Last year was the first year I participated in Creme de la Creme, hosted by Mel at Stirrup Queens. It's a list of best blogs for the year, chosen by the authors. It's a great way to start the year--reading what bloggers have determined are their best blogs, this time from 2014. I usually find new people to follow and read from this list, but for some reason last year was the first year I actively participated.
It's hard, choosing a blog post as your best for the year. How do you pick? Is it based on what you think was your most informative post? Your most touching? The post you loved the best, or the post you think will help people the most? Is it a chance to give a blog post that you loved but that wasn't viewed as much as you thought it should be a second life? Or is it, as Mel says, a chance to post up your best work, a sample of your writing style, your own personal top choice for the year? (But in choosing that post, all of the previous questions apply.)
Last year, I chose a post I wrote when grappling with the question of genetics, while in the midst of DE cycles. It was What's Passed On, and I felt it was both a post that was informative and spoke to the unique struggles of those using donor gametes to create their families and showed my sense of humor. I had a lot of posts in the running, as I tend to be indecisive, but ultimately I decided on that one.
What I love about choosing a Creme de la Creme post is that it forces you to review your year. Which can be eye-opening, and also kind of painful, but also a little awe-inspiring in how much you've actually written over the course of (almost) a whole year. Going back to January, where we were just making the decision to continue on the medical treatment side of things due to all the second opinions that opened wide the doors of possibility on our epic failure to get and stay pregnant, was interesting. Seeing my mindset during that time of uncertainty and rejuvenation of hope was a mixed bag. Oh, January 2014 Jess, you thought everything was going to be A-OK.
Then, to read all the various ways that things have continued to go awry was a little painful. Every post up until our latest failure was just rife with hope. Uncertainty, and fear, but mostly hope that the end was nigh. I didn't know yet that things would just keep getting so much more complicated. I didn't know the depth of the pain I would find myself in.
It's like a time capsule, although one that hasn't marinated very long. To see your raw emotions and thoughts during cycles and decisions over the past year in little snippets of time frozen on your blog is kind of a gift. I don't often go back and read old posts. Creme de la Creme forces me to do that, and while it can hurt a bit to see how much hope I put in our last cycle with B's sperm, and our first donor sperm cycle, and thinking that our early October hysteroscopy was going to give the all-clear and get me started on another chance to get knocked up by November, those didn't quite work out the way we'd hoped. Instead we're stuck in limbo, again, and wondering if we are closer to the end of the medical side of things than we thought.
Wondering if we can stomach another fresh cycle, even if it's included in our package and will only cost us the medication prices.
Wondering if we are spinning our wheels and every mishap is a cosmic nudge into another direction to create our family.
Deciding to flood my brain and our coffee table with excellent books on adopting, and opening that door more than a crack so that we aren't left in the dark with both doors fully closed if infertility treatments ultimately fail us. Creating that door of hope that was so eloquently stated by The Unexpected Trip, a way out of the darkness and failure we feel with the medical process.
I am truly thankful to the Creme de la Creme process. It is a reflection that hurts, but also reminds me that I am capable of hope in the direst of circumstances. That where there is the slightest possibility I can rally the troops and give all my might to the cause of building my family -- whether through pregnancy or through adoption, which is seeming more and more likely.
I did finally choose my post. I wanted to choose the one that was most informative, but it was long, and a little wordy, and ultimately I went with the one that I felt was a tight, honest, emotional post with a dash of humor. It was a little exhausting choosing, but I did it, and I think I did it well. It only took a week of agonizing to make a final decision. (!)
You, too, can choose your best post! I really, really encourage you to participate in Creme de la Creme. Follow the hyperlink to Stirrup Queens (or google Stirrup Queens and scroll to a mention, won't take long). You have a best post. And it's healing to go back and read through your archives and realize how much you've written, how much you've shared, how much you've educated, how much you've experienced out there on the blogosphere. Go, do it. You won't be sorry.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Why Aren't There Adoption Books In The Store?
I feel as though there's been a shifting in book stores, at least where we live. All we have available are a few branches of Barn.es & N.oble, some better than others. The one that is near the Mexican restaurant where we go nearly every Friday is not one of the better branches. They have replaced a lot of their book real estate with information and displays on the N.ook, and they have created a huge display of toys and games. I am all for awesome educational toys and games, but when it feels like the "stuff" is getting top billing over the books, in a store whose subtitle is BOOKSELLERS, it irritates me.
Especially when I have the contrast of towns we go to in New England that have beautiful, book-filled, independent book stores. Stores like the Northshire in Manchester, VT (I could live in there), the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta, ME, and about a zillion others. They have the big box stores, too, but for some reason their independent stores thrive. Here in Rochester it's Big Box or online book shopping. Most of our used bookstores have gone the way of the dodo as well. Which is really sad.
This past Friday, I decided that it was time. I have a huge library of books on infertility -- resources on navigating treatment options, resources on navigating the emotional side of infertility treatment, books with exercises to help you make your decisions and see what is truly important to you in this morass of suffering that 1 in 8 of us gets to trudge through. Most of them have a chapter on adoption, or a chapter on When To Stop Treatment. But overwhelmingly, it feels the message of the books is that if you want to get pregnant, there is a treatment for you and it is largely possible. one chapter out of 20 or more is not making it feel like that endpoint to this leg of things, that shifting from trying to get pregnant to trying to have a family through adoption or resolving to be a happy family of two, is as common as I suspect it is. Even my blog feed is full of people who eventually make it to the other side, who have pregnancies that are scary and fearful but who, eventually, experience pregnancy through infertility treatment. I am starting to think that that may not be where we end up.
I always knew that was a possibility, but it is so hard when you are shown all these options and the treatment paths are so promising and there's always a next new SOMETHING. But, we have been thinking long and hard and while we aren't quite at the SORRY CHARLIE part yet, it feels awfully close. This new scar tissue piece is very frightening. We have always been open to other family building options, and we have done a fair amount of research in the past year especially on domestic infant adoption, in terms of identifying an agency, going to an orientation, exploring their paperwork and their website, and following the journey of friends who are currently pursuing this path. BUT, I could not bring myself to buy a book yet. I wasn't sure I could start putting the energy into adoption that I've expended in spades towards infertility treatment, only to be left, five years later, 7 IUIs and 10 IVF transfers and 12 times under anesthesia (5 of those general) later, holding nothing but pain and grief. Feeling beaten. Feeling that we may never ever get the answers we seek, that while there always seems like a solution is out there, it just never seems to work out for us. How much longer can we continue down this path? I'll tell you, I'm tired. And I want a family. And I don't want to expend all my energy and be left a husk of myself and THEN pursue adoption.
So, while we are not quite ready to make this shift yet, because we still have frozen embryos and there's still a possibility my uterus could accept a baby, and while I can't do two things at once (kudos to you guys out there who have a foot in infertility treatment and a foot in adoption -- I do not have the stamina to throw myself into both worlds and admire those of you who can), I think it's time to start exploring more and getting more information on adoption. I am being honest here -- I don't want you to think that I view adoption as a last-ditch effort. That's not it at all. For me, pregnancy has been really important. It's an experience that so many take for granted, and an experience we really wanted to have. And it wasn't an impossibility, not in the least. But now that that's looking less and less likely, the ultimate goal that we have is TO HAVE CHILDREN IN OUR HOME. To be a family of more than two. To have that beautiful chaos. To get the chance to be the awesome parents we just know we are, under the scars and scabs of all this loss. And if we can't be pregnant, if that is not the path we can follow, then we want to start the parenting piece as early as humanly possible, and the best way to do that is domestic infant adoption.
But, again, being honest, there is a lot of fear wrapped up in that process. I know we aren't the only ones who are scared of the potential losses and risks and the not-so-great stories that lurk out there. But, aren't there those for any family? And the thought is that flooding ourselves with information and positive stories and the truth, not the myths or the fears, we will feel more comfortable with the risks and focus less on what the adoption path would mean losing and more on what it would mean we gain as a family. We were scared of IVF, too. Anything different and outside your own experience is scary. And, again with the honesty, there is grieving to be had. If we go down that path, we are changing our reproductive story. It could be the perfect story for us, but it is definitely different than what we originally imagined all those years ago. It takes adjusting to.
So, after the Mexican food on Friday, we traipsed over to the big box bookseller and I decided that I needed to get some books on adoption. The single chapters aren't enough. And, you would think, there would be AT LEAST ONE book in that big old store on a family-building path that so many people choose. You would think.
I had no idea which section these books would be in, since I doubted they'd be in the Health and Wellness area that the limited selection of infertility books reside. (Seriously, their section for infertility is pathetic lately, and focuses on the tracking books for people seeking to take charge of their fertility, way before all the needles and ultrasounds come into play.) So I went to the Information Desk, and a very pleasant young gentleman tried to help me. He looked up "adoption" in the computer system. He came up with very little.
"Let's check the Parenting and Family section, because they used to be over there," he said, after I watched him struggle on the computer and said, "Having some trouble finding them?" in a completely unsnarky tone.
Over we went, to the section full of baby books and pregnancy journals and week by week pregnancy books. THERE'S A LOT OF THOSE. No adoption books. Then he shifted us over to the "Children with Problems" section, where the guides on food allergies, ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, psychological disorders, single-parenting, etc. live. WHY WOULD ADOPTION BE IN THERE? Luckily, it wasn't, minus one book that was "20 Things Adoptive Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew." I don't think I want to start my information gathering with that one, a title that implies, at least to me, that there's a lot of messing kids up, unintentional or otherwise, happening in adoptive families.
"I think I'm looking more for books intended for people who are starting out on an adoption journey," I said, starting to feel the pinpricks behind my eyes.
"I figured, but I'm really having a hard time. There's a book called Happy Adoption Day..." No. I did not want a picture book celebrating a day that's already happened. Someday, maybe. But that day? I just wanted to book that was a guide like all the ones I have on how to survive infertility treatments.
Then, the most bizarre. He called the manager to see if there was a new section after their rearranging extravaganza they'd apparently undergone with their family books. "Nope, I can't find anything. Yes, I put "adoption" into the computer, and the most books we have are romance novels." WHAT??? He got off the walkie talkie thing and I just stared. "Seriously, you have more romance novels on adoption than you do books on the actual process?" I couldn't believe it. And I laughed, a sardonic, WTF laugh, because I've seen pregnancy romance novels in a certain red bullseye store, and I just didn't know that there were also romance novels focusing on adoption. I mean, I guess that should be looked at as progressive that there are trashy fluffy novels surrounding both family-building options. I just wish there were as many INFORMATIONAL books.
So, my search was fruitless. An entire store with many sections, and nary an adoption guide to be found. Not in Family and Parenting. Not in Legal. Not in Psychology or Sociology. NOWHERE. I went online instead, and have been met with a slew of books, and I don't want to buy a zillion, just maybe two, and I don't know where to start. I'm going to look at our portfolio of information from the adoption agency, and see if they have a reading list.
But how about you? Do you have any books that you've found to be helpful when looking into this option? Again, we're not quite at the "taking action" part of this piece. Again, I can't have both doors wide open at once, I just don't have the emotional bandwidth to do that. Even though when looking for books, one of them said "Each year you wait after 35 whittles down your adoption options and how appealing you are to birthmothers/expectant mothers." Awesome. So while my fertility is naturally dwindling even though it's getting a serious hand from all our various maladies, so is our appeal as possible parents. That seems colossally unfair. But, what part of all this is?
If you have informational book recommendations that are not Harlequin romances, please please comment and share your wealth, especially if you have gone through or are going through this process. What was helpful? What made you feel hope again? What will help us navigate this whole new world, since it appears the door is creaking shut on our ability to have a healthy pregnancy? It can't hurt to do some serious exploring now.
