10 Things I've Learned from Infertility

1. For a former needlephobe, I am now a pro at getting my blood drawn. I still don't like it, but somehow I know which veins are good and where the tech will have the best luck (outside of my right elbow pit is a go-to spot!). Which is helpful because my veins can suck and not knowing the good spots results in lots of sticks.

2. I can say the words vagina, sperm, and ejaculate without blushing or batting an eye. I can say them in mixed company, I can say them to my mother or mother-in-law. They are as natural to me as sunshine, margarita, and music.

3. I have learned to be very, very efficient at work. I can't stay as late as I used to or do as much at home when I am embroiled in infertility treatments--I am too tired, too emotionally fragile, and I need to take care of myself first. I am not used to this, but I have realized that most things, if not finished today, can be finished tomorrow. I accomplish far more in my planning periods than I ever have in the past. I have let go and realized that I cannot (and should not) control every aspect of every thing. And I have learned to not apologize for that. It is what I need, and, quite frankly, I still rock the socks off my job.

4. I have learned to give myself injections quickly and without fanfare. The first injection took me 15 minutes--I counted down and then started over at a higher number over and over again. I couldn't plunge that needle into my tummy (even though it is relatively small and thin) without major anxiety. I needed moral support from my husband. Now I am a pro. I can inject myself while on the phone, in the car, talking to someone in the other room, and I can do it in seconds, not minutes. At least the subcutaneous 1/2 inch ones. The 1 1/2 inch scary intramuscular needle that goes into my hip/butt is still all about Bryce administering it--but I am not nervous about it anymore. Shots at the doctor's office? Used to hate them. Now? No big whoop. I could probably do it myself.

5. I have learned that infertility is a sisterhood that comes out of the woodwork when you open up about it. I have so many friends through support groups and email groups, but I also have friends at work or who I meet in classes or who send me notes via Facebook who are also going through this or have gone through it. I have forged friendships with these women or strengthened existing friendships, because while our stories are very different the heartache and difficulties are the same.

6. I have learned to ignore insensitive comments or advice. Usually people are very well-meaning, and that they said anything at all means that they care. If I think it helps, I will educate (on my particular situation and how it differs from their perception, on infertility facts and figures, on what really happens during procedures, on what options truly are). But if I don't think it will help, I smile and say (or write) thank you or change the subject and let it go. If it's a recurrent thing, I have learned to protect my well-being and to avoid these situations when I can. I am getting better at letting go.

7. I have learned that despite the odds stacked against us and the repeated failures that we face, that I can still have space in my heart for hopes and dreams. I have the ability to still think about baby names and think of nursery decor and create binders of useful articles from the magazines I bought for the vision board pictures. I can still walk into my guest room and envision it as a nursery and mentally move furniture in and out and around so that it is a baby's room with baby furniture and not the placeholder room it currently is. The dream is very much alive and I feed it every day.

8. I have learned more about the human reproductive process and all the detailed ins and outs of how embryos and fetuses come to be and all the techniques that can be used to assist that process than I ever thought I would need to. I know all kinds of crazy things about cycles, and follicles, and hormone levels, and sperm counts and quality, and timings for different processes. I have learned all sorts of details about early pregnancy (that I have yet to put into practice, but still, I know things) that most people don't even realize because they happen before the first OB appointment. And I have learned that I love to share this information and help others navigate this crazy process.

9. I have learned to be my best advocate and to speak up for myself. I have learned to respect expertise and authority but to question it and not worry about hurting someone's feelings. I have learned to ask question after question and not stop until I have the answers (or the admission that are no answers) I want and need. Am I a high-maintenance patient? Maybe. But I feel confident that I am getting the best possible care when I understand it fully and can stand up for my differences of opinion when it comes to my care, and have that difference respected.

10. I have learned that infertility is one of the biggest stressors I have ever encountered, and that I am so lucky to be going through it with my husband. As lucky as we can be to both be infertile and compound each other's dearth of properly functioning gonads. Because I can see why this process can tear apart relationships--how it can expose the weaknesses of your marriage and push you apart. I can see how there can be cycles of blame and guilt and inability to understand wild mood swings or infuriatingly even logical thinking. But I don't see that in my marriage. We have our ups and downs, to be sure, but overall I think that infertility has strengthened us. We are learning to be explicit in sharing our feelings, wants, and needs. We are learning how to diffuse each other. We are learning how to bring one of us out of the depths of despair and find new ways to cope. We are learning to love each other in the time of Infertility -- a turbulent, desperate, financially draining, self-absorbed time. But we are doing it, and building a strong foundation of love for the family I know we will have when all the stars align and the baby fairy finally graces our home.

