It's such a struggle keeping my mindset in a healthy place lately. Going into my 6th in vitro cycle (2nd frozen after 4 fresh), I am having a hard time staying positive. Not that I have to be Super Suzy Sunshine or anything, because honestly even Pollyanna would be dropping f-bombs and hiding in a pint of ice cream at this point in the game, but I do try to be somewhat positive. I try to use WHEN, not IF, when referring to a future as-of-yet phantom pregnancy. I try to think about the good things I have and not the giant gaping hole where the baby that should be isn't. I try to go into a cycle in a place of hope, because you just can't go into a cycle feeling hopeless and come out the other side OK, regardless of the outcome.
The biggest difficulty I'm having is sticking to my TODAY mindset. Just thinking about now, and this day, and not what's coming (or possibly not). That is so hard to practice! It can be so easy to go into a tailspin of worry about things that haven't even happened yet. Things I can't possibly control, but yet I try to do just that in my crazy, control freak mind. I'm getting better, though. Case in point: I have no clue what my virtual due date is for the upcoming cycle this summer. I haven't calculated it. I don't want to calculate it. It's some spring date, that much I can figure out (summer whoopie/laboratory finagling = spring babies), but I am resisting the urge to do what I ALWAYS do going into these things. That due date means nothing until there is something growing inside me. I have enough phantom dates to make me sad, I don't need to add a new one. In the past I've even put dates in my plan book and left it blank after my "due date," thinking I'd be out on maternity leave by then. This is just plain foolishness. It's hopeful, which I guess is good, but man, when that doesn't work out and then you're putting dates into the school year that you were hoping to be out for, it just magnifies the loss of what could have been. So I don't do that anymore. Of course, mentally it's hard not to go to that place. Would I be showing by Christmas? When could I tell the masses safely? Is there a "safely" anymore? I'm not sure. So I try not to go there. Because it is out of my control. It's either there or it's not.
This became a problem at the end of this school year, as I packed up my stuff and got things ready for September and tried to get things as organized as possible for the fall. Getting ready for the fall had a wacky effect on me. It made me unbelievably sad. I figured out that it was because I am so terrified of something happening this summer that would make it hard in the fall, that getting ready for September was triggering some kind of panic response in me. Probably because I didn't have a normal September last year. I don't know what the first day of school looks like in a classroom setting. That was taken from me last year along with my tube and my little lost babyling. And now, getting ready for a new chance at success, I am having a hard time not being terrified by the what ifs. What if I don't get pregnant and I fall completely apart? What if I do get pregnant and am faced with another horrid personal tragedy? What if I do get pregnant and have a complication that has me still viably pregnant but put on bed rest? What if I can't start the school year normally again? What if I get pregnant, I'm perfectly fine, and everything is normal? (That one doesn't usually go in the rotation.) The what ifs don't serve a good purpose. The what ifs are fairly destructive, because they send me into a tailspin, worrying about all of these possible outcomes, when NONE of it has happened yet. Why worry about maternity leave options when I'm not pregnant? Why worry about all the disasters yet to come, when they're still very much yet to come? And hopefully they never come? It seems simple enough to let it all go. But that subconscious is a shifty critter, and she won't give it a rest.
So I try hard to just focus on today. On now. On what's happening at this moment, not what could happen in a dizzying array of possible hideous outcomes. Today I put more plants in the ground, I potted plants that have been waiting on me for weeks (poor leggy things, I hope they get bushy again), and I weeded. I read a book. I took a nap. I vacuumed what seems like a neverending supply of cat hair from the rug in the living room. I made a bunch of phone calls. I washed the (again constantly covered in cat hair) bedroom quilt. I made a delicious lunch for myself. I took good care of myself today. I am preparing for success, not for disaster. I have always said "I don't need to prepare myself mentally for success, I know how that will feel (although less so for having suffered a loss). I need to mentally prepare myself for failure, because that's way harder." That's true, but sad. It's like my motto growing up-- "better to be pleasantly surprised than bitterly disappointed." I think it's time to try to give up the constant preparation for what could go wrong, and just let it go. I can't control any of this. All I can do is feed my body and spirit and shoot myself up with whatever the magic elixir du jour that could get me pregnant is today. And hope that it works, but know that I can't control whatever outcome is headed our way. I can hope for success and try to ward away failure, but it will either be or it won't. So I may as well enjoy these beautiful days of summer without wasting time on those ugly what ifs. Wish me luck silencing those nasty little buggers!
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
What Are You Doing This Summer?
Ahhhh, the school year is almost over. Time for wrapping up, reflecting, planning for next year, cleaning up, and starting a well-deserved vacation. I am salivating just thinking about next Friday afternoon. It's been a slow transition towards summer--because I am split between two buildings I had my last day with students in one building last Friday (finals/Regents this week) but my last day with my morning building students was yesterday. And next week is all about finishing out the oodles of paperwork for this year and trying to get organized for next year.
I've noticed that in the past few weeks, I have been asked the question "What are you doing this summer?" what feels like 8 billion times. It makes sense--people who ask either work in schools themselves or know that I teach. There's lots of possible answers to that question, but it trips me up a little bit each time because I feel like I can't totally answer it honestly, which bugs me. What I want to say:
"This summer I will be working hard at getting pregnant. Dear freaking Jehosaphat, I really hope my body can pull its shit together this summer, because I am awfully tired of being a sad sap story. So, I will be doing my 6th cycle and relaxing/being as lazy as possible to try to make that happen. Even though this is unfortunately not a Yoda situation of "There is no try, only do." Pretty much there's only try and resign yourself to the fact that none of it is under your control NONE OF IT. So that's what I'm doing. Getting pregnant. And if not, probably losing my mind and going on an epic Joaqu.im Phoe.nix-style bender/mental breakdown, complete with beard and funky sunglasses. What are YOU doing this summer?"
Probably a little over the top.
But the gist is there. I want to say, "I'm trying to get pregnant again, goddammit." But instead, I dance around it.
What I actually say, especially when asked if I'm teaching summer school and I say NO emphatically:
"Oh, I'm going to work in my garden, work around the house, relax, work on my, um, personal project."