Especially when I have the contrast of towns we go to in New England that have beautiful, book-filled, independent book stores. Stores like the Northshire in Manchester, VT (I could live in there), the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta, ME, and about a zillion others. They have the big box stores, too, but for some reason their independent stores thrive. Here in Rochester it's Big Box or online book shopping. Most of our used bookstores have gone the way of the dodo as well. Which is really sad.
This past Friday, I decided that it was time. I have a huge library of books on infertility -- resources on navigating treatment options, resources on navigating the emotional side of infertility treatment, books with exercises to help you make your decisions and see what is truly important to you in this morass of suffering that 1 in 8 of us gets to trudge through. Most of them have a chapter on adoption, or a chapter on When To Stop Treatment. But overwhelmingly, it feels the message of the books is that if you want to get pregnant, there is a treatment for you and it is largely possible. one chapter out of 20 or more is not making it feel like that endpoint to this leg of things, that shifting from trying to get pregnant to trying to have a family through adoption or resolving to be a happy family of two, is as common as I suspect it is. Even my blog feed is full of people who eventually make it to the other side, who have pregnancies that are scary and fearful but who, eventually, experience pregnancy through infertility treatment. I am starting to think that that may not be where we end up.
I always knew that was a possibility, but it is so hard when you are shown all these options and the treatment paths are so promising and there's always a next new SOMETHING. But, we have been thinking long and hard and while we aren't quite at the SORRY CHARLIE part yet, it feels awfully close. This new scar tissue piece is very frightening. We have always been open to other family building options, and we have done a fair amount of research in the past year especially on domestic infant adoption, in terms of identifying an agency, going to an orientation, exploring their paperwork and their website, and following the journey of friends who are currently pursuing this path. BUT, I could not bring myself to buy a book yet. I wasn't sure I could start putting the energy into adoption that I've expended in spades towards infertility treatment, only to be left, five years later, 7 IUIs and 10 IVF transfers and 12 times under anesthesia (5 of those general) later, holding nothing but pain and grief. Feeling beaten. Feeling that we may never ever get the answers we seek, that while there always seems like a solution is out there, it just never seems to work out for us. How much longer can we continue down this path? I'll tell you, I'm tired. And I want a family. And I don't want to expend all my energy and be left a husk of myself and THEN pursue adoption.
So, while we are not quite ready to make this shift yet, because we still have frozen embryos and there's still a possibility my uterus could accept a baby, and while I can't do two things at once (kudos to you guys out there who have a foot in infertility treatment and a foot in adoption -- I do not have the stamina to throw myself into both worlds and admire those of you who can), I think it's time to start exploring more and getting more information on adoption. I am being honest here -- I don't want you to think that I view adoption as a last-ditch effort. That's not it at all. For me, pregnancy has been really important. It's an experience that so many take for granted, and an experience we really wanted to have. And it wasn't an impossibility, not in the least. But now that that's looking less and less likely, the ultimate goal that we have is TO HAVE CHILDREN IN OUR HOME. To be a family of more than two. To have that beautiful chaos. To get the chance to be the awesome parents we just know we are, under the scars and scabs of all this loss. And if we can't be pregnant, if that is not the path we can follow, then we want to start the parenting piece as early as humanly possible, and the best way to do that is domestic infant adoption.
But, again, being honest, there is a lot of fear wrapped up in that process. I know we aren't the only ones who are scared of the potential losses and risks and the not-so-great stories that lurk out there. But, aren't there those for any family? And the thought is that flooding ourselves with information and positive stories and the truth, not the myths or the fears, we will feel more comfortable with the risks and focus less on what the adoption path would mean losing and more on what it would mean we gain as a family. We were scared of IVF, too. Anything different and outside your own experience is scary. And, again with the honesty, there is grieving to be had. If we go down that path, we are changing our reproductive story. It could be the perfect story for us, but it is definitely different than what we originally imagined all those years ago. It takes adjusting to.
So, after the Mexican food on Friday, we traipsed over to the big box bookseller and I decided that I needed to get some books on adoption. The single chapters aren't enough. And, you would think, there would be AT LEAST ONE book in that big old store on a family-building path that so many people choose. You would think.
I had no idea which section these books would be in, since I doubted they'd be in the Health and Wellness area that the limited selection of infertility books reside. (Seriously, their section for infertility is pathetic lately, and focuses on the tracking books for people seeking to take charge of their fertility, way before all the needles and ultrasounds come into play.) So I went to the Information Desk, and a very pleasant young gentleman tried to help me. He looked up "adoption" in the computer system. He came up with very little.
"Let's check the Parenting and Family section, because they used to be over there," he said, after I watched him struggle on the computer and said, "Having some trouble finding them?" in a completely unsnarky tone.
Over we went, to the section full of baby books and pregnancy journals and week by week pregnancy books. THERE'S A LOT OF THOSE. No adoption books. Then he shifted us over to the "Children with Problems" section, where the guides on food allergies, ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, psychological disorders, single-parenting, etc. live. WHY WOULD ADOPTION BE IN THERE? Luckily, it wasn't, minus one book that was "20 Things Adoptive Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew." I don't think I want to start my information gathering with that one, a title that implies, at least to me, that there's a lot of messing kids up, unintentional or otherwise, happening in adoptive families.
"I think I'm looking more for books intended for people who are starting out on an adoption journey," I said, starting to feel the pinpricks behind my eyes.
"I figured, but I'm really having a hard time. There's a book called Happy Adoption Day..." No. I did not want a picture book celebrating a day that's already happened. Someday, maybe. But that day? I just wanted to book that was a guide like all the ones I have on how to survive infertility treatments.
Then, the most bizarre. He called the manager to see if there was a new section after their rearranging extravaganza they'd apparently undergone with their family books. "Nope, I can't find anything. Yes, I put "adoption" into the computer, and the most books we have are romance novels." WHAT??? He got off the walkie talkie thing and I just stared. "Seriously, you have more romance novels on adoption than you do books on the actual process?" I couldn't believe it. And I laughed, a sardonic, WTF laugh, because I've seen pregnancy romance novels in a certain red bullseye store, and I just didn't know that there were also romance novels focusing on adoption. I mean, I guess that should be looked at as progressive that there are trashy fluffy novels surrounding both family-building options. I just wish there were as many INFORMATIONAL books.
So, my search was fruitless. An entire store with many sections, and nary an adoption guide to be found. Not in Family and Parenting. Not in Legal. Not in Psychology or Sociology. NOWHERE. I went online instead, and have been met with a slew of books, and I don't want to buy a zillion, just maybe two, and I don't know where to start. I'm going to look at our portfolio of information from the adoption agency, and see if they have a reading list.
But how about you? Do you have any books that you've found to be helpful when looking into this option? Again, we're not quite at the "taking action" part of this piece. Again, I can't have both doors wide open at once, I just don't have the emotional bandwidth to do that. Even though when looking for books, one of them said "Each year you wait after 35 whittles down your adoption options and how appealing you are to birthmothers/expectant mothers." Awesome. So while my fertility is naturally dwindling even though it's getting a serious hand from all our various maladies, so is our appeal as possible parents. That seems colossally unfair. But, what part of all this is?
If you have informational book recommendations that are not Harlequin romances, please please comment and share your wealth, especially if you have gone through or are going through this process. What was helpful? What made you feel hope again? What will help us navigate this whole new world, since it appears the door is creaking shut on our ability to have a healthy pregnancy? It can't hurt to do some serious exploring now.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Recovering, Trip Anxiety, The Internet Is Not My Friend, What A Wonderful World
Okay. I have a had a few days to get used to this new lovely turn of events, to a new piece of less-than-optimal news, to another delay. I am no longer on pain meds of any kind. I am ready to start a new week of school and pretend to be a well-adjusted person again. I could not decide on a title for this kitchen-sink post, so you get them all.
After this hysteroscopy where my lining was Krueger-esque, my pain levels were a bit higher than usual. I have a sensitive little ute. (You like that? I have decided to rename my uterus into something different, because I am tired of the word "uterus." Maybe it will catch on.) Procedures that are supposed to be "uncomfortable" are usually downright painful, and procedures that are supposed to leave you crampy for a little bit leave me crampy for a lotta bit. This time I was on my couch on Friday, writhing in pain, sobby and nervous that the pain was scar tissue reforming. On my ute. I was in touch with my doctor, and I started taking a ridiculous amount of ibuprofen, and then added a little hydrocodone to the mix. SO GLAD I took Friday off. I had felt ok, crampy but ok, until I decided to blow out my hair after my shower, a shower that is always frustrating because I can never get all the gummy adhesive from the monitors off my chest. I think some is still there, lurking, even though I have taken MANY SHOWERS since Thursday. I wanted to look good, to try to encourage my insides to feel as good as my outsides looked, and I wanted to go out for Mexican food as is our weekly Friday tradition. No dice. Apparently standing for the 30 minutes it takes me to transform my curls into swooshy straightish hair was not what my body wanted. It sucked.
I was supposed to go visit my best friend this weekend, seeing as how it's a three-day weekend for us school folks. I had the green light medically, as long as I took it easy. She had given her three kids the strict no-jumping policy, and let them know that I was not quite as fun as usual this time -- no lifting, no throwing, no chasing, no plasma cars. I was all set to leave Saturday, and then Friday came and my body was very, very displeased. I wasn't planning on leaving until Saturday anyway, but I decided to leave a little later.
My mind was also a mess, because I had googled "uterine scarring infertility." Do yourself a favor. If you have that discovered in a hysteroscopy, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, DON'T GOOGLE IT!!! It is horrific. I apparently don't have the worst of it, even though technically it is Asherman's Syndrome (pardon my spelling, I can't factcheck it because I don't want to see the horrors associated with it), it's not the horrible stuff. It's not webbing that is adhering the walls of my ute together. It's not preventing me from having a period. It's not as severe as what's all over the interwebs. But, the information I found on the impact on fertility was...scary. Horrifying. Depressing. Things like implantation difficulty (like I don't have enough of that), preterm labor, complications, fetal death... nothing good. A lot of talk about gestational carrier for severe cases. So, uh, let's hope my scarring goes away by my early November HSG. Let's hope that none of that applies to me.
I had asked my doctor, tearfully, if this was the beginning of the end. He said no, but he was worried. We are worried. What if the worst case scenario is not it, but it IS a road to badness? We feel closer to the end than ever. But not upset about the delay so much. I feel like I'm okay with the delay. What's another delay? At this point, all I care about is the endgame. Just tell me there's still an endgame, tell me that we're still in this game in some way. Timing never quite works out the way you plan, so if that's gone... so be it. Just let there still be a game.
I did manage to get on the road to see my best friend and her very busy family of five, after two hours of waffling and tears and decision making that was way harder than it had to be. I wasn't sure I should go. What if going made the scar tissue come back? (Ridiculousness) What if I got there and felt like crap and couldn't make it home? (Unlikely) What if what if what if? (I could do this all day) In the end, I went. Bryce convinced her it was the best move, and convinced me too. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to get away from the mopey house, to go somewhere different and try not to think about everything so much. Maybe it would make me feel better, emotionally. Because Bryce was very wise when he decided that the worst pain I was feeling wasn't physical, but emotional. I had a case of the hopelessness, of the why-mes, of the everything-is-doomed-itis. The thing about being around three children 7, almost-6, and 3 1/2 is that they don't let you be gloomy-doomy. You end up reading silly books and getting jumped out at and having to lock the bathroom door every single time because the one time you don't you expose your booty to a delighted three year old girl. "I SAW YOUR BUTT! THE RUDE ONE WITH TWO Ts! AHA HA HA HA HA!" Three year olds are hilarious. And also kind of like insane terrorists. But mostly hilarious.