How I Know It's Spring

When you live in Rochester, spring is a beautiful thing. It's the return of color after months and months of nothing but greys and browns. It's seeing the little green nubs poking up out of the thawing ground, promising an explosion of color in just a few weeks. It's hearing the return of the songbirds in the morning. And it's the re-emergence of people from our cozy winter hidey-holes--all frigid season long people are outside only to go from the car to the door or to take their dogs for quick, utilitarian walks. When spring is here, you realize you have neighbors again. They're out doing yardwork, out enjoying the long-lost sunshine, walking dogs without possibility of extremity loss, and just puttering around the neighborhood.

Spring has become difficult for me, though, because of this reemergence. Over the winter there were signs that people were having babies--Graco boxes by the recycling bins, shower balloons on the lampposts, "It's a Girl/Boy!" signs on doors, trees, and sticking up out of the snow. Every time I saw a signal of a new life in our neighborhood, it was like a little pinprick of sadness. But just a pinprick--a ripped-open pack-and-play box doesn't necessarily tug at the heartstrings. I didn't see swollen pregnant bellies walking around, showing me what I could have but for some reason just can't. It was too freaking cold.

But now, now it's warming up. People are coming out and there is an explosion of strollers, and slings.  Happy new families (or happy larger families) are out and visible and just so HAPPY and VISIBLE. I can't walk the dog without running into at least one and usually two newborns or under-6-month babies in their strollers, cooing and being cooed at by adoring moms and dads. There is a house around the corner that either is an in-home daycare center or it's an ongoing play group for the moms in the neighborhood. It is really hard to avoid this house due to it's location, but every time I pass it it's just a flurry of beautiful chaos--babies and toddlers and laughing and cooing and screaming and moms running after their bundled-up little ones. I swear, it's like there was a population explosion over the winter, everywhere but at our house. It's like every house I pass is an advertisement for the life we'd like to be living right now but, because biology is cruel and thwarting us at every pass, we aren't. It's salt, and lemon juice, and hydrochloric acid in my wounds.

But, I can't just stay inside or in my backyard and ignore the babypalooza that is the outdoors. I have to suck it up and racewalk past those strollers or take interesting routes to avoid passing the same meandering baby-drunk family twice on one walk. I have to blast Britney and FloRida and Justin Timberlake on my iPod so that I can concentrate on the beat in my ears and not the infectious laughter of young children or the "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" that isn't calling for me. I have to think over and over again, "I can sleep in and snuggle with Bryce on weekends. I can have unlocked cabinets and drawers. I don't need to get a babysitter to go to Maria's on Friday. We are free to enjoy each other and be selfish" to remind myself of the (very very few) benefits of being childless and pretend, PRETEND that these things are more desirable than being the happy, fresh family walking a dog AND a stroller.

One day we will be the fresh new family, and we will be babydrunk and have no free hands for morning coffee and will join the playgroup at the house around the corner (if they've not all outgrown playgroups at that point). One day we will join the population explosion. The question is, how many springs from now?

No-Baby Weight

I spent 30 minutes hula-hooping today and bought those crazy sneakers with the balance ball instability built into them. I looked like a crazy woman gyrating in my living room, scared the crap out of my dog, and will probably sprain my ankle before the week is out. Why this sudden flurry of questionable activity? Because I can't stand the No-Baby Weight I'm carrying.

Pregnancy and new parent magazines are full of articles and tips on losing the baby weight after your pregnancy has ended and your bundle(s) of joy is sweetly not sleeping in his/her crib. But what about my weight gain? The No-Baby Weight? I am pretty sure that every IVF I do I have gained about 8 pounds. I started this process 2 pants sizes ago. How does this happen? The medication can cause weight gain. The period when you are stimming and your ovaries are brimming with ripe follicles does not exactly inspire a body to go for a run. After egg retrieval you are too sore to exercise and after transfer you're terrified that if you exercise you will keep the embryos from staying and burrowing and making a nice home for themselves. After a negative test you just want to eat crap to get back at your body for not cooperating despite all the healthful eating and deprivation and conscientiousness you've endured over the past weeks and months preparing for the cycle (that, by the way, people who get pregnant while drunk on weekend trips or whatnot do not do at all). Or, you are just too depressed to get up off the couch and stop eating the bag of salt and vinegar chips or the gluten-free brownies that your loving husband made to cheer you up. This up and down and up and down and up and down of infertility treatment is exhausting, and it has a profound (and quite visible) effect on the body. It is so unfair because I have nothing to show for it except the memory of more than a few full sharps containers.

