Hot Flashes and Heartbreak

As fall is happening all around me, I just have one thing I would like to share with the world: hot flashes are really. really. dumb.

Oh,yes. I am now having real, honest-to-goodness, menopausal hot flashes.

If you know me, then you know that I have a very small temperature range in which I am comfortable anyway, and my crazy body swings from being cold with frozen feet to sweating-like-I-ran-a-marathon hot in abut 60 seconds. So adding actual hot flashes, as you might imagine, isn't working that great for me.

After my surgery at the beginning of September, Hubster and I opted to try a therapy called Lupron, a shot which essentially told my ovaries to cool their jets and stop producing estrogen. Since estrogen drives Endometriosis, this causes the Endo to GO AWAY, which is awesome. However, halting the production of estrogen is also what your body does when it goes into menopause...

The good news? No more Endo, which significantly increases the chances of getting pregnant in a few months when this therapy is over.

The bad news?

Hot flashes. The cover-you-in-sweat-and-wake-you-up-at-night kind of hot flashes.

LAME.

At the risk of sounding whiny for a moment: Endo has very efficiently caused me several symptoms of pregnancy in the past, like peeing all the time and raging hormonal mood swings, except without the bonus of a sweet baby at the end of it all.

Now, Endo is very efficiently causing me to suffer the symptoms of menopause, except without the benefit of the awesome your-period-goes-away-forever.

WTH?!?!?!

Of course, my doctor assured me that they can give me add-back therapy if the hot flashes get out of control, which involves further monkeying with my hormones. Or I can use several natural remedies like Essential Oils and Acupuncture (I would be SOAKING IN A VAT of Young Living's Progessence Plus, if I could. As it stands, frequent application seems to be helping).

So once again, I seem to be stuck in this place of "no longer and not yet." It seems to be the theme for my life this year. I am not a pregnant woman, nor am I menopausal one, despite the fact that I seem to be lingering in this weird between-land. An in-between land that now includes hot flashes.

And to further complicate what is already a fairly complicated situation, I cannot become a pregnant woman in the next three to six months for sure.

While on the one hand, three months of not trying to get pregnant feels like a vacation; on the other, it feels like a whole new round of pure and utter heartbreak.

Early this week I had my follow up appointment with my OBGYN to check in post-surgery. My incisions are all healing great, I feel good, and my good doctor tickled pink with the results of the surgery.

He was practically giddy when he said, "The laparoscopy went great, your endo is a classic case and we got it all, and the Lupron will take you into March, so we might be looking at ovulation stimulation as early as June. We could have a baby next year!"

Then he paused and reconsidered, "Well, 2017, because it would be a mid-winter due date, but pregnancy next year!"

He was grinning at me, so I smiled back at him. But while his smile was from genuine excitement, mine was to keep from bursting into tears.

I left that follow-up feeling totally heartbroken.

We started treating my Endometriosis two years ago, which is when my OBGYN started talking about our plans for pregnancy. Hubster and I have two years of all this fertility business under our belt.

Having a baby in the Winter of 2017 means that a baby is still a year and a half away. And for me, that feels like an overwhelming amount of time.

And let me say this: I know there are others out there that have suffered through far longer and far more complicated ordeals of infertility struggles. It's all relative, and keeping perspective is key. But I have come to find that just because it can be worse doesn't negate the fact that it is still pretty bad.

I came home from that appointment feeling so overwhelmed with sadness. As it was, my appointment happened to fall on my husband's birthday last week, so I had only a short time to myself at the house to start making dinner and get myself pulled together.

As much as I wanted to climb in bed and have a good cry, the heartache would have to wait for another day. The day was Hubster's birthday, and that was going to be the focus of my attention and emotion.

Hubster and I celebrated his 35th birthday with a homemade German chocolate cake and the bacon-wrapped meatloaf he loves so much (the bacon-wrapped meatloaf that, by the way, I am pretty sure clinched the deal on Hubster deciding to marry me. It really wasn't a fair fight...I trotted out my pistol, my toolbox, and then hit him with the bacon-wrapped meatloaf as the coup de grace).

But since then, the heartache has been visiting me on and off. My Facebook feed is filled regularly with pregnancy and newborn announcements, photographs, and musings. A couple at our church is preparing to greet their second baby this week. A gal I work with is pregnant right now.

I don't begrudge anyone their baby experiences. I am happy for others just as much as I am sad for myself.

Yesterday, an old friend from back home posted a thoughtful paragraph about her new role as a mommy, and her words made my chest ache. She explained her adoration for the newborn in her arms and her feeling of being overwhelmed, and ended saying that she is learning about just how unprepared she was for motherhood. She talked of her feeling of sheer dependency on the Lord each day as she faces this new journey.

Her post brought tears to my eyes, for its honesty, for her experience, for the way I ache so deeply to be in that same situation myself.

I longed for the baby that we haven't welcomed yet, I hurt for the difficulty of this journey, and I grieved for my sheer inadequacy in the midst of it all. Never have my own limitations and shortcomings become so apparent to me as they are now, while we struggle to conceive a baby. I am forced often to take mental inventory of my life, to really push to enjoy the present and be focused on all the good things that are around me.

The grief of infertility is with me always, and it feels like carrying around an awkward item. I'm always shuffling and juggling to make room for it.

So, as October dawns (my favorite month, because: pumpkins, fall, sweaters, boots, ANNIVERSARY, and so many more), my heart is aching over the grief we still face, despite this baby-making vacay that hormone therapy has provided.

And my stupid body is sweating, because: HOT FLASHES.

I am treating the hot flashes with oils and keeping something close at hand to fan myself off.

I'm not sure there's treatment for the heartache, but I think I'm learning to live in the space that's no longer and not yet.