It was a great weekend. I felt like crap for some of it, but I got to have fun times with the kiddos and fun adult times with my BFF and fun times with her husband, too, because I went to college with him (small small small small world), and I got to see my BFF's mom and aunt, who I haven't seen in forever, and so it was a lovely visit. I didn't get too terribly sad. As in past visits, the contrast between their home and ours was incredible -- the activity, the beautiful chaos, even the screaming and whining and sneaky kicks under the table. I want it, all of it, and it makes me really sad to think that the day we have it seems just so far away. But I didn't cry myself to sleep, and I didn't feel horribly sorry for myself most of the time. The only time I was really teary eyed was this morning, because of a beautiful handmade book from school that the middle child made to the lyrics of the song "What a Wonderful World." On thinking about it, I'm pretty sure he showed me this book last time I was down there in January, and it made me kinda sad then, too, but it was beautiful. Each line was it's own handmade picture (red roses, skies of blue, dark sacred night...) and the lyric typed and glued in. This song gets me every single time I hear it, like makes me sob uncontrollably, and when it gets to "I hear babies cry, I watch them grow" I lose it, utterly. So to have this amazingly clear five year old voice singing it and seeing the three baby pictures of my best friend's beautiful babies made the leakiness come from my eyes. Did I sob and dissolve? No. Did I need to excuse myself? No. Did it hurt my heart, and maybe my ute? Yup.
(On second thought, "ute" sounds kind of crude, maybe a little gross. But I still kinda like it.)
So I sat and leaked and was filled with so much love for this family and for the family that doesn't exist quite yet, and was very very glad I had come. I was also very very glad I was going before I got too sad sappy and scared these lovely children and their mommy. It was a good visit. I'm sore, and tired, but I loved loving on those kids. I loved walking with my friend and catching up. I loved imagining what it would be like to have a third of that activity in my own home, to have a construction paper book that could pull at my heart strings for different reasons, to have so many baby pictures on the walls. It makes it so I can almost picture it again without feeling kind of broken and lost.
I'm healing, in every possible way. I'm hopeful that the next few weeks bring my lining back to its original state (if not a little better), and we can be on the road to having our own little family causing chaos and sending out massive ripples of love throughout our home and our lives.
After this hysteroscopy where my lining was Krueger-esque, my pain levels were a bit higher than usual. I have a sensitive little ute. (You like that? I have decided to rename my uterus into something different, because I am tired of the word "uterus." Maybe it will catch on.) Procedures that are supposed to be "uncomfortable" are usually downright painful, and procedures that are supposed to leave you crampy for a little bit leave me crampy for a lotta bit. This time I was on my couch on Friday, writhing in pain, sobby and nervous that the pain was scar tissue reforming. On my ute. I was in touch with my doctor, and I started taking a ridiculous amount of ibuprofen, and then added a little hydrocodone to the mix. SO GLAD I took Friday off. I had felt ok, crampy but ok, until I decided to blow out my hair after my shower, a shower that is always frustrating because I can never get all the gummy adhesive from the monitors off my chest. I think some is still there, lurking, even though I have taken MANY SHOWERS since Thursday. I wanted to look good, to try to encourage my insides to feel as good as my outsides looked, and I wanted to go out for Mexican food as is our weekly Friday tradition. No dice. Apparently standing for the 30 minutes it takes me to transform my curls into swooshy straightish hair was not what my body wanted. It sucked.
I was supposed to go visit my best friend this weekend, seeing as how it's a three-day weekend for us school folks. I had the green light medically, as long as I took it easy. She had given her three kids the strict no-jumping policy, and let them know that I was not quite as fun as usual this time -- no lifting, no throwing, no chasing, no plasma cars. I was all set to leave Saturday, and then Friday came and my body was very, very displeased. I wasn't planning on leaving until Saturday anyway, but I decided to leave a little later.
My mind was also a mess, because I had googled "uterine scarring infertility." Do yourself a favor. If you have that discovered in a hysteroscopy, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, DON'T GOOGLE IT!!! It is horrific. I apparently don't have the worst of it, even though technically it is Asherman's Syndrome (pardon my spelling, I can't factcheck it because I don't want to see the horrors associated with it), it's not the horrible stuff. It's not webbing that is adhering the walls of my ute together. It's not preventing me from having a period. It's not as severe as what's all over the interwebs. But, the information I found on the impact on fertility was...scary. Horrifying. Depressing. Things like implantation difficulty (like I don't have enough of that), preterm labor, complications, fetal death... nothing good. A lot of talk about gestational carrier for severe cases. So, uh, let's hope my scarring goes away by my early November HSG. Let's hope that none of that applies to me.
I had asked my doctor, tearfully, if this was the beginning of the end. He said no, but he was worried. We are worried. What if the worst case scenario is not it, but it IS a road to badness? We feel closer to the end than ever. But not upset about the delay so much. I feel like I'm okay with the delay. What's another delay? At this point, all I care about is the endgame. Just tell me there's still an endgame, tell me that we're still in this game in some way. Timing never quite works out the way you plan, so if that's gone... so be it. Just let there still be a game.
I did manage to get on the road to see my best friend and her very busy family of five, after two hours of waffling and tears and decision making that was way harder than it had to be. I wasn't sure I should go. What if going made the scar tissue come back? (Ridiculousness) What if I got there and felt like crap and couldn't make it home? (Unlikely) What if what if what if? (I could do this all day) In the end, I went. Bryce convinced her it was the best move, and convinced me too. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to get away from the mopey house, to go somewhere different and try not to think about everything so much. Maybe it would make me feel better, emotionally. Because Bryce was very wise when he decided that the worst pain I was feeling wasn't physical, but emotional. I had a case of the hopelessness, of the why-mes, of the everything-is-doomed-itis. The thing about being around three children 7, almost-6, and 3 1/2 is that they don't let you be gloomy-doomy. You end up reading silly books and getting jumped out at and having to lock the bathroom door every single time because the one time you don't you expose your booty to a delighted three year old girl. "I SAW YOUR BUTT! THE RUDE ONE WITH TWO Ts! AHA HA HA HA HA!" Three year olds are hilarious. And also kind of like insane terrorists. But mostly hilarious.
It was a great weekend. I felt like crap for some of it, but I got to have fun times with the kiddos and fun adult times with my BFF and fun times with her husband, too, because I went to college with him (small small small small world), and I got to see my BFF's mom and aunt, who I haven't seen in forever, and so it was a lovely visit. I didn't get too terribly sad. As in past visits, the contrast between their home and ours was incredible -- the activity, the beautiful chaos, even the screaming and whining and sneaky kicks under the table. I want it, all of it, and it makes me really sad to think that the day we have it seems just so far away. But I didn't cry myself to sleep, and I didn't feel horribly sorry for myself most of the time. The only time I was really teary eyed was this morning, because of a beautiful handmade book from school that the middle child made to the lyrics of the song "What a Wonderful World." On thinking about it, I'm pretty sure he showed me this book last time I was down there in January, and it made me kinda sad then, too, but it was beautiful. Each line was it's own handmade picture (red roses, skies of blue, dark sacred night...) and the lyric typed and glued in. This song gets me every single time I hear it, like makes me sob uncontrollably, and when it gets to "I hear babies cry, I watch them grow" I lose it, utterly. So to have this amazingly clear five year old voice singing it and seeing the three baby pictures of my best friend's beautiful babies made the leakiness come from my eyes. Did I sob and dissolve? No. Did I need to excuse myself? No. Did it hurt my heart, and maybe my ute? Yup.
(On second thought, "ute" sounds kind of crude, maybe a little gross. But I still kinda like it.)
So I sat and leaked and was filled with so much love for this family and for the family that doesn't exist quite yet, and was very very glad I had come. I was also very very glad I was going before I got too sad sappy and scared these lovely children and their mommy. It was a good visit. I'm sore, and tired, but I loved loving on those kids. I loved walking with my friend and catching up. I loved imagining what it would be like to have a third of that activity in my own home, to have a construction paper book that could pull at my heart strings for different reasons, to have so many baby pictures on the walls. It makes it so I can almost picture it again without feeling kind of broken and lost.
I'm healing, in every possible way. I'm hopeful that the next few weeks bring my lining back to its original state (if not a little better), and we can be on the road to having our own little family causing chaos and sending out massive ripples of love throughout our home and our lives.
.JPG) |
| 34 years of friendship, right there! Was my head always so much bigger??? |
.JPG) |
| So, in this picture I am actually about to fall over because I overestimated my sense of balance. But, you could see it like I have my arm around my invisible future child, who will be in this picture in a few years but hasn't quite appeared yet. Or does that make me sound crazy? |
Friday, October 10, 2014
Well, That Could Have Gone Better
Well, my uterus has been fully scoped, and I am home recovering. We had to be there at 12 yesterday, and spent a lot (a LOT) of time waiting before my 3:30 surgery. We didn't leave until after 7 yesterday, so we got home about 8:30 or so, and I was not feeling so hot.
There was a lot of manipulation up in my nethers.
The good news: No polyps. Not a one. Not sure if pathology will come back on what was removed and show any polypoid tissue, but polyps are the least of my worries right now.
Instead of polyps, annoying but easy to remove polyps, they found scar tissue. Adhesions. A lot. It was not what they expected to find.
Here is a picture of the scarred up portion, the top half, of my uterus (I promise, no gross ones this time, just uterine scarring):
.JPG)
When doing word association upon seeing these pictures, at 9:30 at night on Bryce's phone and not when I was squirming in pain before the drugs kicked in, all I saw in my head was Freddy Krueger. This is not a good association for any part of your body, especially a uterus, let alone mine.
I saw that hole looking thing in the top left and bottom right pictures, and was like, "that's my fallopian tube opening, right?" and Bryce sighed and said, "No, honey. I thought that too. That's where there's an absence of scarring. That's your normal lining. They had to remove the scarring to find the opening of your fallopian tube."
OH HOLY JEEZUM.
Not that it matters about the tube part, they aren't needed for IVF whatsoever and I've only got the one anyway thanks to the Ectopic Experience, but it's that extensive? WHAT THE FLIPPITY FLAP?!?
Apparently, this is all new, too. Here's a photo of the banding from last time, evidence of some scarring, that was removed last hysteroscopy. I thought that was scary, but look how minimal in comparison:
Nothing. It's like nothing. My new uterine accoutrements are much more...prevalent. Much more...significant. Much more...terrifying. And of course, much more...upsetting.
They did remove it all, but apparently scar tissue comes back within 3-5 days if it's going to. So I'm on a benadryl regimen, on the Pill, and hopefully that will keep my body from being its inflammatory self. This is not infection-related. That was my first thought -- what about antibiotics? Am I somehow getting infections that are causing this? But nope. No infection, just a very weird response to a very weird unknown trauma.
And it's bad. It would definitely impact a healthy pregnancy. Even if my embryos found a non-scarred up portion of my lining (and the bottom half looked just fine), that scarring could impact normal expansion. Or bloodflow. Or something. It's just bad.
So, it leaves me wondering, WHERE THE HELL IS MY GOOD NEWS??? I mean, there are silver linings: a) I asked for this surgery to make sure all was good in there before doing this somewhat experimental, crazy stimming frozen cycle, and boy am I glad I did. b) because if we hadn't, those embryos wouldn't have had a real chance. c) while I have to wait, more, it's to make sure I have a beautiful landing pad, and the lost time is worth it to have optimal conditions, assuming that can exist in the hellish landscape that is my womb.
So what's next? What's the new plan, since I can kiss a late October/early November transfer buh-bye now?
1) Benadryl for a week, twice a day, to try to hamper any inflammatory response and hopefully curb more adhesion creation.
2) Pill for 3-4 more weeks, to keep estrogen going to my body and do something related to calming my lining down so that it can grow nice and evenly after the scarring is gone for good.