I was in the support group before yoga on Monday, and we got to talking about the weight gain associated with infertility. I brought up pants. Pants are why I am putting in an effort to be more active and eat a little better in the months leading up to my next IVF. Pants are incredibly irritating. Because I don't want to buy another set of pants in a new size. I want to buy MATERNITY pants, for the love of all that is holy. I want to believe that I will be buying maternity pants very soon, and will need my clothes budget for my whole new, sassy, very cute set of pregnancy pants and outfits. I don't want to blow my money on bigger pants for a nonpregnant, infertility-chubbed-up me. I am apparently not alone in my pants frustration, which was comforting. Especially since sometimes it feels like the other yoga ladies are untouched by the plague of fertilityfat--they look so lithe and beautiful to me.

So, I will step things up and hula hoop and yogify and walk in my slightly dangerous shoes that promise me a better butt, posture, and thigh toning. Because I want to spend my money on lots of those cute pregnancy outfits, dammit.

Yoga Love

I love, love, love going to yoga class. I have been unable to go for the past two months due to the Robotics build season and I have missed it terribly. My state of mind suffers when I can't go to yoga. My flexibility definitely suffers when I can't go to yoga. My ability to commune with a large group of women entrenched in the seamy underbelly of infertility suffers when I don't go to yoga. It was amazing to go back this past Monday and realize just how many benefits yoga for fertility brings me (and those around me).

• Yoga class allows me to truly, wholly relax. The combination of deep breathing, visualization exercises, poses that work specifically to increase blood flow to vital parts of my anatomy for conception and poses that work specifically to release tension in shoulders, neck, and hips allows for a full body/mind release. My body is stretched and strengthened and de-tensioned. My mind is quieted and concentrated on just the way air fills my core and is released--not on any of the worries and anxiety that race through my mind on a regular basis.

• Yoga class allows me to be selfish. Even though I am in a class with a group of people, almost all of us do yoga with our eyes closed. I don't know if this is everyone's experience but it is mine--I tune out everything but my breath, the music, and the voice of the instructor. I create a private space for myself where I can nourish my body and mind. I don't have to worry about the needy dog or my psycho cats (literally, by this weekend not one but both of my cats will be on Prozac) or what's for dinner or how I haven't vacuumed in a while. I don't have anything calling to me--unlike when I do videos. When you do a video you can't truly escape the animals in the house, the dripping of water off the ice damming, the dust you can see under the entertainment cabinet while in floor poses. In yoga class I am in a world by myself, just focusing on what my body is telling me and the depth of my breath.

• Yoga class allows me to create my special relaxation place. In final relaxation, we are encouraged to envision ourselves in a relaxing, peaceful place. I almost always use George's Pond at camp in Maine, and visualize myself floating on my back in the still water, looking up at the stars which are also reflected in the water around me. It looks like I am floating in a sea of stars, with the silhouettes of pine trees around the edges and the haunting call of loons serving as my soundtrack. It doesn't matter that I would never, ever actually float in the lake at night -- in reality that sounds terrifying to me. But in surreality, it's absolutely my go-to deep relaxation space. 

• Yoga class totally changes my state of mind. I can go into yoga class feeling discouraged, angry, sad, and just generally in a bad mood. I almost always leave yoga class feeling lighter, calmer, and more able to deal with this crappy hand we've been dealt. It is perfectly ok for me to feel discouraged, angry, sad, and bitchy--but these are feelings that need to be worked through and released eventually. Yoga helps me to get that release for my feelings in a healthy way. It has a cumulative effect--I felt much better after yoga on Monday but will most likely feel even better next Monday and the Monday after that as I allow myself to work through those feelings and tune myself to what my body and mind need. I have cried during final relaxation while releasing some of these feelings--allowing myself to experience them intensely and then just let them go. Going weekly helps me immensely because throughout the week things can happen that bring those feelings of sadness, anger, and frustration back--but I can always go back to yoga and start fresh on Monday. 

• Yoga class helps me to be a better wife. If I am able to center myself and feel a little less volatile and fragile emotionally, I am a hell of a lot easier to live with. I had a lot of anger from this past cycle. Anger that we aren't in the percentage of people who succeed on their first or second IVF attempts, anger at my body for failing me again, anger that we have to go through this incredibly draining process in order to have a chance of having a biological child. That anger boils up and spills out of me and regularly flays the one I love when left unchecked and unreleased. When I can get to yoga and work through that anger and release it with my breath in a guided setting, I am way less bitchy. I am back to being my normal, happy, goofy self. I am back to treating my husband like the wonderful, patient, loving, PATIENT, supportive partner he is. 