Note: Personal Project = GETTING FREAKING PREGNANT (or having massive breakdown)
Sometimes people misunderstand me, either unintentionally or on purpose, because (strangely) my "personal project" either is completely unknown to them or it makes them highly uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. Despite my out-of-control eyebrows and winky faces as I say "personal project," pushing innuendo into blatant "AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS" territory, I will be asked if it's a house project, a renovation, a class, etc. And then I don't really know what to say, so I fudge it and say, "oh, garden stuff."
Which isn't too far from the truth, because gardening is highly relaxing to me and serves a major therapeutic purpose during times of reproductive finagling. See here for my post on Garden Therapy last year. I have my vegetable garden, my six perennial beds, and the containers in our Secret Garden hideaway on the side of the house. The beds include the brand-new butterfly garden that I put in this spring, thanks to my husband's generous and incredibly thoughtful birthday gift of Certified Butterfly Way Station plants (little did he know he'd be the one tilling the dirt for it...). "Garden stuff" isn't too far off because that's a lot of what I'm doing this summer--if I can't seem to grow a baby, at least I can prove that I'm not totally barren and can coax things to grow and bear fruit in the dirt that I tend, if not my body. Maybe my uterus just needs 80 pounds of composted manure, like my tomatoes and peppers. Ha. Ha.
The truth is my summer is not actually all that relaxing, although I'm going to do my best to make it that way. Infertility has a big part in it, but other things too. Actual plans this summer:
So there it is, summer at a glance. My plans to be relaxed yet prepared for next year's challenges, stress-free yet embroiled in a handful of projects. Number one being...GET PREGNANT. Because it's possible. Because our blasts are beautiful, as they pretty much have been for 4 cycles. Because I'll be somewhat relaxed and able to really rest and encourage that baby or two (or three) to settle in to my tilled, amended, and utterly prepared uterus. And then when people say, "What did you do over the summer" I can say, "the best personal project ever." Which is so much better than "pulled a celebrity-style meltdown and became a bearded experimental musical artist/wildwoman living in a cave in the woods/rehab resident for Skinn.ygirl White Cranberry Cosmo Overdose/crazy catatonic wife in the attic." Which would of course be temporary but still, probably not help me so much socially. And would be totally inappropriate for modeling "What I did this summer" writing prompts. So let's hope I can hold it together, celebrate my summer project coming to fruition, and finally move on to physically expectant parenthood.
I've noticed that in the past few weeks, I have been asked the question "What are you doing this summer?" what feels like 8 billion times. It makes sense--people who ask either work in schools themselves or know that I teach. There's lots of possible answers to that question, but it trips me up a little bit each time because I feel like I can't totally answer it honestly, which bugs me. What I want to say:
"This summer I will be working hard at getting pregnant. Dear freaking Jehosaphat, I really hope my body can pull its shit together this summer, because I am awfully tired of being a sad sap story. So, I will be doing my 6th cycle and relaxing/being as lazy as possible to try to make that happen. Even though this is unfortunately not a Yoda situation of "There is no try, only do." Pretty much there's only try and resign yourself to the fact that none of it is under your control NONE OF IT. So that's what I'm doing. Getting pregnant. And if not, probably losing my mind and going on an epic Joaqu.im Phoe.nix-style bender/mental breakdown, complete with beard and funky sunglasses. What are YOU doing this summer?"
Probably a little over the top.
But the gist is there. I want to say, "I'm trying to get pregnant again, goddammit." But instead, I dance around it.
What I actually say, especially when asked if I'm teaching summer school and I say NO emphatically:
Note: Personal Project = GETTING FREAKING PREGNANT (or having massive breakdown)
Sometimes people misunderstand me, either unintentionally or on purpose, because (strangely) my "personal project" either is completely unknown to them or it makes them highly uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. Despite my out-of-control eyebrows and winky faces as I say "personal project," pushing innuendo into blatant "AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS" territory, I will be asked if it's a house project, a renovation, a class, etc. And then I don't really know what to say, so I fudge it and say, "oh, garden stuff."
Which isn't too far from the truth, because gardening is highly relaxing to me and serves a major therapeutic purpose during times of reproductive finagling. See here for my post on Garden Therapy last year. I have my vegetable garden, my six perennial beds, and the containers in our Secret Garden hideaway on the side of the house. The beds include the brand-new butterfly garden that I put in this spring, thanks to my husband's generous and incredibly thoughtful birthday gift of Certified Butterfly Way Station plants (little did he know he'd be the one tilling the dirt for it...). "Garden stuff" isn't too far off because that's a lot of what I'm doing this summer--if I can't seem to grow a baby, at least I can prove that I'm not totally barren and can coax things to grow and bear fruit in the dirt that I tend, if not my body. Maybe my uterus just needs 80 pounds of composted manure, like my tomatoes and peppers. Ha. Ha.
 |
| Streetside of the butterfly garden -- all colorful annuals. My favorite hybrid spider plant, African daisies, angelonia, vanilla butterfly daisies, and heliotrope. And a butterfly house for cooler-weather shelter/hibernating. |
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| Backside of the butterfly garden-- joe pye weed, milkweed, monarda, fernleaf dill, and lupines that didn't quite make it. Can't ever get those pesky lupines to grow. |
The truth is my summer is not actually all that relaxing, although I'm going to do my best to make it that way. Infertility has a big part in it, but other things too. Actual plans this summer:
- I got called for Jury Duty the first week we are out of school. Doesn't that sound like the perfect way to celebrate the first week of no responsibility? Hoping my number is high enough I don't have to come in. If I do, I have a stack of books and will try to make the best of it. Blah.
- I have the annual Teacher Institute work day, also that week I have Jury Duty (playing the roulette a bit with my high number but I can reschedule the work day). Always fun to spend a 7-hour, unpaid day in a hot school... Hopefully the gamble on the jury duty works out and I can get both out of the way early. When I did teach summer school, I had to take that class the first Saturday after school started. SO GLAD I don't have to do that anymore.
- Frozen cycle. Sometime this summer, late enough that I can be relaxed from the school year and early enough that hopefully I can avoid any early-pregnancy snafus that would affect the start of the school year (and recover from complete and utter disbelief if it doesn't work in time to be a normalish human being for my students next year). Come on, embryos 14, 15, and 16.