3) HSG, my FAVORITE of the uncomfortable tests, to see if the scarring has returned at the end of the Pill time. That's the dye test that's typically for seeing if dye spills over your tubes and they're open, but it's also a cavity test. If the scarring has returned, the top of my uterus will be all jaggedy and asteroid-like, not the smooth baby haven it's supposed to be.
4) If the scarring returns, another hysteroscopy. But how do we make sure it doesn't return again? A question I don't have an answer to.
5) THEN, and only THEN, can we proceed with our cycle. Which may very well land during the holidays. Wheeee. But whatever, at this point, whenever it's good, that's when we go.
Not the plan I was hoping for, but a plan nonetheless, so that's good I guess. My doctor is really upset about all this. It's not what he was expecting, either. I mean, zillions of women (maybe a slight overstatement) have hysteroscopies, and do they create thick scarring afterward? Noooooooo-ooooooooooo. Why am I so special? He was nearly in tears talking to my husband about the plan, the delay, the extensiveness of the adhesions, the dangers of a repeat performance. That's something we can be so grateful for -- our doctor truly cares and we are a priority case. He is going to an industry conference next week, and he is going to peddle our case all over, looking for reasons, for answers, for treatment plans. He is on the case. I did ask, "Does this mean we're done? If the scarring continues, are we done?" And he didn't think that was necessarily the case, but that he is worried. Which makes me want to vomit.
Here's hoping he can find the answer. Here's hoping I can hold my shit together through ANOTHER bump in the road, another way that our case is complicated, another instance of my body doing everything it can to ensure we can't have a baby. I swear, am destined to carry the next Hitler or something? Is the antichrist coming my way and so the Universe is throwing roadblocks down to prevent horrible events from coming to fruition in the future? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW IT FEELS TO ME. There must be some "greater good" reason why we just can't catch a break. Because otherwise, there's just some serious cosmic sadism happening here.
Poor Bryce, he was upset, and he told our doctor that he was super worried about me. Because I would take this personally. (He knows me so well.) Our doctor said, "She's as responsible for this as she would be for getting the common cold." Which is helpful, and logical, but that's not where my brain is. I know I'm not shoving wire hangers up there, I know I'm not doing anything crazy that would cause that scarring. But it's just one more reason why my body is the failure. Why we can't get pregnant is up to a zillion factors at this point, but it's all coming down to my recalcitrant womb, and that makes me very, very sad. And then Bryce told me that he said, "I just feel bad because it's one more Christmas where Jess can't put anything on the card but us and the cats...she was so hoping to be able to announce on the Christmas/New Year's card." And I started to cry in the car, because I hadn't even thought about that piece of things. It's true, and it's sweet that Bryce knows me so well that that is definitely a side effect that will cause me sadness in a month or so when I start putting that together, but I hadn't thought about it. Because yes, it's true, I'd been doing the math to see if we'd be 12-13 weeks by the holidays and I could put "Happy holidays from Bryce, Jess, Lucky, Abner, and Baby T coming this summer!" Oh well. I can only hope next year there's a baby on the 2015 card, six years after we started the journey to have a little person join us in our house.
Well. Not to end on a sad sap note, although I'm feeling very sad sappy, here is a goofy picture of me, waiting in ambulatory to be taken down to the OR. There was no earthly reason to have us show up 3 1/2 hours early, because the pregnancy test pee (ha HA ha ha) and the bloodwork took maybe 15 minutes. So, we read. Note: it is impossible to look good with no makeup, bedhead ponytail, and the awkward gurney angle. So hilarious that the book I was reading is Awkward, a young adult novel one of my students has read. Perfect.
So, no door slammed in our face, but it felt like just another chip at our hope stores. I hope there's an answer lurking out there, an easy fix, something that will make my body a good home for those embryos for a while and not the Scorch Trials it currently seems to be (ha ha, YA dystopian lit reference, ha ha). I feel much better today and am laying low, super glad I took the whole day off today. Maybe I'll meditate all day on a nice, smooth, even uterine lining, as if I have any control over that. Maybe it will listen. Any good thoughts or intentions towards my uterus would be much appreciated, as we wait for our next steps and hope to clear this latest and greatest hurdle on our way to FutureBaby.
There was a lot of manipulation up in my nethers.
The good news: No polyps. Not a one. Not sure if pathology will come back on what was removed and show any polypoid tissue, but polyps are the least of my worries right now.
Instead of polyps, annoying but easy to remove polyps, they found scar tissue. Adhesions. A lot. It was not what they expected to find.
Here is a picture of the scarred up portion, the top half, of my uterus (I promise, no gross ones this time, just uterine scarring):
When doing word association upon seeing these pictures, at 9:30 at night on Bryce's phone and not when I was squirming in pain before the drugs kicked in, all I saw in my head was Freddy Krueger. This is not a good association for any part of your body, especially a uterus, let alone mine.
I saw that hole looking thing in the top left and bottom right pictures, and was like, "that's my fallopian tube opening, right?" and Bryce sighed and said, "No, honey. I thought that too. That's where there's an absence of scarring. That's your normal lining. They had to remove the scarring to find the opening of your fallopian tube."
OH HOLY JEEZUM.
Not that it matters about the tube part, they aren't needed for IVF whatsoever and I've only got the one anyway thanks to the Ectopic Experience, but it's that extensive? WHAT THE FLIPPITY FLAP?!?
Apparently, this is all new, too. Here's a photo of the banding from last time, evidence of some scarring, that was removed last hysteroscopy. I thought that was scary, but look how minimal in comparison:
.JPG) |
| Oooh, look at the scary line. |
Nothing. It's like nothing. My new uterine accoutrements are much more...prevalent. Much more...significant. Much more...terrifying. And of course, much more...upsetting.
They did remove it all, but apparently scar tissue comes back within 3-5 days if it's going to. So I'm on a benadryl regimen, on the Pill, and hopefully that will keep my body from being its inflammatory self. This is not infection-related. That was my first thought -- what about antibiotics? Am I somehow getting infections that are causing this? But nope. No infection, just a very weird response to a very weird unknown trauma.
And it's bad. It would definitely impact a healthy pregnancy. Even if my embryos found a non-scarred up portion of my lining (and the bottom half looked just fine), that scarring could impact normal expansion. Or bloodflow. Or something. It's just bad.
So, it leaves me wondering, WHERE THE HELL IS MY GOOD NEWS??? I mean, there are silver linings: a) I asked for this surgery to make sure all was good in there before doing this somewhat experimental, crazy stimming frozen cycle, and boy am I glad I did. b) because if we hadn't, those embryos wouldn't have had a real chance. c) while I have to wait, more, it's to make sure I have a beautiful landing pad, and the lost time is worth it to have optimal conditions, assuming that can exist in the hellish landscape that is my womb.
So what's next? What's the new plan, since I can kiss a late October/early November transfer buh-bye now?
1) Benadryl for a week, twice a day, to try to hamper any inflammatory response and hopefully curb more adhesion creation.
2) Pill for 3-4 more weeks, to keep estrogen going to my body and do something related to calming my lining down so that it can grow nice and evenly after the scarring is gone for good.
3) HSG, my FAVORITE of the uncomfortable tests, to see if the scarring has returned at the end of the Pill time. That's the dye test that's typically for seeing if dye spills over your tubes and they're open, but it's also a cavity test. If the scarring has returned, the top of my uterus will be all jaggedy and asteroid-like, not the smooth baby haven it's supposed to be.
4) If the scarring returns, another hysteroscopy. But how do we make sure it doesn't return again? A question I don't have an answer to.
5) THEN, and only THEN, can we proceed with our cycle. Which may very well land during the holidays. Wheeee. But whatever, at this point, whenever it's good, that's when we go.
Not the plan I was hoping for, but a plan nonetheless, so that's good I guess. My doctor is really upset about all this. It's not what he was expecting, either. I mean, zillions of women (maybe a slight overstatement) have hysteroscopies, and do they create thick scarring afterward? Noooooooo-ooooooooooo. Why am I so special? He was nearly in tears talking to my husband about the plan, the delay, the extensiveness of the adhesions, the dangers of a repeat performance. That's something we can be so grateful for -- our doctor truly cares and we are a priority case. He is going to an industry conference next week, and he is going to peddle our case all over, looking for reasons, for answers, for treatment plans. He is on the case. I did ask, "Does this mean we're done? If the scarring continues, are we done?" And he didn't think that was necessarily the case, but that he is worried. Which makes me want to vomit.
Here's hoping he can find the answer. Here's hoping I can hold my shit together through ANOTHER bump in the road, another way that our case is complicated, another instance of my body doing everything it can to ensure we can't have a baby. I swear, am destined to carry the next Hitler or something? Is the antichrist coming my way and so the Universe is throwing roadblocks down to prevent horrible events from coming to fruition in the future? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW IT FEELS TO ME. There must be some "greater good" reason why we just can't catch a break. Because otherwise, there's just some serious cosmic sadism happening here.
Poor Bryce, he was upset, and he told our doctor that he was super worried about me. Because I would take this personally. (He knows me so well.) Our doctor said, "She's as responsible for this as she would be for getting the common cold." Which is helpful, and logical, but that's not where my brain is. I know I'm not shoving wire hangers up there, I know I'm not doing anything crazy that would cause that scarring. But it's just one more reason why my body is the failure. Why we can't get pregnant is up to a zillion factors at this point, but it's all coming down to my recalcitrant womb, and that makes me very, very sad. And then Bryce told me that he said, "I just feel bad because it's one more Christmas where Jess can't put anything on the card but us and the cats...she was so hoping to be able to announce on the Christmas/New Year's card." And I started to cry in the car, because I hadn't even thought about that piece of things. It's true, and it's sweet that Bryce knows me so well that that is definitely a side effect that will cause me sadness in a month or so when I start putting that together, but I hadn't thought about it. Because yes, it's true, I'd been doing the math to see if we'd be 12-13 weeks by the holidays and I could put "Happy holidays from Bryce, Jess, Lucky, Abner, and Baby T coming this summer!" Oh well. I can only hope next year there's a baby on the 2015 card, six years after we started the journey to have a little person join us in our house.
Well. Not to end on a sad sap note, although I'm feeling very sad sappy, here is a goofy picture of me, waiting in ambulatory to be taken down to the OR. There was no earthly reason to have us show up 3 1/2 hours early, because the pregnancy test pee (ha HA ha ha) and the bloodwork took maybe 15 minutes. So, we read. Note: it is impossible to look good with no makeup, bedhead ponytail, and the awkward gurney angle. So hilarious that the book I was reading is Awkward, a young adult novel one of my students has read. Perfect.
.JPG) |
| No good angle for a gurney shot... just use your mind to photoshop out all that jawline chub. |
So, no door slammed in our face, but it felt like just another chip at our hope stores. I hope there's an answer lurking out there, an easy fix, something that will make my body a good home for those embryos for a while and not the Scorch Trials it currently seems to be (ha ha, YA dystopian lit reference, ha ha). I feel much better today and am laying low, super glad I took the whole day off today. Maybe I'll meditate all day on a nice, smooth, even uterine lining, as if I have any control over that. Maybe it will listen. Any good thoughts or intentions towards my uterus would be much appreciated, as we wait for our next steps and hope to clear this latest and greatest hurdle on our way to FutureBaby.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
A Trip to the OR Sends Us On Our Way
It's amazing how time moves so quickly.
It was only a few weeks ago that the hopes of our first DS cycle were shattered, and I was left puddled on the floor. Then it seemed so far away until our next try. Something that always makes me mad about the journeys of the infertile--reproductively "normal" people get to try every single month. For me, for all IVFers, there is so much waiting and testing and waiting and drugs to cycle through before new attempts can be made.
But, here we are.