• Yoga class introduces me to a whole community of women. I am lucky--I have wonderful friends who are supportive and listen and help distract me from the needles and hormone swings and disappointments that pepper my daily life now. But very few of my friends have experienced infertility. And so they can be supportive, but it isn't intuitive--and they probably don't want to talk about follicles and embryo quality and how to survive infertility with your marriage/relationship in tact all the time. They can sympathize, but they can't empathize. This is where the support portion of yoga is invaluable. I have met so many women who are also going through this process both through yoga support group and the support group offered by my clinic. These are women who are traveling down the same craptastic road, and have the same challenges. We can help each other deal with hurts that come from inadvertent comments or situations that are perfectly normal to most but not to women going through infertility. It's a completely safe group where you can voice the things that people outside of fertility treatment might not understand, not fully. Sometimes you can ask one question about how to deal with a situation and be flooded with everyone's stories of how they had to deal with that same situation--it helps so much to not feel alone. And I love that support is now before yoga--we can rant and rage and vent and be venomous or cry and be totally depressed and then let the yoga heal us afterwards. Yoga also helps me be a better friend to my fertile friends--I can regain the energy to not consume every conversation with tons of fertility talk since I was able to release it. While I appreciate it greatly when my fertile friends express an interest in what's going on in my infertile world, I also appreciate that it probably shouldn't be the only thing I talk about.

Yoga is not an amazing infertility cure-all, but my yoga fertility class is such a healing balm for so much that ails me during this process. It is time consuming and guarantees that once a week I am embroiled in infertility, but it is totally worth it because it surrounds me in the positive. Monday I went into yoga feeling like I just couldn't take anymore and my supply of strength had just about run out, and left feeling once again like the infertility warrior woman I need to be in order to survive this. 

The Perils of Sharing

Sharing your fertility journey is a very personal decision. I know people who keep it all to themselves and a very select few, people whose families know but no one else, people (like me) who blab everywhere, and people who share but not specifics. It's a very personal decision that evolves over time. There is no right or wrong--but there are pluses and minuses for each way you can go.

Keeping it mostly to yourself can be isolating--you are going through this major ordeal and have to pretend like everything's ok. If you start dropping hints, like saying that you have a medical condition and leaving it at that, people will wonder but most won't pry past that. The deeper you get into infertility the harder it is to keep it a secret--the appointments expand exponentially, the physical toll on your body becomes apparent, your mood is a scary landscape that gets harder to paint over with rainbows and sunshine. You may have to go in for surgery or procedures and take a lot of time off work. But telling people at work is especially scary--who wants, especially in this economy, to give an employer heads up that you will hopefully be taking maternity leave soon? Not sharing means a sort of double life. The fertility-central life you lead in private, and the "hey, everything's fine" public life where people are constantly recommending vitamin C to you because of the excuses you give for not drinking at work or friend functions (lingering stomach bug, have a cold, on antibiotics, or the not-often-used-because-friends-will-suggest-AA "I can't think of drinking, boy was I trashed last night" excuse). People may say really insensitive things to you and not realize it's insensitive because they have no idea what you're going through -- a friend from yoga had someone bring in their baby to work, and while she was playing with the child they said, "See? Doesn't this make you WANT to have kids?" Ouch. It's exhausting to keep up with the not telling and not lose it on someone. But, it's also protective--you don't have people constantly asking you if you're pregnant yet, or when your test is, or whether you've considered surrogacy. (Thanks so much, Nicole Kidman, for bringing that front-and-center as now people think it is the next step if treatments aren't working out for you. Newsflash--surrogacy is difficult and prohibitively expensive for most normal people. Congratulations to you on your new baby, but oy.) You are isolated from the support people can give you, but you are also mostly isolated from the constant examination of your very personal journey.