- Read, read, read, read.
- Garden, garden, garden, garden.
- Organize, organize, organize. (Cupboards, basement, closets, etc.)
- Get ready for the next school year. That's right, non-teachers who think we just laze by the pool all summer long, who glare at teacher posts about not working in the summer and mutter "must be nice" under their breath... Summer is a time of rest and rejuvenation but it's also a time of preparation (and PS, it's not paid). I am teaching two new classes next year in one of my buildings--I'm super excited about it, but it's going to be a lot of work to get everything organized and situated (and of course it will evolve over the course of the school year as things adjust and modify). Lots of reading and planning and researching. And, most of the time school stuff starts up in August, even though we don't have our first day until right after Labor Day. Time with colleagues, time in building, orientations, getting things together so that September can be smooth. Smooth-ish. Hopefully I can completely and totally avoid a situation like last year, where I spent the first week and a half of school in bed, recovering physically and emotionally from my ectopic pregnancy and resulting surgery. That is not the way to start a school year.
- Cape May! It's been years since I've been on my girlie mini vacation, and barring anything crazy I'm going again in August. Cape May gluten free may be a challenge (no more fried broccoli, fried dough on the boardwalk, ice cream cones, crab cakes, etc.), but I miss sandy beach ocean. I miss the vacation that's a success based on how many books were read and the biggest decision is: Do I read by the pool first, or the ocean?
- Some kind of mini vacation with Bryce. We couldn't go on our annual Maine trip this year, which is like a little death. We live for that week at camp. We have great memories of those weeks at camp. It's an amazing vacation. But it didn't work out this year and we decided that we would just take a pass and save the money. But I think we need to do something little, because a summer without at least a small romantic getaway would be a shame. Especially given the stressful things we have this summer.
So there it is, summer at a glance. My plans to be relaxed yet prepared for next year's challenges, stress-free yet embroiled in a handful of projects. Number one being...GET PREGNANT. Because it's possible. Because our blasts are beautiful, as they pretty much have been for 4 cycles. Because I'll be somewhat relaxed and able to really rest and encourage that baby or two (or three) to settle in to my tilled, amended, and utterly prepared uterus. And then when people say, "What did you do over the summer" I can say, "the best personal project ever." Which is so much better than "pulled a celebrity-style meltdown and became a bearded experimental musical artist/wildwoman living in a cave in the woods/rehab resident for Skinn.ygirl White Cranberry Cosmo Overdose/crazy catatonic wife in the attic." Which would of course be temporary but still, probably not help me so much socially. And would be totally inappropriate for modeling "What I did this summer" writing prompts. So let's hope I can hold it together, celebrate my summer project coming to fruition, and finally move on to physically expectant parenthood.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
How Did We Get Here?
Lately I have been finding myself asking the question, over and over, "How the hell did we get here?" When we started our infertility journey nearly 3 years ago, it didn't seem like it was going to be quite so...neverending. It took us a year to get to IVF even though we were advised to go straight to it, but then we were supposed to be awesome IVFers. And then we weren't, for no apparent reason that makes any kind of sense at all. And now we are staring down the barrel of our 6th cycle, looking to transfer embryos #14, 15, and 16, and feeling like, "If this doesn't work, then what???" What will we do? How can I not put so much pressure on this frozen cycle, on our three little frosty miracles, to succeed? I have heard so many well-intended thoughts (this has to be your time, you're due, it's time for you to get what you deserve, etc. etc. etc.) but that's all they are--thoughts. There are no guarantees. As much as I want to believe it, these next three embryos do not HAVE to be the ones that become our babies. I want that, and I hope for that, and I can see that in my mind, but all of those positive-thinking tactics do not make it actually so. If that was the case I'd be trying for #2 right now.
I can deal with this for now. I am heading into a cycle over the summer, so I can live in a place of hope and positivity to a point. Every negative or loss takes away some of my capacity to have a full store of hope, but I've still got plenty enough to Pollyanna my way through this cycle. It's the summer, so I'll be relaxed. We are well-practiced at this and have beautiful B4 blasts waiting to come home. It is possible that this will be it. But part of me is preparing myself for the possibility that it might not be it. That we will get the "I'm so sorry" call again. That we will be numb, then angry (and drunk), then just unbelievably sad. Because if this frozen cycle does not work we are looking at a break of at least a year. We need to recuperate financially. We need to recuperate spiritually and be "normal" for a little bit. We need to figure out what the next steps are and where those will be--because as much as we love where we are, I don't think there's a sane person on this earth who wouldn't seek a fresh point of view, a second opinion, after 6 cycles. (Most people I know would have jumped ship at 3 cycles, but we are super loyal and really love our team. Genuinely LOVE our team and everything they've done for us.) I would love to close it out with our current team, and there is still a chance for that. I would be really sad NOT to be able to go to the annual IVF party for successful patients next year. I have lived for the possibility of going to that stupid IVF party for two years. I want to go!