Tomorrow I go in for another hysteroscopy, my fourth, to check me out for those pesky polyps before this lovely fancy protocol gets off and running. Really wondering why I can seem to grow polyps no problem but a baby is so hard, but it makes sense to check out my innards before we use our last two frozen blasts. My polyps are shifty little buggers. They don't show up on saline sonohysterograms. They don't show up on HSGs. Nope, only in the OR do they show their nasty, blood-tipped faces.
Is it possible they could do my surgery and find nothing? Yes. I actually hope yes. All is not lost, because they're doing the scratch biopsy while in there to get my lining all injured and then overcompensating with super lushness. But it would be nice to have no intruders growing in my baby landing pad.
I've been super stressed trying to get everything set for my absence. The surgery is tomorrow, and it's no incisions, all through my lovely super dilated cervix (thank you, general anesthesia). So originally, I only took a half day on Friday. BUT, enough people convinced me that with my original time of 1:30, maybe I should give myself the whole day the next day to get over the anesthesia. And the cramping I tend to get after these lovely procedures. Last time I got a blissful dose of demerol in the recovery room, because I was in so much pain. It kind of concerns me that these procedures are always so painful...what's going on in there?
I'm glad, really glad, that I took the whole day on Friday because today I got my arrival time and surgical time...and it shifted. My hysteroscopy is now at 3:30, not 1:30. Arrival time is 12:00, which means leaving for Buffalo by 10:40 or so. I won't be out of surgery until at least 4:30, so the next day off is probably for the best.
Two days off is kind of scary so early in the year, but I have my plans all set, my materials all accounted for, and I am finally able to let it go and just do this thing. I felt queasy about it last week, but now, I'm good.
I have a plan for the whole not-eating-or-drinking-after-midnight thing, now that my surgery is at 3:30 and I will be eating for the first time that day at, oh, 5:00 probably. I ate my face off at dinner today. The directions said "eat soft foods, like macaroni and cheese or pureed vegetables." What self-respecting un-dentured adult eats pureed vegetables? I never had instructions like this before, so I threw caution to the wind this time. I ate a BLT, cajun corn, and sweet potato fries. I'll have a snack at around 11:30. I'll drink a ton of water to try to plump myself up, because I shudder to think of the IV making its way into my dessicated veins tomorrow afternoon after not being hydrated. I am also staying up late, so that I can sleep late, and hopefully be unconscious for most of the water-and-food-free hours. I am a cranky girl when I'm hungry. "Wow, you're hungry" is my husband's incredibly polite code for "Get some food in this girl, STAT! Major bitch alert!" I can admit it. It's ok.
I also feel good about my ticker this time. Last time I was terrified, sure I'd somehow arrest on the table. Not sure why, because I am a pretty healthy, if a bit chubby, lady. But this time I've been using my gym membership from that Groupon and going to do the elliptical for 50 minutes 2-3 times per week, getting a good sweat on and noticing that my heart rate is getting better. Also doing yoga/pilates at least once a week. I've lost a few pounds, nothing earth-shattering, but it's my ticker I'm most happy about.
After the hysteroscopy, I just wait for my period to come and then we get back on this horse and ride it hard. Baseline comes quick, then Femara on day 3. Before I know it, I'll be on Follistim. And then... transfer. Not gonna lie, putting embryos back in me makes me incredibly anxious. I have lost a lot of faith in my body's ability to not death ray anything that comes within. Maybe I can convince them to up my valium dose, or sedate me entirely.
However, I am slowly building up my hope. After tomorrow, I can really feel like I'm moving towards a hopefully different outcome, and that this can all be over soon. I am so ready to move on to morning sickness and bloat for a purpose and boobs that hurt not because of shots but because of a tiny being that will need them to be functional food providers. I am ready to have the next time I'm in an OR be only the possibility of a C-section, and maybe not at all. I am ready to move on to things that have happy endings. And it all starts tomorrow.
It was only a few weeks ago that the hopes of our first DS cycle were shattered, and I was left puddled on the floor. Then it seemed so far away until our next try. Something that always makes me mad about the journeys of the infertile--reproductively "normal" people get to try every single month. For me, for all IVFers, there is so much waiting and testing and waiting and drugs to cycle through before new attempts can be made.
But, here we are.
Tomorrow I go in for another hysteroscopy, my fourth, to check me out for those pesky polyps before this lovely fancy protocol gets off and running. Really wondering why I can seem to grow polyps no problem but a baby is so hard, but it makes sense to check out my innards before we use our last two frozen blasts. My polyps are shifty little buggers. They don't show up on saline sonohysterograms. They don't show up on HSGs. Nope, only in the OR do they show their nasty, blood-tipped faces.
Is it possible they could do my surgery and find nothing? Yes. I actually hope yes. All is not lost, because they're doing the scratch biopsy while in there to get my lining all injured and then overcompensating with super lushness. But it would be nice to have no intruders growing in my baby landing pad.
I've been super stressed trying to get everything set for my absence. The surgery is tomorrow, and it's no incisions, all through my lovely super dilated cervix (thank you, general anesthesia). So originally, I only took a half day on Friday. BUT, enough people convinced me that with my original time of 1:30, maybe I should give myself the whole day the next day to get over the anesthesia. And the cramping I tend to get after these lovely procedures. Last time I got a blissful dose of demerol in the recovery room, because I was in so much pain. It kind of concerns me that these procedures are always so painful...what's going on in there?
I'm glad, really glad, that I took the whole day on Friday because today I got my arrival time and surgical time...and it shifted. My hysteroscopy is now at 3:30, not 1:30. Arrival time is 12:00, which means leaving for Buffalo by 10:40 or so. I won't be out of surgery until at least 4:30, so the next day off is probably for the best.
Two days off is kind of scary so early in the year, but I have my plans all set, my materials all accounted for, and I am finally able to let it go and just do this thing. I felt queasy about it last week, but now, I'm good.
I have a plan for the whole not-eating-or-drinking-after-midnight thing, now that my surgery is at 3:30 and I will be eating for the first time that day at, oh, 5:00 probably. I ate my face off at dinner today. The directions said "eat soft foods, like macaroni and cheese or pureed vegetables." What self-respecting un-dentured adult eats pureed vegetables? I never had instructions like this before, so I threw caution to the wind this time. I ate a BLT, cajun corn, and sweet potato fries. I'll have a snack at around 11:30. I'll drink a ton of water to try to plump myself up, because I shudder to think of the IV making its way into my dessicated veins tomorrow afternoon after not being hydrated. I am also staying up late, so that I can sleep late, and hopefully be unconscious for most of the water-and-food-free hours. I am a cranky girl when I'm hungry. "Wow, you're hungry" is my husband's incredibly polite code for "Get some food in this girl, STAT! Major bitch alert!" I can admit it. It's ok.
I also feel good about my ticker this time. Last time I was terrified, sure I'd somehow arrest on the table. Not sure why, because I am a pretty healthy, if a bit chubby, lady. But this time I've been using my gym membership from that Groupon and going to do the elliptical for 50 minutes 2-3 times per week, getting a good sweat on and noticing that my heart rate is getting better. Also doing yoga/pilates at least once a week. I've lost a few pounds, nothing earth-shattering, but it's my ticker I'm most happy about.
After the hysteroscopy, I just wait for my period to come and then we get back on this horse and ride it hard. Baseline comes quick, then Femara on day 3. Before I know it, I'll be on Follistim. And then... transfer. Not gonna lie, putting embryos back in me makes me incredibly anxious. I have lost a lot of faith in my body's ability to not death ray anything that comes within. Maybe I can convince them to up my valium dose, or sedate me entirely.
However, I am slowly building up my hope. After tomorrow, I can really feel like I'm moving towards a hopefully different outcome, and that this can all be over soon. I am so ready to move on to morning sickness and bloat for a purpose and boobs that hurt not because of shots but because of a tiny being that will need them to be functional food providers. I am ready to have the next time I'm in an OR be only the possibility of a C-section, and maybe not at all. I am ready to move on to things that have happy endings. And it all starts tomorrow.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Happy Anniversary, a Month Early
We are strange people. We have two anniversaries -- one on 10/23 that commemorates when we got legally married at our favorite Mexican restaurant, just a Justice of the Peace and two friends in tow, and another on 10/31 that commemorates our actual wedding ceremony in our backyard. This year, our fifth anniversary, we found ourselves with a choice. We could celebrate on our actual anniversary (usually we do something quiet at home for the 23rd and then we do something fun and more out and about for the 31st), especially since Halloween is on a Friday this year, but that is smack dab in the middle of our next attempt. Our other choice: we could take this weekend, a beautiful, last-weekend-in-September, and celebrate our beautiful five years together as any other couple NOT in the throes of infertility would. Out at a restaurant, with a cellar wine and maybe a glass-of-champagne apertif for toasting, without any thought to what time we need to get back for shots or feeling crappy from shots or wondering if this glass of wine or that sugary creme brulee is lowering our chance of success.
So we did it this weekend.
It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday, and I want to end on how gorgeous the day was, and how amazing the dinner was, and how nice it was to celebrate our anniversary together, somewhat unfettered by infertility.
But, it was only somewhat unfettered.
It started with my morning chores--I wanted to do fall garden cleanup, while I can still bend and sweat and be out in the sun without worry that the drugs are making me photosensitive or worrying about raising my internal body temp too much or realizing that you bend with your uterus. (It's true--weird but true. It's almost impossible to do anything without your uterus being in on the action, which I never ever thought about until all this nonsense.) My butterfly garden has been awesome this year -- plants are reblooming that I don't think are supposed to, my annuals are having a rejuvenation and there's gorgeous deep purple heliotrope exploding all over again, and the deer have managed not to decimate my sedum. My other gardens? This fairly wet summer with all the heavy rains really did a number on them. My coneflowers went insane and are now this cricket thicket that is a lovely microcosm of wildlife (goldfinches! crickets! katydids! strange flying insects I've never seen before! bees!), but they look hideous. Like I'm trying to recreate the briars in Sleeping Beauty or something. I have to be kind to myself, because every year at this time it becomes sort of a Garden of Death, but I like to keep the dead coneflowers around because the lovely goldfinches hang out in there and eat the seeds (completing the vicious cycle of more coneflowers than I know what to do with, and I think next spring there will be an aggressive culling...). Those pretty golden songbirds greet me in the morning when I go to school and in the evening when I return, and they just make me so darn happy. So, if it doesn't look so hot right now, SO WHAT. But still, as I was cleaning that up and yanking out the insane cherry tomato vines that are now producing rotten, mealy, and cracked fruits that litter our patio and back driveway, I kept thinking, "Ugh. Gardening's supposed to be your thing, your activity where you feel like you can actually sustain life, and look at this mess. This year even THAT is suffering." It didn't help that as I was trying to harvest what few decent tomatoes were left, I had brought out one of our beautiful big white pasta bowls from Crate&Barrel, a store we don't have up here, and I DROPPED IT. It shattered all over the place. Now we have only one. Who uses just one pasta bowl? I guess it could be a server of sorts, but that kind of took my lingering, looming feelings of personal failure and magnified them. I'm not even on the drugs yet, what am I going to do when everything is amplified by insane hormonal peaks and troughs? I am a wee tiddly bit worried about that.
I got over it though, and in the end everything was cleaner, and looked much, much better. And I stopped muttering swears under my breath as I cleaned house, and I didn't even turn into a whirling dervish when I was cleaning up hosta sticks and discovered that maybe I should wait until a good cold snap to do that, because of all the beautiful (but not when they're IN YOUR FACE) spiraled spiderwebs in between them. Including one with a half-dollar-sized orb spider in it that barely missed becoming a hair ornament. EW EW EW.
