Hey everyone,
I've got myself in a pickle at the worst time possible.
This is kind of linked with my hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue so please forgive the random tangent I go on as I explain.
This is to do with the adrenal fatigue and panic and stress that comes with being hypo (I'm on NDT, DHEA with pregnenolone, and supped up to my eyeballs with every vitamin and mineral you can think of)
I've been very Zen lately, keeping to myself, trying to stay relaxed for my last round of egg collection to try and create an embryo to use with a surrogate. This has been a long, long journey of trying to conceive for ten yrs (and we've tried in the past with another surrogate with no success - but that was before my hypo and adrenal fatigue diagnoses). As I have such a low ovarian reserve and don't react well to drugs I've been doing natural ivf with tiny amounts of medication to supplement. Last month we got a healthy looking embryo and this month was to be the last go (hoping to get one more at egg collection in nine days). With the plan to do genetic testing on these two embryos. We did four rounds prior to that and only got one embryo with normal chromosomes (which is apparently understandable as I have a very, very low ovarian reserve so mutations can occur, despite being 39).
The problem is that I get very stressed so have been keeping to myself to maintain the Zen. But two days ago a surrogate who I'm friends with texted me asking me 'hypothetical' 'general' questions about whether we'd consider moving our embryos to a clinic nearer 'a' surrogate and what was our opinion of a surrogate asking their intended parents to wait until Jan 2017 before doing an embryo transfer. This was all unofficial and not her asking about 'herself' and can't be an official offer to help anyway as she only just had a baby for another couple in December (the org we're with have strict rules about not offering to get to know a new couple for at least three months after a birth and then three months of a 'get to know' then follows). (ahem, yeah right, she then went on to tell me she'd been told she could perhaps drop subtle hints - subtle as a sledgehammer).
But I'm so upset she mentioned this to me now because she knows how stressed I get and that we had a disasterous cycle back in Oct when my adrenals crashed so badly with stress that my DHEA and Pregnenolone dropped to low levels of a 70-80yr old, according to my doc. And he told me this was because stress uses up these hormones - but worst of all those are the hormones the body would use to create normal sex hormones - oestrogen etc. I was prescribed a slightly higher dose of DHEA and pregnenolone and after a few months off I was feeling great (I obvs really needed those hormones). And so we got this healthy 'looking' embryo last month (though the chromosome make up is yet to be judged).
I have nine days left before the next collection and I'm a complete mess stresswise. I've since found out from another friend that the surrogate is focused on us alone so she wasn't in fact collecting opinions from a few people but wanted to sound me out on this caveat of delaying until next year. So for that reason I don't know why she hasn't waited until my cycle was over before steamrolling in with this hypothetical offer which she's not allowed to even make yet. It's a very stressful experience hoping to be picked by a surrogate and so I've purposefully stayed away from the diaries and chat rooms this time around until I'd got the ivf out of the way and so I'd confided in her and said we planned to really go for it, writing and socialising with the community, after the last ivf was done. This is why I think she's jumped the gun - in a way to lock us down so no one else will offer. We know this has happened with a number of other couples over the last few years and once you start a get to know (even one which will stretch to 9 months in this case) another surrogate cannot offer to help us.
Okay, so my point, all I can think of is why has she done this now. If we really were friends she'd have waited a couple of weeks. She can be quite clumsy and blunt with things she's said in the past so now I'm questioning if she's the right person when she just had to wait two weeks and then I could've focused solely on her. And can I wait another year? Because of all my adrenal fatigue and hypothyroidism and other health issues we had to take a break from the organisation back in 2011. We rejoined in 2013, and it's taken until now to finish 6 more egg collections (this last one will be my 12th!!) so waiting another year just seems too much to bear. But what a big decision to say no to her.
Over the last two days I'm having palpitations, chest pains, I can't get oxygen into my lungs and I'm doing that sighing thing that so many hypo sufferers do desperately trying to suck in oxygen, my muscles are tight and twitching and I've woken at 4.30am this morning and didn't get to sleep until 2am. I've now got a fever from stress and lack of sleep. I'm basically self sabotaging my last cycle of ivf and despite every friend and family member telling me I need to set aside this bomb she's dropped on me and focus on relaxing for the ivf, I can't. I can't stop thinking about this pseudo offer of help. Something that probably doesn't really fit with our ideal plans anyway but is a chance in a million.
Basically, despite me even trying Valium that I had from the doc (yes I know it's really bad for us thyroid sufferers) it's not really even lasting for more than half an hour before the panic in my chest starts again. It feels like I'm cortisoled to the hilt!
I'm taking plenty of magnesium, ashwagandha, rhodiola rosea, B12 and iron and zinc and D3 and more.... So I was just wondering if anyone has any other ideas for me to try and get my body to shift out of adrenaline, panic and stress mode over the next couple of days? I urgently need to find some Zen.
Sorry, I know this is a horribly long and probably somewhat off topic post but I'm hoping someone might have a relaxation tip I haven't thought of.
Thank you!
X
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Excellent article on Stress and ways to manage this.
