I thought I was okay...

I have been seeing a therapist for five years, since a guy broke up with me (I thought we were going to get married and have BABIES!) and I fell into a serious clinical depression.  Then as I worked my way out of the depression, it turns out I had plenty to talk about -- first the matter of my parents' divorce and my bitter anger towards my father, and then my terrible bout with Pelvic Floor Dysfunction.  Pelvic Floor Dysfunction is when my stress and anxiety was so high that my lower abdomen got chronically tense.  My pelvic floor muscles -- the ones that act like a hammock and keep all my innards from falling to my knees -- were so contracted that sex was really painful.  In addition to the immobility/lack of stretchiness which would have an obvious impact, the tense muscles had reduced their own blood flow, so things like estrogen couldn't get to the area.  So talk about no libido or pleasure.  We were just getting to the point where the pain was going away (vaginal physical therapy!!) and I was getting less fearful of the pain, and we could have actual fun sex... so we could have a baby.  And then infertility hit us and two years of TTC took a terrible toll on our precarious sex life. I don't know why I went into so much detail about that, except to maybe explain the benefits of therapy.  I could never have gotten through all that anxiety and anger and resentment and pain without having someone to talk to about it.  And my psychologist, let's say she knows me pretty well at this point. Last Friday I went to see her and we agreed that I was in a pretty useful state of denial.  I told her I felt like the two week wait, and indeed, the whole IVF process, was just a way of life now.  I had no expectation that it would produce a pregnancy.  After 2 years, 3 IVFs, 1 IUI, 5 months of Clomid, it was pretty clear to me that no babies were on their way.  I just kept going with all this because it was better than not trying.  Deep down, of course, OF COURSE I am hopeful that this will produce a baby.  But in my day-to-day "couch rest" and wandering around the world, I don't have that expectation. So I told her about last Wednesday, when I had a terrible, terrible day.  James had griped at me the night before about my 10 minute escapade in which I got up from the couch and cooked a very simple, healthy dinner.  I griped back that I was not going to be held responsible, because of that, if the babies didn't stay.  Wednesday I started stewing about that, and about myriad things.  Tuesday night, when I was in such a needy and peevish state, James had said that he wanted a blow-job.  Yes, he has to ask in advance.  I asked what he would do for me.  He said anything.  I said, "come to the gym with me."  He said, "Okay, but you have to accept something sexual from me."  I got in a bad mood and said that I was in a precarious enough mental condition; now was not the time to negotiate the return of our sex life. So on Wednesday I also started fixating on how I would want to have sex with James if he lost weight. I got mad at him for being fat; he's technically "morbidly obese" as of recently.  In the four years that I've known him, he's gone from 240 to 310 or more.  Doh!  I love him dearly, but if he wants to talk about sexiness, well, I do have that suggestion. In addition to my anger about James's weight, I also just had a general-purpose anxiety.  I hated being in my body.  I've posted before about how my depression, when it was bad, made me aware of my wrists as things to hurt.  Not that I would do that in real life, but this mental, chemical imbalance of mine knew to make myself aware of my vulnerable body parts.  Wednesday I did what I've never done before: as I was driving and yelling at other drivers and otherwise being miserable, I bit my hand and my wrist.  I left a mark and I looked at it for the fifteen minutes it took to go away.  I just felt I had to do something to get rid of this horrible negative energy.  If I'd been so miserable on a normal day, I'd have taken a half a Xanax pill.  That's anti-anxiety and works in 15 minutes.  Back when I was starting the Great Depression, I called it my "stop crying" pill.  Now I feel the need for a half a pill about once every six months, or less. But these days I have little buns inside me.  They've only been there a week, and I've even given up my Diet Cokes for them.  I'm damn sure not going to be putting a Xanax into their environment. And so I stewed and sewed and made it through the day.  And on Thursday I was much, much better.   On Friday when I told my therapist this, she was really taken aback when I said I'd bitten my hand.  She said that she'd never seen me with this much anxiety under the surface, especially when I was supposedly in "denial."  Obviously, she said, the 2 years, 3 IVFs, 1 IUI, 5 clomid cycles... that could make me think it would never happen, or that could make me think that EVERYTHING was riding on these buns now!  I think she has a point.  As we all know, the 2WW is a terrible, terrible time.  And if I think I'm having a nonchalant, easy time with it, well of course I'm wrong. When I was thinking aloud about the things that could have prompted such a bad day, I mentioned that my SIL had come over on Monday to entertain and cheer me up while I was on bedrest.  I thought it was really sweet of her, since we'd been avoiding each other in her first trimester because it was so sad for me.  She wanted to make this gesture and be friends and be there for me.  So yes, I told her to come on over.  She brought me a present.  A "Mozart for Mothers-to-Be" CD.  And a bag of Starburst.  I concentrated on the Starburst.  I eventually started using the CD in its case for a coaster. When I mentioned the CD in therapy, I felt the sensation that I was about to cry.  Therapy is so good because you find out the way you feel when you don't even know it.  Of all the things I had talked about and gone through in the week, the CD made me feel like tears were on their way?  And yes, they were.  Through sobs I told Dr. Brown -- and myself -- that Erin had breached an unspoken code that we infertile women live by.  Don't get ready for pregnancy.  Don't keep stockpiling stuff that you'll need when you're pregnant.  Yes, we all started out doing it, but if you keep adding "Mozart to Mothers-to-be" to your collection, that would seem to indicate that you think it will really happen.  And what if it doesn't?   So technically, I suppose I'm pregnant, or at least I was within 48 hours of the transfer, when Erin came over.  But it's been almost a week since the transfer now, and I have no expectation that the buns are still in there.  How could she have given me something that was geared toward pregnant women?  Doesn't she know this doesn't make me pregnant?  Doesn't she know that I'm not going to get pregnant... that I'll never be pregnant? Yes, imagine this through sobs, through a neatly-folded Kleenex. Of course I feel this way.  But denial is so much more fun. One more week to beta, friends.