So then we went to lunch, and while we were sitting there, Bryce mentioned that he needed to set me up for my class. That present that he got me for my birthday, the membership to Writer's and Books? I finally grew a pair and took a class over the summer, and I LOVED it. It's good for me to have dedicated time to just write, and not necessarily about all...this. There's another class this fall that I'm looking forward to, but it's on a weeknight from 7-9. No worries, I thought. I'd be busy and tired from school, but it doesn't start until October, so the September insanity should be calmed down and I should be in more of a groove.
EXCEPT.
Except as we were talking about it, Bryce was like, "Wait, what time is it?" and I was like, "7-9. So you won't see me in the evenings on that day, but no worries! You'll have you time!" And then he just stared at me. "How long does the class go?" he asked. "I don't know, it's at least six weeks or so though." And then he stared again. "From 7-9? For six weeks? Um, what about your shots?"
FUCK.
Yup, that's right, this last cycle we switched our PIO to evenings, which was an AMAZING thing convenience-wise. It was awesome. No worrying about getting up hyper early and trying to get Bryce to be semi-conscious for the sticking of the 1 1/2 inch needle in my derriere. No worrying about being late to school. But, we did them at 8:30 pm. Right in the middle of class.
I teared up. What the hell? Why must infertility interfere with EVERY ASPECT of our lives? This cycle, where there's all these fancy new pieces in play, where I don't want to mess with ANYTHING and do it all 100% by the book, and now it looks like I can't take this class that I was really looking forward to. Unless somehow I could take my shots at 6ish, and Bryce would have to get out of work in time to do that, and he'd have to come home and then go to the gym some nights, but if that's even remotely going outside of what's normally recommended then I DON'T WANT TO DO IT. I am too good at finding ways to blame myself for failure. I don't want anything that can make me feel like I messed with something for my own convenience and so maybe, some cosmic force thinks that my top priority is not motherhood but something else, and so no wonder I have no baby. (This is exactly the insanity my brain is capable of. Is this true? Probably not. Would anyone sane ever think that my priorities are out of whack? NO. But my mind is able to twist just about anything into a reason why we can't get pregnant. I won't even let Bryce trap chipmunks because I'm worried killing them would translate to bad karma. Help!)
But, we'll ask about the timing of the shots, and maybe it's not a big deal. And if it is a big deal, there will be other classes. It's just that this one looks awesome.
The rest of the day was good -- I sat outside and read a book for school while Bryce tinted walnut for the bookcase he's building us upstairs, and I started getting ready one step at a time for our fancy dinner out. I had a dress in mind, that I wore last December after our failed DE FET and when I was feeling quite chubby, so I was pretty sure it would fit. I washed my hair and did that first, then I put on my makeup, a variation on what I wore for our wedding (kind of pinup-lite, with red lips and black-linered, neutral-shadowed eyes). I was feeling HOT. And then I went to put on my dress. OH HOLY JEEZUM. It didn't fit. And then my second choice didn't look so great. And then I started to panic.
"Okay," I thought, "No worries, we're in a Sin Bin so I can feel fine wearing nice jeans and a sexy top. Yeah, let's do that." (A Sin Bin is a private room for two off one of the dining rooms upstairs in this restaurant, that a long time ago used to be an, uh, all-in-one, whatever-you-want pitstop along the Erie Canal.) My jeans fit fine, and I figured I would wear my ridiculously old stiletto "barbie shoes," high heels that look like they're out of the 1970's that I absolutely love but that are less than stable on the tootsies, and a black top. Except the one I had in mind seemed a bit short and tight and roly-poly looking. So I put on a shirt that I wear to work, that has a lightweight black cardigan and an ivory-and-black printed shell that's sewn in (lovely for the busty ladies, no worrying about accidental overexposure). Except it didn't feel particularly sexy. I dressed it up with the heels and some nice jewelry, but I felt fat. and I felt like I really can't pretend that I don't need to go up a size, or at least find some shirts meant for ladies who have all the right curves in all the right places, and maybe a few extra thrown in. BLAST YOU, INFERTILITY! It is SO irritating, because I can honestly say that I don't eat any more than I used to. If anything, I eat less. I am very careful about what I put in my body, and I have been really good about exercising. I have another week and a half for busting my butt at the gym before I can't do it anymore (at least vigorously) thanks to the hysteroscopy and then being on stimming medications, but I do have little windows. And I can always walk. I just don't get why my body insists on expanding this way. It seems unnecessarily cruel, and the fact that I'm doing everything I can and it makes no difference and everyone keeps telling me that "this isn't something to worry about" is all, all frustrating. I didn't want to buy new clothes due to expanding size unless they had elastic waistbands and pouches for a baby belly. I don't want to spend money on clothes right now, but I honestly think it will make me feel better to have clothes that don't make me feel like a stuffed sausage, and more choices that make me feel good about myself instead of reminding me that I am bigger than I was last year. Argh. The weird thing is some of my pants fit, and some don't, and they're ALL THE SAME SIZE. So frustrating.
The good thing is, Bryce finds me ridiculously sexy no matter what. And maybe even a little more so when I've got more to, um, hang on to. So I have to try to quiet the angry, self-hater in my mind and listen to my husband who tells me, FREQUENTLY, that I am beautiful, I am sexy, I am HOT. Eventually I felt that way when we were on our way out to dinner, but it was kind of a wake-up call that I should really get more clothes that make me feel more comfy in my own skin. Since all this extra seems to not be going anywhere, and with a wonderful cocktail of femara, follistim, PIO, and benadryl...I don't think that's changing anytime soon.
SO, now for the purely beautiful part. Dinner.
We had our Sin Bin, so we could be as silly as we wanted and didn't have to be all formal and stiff for the sake of other diners. (Not that we always keep that in mind, but it was nice to not have to be even a little aware of others.) We toasted our early anniversary, and how amazing it is that five years have gone by in what seems like a really long time (like we've never NOT been together) and also just like yesterday (I remember so clearly everything about our wedding day, from the insane howling wind, to the last minute decision that we'd be ok outside and it wouldn't rain, to feeling so insanely lucky to be promising our lives to each other). We ate baby spinach salad with shaved goat gouda, gala apples, marcona almonds, and apple cider ginger dressing. We saw a little beetle that was coming in to the old building, hanging out above our heads, and named him Bertrand Francois Dubois. He oversaw our romantic evening without doing anything unpredictable or disturbing, so all was good. We had the most delicious beef tenderloin with bordelaise sauce, cheddar potato gratin, and swiss chard. We drank our dusty cellar bottle of 2005 Phelan Segur St. Estephe wine. It couldn't have paired better if we tried. We laughed, we talked, we managed not to talk about infertility barely at all. (I'm pretty sure there was a brief detour in one conversation, but it was expertly diverted and there were no sad eyes, no tears at dinner). We hung out for about two and a half hours, luxuriating in our delicious foods and yummy beverages, savoring all these moments. I hate to call it this, because so far it has failed to live up to its name, but dinner was my "last hurrah" before this next cycle. Now starts the cutting back on the sugar, on the coffee, and no alcohol. But last night, in the little candlelit Sin Bin, it was all deliciousness without any thought to prepping for yet another cycle.
It was beautiful to have a night to celebrate that was free of the things that would interfere in late October. Free of drugs, free of restrictions, free of that specter that could all too easily bring the tears on. Was yesterday totally free of fertility-related frustration? No. But the evening was fertility-free, romantic, and relaxing...and in the end, that's all that really matters.
So we did it this weekend.
It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday, and I want to end on how gorgeous the day was, and how amazing the dinner was, and how nice it was to celebrate our anniversary together, somewhat unfettered by infertility.
But, it was only somewhat unfettered.
It started with my morning chores--I wanted to do fall garden cleanup, while I can still bend and sweat and be out in the sun without worry that the drugs are making me photosensitive or worrying about raising my internal body temp too much or realizing that you bend with your uterus. (It's true--weird but true. It's almost impossible to do anything without your uterus being in on the action, which I never ever thought about until all this nonsense.) My butterfly garden has been awesome this year -- plants are reblooming that I don't think are supposed to, my annuals are having a rejuvenation and there's gorgeous deep purple heliotrope exploding all over again, and the deer have managed not to decimate my sedum. My other gardens? This fairly wet summer with all the heavy rains really did a number on them. My coneflowers went insane and are now this cricket thicket that is a lovely microcosm of wildlife (goldfinches! crickets! katydids! strange flying insects I've never seen before! bees!), but they look hideous. Like I'm trying to recreate the briars in Sleeping Beauty or something. I have to be kind to myself, because every year at this time it becomes sort of a Garden of Death, but I like to keep the dead coneflowers around because the lovely goldfinches hang out in there and eat the seeds (completing the vicious cycle of more coneflowers than I know what to do with, and I think next spring there will be an aggressive culling...). Those pretty golden songbirds greet me in the morning when I go to school and in the evening when I return, and they just make me so darn happy. So, if it doesn't look so hot right now, SO WHAT. But still, as I was cleaning that up and yanking out the insane cherry tomato vines that are now producing rotten, mealy, and cracked fruits that litter our patio and back driveway, I kept thinking, "Ugh. Gardening's supposed to be your thing, your activity where you feel like you can actually sustain life, and look at this mess. This year even THAT is suffering." It didn't help that as I was trying to harvest what few decent tomatoes were left, I had brought out one of our beautiful big white pasta bowls from Crate&Barrel, a store we don't have up here, and I DROPPED IT. It shattered all over the place. Now we have only one. Who uses just one pasta bowl? I guess it could be a server of sorts, but that kind of took my lingering, looming feelings of personal failure and magnified them. I'm not even on the drugs yet, what am I going to do when everything is amplified by insane hormonal peaks and troughs? I am a wee tiddly bit worried about that.
.JPG) |
| The butterfly garden, in its fall glory. |
I got over it though, and in the end everything was cleaner, and looked much, much better. And I stopped muttering swears under my breath as I cleaned house, and I didn't even turn into a whirling dervish when I was cleaning up hosta sticks and discovered that maybe I should wait until a good cold snap to do that, because of all the beautiful (but not when they're IN YOUR FACE) spiraled spiderwebs in between them. Including one with a half-dollar-sized orb spider in it that barely missed becoming a hair ornament. EW EW EW.
So then we went to lunch, and while we were sitting there, Bryce mentioned that he needed to set me up for my class. That present that he got me for my birthday, the membership to Writer's and Books? I finally grew a pair and took a class over the summer, and I LOVED it. It's good for me to have dedicated time to just write, and not necessarily about all...this. There's another class this fall that I'm looking forward to, but it's on a weeknight from 7-9. No worries, I thought. I'd be busy and tired from school, but it doesn't start until October, so the September insanity should be calmed down and I should be in more of a groove.
EXCEPT.
Except as we were talking about it, Bryce was like, "Wait, what time is it?" and I was like, "7-9. So you won't see me in the evenings on that day, but no worries! You'll have you time!" And then he just stared at me. "How long does the class go?" he asked. "I don't know, it's at least six weeks or so though." And then he stared again. "From 7-9? For six weeks? Um, what about your shots?"
FUCK.
Yup, that's right, this last cycle we switched our PIO to evenings, which was an AMAZING thing convenience-wise. It was awesome. No worrying about getting up hyper early and trying to get Bryce to be semi-conscious for the sticking of the 1 1/2 inch needle in my derriere. No worrying about being late to school. But, we did them at 8:30 pm. Right in the middle of class.