On the other hand, if you are completely and totally open, as I have decided to be, it's not quite as freeing as it might seem. I don't have to live a double life. Someone asks why I'm not drinking and I'll say because I'm in the middle of a cycle. Most people I hang out with know and so I don't even have to mention it. Which is a relief. Sort of. The periphery people who know that I'm going through this journey but don't know the details can sometimes take me not drinking the wrong way--winks and raised eyebrows, like me not drinking is the equivalent of a joyous announcement. Nope, it's not. Telling people opens up a world of support that you didn't know was even possible--I have received notes and emails and messages of all kinds from people who I never knew would be so supportive and comforting during this time. People I haven't seen in years and years. People that I wasn't even super close with when I knew them back when. In a way, the more people that know are more people that can be thinking of you and sending you good energy. If I'm sad I don't necessarily have to explain it, because so many people know that I have the right to be sad. Having more people know what we are going through is great when we have good news, when we are ramping up for a new cycle, when we're reporting out developments in our treatment--but there is a flip side. More people knowing means that there are more people you have to tell when things don't go the way you'd hoped. It means that when you get a negative test, you have to repeat that news over. And over. And over. And it lasts for a really long time. Just this past week I went to get my hair cut and I forgot that I hadn't seen my hairstylist since before my last IVF cycle. In general most people talk to their hairstylists, and I am definitely no exception. She was super sweet about it, she didn't want to pry but asked how things were going, how they had turned out. I was a little caught off-guard because I thought my time of saying "No, nope, it didn't work out, AGAIN." was over. Now I had to sit there and explain that it didn't go well, that we had a very similar turnout from the last time despite a more aggressive protocol, and that we are doing another cycle but that it is getting harder to be optimistic. I love when people are interested--I can talk about it at length when someone seems genuinely interested in the topic. It makes me feel like less of a freakshow/sad sap when there is genuine interest. But I wasn't expecting to have this discussion a month later and while I am still so raw and to end up crying in the chair at Scott Miller. So, telling everyone can prolong your pain to an extent because you will always run into someone who knows what you are going through but not where you are, and it will catch you totally off guard and maybe send you into a new wave of deep blue funk.

The other thing about sharing is sharing at work. It is tricky, since you are always leaving for appointments and blood draws and you are hopped up on hormones and not acting like yourself, and you are sometimes just horribly withdrawn and teary. You don't want your coworkers to think that you are slowly losing your sanity. (You are, just for good reason.) You don't want people to start questioning your ability to do your job effectively. But you also don't want everyone to know at work. For me, work was the last to know because I needed it to be a place apart from all this. I needed to be able to compartmentalize. If you just suffered a loss and everyone at work is asking you "how are you?" it's very nice but it makes it extraordinarily difficult to keep it together and do your job. And when you work in a school, you have to be able to hold it together and you can't necessarily just take off early because you are emotionally spent. At least not all the time. But it's hard--people notice that you're not the same. People notice when you're out for days at a time for "medical procedures." People notice when you start gaining weight and in a school environment, if you got married recently and you're putting on a little weight around your middle people tend to think you're pregnant and waiting to announce. So is it better to keep it to yourself and endure the hinting questions so that work is a fertility-free zone, or is it better to spill the beans so that people don't ask you if you're pregnant or think you're a nutcase? Honestly, once you get deep into the meat of infertility treatments, there is no such thing as a fertility-free zone. For me it was easier just to tell the people I saw on a regular basis and tell school leadership on an as-needed basis. But I have to be specific--there are times when I just don't want to talk about it. And for the most part, everyone has been really great about understanding that. So should you tell people at work? It depends on what you need work to be. It depends on the people you work with. It depends on if you need to tell to protect yourself, or if you need to keep it secret to protect yourself. It is a really hard call to make.

Another thing I've found about sharing openly--you can fling that door wide open but getting it to close a bit is much, much harder. I've made the decision to share everything--to answer every question, to educate and hopefully help other people navigating through this swamp.  But that doesn't necessarily mean that I want to talk about it all the time. It also doesn't mean that I don't want to talk about it, either. For as much as I've opened myself up (and by proxy opened up Bryce), there are times when I just want to talk about anything else. And there are times when I need to hash it out, again. I am lucky to have great friends who are not afraid to ask me how to talk to me at any given moment. Because it's different all the time. I don't make it easy. Some days I can talk babies and nurseries and expecting people and hopeful stuff. And some days having children chattering in the background of a telephone call makes me incredibly sad. All I can do is say what I can and can't handle at that point in time. And make it clear--when I say I can handle something, I mean it. If I want to see a picture of your baby or look at children's books or see a cute baby bump, I will ask or do it when I'm ready. I will tell you. And I will need you to believe that I know what's best for me at that time.

