fuckitall part two, with a dash of SOS

Drowning.

In tears, snot, and blood.

I am now having my third or fourth spell of bleeding in 5 weeks (I can't even call them "periods" because well, a period implies a cycle, some sort of pattern, and there is NONE here). This last "cycle" was seven days of bleeding, five days of not, and now I'm bleeding again.

My doctor has been extraordinarily helpful, in as much as he can help - because there's very little he can offer other than the referral to the Reproductive Endocrinologist, which he already arranged (I go on January 4.) He doesn't want to put me on hormones now because while it would regulate my cycle it would prohibit the RE from gathering any good/true reliable testing information. So I just have to wait until then to see what the h-e-doublehockeysticks is going on with my body. The OB offered me another ultrasound to see if there is retained tissue, though I've already had two and it looks like a normal uterine lining to him...just that I build it up and break it down in a matter of minutes. He doesn't think an u/s is necessary, he just is trying to offer me some reassurance that things are not catastrophically bad. He does want me to go get a pregnancy test, not because he thinks I am pregnant but rather that I could still be producing HCG in some really effed up twist of cruelty or something like that. But of course labs are closed because it's christmas for crying out loud. I'll go next week I guess. (And yes, since you and everyone else seems to want to make sure of this: I am taking my iron supplements. Yes, the digestion-friendly liquid yummy version.)

This spell of bleeding, like the last ones, sent me into a tailspin. I can't handle these tailspins with the frequency and intensity that they seem to be coming right now. Every glimmer of hope that I might be someday able to have a regular cycle and someday try to conceive and someday get pregnant and someday have a living, take-home baby - every single glimmer of hope that that someday might happen for me get suddenly and completely shattered when I realize that my hormones are doing ANYTHING but getting themselves balanced. And it sends me into a really dark despair. Really. Dark. More Duck and Cover crouching in corners. More eyes crusted shut with tears. Less ability to eat, get dressed, speak, think, breathe.

My therapist and I talked a lot about meds today. My best friend (who is very much NOT a western med pill pusher) and I talked a lot about meds today. They both seem to be leaning towards my trying them. My husband seems to be leaning towards me not. (Which is interesting, because in my last foray onto them, four years ago, he was a staunch believer and supporter in their efficacy. I have to believe, somewhere, that he knows me best and I should maybe just trust his judgment on this one...)

I have no fucking idea. I am just so miserable, and I'm having trouble seeing any light at any end of any tunnel, or even believing that a light exists. Shit, I don't even believe that a tunnel exists. I just pretty much believe that I have forever been destined to live in a deep cavernous hole of muck and dirt and black tar and ooze and sludge and monsters and demons and sad sad sadness. No tunnel, no light.

Weighing possible pros and cons of meds....Pros: A little bit of breathing room. A little bit of space to function (eat, sleep, shower = things I've been getting a little "can't be bothered" with). Decreased anxiety while I slog through this bit of waiting to ttc. (It's gotten pretty bad.) Perhaps less physical pain, too (depressed posture = aching back.) Cons: I gained 20 pounds last time I was on ADs. I am still about 15 lbs higher than my pre-pregnancy weight, and one of the things that I find tricky right now is how I look at my postpartum heavier body and feel really sad about it. I don't want to ttc on ADs, so I'd have to taper off before that. Tapering off last time SUCKED - I had brain zaps and headaches like nobody's business. I don't know if I'm actually depressed, or if this is just grief. It's starting to feel more universally debilitating, which is why I suspect depression. Another con: last time, my cycles got really screwed up while on the meds. I've already got that base covered, but I don't want to mess it up more. Up in the air: I have no idea if they'll help. I will have no way of knowing if its the meds helping or time passing, since I suspect that things might feel better for me just with the passage of this next few weeks of time. Moving away from the holidays. Away from the darkest day of the year. I just don't know.

Not to mention that I don't have faith in anything working one way or another, either. I pretty much figure whichever path I choose, I will regret it and think that the other one was probably a better path. I thought I was making the best, wisest, most informed decisions when I chose to labor the way I labored with Otis. And he died. So how the fuck am I supposed to expect to make wise, informed decisions and believe they might have positive outcomes?

What I do know is that this is totally and completely unbearable. Everything hurts.