I teared up. What the hell? Why must infertility interfere with EVERY ASPECT of our lives? This cycle, where there's all these fancy new pieces in play, where I don't want to mess with ANYTHING and do it all 100% by the book, and now it looks like I can't take this class that I was really looking forward to. Unless somehow I could take my shots at 6ish, and Bryce would have to get out of work in time to do that, and he'd have to come home and then go to the gym some nights, but if that's even remotely going outside of what's normally recommended then I DON'T WANT TO DO IT. I am too good at finding ways to blame myself for failure. I don't want anything that can make me feel like I messed with something for my own convenience and so maybe, some cosmic force thinks that my top priority is not motherhood but something else, and so no wonder I have no baby. (This is exactly the insanity my brain is capable of. Is this true? Probably not. Would anyone sane ever think that my priorities are out of whack? NO. But my mind is able to twist just about anything into a reason why we can't get pregnant. I won't even let Bryce trap chipmunks because I'm worried killing them would translate to bad karma. Help!)
But, we'll ask about the timing of the shots, and maybe it's not a big deal. And if it is a big deal, there will be other classes. It's just that this one looks awesome.
The rest of the day was good -- I sat outside and read a book for school while Bryce tinted walnut for the bookcase he's building us upstairs, and I started getting ready one step at a time for our fancy dinner out. I had a dress in mind, that I wore last December after our failed DE FET and when I was feeling quite chubby, so I was pretty sure it would fit. I washed my hair and did that first, then I put on my makeup, a variation on what I wore for our wedding (kind of pinup-lite, with red lips and black-linered, neutral-shadowed eyes). I was feeling HOT. And then I went to put on my dress. OH HOLY JEEZUM. It didn't fit. And then my second choice didn't look so great. And then I started to panic.
"Okay," I thought, "No worries, we're in a Sin Bin so I can feel fine wearing nice jeans and a sexy top. Yeah, let's do that." (A Sin Bin is a private room for two off one of the dining rooms upstairs in this restaurant, that a long time ago used to be an, uh, all-in-one, whatever-you-want pitstop along the Erie Canal.) My jeans fit fine, and I figured I would wear my ridiculously old stiletto "barbie shoes," high heels that look like they're out of the 1970's that I absolutely love but that are less than stable on the tootsies, and a black top. Except the one I had in mind seemed a bit short and tight and roly-poly looking. So I put on a shirt that I wear to work, that has a lightweight black cardigan and an ivory-and-black printed shell that's sewn in (lovely for the busty ladies, no worrying about accidental overexposure). Except it didn't feel particularly sexy. I dressed it up with the heels and some nice jewelry, but I felt fat. and I felt like I really can't pretend that I don't need to go up a size, or at least find some shirts meant for ladies who have all the right curves in all the right places, and maybe a few extra thrown in. BLAST YOU, INFERTILITY! It is SO irritating, because I can honestly say that I don't eat any more than I used to. If anything, I eat less. I am very careful about what I put in my body, and I have been really good about exercising. I have another week and a half for busting my butt at the gym before I can't do it anymore (at least vigorously) thanks to the hysteroscopy and then being on stimming medications, but I do have little windows. And I can always walk. I just don't get why my body insists on expanding this way. It seems unnecessarily cruel, and the fact that I'm doing everything I can and it makes no difference and everyone keeps telling me that "this isn't something to worry about" is all, all frustrating. I didn't want to buy new clothes due to expanding size unless they had elastic waistbands and pouches for a baby belly. I don't want to spend money on clothes right now, but I honestly think it will make me feel better to have clothes that don't make me feel like a stuffed sausage, and more choices that make me feel good about myself instead of reminding me that I am bigger than I was last year. Argh. The weird thing is some of my pants fit, and some don't, and they're ALL THE SAME SIZE. So frustrating.
The good thing is, Bryce finds me ridiculously sexy no matter what. And maybe even a little more so when I've got more to, um, hang on to. So I have to try to quiet the angry, self-hater in my mind and listen to my husband who tells me, FREQUENTLY, that I am beautiful, I am sexy, I am HOT. Eventually I felt that way when we were on our way out to dinner, but it was kind of a wake-up call that I should really get more clothes that make me feel more comfy in my own skin. Since all this extra seems to not be going anywhere, and with a wonderful cocktail of femara, follistim, PIO, and benadryl...I don't think that's changing anytime soon.
SO, now for the purely beautiful part. Dinner.
We had our Sin Bin, so we could be as silly as we wanted and didn't have to be all formal and stiff for the sake of other diners. (Not that we always keep that in mind, but it was nice to not have to be even a little aware of others.) We toasted our early anniversary, and how amazing it is that five years have gone by in what seems like a really long time (like we've never NOT been together) and also just like yesterday (I remember so clearly everything about our wedding day, from the insane howling wind, to the last minute decision that we'd be ok outside and it wouldn't rain, to feeling so insanely lucky to be promising our lives to each other). We ate baby spinach salad with shaved goat gouda, gala apples, marcona almonds, and apple cider ginger dressing. We saw a little beetle that was coming in to the old building, hanging out above our heads, and named him Bertrand Francois Dubois. He oversaw our romantic evening without doing anything unpredictable or disturbing, so all was good. We had the most delicious beef tenderloin with bordelaise sauce, cheddar potato gratin, and swiss chard. We drank our dusty cellar bottle of 2005 Phelan Segur St. Estephe wine. It couldn't have paired better if we tried. We laughed, we talked, we managed not to talk about infertility barely at all. (I'm pretty sure there was a brief detour in one conversation, but it was expertly diverted and there were no sad eyes, no tears at dinner). We hung out for about two and a half hours, luxuriating in our delicious foods and yummy beverages, savoring all these moments. I hate to call it this, because so far it has failed to live up to its name, but dinner was my "last hurrah" before this next cycle. Now starts the cutting back on the sugar, on the coffee, and no alcohol. But last night, in the little candlelit Sin Bin, it was all deliciousness without any thought to prepping for yet another cycle.
 |
| A little blurry, but all fancy'd up and ready to go enjoy our anniversary dinner together. God, my husband is devastatingly handsome. |
It was beautiful to have a night to celebrate that was free of the things that would interfere in late October. Free of drugs, free of restrictions, free of that specter that could all too easily bring the tears on. Was yesterday totally free of fertility-related frustration? No. But the evening was fertility-free, romantic, and relaxing...and in the end, that's all that really matters.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Open House
Ah, Open House. The sweatiest of teacher nights. A night of smiling nonstop, of trying not to get ambushed, of hoping you sound as intelligent and awesome as you just know you do every single day in front of middle schoolers, and then realizing that parents make you inexplicably nervous and tongue-tied.
First, the parents. Every year they seem to get younger and younger. (It's not at all that I get older and older.) Subtly, a little infertile twinge from standing in front of a room of people who are now your age, some younger, some not that much older, but much closer to your age group than they ever were before. And they have 13-14 year olds. And you have...cats.
Then, every year, there are the really bizarre parent-child-lookalike things. Every year. A parent walks through your door and you're like, "HOLY GUACAMOLE, you look just like Johnny!" (Johnny's name has been changed. I have no students named Johnny.) Bizarro, really strong genes, a cosmic ha-ha. Except.
Except when that happens, I mourn a little more that our kids will be missing at least one of our genetic components. At least for right now that's the case -- we're mourning Bryce's genetic loss, but we also still have those frozen embryos from the donor egg cycle so it's not 100% out of the question that we could have children that don't have my genes. Or we could have one of each, if we manage this on our next try and then go back for a sibling with the embryos we have in the freezer. Or, they could decide it's completely my lining's shenanigans causing our woes, and none of this donor nonsense was needed. (Unlikely it's just one thing, but who knows.) Regardless, now those freaky parent-child double situations are a little stabby poke between my ribs, because in all likelihood no one will say that about our children. And then, this year, one classroom that I was in was flabbergasted by how UNLIKE the child the father was. They couldn't stop talking about it, even this morning. Which set me off a bit, because sometimes that's how genetics work, and sometimes genetics have NOTHING TO DO WITH FATHERHOOD. Or motherhood. It is so hard not to be sensitive to comments like, "He looks NOTHING like his son. Is he even the REAL Dad?" Yes. People still say shit like this around me. They get temporary amnesia about the incredible intricacies of my incredibly unsuccessful family building attempts, and forget things such as that the phrase "real Dad" is HORRIBLY OFFENSIVE and INACCURATE. But whatever. I made my snippiness known. I just wish there was one of those Men In Black memory-wiping wands for phrases like that.
Sometimes you see unexpected people at Open Houses. People like, say, administrators you had four years ago when you were in a different building, who knew about your babymaking efforts then and hopefully aren't feeling horribly sorry for you now (or worse, looking at your larger profile and wondering if you are still carrying the baby weight from that mythical baby you just haven't made yet but may as well have from the way your body's flub has redistributed and gathered around your midsection thanks to fertility drugs and questionable coping mechanisms). They may not remember, but you do and can't stop thinking about a time you tried really hard not to cry in their office as you explained you had to be out AGAIN for an IUI. (Yup, four years ago, when IUIs were still all the rage, and I had a hard time coping with all the appointments. Ha HA ha ha.)
Sometimes that unexpected person is the school psychologist at one of the buildings you taught in a few years ago, when you were doing donor egg and were completely at the mercy of an anonymous angel and yet annual review (IEP meetings) schedules had to be made and you embarrassingly had to reveal that you were undergoing procedures with unspecified dates attached and so could you please have your meetings as early as possible, in March? And then when he looked all concerned when you said, "I'm having some medical procedures and I'm not sure when but I'll be out and/or unavailable for parts of the day and it could span a few weeks depending on how things pan out, but March should be safe so I don't have to reschedule later," you realized maybe it would be a good idea to make sure he didn't think you had cancer. So you said you'd been doing IVF for some time and then he actually wanted to know more details, and that was sort of refreshing, so you launched into an explanation that later you felt was a LEETLE bit too detailed for someone you see everyday. And then the donor egg cycle happened and you didn't get pregnant. And then you came back in September and you did a FET and you didn't get pregnant. And then in winter there was a meeting with special ed and school psychologists about behavior plans and you were late from lunch and had to sit on the stairs and he stood up and said, LOUDLY, "Jess, do you need a chair? ARE YOU PREGNANT?" Good times. This person totally means well. And his job is to ask about feelings and make sure people are coping well, but sometimes at school I can't have people asking me all the time if I'm ok. (I know, tricky tricky, because it can be isolating if no one asks if you are ok, but constant asking is too much. Because lately, all too often, the answer is NO. I AM NOT OK.)
Well, I ran into the school psychologist at Open House, and right before my first presentation of the night, for my Reading class, a class I am ridiculously passionate about and normally speak really coherently and intelligently about, but for SOME STRANGE REASON I sounded like a nervous person who had possibly done a boatload of speed right before, he asked me all about how things were going. NOT WELL, I said. He asked, and that is super nice, but it took a lot of energy not to get really upset. I think my poor performance in my first presentation was in part due to this conversation and in part due to some intense staring I received from the audience, a phenomenon I haven't had before. But maybe the staring came after I sounded slightly insane and maybe under the influence of drugs that had my heart racing. I wasn't, I'm on NOTHING but prenatals right now, but man I was sweaty and fast-talking and shaky. Anyway, the conversation went along the lines of this:
"So, still nothing?"
"Yes. Still nothing."
"Are you still trying?"
"Yup, I have surgery in a couple weeks and then we do another frozen transfer, but they have a good plan."
"So there's a plan?"
"Yup, some somewhat experimental, cutting-edge stuff. They're hopeful."
"Oh wow. Are you hopeful?"
"Well, I guess if they are I can be, right? It gets harder and harder though. This last cycle was my 10th transfer. I'm tired."
"So, when do you decide if you're going to continue or not?"
"We bought a package, and we will go until we run out of tries or they tell us to stop. Whichever comes first."
"So like one more time?"
"NO. Actually, it could go through the summer." [this is where I vomit a bit into my mouth]
"OH WOW. WOW. How do you do this? How do you do [gestures around the halls] all this and do ALL THAT?"
"Good question. I DON'T KNOW. Seriously, I really DON'T KNOW ANYMORE."