So, here we are, at a crossroads. Or just before a crossroads, since we don't actually have to make a scary decision until we get bad news, which I sincerely hope we don't get. I hope all this is hypothetical and we don't have to worry about it because our frosty babylings will make our dreams come true. I hope that this is my last summer spent giving myself injections, my last school year where I have no idea what to expect for the following year (will I go out on maternity leave sometime during the year? Or will I have to once again use up a crazy amount of sick days for treatment?), the last year where we have to have the total turmoil of trying to have a baby before we enter into the chaos of actually having that baby. I want to stop crying over Mo.dern Fam.ily because a) they do such a good job of showing warts-and-all families and what you look forward to in your own family, and b) they do a pretty good job of showing the heartbreak and exhaustion that comes with the adoption process. Last week's episode left me a puddle on the floor. I want to stop feeling completely overwhelmed and upset by the Parent Day card shopping. This year I was actually able to pick out the Mother's Day cards myself -- it took two trial runs (walk through the section, pick up a couple cards, see the "New Mommy" cards and the "To Mommy From Baby" cards and walk swiftly away before I turn sad sap crazypants in Target/Hallmark/Wegmans), but then I bought the cards in a BarnesandN.oble. Far less intimidating display. But, this year, it was the Father's Day cards that had me barely keeping it together in Hall.mark. I hate Father's Day card shopping in general, because it is insanely difficult to find a good card for my dad. I love my dad very much, but finding a card for "Dad who moved to L.A. when I was in my early teens and missed things like Proms and meeting my first dates and all the sappy crap they put on "you've always been there for everything" Father's Day cards, and who lives 3000 miles away and I see every few years or so" is a little hard. I can't help but feel a little gypped when I read all the Daddy's Little Girl cards out there. And then there's the "Now that I have a family of my own" genre of Father's Day card, which I can't relate to either and get pissy about as well. But this year the sadness didn't come from finding a card for my dad or stepfather. It came from all the other cards out there. The "First Father's Day" cards. The "Expectant Dad" cards. The cards from loving and appreciative wives that I can't bring myself to read because I really, really want to give one of those to Bryce. I want all those cards for Bryce. It's like card people do a great job of creating a display of all the lives you wish you had but don't. And can't, at least not for the time being. The sad thing is that I was in Hall.mark to buy sympathy cards relating to the death of a grandmother figure--I had cried so much about that already and so I was decently ok picking those out. And usually I'm a puddle when I pick out sympathy cards--even when they're not for a person I know! But the Father's Day selection sent me hustling to the parking lot to cry in the semi-privacy of my car.
I want all this to be over. I want to have distant, difficult memories of what it was like to want something so badly but be denied it at every turn. I want to tell my children that they were miracles, hardwon defrosted miracles, and that they were so, so wanted and loved before they were even in my uterus. I want this to be over. I don't want to cross the bridge that's looming on the horizon. I don't want to disappear into the unknown and take our journey to a whole new level of complexity. I just want this all to be over, so that we can settle ourselves into the perfectly normal chaos and anxiety of new parenthood.
I can deal with this for now. I am heading into a cycle over the summer, so I can live in a place of hope and positivity to a point. Every negative or loss takes away some of my capacity to have a full store of hope, but I've still got plenty enough to Pollyanna my way through this cycle. It's the summer, so I'll be relaxed. We are well-practiced at this and have beautiful B4 blasts waiting to come home. It is possible that this will be it. But part of me is preparing myself for the possibility that it might not be it. That we will get the "I'm so sorry" call again. That we will be numb, then angry (and drunk), then just unbelievably sad. Because if this frozen cycle does not work we are looking at a break of at least a year. We need to recuperate financially. We need to recuperate spiritually and be "normal" for a little bit. We need to figure out what the next steps are and where those will be--because as much as we love where we are, I don't think there's a sane person on this earth who wouldn't seek a fresh point of view, a second opinion, after 6 cycles. (Most people I know would have jumped ship at 3 cycles, but we are super loyal and really love our team. Genuinely LOVE our team and everything they've done for us.) I would love to close it out with our current team, and there is still a chance for that. I would be really sad NOT to be able to go to the annual IVF party for successful patients next year. I have lived for the possibility of going to that stupid IVF party for two years. I want to go!
So, here we are, at a crossroads. Or just before a crossroads, since we don't actually have to make a scary decision until we get bad news, which I sincerely hope we don't get. I hope all this is hypothetical and we don't have to worry about it because our frosty babylings will make our dreams come true. I hope that this is my last summer spent giving myself injections, my last school year where I have no idea what to expect for the following year (will I go out on maternity leave sometime during the year? Or will I have to once again use up a crazy amount of sick days for treatment?), the last year where we have to have the total turmoil of trying to have a baby before we enter into the chaos of actually having that baby. I want to stop crying over Mo.dern Fam.ily because a) they do such a good job of showing warts-and-all families and what you look forward to in your own family, and b) they do a pretty good job of showing the heartbreak and exhaustion that comes with the adoption process. Last week's episode left me a puddle on the floor. I want to stop feeling completely overwhelmed and upset by the Parent Day card shopping. This year I was actually able to pick out the Mother's Day cards myself -- it took two trial runs (walk through the section, pick up a couple cards, see the "New Mommy" cards and the "To Mommy From Baby" cards and walk swiftly away before I turn sad sap crazypants in Target/Hallmark/Wegmans), but then I bought the cards in a BarnesandN.oble. Far less intimidating display. But, this year, it was the Father's Day cards that had me barely keeping it together in Hall.mark. I hate Father's Day card shopping in general, because it is insanely difficult to find a good card for my dad. I love my dad very much, but finding a card for "Dad who moved to L.A. when I was in my early teens and missed things like Proms and meeting my first dates and all the sappy crap they put on "you've always been there for everything" Father's Day cards, and who lives 3000 miles away and I see every few years or so" is a little hard. I can't help but feel a little gypped when I read all the Daddy's Little Girl cards out there. And then there's the "Now that I have a family of my own" genre of Father's Day card, which I can't relate to either and get pissy about as well. But this year the sadness didn't come from finding a card for my dad or stepfather. It came from all the other cards out there. The "First Father's Day" cards. The "Expectant Dad" cards. The cards from loving and appreciative wives that I can't bring myself to read because I really, really want to give one of those to Bryce. I want all those cards for Bryce. It's like card people do a great job of creating a display of all the lives you wish you had but don't. And can't, at least not for the time being. The sad thing is that I was in Hall.mark to buy sympathy cards relating to the death of a grandmother figure--I had cried so much about that already and so I was decently ok picking those out. And usually I'm a puddle when I pick out sympathy cards--even when they're not for a person I know! But the Father's Day selection sent me hustling to the parking lot to cry in the semi-privacy of my car.
I want all this to be over. I want to have distant, difficult memories of what it was like to want something so badly but be denied it at every turn. I want to tell my children that they were miracles, hardwon defrosted miracles, and that they were so, so wanted and loved before they were even in my uterus. I want this to be over. I don't want to cross the bridge that's looming on the horizon. I don't want to disappear into the unknown and take our journey to a whole new level of complexity. I just want this all to be over, so that we can settle ourselves into the perfectly normal chaos and anxiety of new parenthood.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Baby Showers
It's officially baby season. The pregnancy announcements, baby showers, and births are raining down. And I am faced again with the difficulties that baby shower invitations present.
