Over It

For a long time a couple of years ago I had a burning pain in my lower abdomen and pelvic region. It was nearly constant and drove me completely batty. Over the last two years I've figured out that I tend to experience this pain when one of three things happens:

I eat gluten. I have celiac, and when I eat gluten I get the burning pain, although it is mostly confined to my digestive track.

When I eat dairy. My doctor and I both suspect (and suspect will be all we do unless it gets much worse again someday) that I have some endo on at least my right side. Before I stopped eating dairy I had the burning pain all the time and crippling pain during my period that turned to the burning pain if I indulged in some cheese. Cutting out dairy from my diet entirely eliminated 95 percent of the pain.

Miscarry. The burning sensation starts early, usually before I've even confirmed I'm pregnant. It gets steadily worse until I start bleeding. I've suspected gluten, I've suspected dairy and have controlled for those variables. My doctor believes it is inflammation and the odd and ever present white blood cells I have in my uterus.

For the last two days, I've been having that burning sensation.

Now. Something else is at play here: I think I may have a UTI. I'll spare you the symptoms, but I have also noticed that this burning sensation in my pelvis always coincides with my having just peed after having held my pee for an extended period of time - middle of the night, or a long shopping trip.

I suppose it's possible that the burning is linked to a UTI (which I will get checked out for if the cranberry supplements I'm taking and the acupuncture I'm going to request tomorrow don't help), but I just don't believe it.

I think this cycle will end like all the others: I'll get a positive test. I'll make it into week five - maybe even week 6! - and then lose it. Like all the others.

And I'm so done. Not done with wanting another baby or stopping the quest to get another baby, but done with the whole TTC thing. I don't think I can take another two weeks of anxiety, of analyzing every little last twinge. Of swinging from hope to despair.

Truthfully I was done after the last miscarriage last fall. We started tentatively discussing surrogacy/adoption/IVF, etc and then I had my last appointment with the RE who convinced me to give the current plan a try. I like plans, so I agreed.

Now the plan was to try 6 times with drugs, and if we didn't succeed, then take on the insurance company for IVF, which probably holds very good chances of success for us due to the (suspected) reason I miscarry.

I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can go through this 5 more times. My insurance requires 3 IUIs before paying for IVF, and IUIs would just be 3 really expensive miscarriages, so the plan was to call the insurance company after 6 tries with drugs and see if they would agree to skip the 3 IUIs. We can always pay for IVF out of pocket - at $6,000 it's still cheaper than adoption or surrogacy, but I'm really freaking DONE.

I want to move straight to adoption/surrogacy, even if it's more expensive. My husband has agreed that we can discuss this, BUT only after this cycle resolves itself. He is still hopeful this will work, you see. I laugh at his optimism and thumb my nose at his hope. As far as I'm concerned, it's over or it will be in just over a week from now.

I just want a baby. I don't really give a rat's ass about how the baby gets here.