The Giant Bag

I had my calendar review yesterday and picked up my giant bag of supplies today. It feels like things are getting underway.

This giant bag had so much more in it than I am used to getting. This time I am following an aggressive protocol that requires lots of follistim with ganerelix to thwart ovulation. I do start with just a bit of lupron, and then there are a lot of subtle adjustments along the way, including some menopur as the cycle continues. I will also be taking a steroid, an antibiotic and an E2 suppository. Basically, you could put all this into a man and he would probably cough up some decent follicles.

I am still doing really well as far as maintaining my faux-blase (hmm, two French words in a row - I am practically bilingual, non?) attitude about the outcome. This is merely a scientific experiment, I tell you. Success is a possibility to be considered at a later time.

But the thing is, I know how much that's going to change. Those hormones have a devastating emotional effect on me. I become so desperate with hope that I can barely make it through a day without collapsing into my own sense of doom. I have read my journals from the times of other cycles, and it's like reading the diary of an insane person. It's not depression so much as hope, a hope that rises up because you are flooded with the very chemicals of hope.

I know that what's in that giant bag can change my life, can give me what I have wanted for seven years. But it will also crumble the buffers I've created to protect myself from seven years of disappointment and sorrow. I can tell myself that I am smart enough to know that my chances are slim, that being aware and being prepared will protect me from being disappointed. But I know it doesn't work that way.