As a general rule, I don't go to baby showers. At first I felt like this was selfish, like I should be able to celebrate someone else's good fortune and sit through 2-3 hours of babyfesting without it being a problem. But, like Mother's Day, I decided that baby showers had to leave my list of go-to social obligations. It doesn't mean that I don't celebrate moms-to-be--if I am given an invitation to a baby shower (which honestly, I really appreciate the invite even if I don't go), I will get a card, get a gift, get a selection of picture/board books, and either shower the person privately or send the presents along with someone else. That way I can celebrate in my own way without being the sad sap in the corner, weeping into her mimosa and wallowing in self-pity because for me, a baby shower seems so terribly far away. And nobody wants a weepy-weeper at a joyful event.
Baby showers are torturous for me as a woman battling infertility. The entire event is centered on pregnancy and babies. People bring their fresh babies to these events. Everything is about oohing and aaahhhing over all the tiny little things, sharing birth and delivery stories, tips on what to buy and what not to buy, holding up tiny onesies and handmade baby blankets, and the room is just filled with anticipation and joy for this new life (or lives) to come. This is an awesome place to be if you are a) pregnant, b) a parent, c) a friend/family member who is not actively trying to have a baby. It's a place of hope and fun. Unless you have been trying to get pregnant and just keep failing at it. Then it is a reminder of everything not only that you don't have, but that tends to come so much easier to the rest of the world. Then the onesies and the rocking seats and the towels with hoods and ears are sharp stabs directly into your heart and/or empty uterus. I don't have a great analogy for this one. I would say it would be like being perennially single and having to go to a bridal shower, where everyone is paired and you are not, but usually there isn't a medical reason why a person is single. It is something largely out of your control--it is really hard to find that right person and it does seem very easy for a lot of people and very hard for others. So maybe it's a better analogy than I thought. But still, I come back to the medical aspect. I can't have a baby shower and sit there, hugely pregnant and surrounded by doting family and friends with arms full of tiny presents, because of an insidious medical condition that so far has rendered that impossible despite massive medical interventions. It is incredibly frustrating. And so I typically don't go to these events. Also, because on top of all the baby-in-your-face, if you don't know everyone, the inevitable "Do you have kids?" or "When are you going to have one of these?" comments tend to come up and I just don't have socially acceptable responses for those anymore.
I have gone to one baby shower since this process began, and that was for a friend who conceived twins through IVF. I really wanted to be there, but at the same time I really didn't want to be there. I felt so left behind, but I wanted so badly to be there for my friend who was a survivor of this process, who made it through to the other side. So I went. The great thing about going to a baby shower for someone who's been in your shoes is that she totally understands. She gets it if it's too much and you have to leave early (I didn't). She gets it if you disappear into the bathroom for a while during presents because it's just too much to take and you have to wipe your silent tears away in private (I did). She asks you the day before if you're sure you're up for it. And she really appreciates that you came, because she knows how very hard it was to sit through, and how much you must want to celebrate that hard-won success in order to soldier through it all. Going to that baby shower was incredibly difficult, and I cried in my car on the way home, but I was so glad that I did it.
Recently we were invited to another baby shower. This is a toughie. It's a friend's daughter, and we are closer in age to the grandmother-to-be than the expectant mom. The people going are going to be so young, and I'm pretty sure there will be several fresh babies in attendance. Everything about this shower screams "DON'T GO! THIS WILL BE MAJOR SAD SAP TERRITORY!!!" But we love these friends, and it's a co-ed shower so Bryce will be there, and there will likely be liquor served. We struggled with how to respond. I decided we should just be totally honest. And so yesterday, when we RSVP'd, I just said that we will go, but we have no idea how long we will stay, and it will be very hard, but we'd like to be there at least for a little while. And the weirdest thing happened. Our friend looked a little sad, and she told us that she totally forgot that this would be hard for us and she felt bad. And it was...refreshing! Someone who actually knows so much about our babymaking troubles totally FORGOT that we were sad sap infertiles! And she totally understood, and felt a little bad, but our first response was... WOOHOO! Someone forgot and then just..got it. She wasn't pissy that we couldn't make the happy event all the way through. She wasn't irritated that our difficulties with those types of events affected her event (which, unfortunately, is often what happens--people are very understanding until the infertility affects their event, and then there are issues...which is just human, I guess). She just accepted it and that was it. Done.
So we will go to this baby shower, for as long as I can take it. We don't have anything coming up that will be bad-news-bearing before the shower. (The last baby shower we were verbally invited to was the weekend we received test news for our latest fresh IVF cycle...so that was an unequivocal no, no, NO.) We are gearing up for doing our frozen cycle sometime this summer, and so we are back into hopeful mode as opposed to total mourning and bewilderment that we just can't make this work. All of these things together make it possible, for now, to attempt going to a baby shower that's not for a survivor; that's going to be full of highly fertile people in their early 20s. With the caveat that I may end up downing cocktails in the back and/or outside, saving my tipsy sad-sap-ness far away from the squealing over tiny little outfits.
As a general rule, I don't go to baby showers. At first I felt like this was selfish, like I should be able to celebrate someone else's good fortune and sit through 2-3 hours of babyfesting without it being a problem. But, like Mother's Day, I decided that baby showers had to leave my list of go-to social obligations. It doesn't mean that I don't celebrate moms-to-be--if I am given an invitation to a baby shower (which honestly, I really appreciate the invite even if I don't go), I will get a card, get a gift, get a selection of picture/board books, and either shower the person privately or send the presents along with someone else. That way I can celebrate in my own way without being the sad sap in the corner, weeping into her mimosa and wallowing in self-pity because for me, a baby shower seems so terribly far away. And nobody wants a weepy-weeper at a joyful event.