"You're amazing."
"Thank you. I hope so. I'll take your word for it."
And I headed up to give my presentation. Can't imagine why it was shaky/sweaty/red-faced/tongue-tied after all that deepness.
It's kind of my fault...I could have just said hi and then made like I had to be somewhere, stat. I didn't have to verbal vomit my sorrow all over him. But he asked. And I kind of feel like, if people ask, they must really want to know. And the funny thing is, he did. I probably gave him more than was necessary, in the halls of my middle school on Parent Night. And it probably sent me into a funk way more than it did him. He might go home and be like, "That poor woman," for a short period of time, before bed in conversation with his wife. But it has spun in my head for over 24 hours.
I don't know what to say anymore when people say "I don't know how you do this." Because I don't know how I do it, either. School is kind of like a haven for me. I can usually shut all this off like a switch and perform all day long, being Mrs. T, goofy teacher. A teacher of reading that can take a conversation about nonfiction features for an article on the plight of the Monarch butterfly and suddenly have it turn into a really meaningful conversation about ISIS. A teacher of resource room who, when quizzing for the vocabulary quiz, has kids come up with sentences for the word "tedious," and when one student says, "It's probably tedious for you to clean up after your dirty little kids," is able to say, "I don't have any dirty little kids. I wish. I have dirty little cats," and NOT CRY. I can have a student in my English class who is working on his personal narrative about his name and himself, when discussing family traditions of middle names, look at me like I'm crazy when I say, "If I had a daughter I'd probably use the middle name Rose after my grandmother, because she means a lot to me" and exclaims, "You don't have a daughter?" Like that's some kind of weird anomaly. "Nope, I don't have any children." I say. WITHOUT CRYING. And when he says "Why not?" I say, "Because sometimes you don't easily get the things you want most." WITHOUT CRYING. Because I am playing the part of a person who is not living out a personal tragedy in her off hours. Because this week is different from last week and the week before, when I failed at that acting job and got messy all over my off periods. BUT I DID NOT CRY IN FRONT OF STUDENTS. And honestly, I don't know how I do it. I compartmentalize. But I don't know how I KEEP doing this. Especially when I am slapped in the face with HOW LONG we've been doing this, and how MASSIVELY UNSUCCESSFUL we've been. When I see a student in one of my English classes whose older brother was in my class two years ago, and I'm STILL not on maternity leave. Maternity leave is not even on the horizon this school year.
Open House is hard enough without all this added in. I do it, somehow, without crying. Without accidentally saying something stupidly inappropriate about my lack of children, when how many children you have and what grade they're in seems to be the universal opener for many teachers. I put a picture of me with my husband over the summer on a boat in Maine up on my smartboard. He's not the same kind of cute as a picture of our babies would be, but he's darn handsome and that's the slice of my personal life that I can share. Someday maybe my kids will grace the Smartboard. Someday I'll go to Open House and either be pregnant or toting pictures of my baby. Or maybe, next year, I won't be at Open House at all. My long-term sub will be. I'll be home spending precious time with my hard-won baby, snuggled on the couch with my little family that once seemed so impossible, and so far away. And that will be the best Open House EVER.
First, the parents. Every year they seem to get younger and younger. (It's not at all that I get older and older.) Subtly, a little infertile twinge from standing in front of a room of people who are now your age, some younger, some not that much older, but much closer to your age group than they ever were before. And they have 13-14 year olds. And you have...cats.
Then, every year, there are the really bizarre parent-child-lookalike things. Every year. A parent walks through your door and you're like, "HOLY GUACAMOLE, you look just like Johnny!" (Johnny's name has been changed. I have no students named Johnny.) Bizarro, really strong genes, a cosmic ha-ha. Except.
Except when that happens, I mourn a little more that our kids will be missing at least one of our genetic components. At least for right now that's the case -- we're mourning Bryce's genetic loss, but we also still have those frozen embryos from the donor egg cycle so it's not 100% out of the question that we could have children that don't have my genes. Or we could have one of each, if we manage this on our next try and then go back for a sibling with the embryos we have in the freezer. Or, they could decide it's completely my lining's shenanigans causing our woes, and none of this donor nonsense was needed. (Unlikely it's just one thing, but who knows.) Regardless, now those freaky parent-child double situations are a little stabby poke between my ribs, because in all likelihood no one will say that about our children. And then, this year, one classroom that I was in was flabbergasted by how UNLIKE the child the father was. They couldn't stop talking about it, even this morning. Which set me off a bit, because sometimes that's how genetics work, and sometimes genetics have NOTHING TO DO WITH FATHERHOOD. Or motherhood. It is so hard not to be sensitive to comments like, "He looks NOTHING like his son. Is he even the REAL Dad?" Yes. People still say shit like this around me. They get temporary amnesia about the incredible intricacies of my incredibly unsuccessful family building attempts, and forget things such as that the phrase "real Dad" is HORRIBLY OFFENSIVE and INACCURATE. But whatever. I made my snippiness known. I just wish there was one of those Men In Black memory-wiping wands for phrases like that.
Sometimes you see unexpected people at Open Houses. People like, say, administrators you had four years ago when you were in a different building, who knew about your babymaking efforts then and hopefully aren't feeling horribly sorry for you now (or worse, looking at your larger profile and wondering if you are still carrying the baby weight from that mythical baby you just haven't made yet but may as well have from the way your body's flub has redistributed and gathered around your midsection thanks to fertility drugs and questionable coping mechanisms). They may not remember, but you do and can't stop thinking about a time you tried really hard not to cry in their office as you explained you had to be out AGAIN for an IUI. (Yup, four years ago, when IUIs were still all the rage, and I had a hard time coping with all the appointments. Ha HA ha ha.)
Sometimes that unexpected person is the school psychologist at one of the buildings you taught in a few years ago, when you were doing donor egg and were completely at the mercy of an anonymous angel and yet annual review (IEP meetings) schedules had to be made and you embarrassingly had to reveal that you were undergoing procedures with unspecified dates attached and so could you please have your meetings as early as possible, in March? And then when he looked all concerned when you said, "I'm having some medical procedures and I'm not sure when but I'll be out and/or unavailable for parts of the day and it could span a few weeks depending on how things pan out, but March should be safe so I don't have to reschedule later," you realized maybe it would be a good idea to make sure he didn't think you had cancer. So you said you'd been doing IVF for some time and then he actually wanted to know more details, and that was sort of refreshing, so you launched into an explanation that later you felt was a LEETLE bit too detailed for someone you see everyday. And then the donor egg cycle happened and you didn't get pregnant. And then you came back in September and you did a FET and you didn't get pregnant. And then in winter there was a meeting with special ed and school psychologists about behavior plans and you were late from lunch and had to sit on the stairs and he stood up and said, LOUDLY, "Jess, do you need a chair? ARE YOU PREGNANT?" Good times. This person totally means well. And his job is to ask about feelings and make sure people are coping well, but sometimes at school I can't have people asking me all the time if I'm ok. (I know, tricky tricky, because it can be isolating if no one asks if you are ok, but constant asking is too much. Because lately, all too often, the answer is NO. I AM NOT OK.)
Well, I ran into the school psychologist at Open House, and right before my first presentation of the night, for my Reading class, a class I am ridiculously passionate about and normally speak really coherently and intelligently about, but for SOME STRANGE REASON I sounded like a nervous person who had possibly done a boatload of speed right before, he asked me all about how things were going. NOT WELL, I said. He asked, and that is super nice, but it took a lot of energy not to get really upset. I think my poor performance in my first presentation was in part due to this conversation and in part due to some intense staring I received from the audience, a phenomenon I haven't had before. But maybe the staring came after I sounded slightly insane and maybe under the influence of drugs that had my heart racing. I wasn't, I'm on NOTHING but prenatals right now, but man I was sweaty and fast-talking and shaky. Anyway, the conversation went along the lines of this:
"So, still nothing?"
"Yes. Still nothing."
"Are you still trying?"
"Yup, I have surgery in a couple weeks and then we do another frozen transfer, but they have a good plan."
"So there's a plan?"
"Yup, some somewhat experimental, cutting-edge stuff. They're hopeful."
"Oh wow. Are you hopeful?"
"Well, I guess if they are I can be, right? It gets harder and harder though. This last cycle was my 10th transfer. I'm tired."
"So, when do you decide if you're going to continue or not?"
"We bought a package, and we will go until we run out of tries or they tell us to stop. Whichever comes first."
"So like one more time?"
"NO. Actually, it could go through the summer." [this is where I vomit a bit into my mouth]
"OH WOW. WOW. How do you do this? How do you do [gestures around the halls] all this and do ALL THAT?"
"Good question. I DON'T KNOW. Seriously, I really DON'T KNOW ANYMORE."
"You're amazing."
"Thank you. I hope so. I'll take your word for it."
And I headed up to give my presentation. Can't imagine why it was shaky/sweaty/red-faced/tongue-tied after all that deepness.
It's kind of my fault...I could have just said hi and then made like I had to be somewhere, stat. I didn't have to verbal vomit my sorrow all over him. But he asked. And I kind of feel like, if people ask, they must really want to know. And the funny thing is, he did. I probably gave him more than was necessary, in the halls of my middle school on Parent Night. And it probably sent me into a funk way more than it did him. He might go home and be like, "That poor woman," for a short period of time, before bed in conversation with his wife. But it has spun in my head for over 24 hours.
I don't know what to say anymore when people say "I don't know how you do this." Because I don't know how I do it, either. School is kind of like a haven for me. I can usually shut all this off like a switch and perform all day long, being Mrs. T, goofy teacher. A teacher of reading that can take a conversation about nonfiction features for an article on the plight of the Monarch butterfly and suddenly have it turn into a really meaningful conversation about ISIS. A teacher of resource room who, when quizzing for the vocabulary quiz, has kids come up with sentences for the word "tedious," and when one student says, "It's probably tedious for you to clean up after your dirty little kids," is able to say, "I don't have any dirty little kids. I wish. I have dirty little cats," and NOT CRY. I can have a student in my English class who is working on his personal narrative about his name and himself, when discussing family traditions of middle names, look at me like I'm crazy when I say, "If I had a daughter I'd probably use the middle name Rose after my grandmother, because she means a lot to me" and exclaims, "You don't have a daughter?" Like that's some kind of weird anomaly. "Nope, I don't have any children." I say. WITHOUT CRYING. And when he says "Why not?" I say, "Because sometimes you don't easily get the things you want most." WITHOUT CRYING. Because I am playing the part of a person who is not living out a personal tragedy in her off hours. Because this week is different from last week and the week before, when I failed at that acting job and got messy all over my off periods. BUT I DID NOT CRY IN FRONT OF STUDENTS. And honestly, I don't know how I do it. I compartmentalize. But I don't know how I KEEP doing this. Especially when I am slapped in the face with HOW LONG we've been doing this, and how MASSIVELY UNSUCCESSFUL we've been. When I see a student in one of my English classes whose older brother was in my class two years ago, and I'm STILL not on maternity leave. Maternity leave is not even on the horizon this school year.
Open House is hard enough without all this added in. I do it, somehow, without crying. Without accidentally saying something stupidly inappropriate about my lack of children, when how many children you have and what grade they're in seems to be the universal opener for many teachers. I put a picture of me with my husband over the summer on a boat in Maine up on my smartboard. He's not the same kind of cute as a picture of our babies would be, but he's darn handsome and that's the slice of my personal life that I can share. Someday maybe my kids will grace the Smartboard. Someday I'll go to Open House and either be pregnant or toting pictures of my baby. Or maybe, next year, I won't be at Open House at all. My long-term sub will be. I'll be home spending precious time with my hard-won baby, snuggled on the couch with my little family that once seemed so impossible, and so far away. And that will be the best Open House EVER.
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