For me, sharing is a way to connect with others--to get as much support as I can and educate people on what this process means physically and emotionally. It's a way to avoid having to make up excuses or add the stress of pretending to my already stressed existence. The sharing comes with parameters and I do my best to make it clear what I can and can't handle at any given time. It fluctuates. I found that it was harder to not share than to share openly, but that is not true for everyone. Everyone's journey is very different--work situations are different, family situations are different, and comfort levels with talking about the process at all are different. I think for me, the decision to be so open and take that openness with all its positives and negatives came with accepting that I was fully in this process and I would need a lot of support to get through. Accepting that IVF was our pathway and that it would not be easy and that likely I would not be a miracle story. I accepted the idea of sharing openly and I accept the consequences that go with it. And I thank you for being there, listening and sharing your own stories and offering advice and comfort and love. I am stronger because of it.

Trying (and Failing) to Cope

Ok, so it's been a month. One whole month or only a month, depending on how you look at time following a personal tragedy. I really don't feel like I'm being melodramatic here. I feel more lost at every missed shot at our dream, a dream that so many people don't even have to think about achieving, a dream that seems further and further away each time we fail at what should be a natural process. Yes, we've only done IVF twice and there are people who have done it 4 or more times. But we've had 5 embryos decide not to stay for whatever reason, and I can't help but take that personally and hard. I am functional on a day to day basis but feeling like this process is changing me. I am more often than not sad, angry, irritable, and just plain lost feeling. I feel so badly for Bryce, who on top of being the recipient of my irrational displaced anger, has to stand there and watch me feeling so low. I thought by now I would feel a little better. But I don't. And I have to find some way to turn it around, because I can't go into another IVF cycle with dead eyes. It's just not sending the right message to the Universe.

A few things happened these past few weeks that have showcased how I am just barely hanging on, and how this emptiness in our otherwise fabulous life is eating away at my well-being:

The Crying Baby
Two weeks ago I decided that I needed a massage. It was the day where I am observed at close range for the entire day by a parent and consultant, and on this particular day there wasn't anyone available to support me from the school community. I knew it was going to be a rough day, so I scheduled a 4:00 massage at the place that does my fertility yoga classes. I was so proud of myself for caring for my well-being in this way--knowing that it would be a pretty awful day and preparing some pampering for right after. I showed up and went through the screened in outdoor waiting area. An older woman was waiting for her daughter to come out and was bouncing a completely adorable, but "fresh" 3-month oldish baby on her lap. I smiled and passed her to go in to reception, and inwardly congratulated myself on not feeling sad when passing the baby. I went into the waiting area and settled in with a magazine when it started. The baby started crying. That heartrending, wracking baby cry that goes through me and leaves a raw aching wound because I am not a mom who can soothe that cry. It was far away, but started to sound like it was coming closer. I focused on the magazine. I breathed deeply. And then the lady brought that sobbing baby to the couch opposite mine to try to comfort him. I just couldn't take it anymore. I went into the reception area and said "Can I please move to the other waiting area upstairs? Because I just, I just, I just can't." And I started sobbing myself. How horribly sad and embarrassing. The receptionist, who knew that I just failed a cycle, came over and hugged me and said she was sorry and of course--but then I felt worse. Other than a commiserating "I'm sorry," there was no need for an apology--this place has a fertility clinic in it but it is also a wellness center, a spa, a yoga studio...people are allowed to bring their babies there. It just was too much for me to handle. I enjoyed my massage but it took 15 minutes for the hot, silent tears to stop soaking into the face pillow.