Baby showers are torturous for me as a woman battling infertility. The entire event is centered on pregnancy and babies. People bring their fresh babies to these events. Everything is about oohing and aaahhhing over all the tiny little things, sharing birth and delivery stories, tips on what to buy and what not to buy, holding up tiny onesies and handmade baby blankets, and the room is just filled with anticipation and joy for this new life (or lives) to come. This is an awesome place to be if you are a) pregnant, b) a parent, c) a friend/family member who is not actively trying to have a baby. It's a place of hope and fun. Unless you have been trying to get pregnant and just keep failing at it. Then it is a reminder of everything not only that you don't have, but that tends to come so much easier to the rest of the world. Then the onesies and the rocking seats and the towels with hoods and ears are sharp stabs directly into your heart and/or empty uterus. I don't have a great analogy for this one. I would say it would be like being perennially single and having to go to a bridal shower, where everyone is paired and you are not, but usually there isn't a medical reason why a person is single. It is something largely out of your control--it is really hard to find that right person and it does seem very easy for a lot of people and very hard for others. So maybe it's a better analogy than I thought. But still, I come back to the medical aspect. I can't have a baby shower and sit there, hugely pregnant and surrounded by doting family and friends with arms full of tiny presents, because of an insidious medical condition that so far has rendered that impossible despite massive medical interventions. It is incredibly frustrating. And so I typically don't go to these events. Also, because on top of all the baby-in-your-face, if you don't know everyone, the inevitable "Do you have kids?" or "When are you going to have one of these?" comments tend to come up and I just don't have socially acceptable responses for those anymore.
I have gone to one baby shower since this process began, and that was for a friend who conceived twins through IVF. I really wanted to be there, but at the same time I really didn't want to be there. I felt so left behind, but I wanted so badly to be there for my friend who was a survivor of this process, who made it through to the other side. So I went. The great thing about going to a baby shower for someone who's been in your shoes is that she totally understands. She gets it if it's too much and you have to leave early (I didn't). She gets it if you disappear into the bathroom for a while during presents because it's just too much to take and you have to wipe your silent tears away in private (I did). She asks you the day before if you're sure you're up for it. And she really appreciates that you came, because she knows how very hard it was to sit through, and how much you must want to celebrate that hard-won success in order to soldier through it all. Going to that baby shower was incredibly difficult, and I cried in my car on the way home, but I was so glad that I did it.
Recently we were invited to another baby shower. This is a toughie. It's a friend's daughter, and we are closer in age to the grandmother-to-be than the expectant mom. The people going are going to be so young, and I'm pretty sure there will be several fresh babies in attendance. Everything about this shower screams "DON'T GO! THIS WILL BE MAJOR SAD SAP TERRITORY!!!" But we love these friends, and it's a co-ed shower so Bryce will be there, and there will likely be liquor served. We struggled with how to respond. I decided we should just be totally honest. And so yesterday, when we RSVP'd, I just said that we will go, but we have no idea how long we will stay, and it will be very hard, but we'd like to be there at least for a little while. And the weirdest thing happened. Our friend looked a little sad, and she told us that she totally forgot that this would be hard for us and she felt bad. And it was...refreshing! Someone who actually knows so much about our babymaking troubles totally FORGOT that we were sad sap infertiles! And she totally understood, and felt a little bad, but our first response was... WOOHOO! Someone forgot and then just..got it. She wasn't pissy that we couldn't make the happy event all the way through. She wasn't irritated that our difficulties with those types of events affected her event (which, unfortunately, is often what happens--people are very understanding until the infertility affects their event, and then there are issues...which is just human, I guess). She just accepted it and that was it. Done.
So we will go to this baby shower, for as long as I can take it. We don't have anything coming up that will be bad-news-bearing before the shower. (The last baby shower we were verbally invited to was the weekend we received test news for our latest fresh IVF cycle...so that was an unequivocal no, no, NO.) We are gearing up for doing our frozen cycle sometime this summer, and so we are back into hopeful mode as opposed to total mourning and bewilderment that we just can't make this work. All of these things together make it possible, for now, to attempt going to a baby shower that's not for a survivor; that's going to be full of highly fertile people in their early 20s. With the caveat that I may end up downing cocktails in the back and/or outside, saving my tipsy sad-sap-ness far away from the squealing over tiny little outfits.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Unfamiliar Boobies
Have I mentioned that May has not exactly been an awesome month? I had my 36th birthday (with no children), Mother's Day (again, not for me), and I had my follow up appointment with my doctor after my fourth failed fresh IVF (fifth failed cycle including the FET, I'm really not sure how to count those in...it's a transfer, so it's in vitro, but it doesn't include stimming or egg retrieval, so it's kind of a bonus round). There are so many things about the follow up that had me feeling not so great and wondering how the hell we got to this particular point in our journey. All of which I will write about later. The topic for today is how my follow up appointment and Bryce's concern about what this process is doing to my body led me to a referral I was really hoping to avoid until I was 40.
Every time we do a cycle and my body is pumped full of various injectible hormone drugs, Bryce worries. He sees what it does to my body (bloating! weight gain! ginormous ovaries! estrogen levels through the roof as evidenced by crying/screaming/turning into a complete wackadoo!) and he doesn't particularly like it. Not just because I am difficult to live with when medicated, but because he worries about the wear and tear on my system. I have also been nervous about the impact these drugs have on my body, namely the increased risks of certain cancers (breast and ovarian). If you read the medical inserts for the drugs, which is good practice for being informed but when you actually read it you immediately think you are going to die in various horrible ways if you take these medications, the risk is mentioned. Anecdotally I have heard all kinds of things about the connections between IVF and breast and/or ovarian cancer. And I freak out. I am as terrified of dying an untimely death due to cancer related to my treatment as I was of ectopic pregnancy--both are rare but I managed one so I am slightly more nervous about the cancer thing than I used to be. But Bryce is probably more nervous. So, in our follow-up he mentioned that he was uneasy about the effect of the drugs on me, and my doctor gave me a referral for a mammogram. Because apparently when they do the bloodwork they look for weird white blood cell counts, and ovarian cancer would be found presumably on an ultrasound of my ovaries, and my ovaries are very well photographed. So off I went, three days after my 36th birthday, to get my boobies squished.
