Renewal - Updated

It just struck me today how draining the last four years have been. How my general ability to be a good mother and wife have slowly been ebbed away, to the point that today, I realized I needed to renew my goals and outlook on the way I have been doing things in my life. Not that I have been a bad mother/wife, but slowly but surely many of the things I had prided myself on doing (with my son especially) I just got so tired of doing. So tired because it couldn’t be easy and “normal”.

Of course, things don’t ever come easy to everyone, but it seems we hit two major stumbling blocks in a row and had been trying to deal with them in tandem. It wasn’t just the infertility, which was a major factor, but dealing with issues concerning Michael and his (recently diagnosed) ADHD.

It struck me today that I need to Renew, because last night I think I finally had enough emotionally and mentally. Last night at 3 a.m., I started to obsess over baby–non-movement and over how we were going to get our son to be able to survive grade school. (Baby moved finally and my son will be fine, really, but things just seemed to be so impossible at 3 a.m.)

Today we went to his doctor to discuss how the latest treatment options have worked for Michael and his issues. We were reluctant to medicate, and we are slowly progressing with the doctor through various medications and doses. We have been cautious to make SURE it was ADHD, instead of labeling him right away. Just like we made SURE that we were having problems with our fertility before we tried treatment. Michael started having trouble when he was in kindergarten. His attention would get distracted and he wouldn’t want to stay seated and he would wander away from the classroom—one time exploring the elevator system at school. Yes, cute, even precocious but not “correct” behavior in the school setting. Slowly, slowly, while we pieced together what was going on with him, we were also going through our slow progress of trying to figure out why we weren’t able to have another child.

And we studied and worked and asked questions. We tried one type of solution. Then another. Did Michael need to have more time to do tasks? Did we need more alone time—perhaps dates? Why was Michael not able to relate to other kids? Did he need a sibling? More playdates? More monitoring of my cycles? Were we just bad parents? Bad lovers? Need to lose weight? Need to pay more attention to our son? To the school?

And we did what everyone said “was right”. The school said he should be tested. He was tested. Our doctor said we should go to a clinic. We filled the paperwork out and got tested. Michael was given an IEP (Individualized Education Program) and we were told how extremely smart he is (“Classic ADHD”). We found out we had “Classic Male Infertility” and that we were lucky to have had one child naturally. I was on the verge of being Diabetic if I did not lose weight, so that became a more important hurdle to face.

No wonder I felt like THIS and THIS.

And every time I tried, the harder it seemed to get back up. Every time we tried something, it would meet with only limited success. Lost the weight, no diabetes (Yeah!)---but, still no baby (Boo!). Michael had an IEP, but still had behavioral and attention issues. I found that I couldn’t deal with it. I lost interest in both struggles. I felt defeated. But somehow, and I am sure my husband and my son are the reason—somehow they made me try one more time. Once more. A doctor who diagnosed Michael and required the school to do MORE testing. A doctor who told us that IVF “could” work and we needed to try it. Two cycles of IVF. Two types of medications for ADHD. And we are getting there. Last night I was so worried, but frankly, I can see I just need to Renew.

UPDATE:

I hope I did not sound too depressed or whiney on this post. I was a bit drained yesterday. Being up in the middle of the night stressing and being pregnant (which this time around is even more exhausting for me—probably my age--hmm...actually, just found out I have anemia--taking iron supplements per OB) did not help. It was mainly cathartic to post this tho, and I am glad to be able to.

To end on a positive note:

Two things the Dr. said yesterday—

1) We have been and are on the right track with Michael, and she feels confident that we can help him. (and some of his issues are going to probably go away with maturity--which I can actually tell).

2) Informing her we were pregnant and Michael was going to have a little sister soon—she complimented me on looking so good (esp. for being on the cusp of third trimester).

I’ll take those as being signs to keep going and doing what we’ve been doing!