PerchanceToDream

8dp5dt

At least mine is.

My beta is tomorrow.  My last day of work is Tuesday and we leave town right after.

I’m uneasy and unsettled.  I feel like I’m in the midst of a swirling cloud of questions:

Will my beta be positive? If so will it be a viable pregnancy? If so will I be a good mother (you know, the kind that all the other kids’ friends like….I was fortunate that my dad was like that and I hope that I would be as good).

Will this new job work out or will I kill my new boss in the first week (a distinct possibility as his lack of planning and organization is already making me insane)? Will I be able to pay off my debt on this salary? Will hubby find a good job. If we have a child will he realize that part-time childcare isn’t a horrible thing if it means he can work and keeps us from declaring bankruptcy?

Will I grow to like Nashville? Will our marriage thrive or flounder there? We seem to do best in places where I’ve got a firm base of operations (job, friends, life in general).

I had a few hours to myself last night and decided to get a hair cut and walk around a bit. I did wander but not enough to properly say goodbye to New York. This city has been able to get me through a lot of hard times; I am different here than I am anywhere else.  In a good way. I’ve been ticking things off my “places we have to go to again before we leave”.  Some of them we’ve skipped because sitting in a dark bar just isn’t so much fun if you can’t drink (why am I always in the midst of a cycle when I most want to be able to go out?). But it’s hard to capture a city in isolated places.

The last time I left New York, to move to England and marry hubby, I didn’t know if I’d be back. Having had the chance to live here for a few more years has made leaving all the harder.  I know that there are things to look forward to (with luck, there will be pregnancy to look forward to which should do a nice job of distracting me!). But for now I’m trying to find a way to walk away from here without it hurting so much and I’m failing.

My next post is going to be password protected. Basically I need to rant without having to then deal with the reactions from concerned real-life friends and family (mostly my dad whom I love dearly but who already thinks I’m stressed out enough!).

I’m fine.  All is well.  I just need a venting session.

Any interested parties can e-mail me at perchancetodream2 at gmail dot com for the password.

4dp5dt

…not a heck of a lot.

Yeah, I’ve got that kinda full abdominal feeling. And yeah, my stomach is a little….odd…but, none of my usual HCG symptoms are present (typically the tingly chest thing is the give-away and I just have the mild progesterone soreness).

I’m preparing for the bad news on Saturday that this will be a failed IVF. Which doesn’t mean that I’ve given up hope because that’s a huge character flaw with me - I always have a secret hope that things will work out in the end. Which means that I’m often disappointed.

I’ve had to write Dr. Celebrity to request an end of the week phone call to discuss either (a) who to arrange my 3rd beta with in Nashville and how to proceed or (b) whether using the 2nd IVF on the grant is worth it now that we’ve had a look at my highly average eggs.

In most ways, I’m very glad that it is still Monday. This weekend will be the beta and perhaps the end of this part of my dream for a child. It will also be our last weekend in New York which a friend aptly referred to as “a type of death”.

People keep asking me if I’m excited about the move and that’s such a complicated question.  I can picture hubby and me sitting, surrounded by candles and a firepit, on the deck of our rented townhouse, enjoying the quiet of a summer night.  Something we certainly can’t do in NYC. I see us cuddling on the couch in front of our roaring fireplace in the winter (or what passes for winter in Nashville).  I picture watching the dog watching squirrels and running through the backyard and the cat sitting, looking longingly out the screen door.

I look forward to all of that.  I look forward to most of the challenges that will be involved with my new job and that aren’t related to my new boss’s flakiness.

And there will come a time, when I’m happy in our new life. (I hope anyhow).

But the sadness that I’m feeling at leaving everything here is pretty much all pervasive. Everything I’m doing I’m doing for what may be the last time here and I hate that thought.  I’ve lived in many places: Michigan, Chicago, Washington DC, England, New Jersey and New York. And for all the things I hate about it, New York and I are linked in a similar way to that of me and Michigan (where I was born and lived through college). Its just a part of me and I of it.

I know that there is some sort of literary parallel here.  These two issues coming to a head at the same time are doing so for a reason and I’m sure that there is a subtext that I could learn something from if I could quiet my brain enough to sort through it.

But I’m currently (a) plowing through packing and the multitude of loose ends that need to be sorted before next week and (b) trying to monitor symptoms and prepare myself for whatever comes from my beta on Saturday because I’m going to have to pull myself together to deal with our going-away get together Saturday night and the movers on Sunday (not to mention work and a cross-country trek).

I think I’ll put aside a weekend in August to sit on our new deck and sort all of this out. I can’t imagine having the time before then.

2dp5dt

And now the obsessing starts.

No, not about insurance.  I’ve already contacted the major companies who laughed and told me that no one offers any sort of pre-natal coverage for temporary insurance.  Gotcha.  So either I’m not pregnant and I’ll go the cheap route or I am and COBRA it is.

No, now I’m obsessing about symptoms/lack of.

Yesterday I felt delightfully crampy, burpy, etc.  We went to our last Broadway show while we’re living here and hubby got a beer, the smell of which made me queesy.

Then we walked and walked and walked.  That wasn’t the plan but even 14 years of living in New York doesn’t mean that you remember where all subway stops are, particularly on lines you never usually take.

Today I had to get up to go to the clinic for my progesterone check (I guess it was okay because they didn’t call me), then to acupuncture and then home. And….the cramps are gone. Still a little burpy, have some cm, and TIRED (but then I was up late last night, up early this morning and hey, we’re still packing!).

I know that implantation is meant to take place today or tomorrow. And I know all the stories about people who have no symptoms. But I don’t ever believe that I’ll be one of them.

For now, we wait. Seven days to beta. Nine days to move.

We have a tentative going away meet up planned at a favorite pub for next Saturday, the day of beta. I’m either going to be not drinking and on cloud nine or sobbing into my beer. Feel free to tell me that I’m out of my mind for doing all of this at the same time.

A big thank you to all of you who have posted your good wishes, particularly Infertility Bites who reminded me that somehow the logistics/finances always work out somehow.  I’m going to try not to focus on them for the remainder of this week…..