I was really, really upset about it, to tell the truth. I was worried that they were going to find something, of course, because I have terrible luck and really think that there is some angry spirit residing in my house, avenging itself by keeping the babies away. But I was kind of pissed that it was "Happy birthday to me, please smash my boobies flat!" What a nice present. And plus, you are supposed to get a mammogram when you're 40. And you're a mommy. And your boobs have already been used for nutritional purposes. I really, really thought that I would experience childbirth before I would be waiting in a room with 50 year old women, wearing a lovely front-tie pink gown, getting ready to have (very nice) strangers totally abuse my poor boobles. So I was scared, but also resentful.
The mammogram itself really wasn't so terribly bad. They manhandle your boobs, one at a time, into this machine that has a plastic tray on a lever that comes down and squashes your breast as flat as it will get. This is where I was actually quite grateful for my huge boobies, because when they are bigger they apparently hurt less to be squashed. You can get them in there no problem. It was painful when they did the top-down squish, because it felt like the tissue was being ripped from my collarbone area. The diagonal squish wasn't bad at all, even though that one is supposed to be the most uncomfortable since it gets your pectoral muscle in there, too. The machine was really kind of cool--the nurse adjusts the height to make it effective and comfortable(ish) and then lowers the tray thingie down. After the pictures are taken, which is about 12 seconds, the tray thingie literally pops back up and your breast reconstitutes to its un-squashed glory.
After the messed-up photo shoot, they tell you that if all is fine and normal you will get a letter in 7-10 business days (but that most people get it in 3). If a repeat scan is needed you will get a call. Then they tell you NOT TO FREAK OUT when they call you, because especially with first-time mammograms it's hard to tell what's what since there's nothing to compare it to. Your boobs are unfamilar territory. So a lot of first-time people get called back. Most of the time it's nothing.
My mammogram was on a Tuesday. Wednesday came and went, and I didn't get a call. YES! Finally, something normal relating to my reproductively-related parts. I was so happy. I really was excited to be getting that "you're totally normal" letter. And then Thursday came and I got a call. What the hell? They couldn't call me Wednesday? I had to be lulled into a false sense of normal-ness before being smacked in the face with "We need some more pictures?" I tried my best, but it was really, really hard not to freak out. So I called my friend, who is married to my best friend, who just happens to be a radiologist. And he just happens to read mammograms all the time. I needed to know if I should be freaking out or if I would be ok. I basically wanted to make sure that the lovely people at the Breast Health place weren't just being nice to me and lying through their teeth that I shouldn't be worried.
The good news is that my radiologist friend told me that that there is no room for "probably benign" anymore due to the litigiousness associated with breast cancer diagnoses. The number one cause for malpractice suits against doctors is apparently delaying a diagnosis of breast cancer, and so radiologists have ridiculously high malpractice insurance (as do OB/GYNs, because when something goes wrong with your baby, apparently you sue like the dickens). So, unless they can say "This is 100% benign," you get a rescan. And maybe an ultrasound. Or even a biopsy. This was really scary to me, because I didn't want a biopsy, but apparently this is incredibly common because mammograms are super detailed now but not any better at telling what's cancer and what's just funky boobieness. So, since I don't have a family history and I didn't have an obvious lump and this was preventive "hey, you've been pumping your body full of really high levels of lady hormones, four times in two years, and you're 36, so we should really check out your boobs just in case," I tried to not be worried, because it was probably just a case of unfamiliar boobies. Even though that angry spirit and/or some kind of scary neurotoxin lurks in my house, rendering us infertile and killing my cat like a mine canary. I am not paranoid at all.
The next Tuesday (this past Tuesday) was my re-scan. And, an ultrasound--which would have really freaked me out had my radiologist friend not warned me that they might do an ultrasound on the same day (thank you, radiologist friend!). When they take extra pictures of your suspicious boob, they do new and exciting angles that are not comfortable at all. And they use a smaller tray, which seems like it would be more humane but actually squashes localized tissue even more, and so it's definitely not cozy. I had bets with myself that the offending breast would be my right one, since that one is the bigger one. Most women have asymmetrical boobs, but my right one is up to a whole half cup bigger than the left. I really like my left, because it is perky for a DD. I wish my right one was more like my left. Now you know way too much about my boobs, but that's what this whole post is about so I don't feel too bad about it. I was right--it was my stupid floppy right boob, probably because it has more tissue and is harder to see (not that I actually know anything about this, medically).
After the localized right-boob squishing, I got to hang out in the sub-waiting room until they called me in for my ultrasound. I have to say it was really nice to have an ultrasound that didn't involve being pantsless and in stirrups. However, I am used to having the screen tilted my way so I can concentrate on the picture show of my enlarged and follicle-filled ovaries instead of focusing on the giant wand probing my nether regions. They don't do that for a breast ultrasound and so my neck hurt a little from straining to see what a boob on ultrasound looks like. It looks weird, like one of those meditative sand art things you see on people's desks, with the sand and the water squished between two panes of glass and it makes wave patterns when you flip it over. But then there was a dark spot, and I freaked out a little again. The dark spot looked kind of like a follicle. So I told the technician that I was used to looking at ovaries (and she asked if that's what I do, so I told her no, it's what I see as a fertility patient), and this was totally different. But the dark spot looked an awful lot like a follicle and so I said, "Hey, that looks like a follicle! Is it mature? Is it ready to be retrieved?" I'm so glad she had a sense of humor and laughed (even if it was just out of politeness). She even measured it like a follicle. I just hoped it was in the "Definitely Benign" category.
She left to see the radiologist and then came back--it was normal! It was a "complicated cyst" which apparently is just a cyst with weird attributes but they name it something scary just to make you worried again. They come and go and it probably would have been felt on my OB/GYN breast exam (which I have been postponing because I hate going in every year and having to update with more horribleness and no pregnancy), but it will probably be gone on its own shortly. So it just came to visit at an already stressful time to mess with my mind. How nice. But, the upsides are multiple: a) I don't have cancer and so the angry spirit is apparently appeased for the time being, and b) I don't have to have another mammogram until I am 40. And hopefully am finally a mommy. And hopefully am the owner of boobs that have been/are being used for nutritional purposes. And hopefully can just get a nice, "You are normal" letter in the mail and avoid all this worry. (I do have to add that as stressful as this one-week episode was, I was grateful to be checked out--because if I did have breast cancer I would rather worry and then be diagnosed early than not have the stress of worrying and then find out later than is optimal that something nefarious has been hiding out in my boob. So I am totally for mammograms starting at 40!)