The Knuffle Bunny Incident
The same week as the massage incident, the Early Childhood class that is killing me slowly had a fun assignment. We were to choose an age range (I chose 3-5) and select 10 picture books that would support children's self esteem, developmental progress, and navigating life's challenges. I was excited. I love picture books, and love picking out books for children. So I headed to the library. I was determined--I can go and look at children's books, in the children's library, and be a totally normal person about it. I can celebrate children's literature without any bitterness or sadness. And it started out that way--honest. I picked books about new siblings, books about being different, books about working mommies coming home, books about sharing and not hitting. I picked up The Adoption Book and started to get teary eyed and so put it back and chose It's Okay to be Different instead. I was doing this! I was passing young families reading to their little tiny children and not overwhelmed with sadness that this wasn't my afterschool activity! I was strong and coping like a champ! Or... not. I picked up Knuffle Bunny because I love it and what child hasn't lost their lovey? And then I noticed the new Knuffle Bunny book-- Knuffle Bunny Free. I haven't read it yet, and so sat down and got to business. Big mistake. Warning--I'm totally going to spoil the ending here. In the third Knuffle Bunny book, Trixie is older and she is taking Knuffle Bunny on a trip to Holland to visit grandparents. As you can guess, she leaves the bunny on the plane. There's no recovering that bunny now, and so Trixie has to cope with losing her lovey and imagining life without it. No choice. She has this beautiful dream of Knuffle Bunny visiting all the children of the world on that plane and bringing them the happiness and comfort that it brought her. She decides maybe she is a big girl and doesn't need the bunny anymore. They get on the plane to go home and wouldn't you know it, that freaking bunny is in the pocket right in front of Trixie (eye rolling here, like that would ever happen). But, there is a crying baby on the plane and Trixie decides to be a big girl and be generous and she gives that baby Knuffle Bunny because he needs it more than she does. Now, up to this point I am fine. It is the end-end that got me. Trixie gets her first letter from the boy's parents, but then the last spread is a letter from her dad about how proud he is of her. And pictures and a timeline of how he hopes that when she grows up, and goes to school, and gets married, and has her own baby, that her baby is just like her. And....meltdown. Because you look at that progression--education/career to marriage to baby--and it seems so natural and so easy. No daddy writes to his daughter and says, "When you go to school, and after a 10-year detour through hell meet the person you were meant for and marry him, and then go through infertility treatments, maybe you will have a baby and she will be just like you. Or maybe not." I barely held it together in the library and made it out to the car and sobbed for half an hour in the car, and then for another half an hour when I got home. It's just so unfair that we can't have the easy timeline.

It seems every day there's something else that reminds me. It's so hard because life goes on, and I have to find some way to deal. There will be babies in waiting rooms and stores. Babies cry all the time in Wegmans and I just have to figure out how to ignore the heartbreak so I can buy my organic milk without looking like a lost soul, a crazy depressed lady. There will be pregnancy announcements and birth announcements and a parade of babies on Facebook. I will, at some point, maybe need to hold a baby. I will try not to freak that baby out by quietly sobbing onto its new-baby-smelling head. I can try to avoid things that will make me sad but it's not always possible. Unfortunately I can avoid going into Pottery Barn Kids but all the strollers in the mall aren't quarantined to Build-A-Bear and Carter's...they tend to roam free and all I can do is put my dead eyes on and pretend not to see them. Pretend not to see how young the parents look who are pushing these strollers around and pretend not to calculate in my head how old I will be when my kids are 5, 10, 16. (I did this in Robotics last night and was horrified to think that if we are successful this next time I will be 51 when my child is 16 and possibly on a Robotics Team. Very depressing.) I need to not let the bitterness swallow me up and change who I am, on a permanent basis. It is ok for me to feel angry and bitter and jealous, and it is ok for me to tell people that I just can't cope with certain events right now. It is not ok to stay that way all the time. I don't want to turn into one of those creepy dried apple faces, squinty and pinched and bitter. I just have to hope that I will go back to me sooner than later, so that I can handle the crying babies and depressing children's book montages and swarms of fertile people in the mall. And do it with a smile and maybe even a sarcastic joke, like I used to be able to.

Creating a Vision

After finding out that our second IVF failed, I had a hard time thinking positively. I felt a little suffocated by all the baby things I had scattered so hopefully around our house (bibs in the pillowcases! A onesie on the guest bed! Pregnancy/Conception magazines next to the bed! Baby name books on the table!). Bryce, wonderful man that he is, packed up the tiny bits of baby-bringing paraphernalia and hid them where I couldn't see them anymore. It was really only a handful of items I had allowed myself to bring into the house to let that baby know he/she was welcome and anxiously awaited, but after she/he failed to show up in any small way it seemed like the house was littered with baby crap. After Bryce hid everything, there was a sense of relief. But then I got a crazy idea.

I decided, after hearing about it from friends at a clinic that weaves holistic and spiritual practices into their fertility treatments, that Bryce and I should make a Vision Board. The clincher was an email from a yoga friend, who said that she made a Vision Board after her divorce and everything she put on it found its way to her, one way or another. The idea is that you get a posterboard or cork board (or both) and put a picture of yourself in the middle. Then you surround yourself with pictures and words that embody the things you would like to see in your future--it could be a new career, finding peace with yourself, the partnership you envision in your future that hasn't happened yet, or just what you would like your life to look like moving forward. Or, in our case, what we would like our family to become. You apparently have to be careful--you are feasibly putting out a wish list to the Universe and inviting these things to come to you--so you have to watch to make sure that there aren't hidden mixed messages lurking on the images you choose. If you don't want a dog, you are going to want to cut the dog out of the cute picture of a family having a picnic together. Or else the Universe could bless you with that unwanted dog, I guess. It's a little New Age-y and fruity, but I like it. I like it because it's a bit teacher-y. You have to think about what you want to put on that board, and it opens all kinds of interesting discussions and revelations about what your subconscious is doing. Or you can read into nothing at all, because reading into everything can make you crazy.

