decide whether or not I want to do another IUI with FSH or go directly to IVF. The amount of money involved is mind-boggling.

Money aside, how do I keep working, or start a new job, knowing how stressful and inconvenient any of those treatments will be? Knowing that I will have to miss work to go to unpredictable doctor's appointments, and that I will have to interrupt work to go shoot myself hormones in the toilet?

The idea of not working at all seems tempting. The spouse and I are thrifty, he makes good money, I am on his insurance... But if we do IVF, we will need all the money we can make. If it works, we will probably want to buy a house. And the area where we live is still horribly expensive. Of course, if I were to work 30 miles away...

I keep jumping from one possibility to the next without coming any closer to knowing what it is that I really want.

But, who cares? Maybe the birth control pills are not working, and by the end of my contract my ovaries will still be full of cysts. So I try to convince myself that I don't have to determine what I really want, until I know for sure how my ovaries are doing.

Low carb diet and PCOS

Women with PCOS are supposed to follow a low carb diet. I confess to cheating quite often, I am quite successful in limiting my carbohydrate intake to only one portion per day. It's not a perfect method, since I don't count carbs in fruits and vegetables, of which I have a minimum of four portions per day (my goal is five to nine). I do count bread, cereal, tortillas, pasta, corn, rice and potatoes. I don't drink sodas nor any sweet beverages, I don't sweeten my tea or coffee and I don't eat desserts. I do indulge in chocolate, but always a reasonable portion.

One of my friends cooked an ethnic dinner for us and asked me if we had any dietary restrictions. So I mentioned that we can eat everything, but that I usually limit my intake of carbohydrates. I also told her that I do cheat on special occassions and that she should not worry too  much about it.

Which makes me wonder if I set myself up. There were four dishes, three of which were carbohydrate rich: potatoes, rice with meat, and dumplings. The only non-carb dish was a salad, of which I had three servings. I did not even taste the bread. I had a little tiny slice of dessert (very sugary!), which seemed foolish, given that I had already had more than my carb allowance for two or three days.

Of course, I did not complain nor lecture her. After all, the food was delicious and you could tell that she had put a lot of effort into this dinner. But it reminded me of how hard it is to eat right. Even at the hospital, where nurses and doctors should know better, I was pumped up (literally) with carbs.

My heart goes out tho those afflicted by diabetes, a terrible disease. My ovarian cysts and the few symptoms I deal with are nothing compared to the risks they run if they do not control their carbs. It must be really difficult for them.

Taking a break... by working?

After last Monday's follicle scan, my doctor suggested moving onto FSH. Frankly, I don't think my ovaries can take any stimulation after these past three months of increasing doses of clomid. The scan showed multiple cysts on both ovaries, in the typical "string of pearls" pattern.

So I asked for birth control pills. Over the years, that has been the only way for me to get rid of the cysts, the discomfort, and the uncertainty about my crazy periods. I know, boy DO I KNOW that at 41 I should not waste more time. But I need a break from this infertility craziness. I want to focus on the present and be thankful for the blessings I already have and I normally take for granted.

One blessing is the new job I am starting soon. I don't want to start a new job and deal with the stress of spurious doctor appointments, FSH injections in public bathrooms, and the cover stories for missed hours of work. And I am not even thinking about the possibilities of a pregnancy.

I need this job. And not because of the money, although if we keep going down the infertility path we are going to need lots of that too. But what I really need now is a purpose in life. Even my dog died less than a month after the miscarriage. I honestly cannot be happy simply being someone's spouse. Oh, I love the spouse, and he loves me, and all this shit has made us stronger, just like the saying goes. But I want to put my knowledge to good use and use my brain in a productive way, and I want to be happy about this new opportunity instead of moping about what I do not have.