First session of counseling

So, The Boy and I decided to see about finding a counselor to help us deal with the whole no biological kids thing. We set up an appointment for last Thursday and I thought nothing much about it for a while.

Total diversion that I promise has something to do with this story:
Long story short, one of the projects I've been working on for work had to be re-done. Eff! Oh, and things I needed for said project got delayed...and delayed...and delayed. In short, I had a 20 hour job to accomplish in roughly 24 hours. Wee! And since the universe enjoys giving me the finger (and I give it right the hell back) one more delay was added for good measure. Can you fit 20 hours into 12? I finally got what I needed at 9:30 am and had only until 4 p.m. of the same day to complete it to a presentable level, and 9 am to finish all the details. Now, I'm all for challenging oneself, but this was comical. I was pissy and frantic, but managed to complete said project in time (even getting in a whole hour of sleep!) and you would never have known that I hadn't spent a few weeks on it.

Here's how this ties into the counseling. I had to finish by 9 am, because that's when our session was, so I actually had to finish by like 8. So we had out first session of infertility therapy after I had been awake for close to 27 hours, working nonstop. Needless to say, the emotions were on edge.

Quick trivia question time! What has two thumbs and looked like walking death, thus making a totally awesome first impression with someone who reads things into every little detail of what is said and not said? This guy!

The session went much better than I expected. For starters I stayed awake and relatively lucid for the whole session. I am truly a wonder. The therapist was a younger guy (like 34 I think) who had been through the whole gamut of infertility with his wife and realized that finding a good therapist that didn't try to ream you with cost was tricky. He really was a super nice guy and we both liked him. We had to tell him our story, which went a little something like this:

Us- started trying just over a year ago
Him- Kind nod
Him *subtext*- Oh for cute...they're freaking out after only a year.
Us- Started infertility drugs after about 6 months
Him- Hmmm
*subtext*- You're young...why worry so soon?
Us- Endometriosis crap
Him- Knowing nod
*subtext*- That explains a bit
Us- IUIs, no more money, bad pain, endo showing up in ultrasounds, don't ovulate
Him- "Wow...so you guys have been through the ringer this last year"

As the session went on he asked us what the difficult parts of infertility were for us. We told him it was mostly social pressures. We really don't experience much trauma over being genetic dead ends, it's just impossible to escape all the pregnancies around us, particularly our relatives. We told him some of the stories I have already written about here and he was appropriately shocked at some of the things people have said to us.

I should say that the therapist, lets call him Dr. ExtraAwesome, has been through infertility with his wife, finally adopting two girls and now works with adoptive parents to make sure they are ready for adopting. Oh, and he is sarcastic (told us he used to mentally flip people off anytime they had some "advice"), and delightfully blunt. Can you say perfect fit?

I did find it entertaining that he made such a point to let us know that we are not alone and our feelings are common and justified. As he was saying it all I could picture was this:



As far as our plans for a future family, we are taking our time before making any big decisions. It's been nice to not have to deal with all this and focus on some other things, and I admit I don't feel a huge push to change that.