So, we have a big piece of foamboard that I thought was ugly so I covered it in pretty fabric. We have a wedding picture in the middle:

The fabric made the blank slate a little less empty and stark. I started on the project with a vengeance. When I start a project, I go a little nuts. I had all the pregnancy/conceiving magazines out on the table and I hacked away at them. (Was I punishing them a little for their poor baby-bringing performance with my scissors? Maybe a little.) If they wouldn't help our baby come to us just by being in the house, I was going to put them to work. I cut out pictures of cute babies that looked like they could be a mix of me and Bryce. I cut out lots of pictures of daddies and little girls, and even scored a picture of a daddy coloring with his twin girls (hello, Universe... I am totally ok with twins...) I found pictures of kids out in the woods, even one really spooky picture from an LL Bean catalog that features two school-age boys hiking at what could be Jordan Pond in Acadia that look creepily like mini-Bryces at that age. I found a picture from a Land of Nod catalog of a nursery that I liked. I started positioning the images around the board.

Then came some of the revelations... Bryce noticed that there were a lot of daddies and babies or kids, and a lot of babies, a few pregnant ladies, but not a whole lot of mommies and babies. I panicked. What if my subconscious skipped pictures of moms and babies because somehow I'm not ready or have some spiritual block against it? What if this is all my fault? And then I stopped being a psycho. I realized that I hadn't put pictures of mommies and babies because I hadn't found pictures where the mommies looked like me (lots of blonde moms in the magazines, and lots of fancy looking brunettes, but no casually dressed, low-maintenance, goofy-looking brunettes. I am underrepresented in these magazines!). So I widened my scope. I looked at what the mommies and babies were doing and focused less on hair color. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought parenting magazines without crying in the car on the way home. Now there's lots more mommies and babies, and family units together that don't physically look like us but are doing the things we want our family to do. It's funny to see what we each choose--I like parents reading books to their children, being goofy at the table, going outdoors and hiking in the woods. I have inquisitive kids out in nature, and a few goofy-looking toddlers making faces because no kid of mine is NOT going to be a goof! Bryce has outdoorsy kids, families sitting together with books, kids loading the dishwasher and cleaning, pictures of toys put neatly away in bins. Organized, happy, inquisitive, bookish, responsible, goofy, outdoorsy kids grace our vision board from all sides. Except apparently I like filling the space from the edges in--nothing is touching our picture yet. Which set off another round of crazypants behavior. "Oh no! I am holding the babies at a distance! We have a moat of emptiness around us!" Luckily Bryce keeps his wits about him when I'm nuts and rearranged some tacked up pictures so some are touching us. Most of the pictures are tacked, so they are not permanently placed. So now the moat has a few bridges around it to babyland.

It's funny that having these pictures of babies doesn't make me sad. It's not a depressing exercise--it's fun, and hopeful, and forward-looking. It's a way to jumpstart our conversations about what we want our family to look like and be, when we finally get to that point where it's more than just two plates around the dining room table. And it's kind of funny to look through all those magazines and find the supremely bizarre stuff that's out there. On an ironic but not quite bizarre note, Kourtney Kardashian graces the vision board not once but twice because she happened to be featured in Parenting magazine and, while I will never wear her crazy shoes or be as vapid as she appears to be, I think she does great things with her baby son that I would like to do. Well, at least in a photo shoot. On the creepy side there are some seriously odd-looking children. Case in point, this ad with a Benjamin-Button-esque baby filling the page--

Maybe he's cute. But to me, this is one creepy prematurely-elderly-adult looking baby. And I can look at the ad and laugh and not cry. Which is progress. The downside to working on this project over time is that it sits on our dining room table or entryway desk while we're working on it--which is convenient for us but probably really bizarre for our teenage neighbor who comes to feed the dog on days we don't get home until 7 or so. I can only imagine what he must think of the bizarre bulletin board covered in babies, tastefully naked pregnant women, and young families with our wedding picture in the middle. He must think we are a bunch of weirdos. But soon it will be done and we can hang it in an easily accessible, but out of public view, place so that we can reflect on it daily. I am excited for when we finish our Vision Board--not because I think it's some mainline to a magical genie who will grant our baby wish, but because it is a positive way for us to plan for the future and envision the family we will have, sometime soon.