It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you...without a dope beat to step to. And for this I apologize. But the truth is I lost my rhythm there for a while. Coming down after my disappointment at my third attempt/first IUI when everything that made the attempt even possible at all indicated (or so I believed) that my last chance would be the last chance I'd need...To say that I was depressed seems like an understatement, to say the least. I mean, comparatively, maybe I wasn't at an all-time-low sort of depression like I was during the second half of college and the two years that followed. No pushing people away. No really bad and simultaneously grim/melancholy poetry was written (unless you count this blog). No suicidal thoughts or being angry and/or sad to wake up in the morning. What I did feel the same (or at least similar) was the inkling that I was letting both myself and my family down. The feeling that there is/was something specific about me that was making things just not work out the way I felt they should, even though I couldn't quite put my finger on what that something may be/have been.
I didn't push people away, but I was/am stranded in Hong Kong, so I don't really have anyone here to push. I knew three people living in Hong Kong before I moved here. One I'd long considered to be one of my most trusted friends and confidants who's turned out to be a ghost. She seemed excited for my move before I came, but hasn't materialized in any way, shape, or form since my actual arrival nearly eight months ago. If it weren't for outside confirmation, I might have persuaded myself to believe that she was a figment of my own imagination. In a way, I suppose she was...the other two friends here never hear from her either. She's become a myth. Another friend who lives a little bit of distance away and whose schedule is so at odds with my own that we only touch base sporadically and through e-mail. And a third who is a bit of an anchor point for me here, though she'll soon be setting sail on another journey to another land. I didn't push her away, but I didn't go out of my way to get in touch with her all the time either. I was upset about my third failed attempt (which may be my last attempt until I make a break for it and quit Hong Kong altogether who knows how far into the future). I didn't want to 1) be the mopey friend who brings the room down just by being in the room, and 2) over-burden the only real friend I have here with a lot of emotions she can't relate to and therefore may not be able or willing to hold my hand through.
I definitely wasn't having suicidal thoughts or anything even remotely close. I wasn't angry or sad to wake up in the morning. But I wasn't happy either. I was indifferent. Indifference has a way of being far more insidious. There are support groups and forums and prevention hotlines and therapies and pharmaceuticals to help deal with depression. No one really seems to notice the negative effects that indifference can have on a person's life. But I guess indifference was my way of dealing with (or more to the point, not dealing with) the fact that my quest toward motherhood was at a stand-still. Can't make babies solo in Hong Kong. Can't/won't leave Hong Kong even though I continue to miss New York like a regretful ex. Even if I did leave Hong Kong, I'd be heading back to the states jobless and homeless; so it's not like I'd be in a good position financially/situationally to jump right back into the baby-making game. So I lingered on the periphery of existence. I woke up every day and went to work (and I do love my job, thank God). I continued seeing my acupuncturist/herbalist and taking my vitamins daily to keep things in order and physiologically ready for a baby to happen at any moment. I continued updating my BBT chart. I continued to go through the motions of living my life, all while isolating myself in the tiniest apartment I've ever lived in and eating my ice cream-covered feelings on a nightly basis.
And then we got closer and closer to birthday season...For those of you that don't know, my birthday is my favorite day of the year. It's a high holy day in my life and times. I start advertising about my birthday (generally) around six months beforehand in the previous November. Now, this year I had all manner of reasons to continue being depressed and/or indifferent around my birthday. I'm in a place I don't really want to be, on the other side of the planet from all of the people with whom I would have liked to have been celebrating. I knew only three people in HK, and only one of those was even responding to my e-mails and texts...and she was planning to be out of the country for about ten days during the height of birthday season. Was I upset? Yes, but...I don't know. I guess no matter what the situation is, I'm always happy about my birthday. I may not be happy to be living where I'm living, but I'm happy to be living and celebrating another new year. The other side of that coin is that I started my TTC journey with the full intention of being somebody's mother this time this year. So, that was something that I had to let go of. And look to the future. Make a plan of attack. Maybe not attack, but some kind of a plan for sure.
Well, the inkling of a plan materialized not too long after my last best hope of getting knocked up for Christmas didn't pan out. My lovely sista-friend/donor buddy/confidante & supporter of all things baby-making-related, Miss T., was looking into the possibility of moving on from IUI's to IVF. Un-widen your eyes...I'm still on the IUI track. But T's been at this a bit longer and more consistently than I have, and she's ready for the next step. Put a baby in there already!! - know what I mean? What does this have to do with yours truly then, you ask? Well, T lives in California where pretty much no insurance company covers IVF, regardless of how long or to what extent you've been trying. So T was thinking of maybe going to Thailand to do her IVF. Apparently, IVF in Thailand is about 1/3 of the cost that paying it out of pocket in California would be. She's since decided to go to Barbados (BarbadosIVF.com) for her IVF, since the travel will be less expensive and they seem to have whole package deals for "Fertility Vacations" all mapped out. Barbados isn't as close to me, though, so I've been looking into Thailand to do the next round of IUI - possibly medicated this time. Not sure yet. We'll see.
The truth is, this has been on the menu since just before I tried my IUI at Christmas time. I had even reached out to a few clinics/hospitals in Thailand to see what their programs and protocols were. Now ask me if I ever ended up sending all of my medical records to any of these places for their physicians to review and get back to me with a suggested plan of action....Nope. I can only chalk it up to my depression and indifference and more feet-dragging enui. Part of the reason for that is I had hoped to try Thailand by April. I knew that I would have at least one 4-day weekend off from work that month and if I could work with a Thai doctor remotely, I might be able to get it handled. That just was not to be. I got hit with a bloodwork/urinalysis bill from the midwifery practice that was nearly twice as much as it cost me to have both IUI's and acupuncture treatment done. Seriously??? On top of that, my pay here in HK is directly deposited into my account here, but I also have arranged for my boss to transfer part of my salary to my US account in New York since that's the one that pays my student loans and credit card bills. The catch: my salary in HK is paid monthly on the first of each month. The US funds are deposited quarterly, and they're not automatically scheduled. My boss has to put them through himself. So I got my US pay for the first quarter of the year closer to the END of that quarter. Quick, ask me how much of my quarterly deposit has been made for the second quarter so far...suffice to say, the payment is still not fully complete and the quarter is now nearly 1/3 over. I will try now not to rant about how they didn't have to beg me to move to Hong Kong, and they don't have to beg me to show up every day to raise, educate, stimulate, inspire, and love their children on a daily basis, so why do I have feel like I'm begging each quarter to get paid on time? *sigh* That's for another post altogether (possibly even for a whole different blog).
So anyway, when I realized early in the year that April would not be a possibility, I think that's when the indifference really took over. But April is my birthday month, and March really opens the whole birthday season. Even though I didn't anticipate enjoying my birthday at all over here, I really have been pleasantly surprised. And now I turn again to the future and my plans for it. Summer. I will go to France solo with the children this year so that they can visit their grandparents. I've always also gotten two weeks off either directly before or directly after the France trip. The key now is to solidify those plans with the family I work with so that I can determine which two weeks I'll be able to spend in Thailand and (hopefully) plan to get knocked up in and around that time.
And that, dear reader, is The Plan thus far...wish me luck!