Bryce is glad now that I've been checked out and declared normal. He's probably also glad because I've stopped making dark jokes about having breast cancer that aren't really funny but helped me not be a total basketcase. I'm glad that I'm normal and healthy in the boobular area. And we're both glad that now we can move forward, get ready for our frozen cycle sometime this summer, and keep on moving towards that elusive but not impossible pregnancy.
Every time we do a cycle and my body is pumped full of various injectible hormone drugs, Bryce worries. He sees what it does to my body (bloating! weight gain! ginormous ovaries! estrogen levels through the roof as evidenced by crying/screaming/turning into a complete wackadoo!) and he doesn't particularly like it. Not just because I am difficult to live with when medicated, but because he worries about the wear and tear on my system. I have also been nervous about the impact these drugs have on my body, namely the increased risks of certain cancers (breast and ovarian). If you read the medical inserts for the drugs, which is good practice for being informed but when you actually read it you immediately think you are going to die in various horrible ways if you take these medications, the risk is mentioned. Anecdotally I have heard all kinds of things about the connections between IVF and breast and/or ovarian cancer. And I freak out. I am as terrified of dying an untimely death due to cancer related to my treatment as I was of ectopic pregnancy--both are rare but I managed one so I am slightly more nervous about the cancer thing than I used to be. But Bryce is probably more nervous. So, in our follow-up he mentioned that he was uneasy about the effect of the drugs on me, and my doctor gave me a referral for a mammogram. Because apparently when they do the bloodwork they look for weird white blood cell counts, and ovarian cancer would be found presumably on an ultrasound of my ovaries, and my ovaries are very well photographed. So off I went, three days after my 36th birthday, to get my boobies squished.
I was really, really upset about it, to tell the truth. I was worried that they were going to find something, of course, because I have terrible luck and really think that there is some angry spirit residing in my house, avenging itself by keeping the babies away. But I was kind of pissed that it was "Happy birthday to me, please smash my boobies flat!" What a nice present. And plus, you are supposed to get a mammogram when you're 40. And you're a mommy. And your boobs have already been used for nutritional purposes. I really, really thought that I would experience childbirth before I would be waiting in a room with 50 year old women, wearing a lovely front-tie pink gown, getting ready to have (very nice) strangers totally abuse my poor boobles. So I was scared, but also resentful.
The mammogram itself really wasn't so terribly bad. They manhandle your boobs, one at a time, into this machine that has a plastic tray on a lever that comes down and squashes your breast as flat as it will get. This is where I was actually quite grateful for my huge boobies, because when they are bigger they apparently hurt less to be squashed. You can get them in there no problem. It was painful when they did the top-down squish, because it felt like the tissue was being ripped from my collarbone area. The diagonal squish wasn't bad at all, even though that one is supposed to be the most uncomfortable since it gets your pectoral muscle in there, too. The machine was really kind of cool--the nurse adjusts the height to make it effective and comfortable(ish) and then lowers the tray thingie down. After the pictures are taken, which is about 12 seconds, the tray thingie literally pops back up and your breast reconstitutes to its un-squashed glory.
After the messed-up photo shoot, they tell you that if all is fine and normal you will get a letter in 7-10 business days (but that most people get it in 3). If a repeat scan is needed you will get a call. Then they tell you NOT TO FREAK OUT when they call you, because especially with first-time mammograms it's hard to tell what's what since there's nothing to compare it to. Your boobs are unfamilar territory. So a lot of first-time people get called back. Most of the time it's nothing.
My mammogram was on a Tuesday. Wednesday came and went, and I didn't get a call. YES! Finally, something normal relating to my reproductively-related parts. I was so happy. I really was excited to be getting that "you're totally normal" letter. And then Thursday came and I got a call. What the hell? They couldn't call me Wednesday? I had to be lulled into a false sense of normal-ness before being smacked in the face with "We need some more pictures?" I tried my best, but it was really, really hard not to freak out. So I called my friend, who is married to my best friend, who just happens to be a radiologist. And he just happens to read mammograms all the time. I needed to know if I should be freaking out or if I would be ok. I basically wanted to make sure that the lovely people at the Breast Health place weren't just being nice to me and lying through their teeth that I shouldn't be worried.
The good news is that my radiologist friend told me that that there is no room for "probably benign" anymore due to the litigiousness associated with breast cancer diagnoses. The number one cause for malpractice suits against doctors is apparently delaying a diagnosis of breast cancer, and so radiologists have ridiculously high malpractice insurance (as do OB/GYNs, because when something goes wrong with your baby, apparently you sue like the dickens). So, unless they can say "This is 100% benign," you get a rescan. And maybe an ultrasound. Or even a biopsy. This was really scary to me, because I didn't want a biopsy, but apparently this is incredibly common because mammograms are super detailed now but not any better at telling what's cancer and what's just funky boobieness. So, since I don't have a family history and I didn't have an obvious lump and this was preventive "hey, you've been pumping your body full of really high levels of lady hormones, four times in two years, and you're 36, so we should really check out your boobs just in case," I tried to not be worried, because it was probably just a case of unfamiliar boobies. Even though that angry spirit and/or some kind of scary neurotoxin lurks in my house, rendering us infertile and killing my cat like a mine canary. I am not paranoid at all.
The next Tuesday (this past Tuesday) was my re-scan. And, an ultrasound--which would have really freaked me out had my radiologist friend not warned me that they might do an ultrasound on the same day (thank you, radiologist friend!). When they take extra pictures of your suspicious boob, they do new and exciting angles that are not comfortable at all. And they use a smaller tray, which seems like it would be more humane but actually squashes localized tissue even more, and so it's definitely not cozy. I had bets with myself that the offending breast would be my right one, since that one is the bigger one. Most women have asymmetrical boobs, but my right one is up to a whole half cup bigger than the left. I really like my left, because it is perky for a DD. I wish my right one was more like my left. Now you know way too much about my boobs, but that's what this whole post is about so I don't feel too bad about it. I was right--it was my stupid floppy right boob, probably because it has more tissue and is harder to see (not that I actually know anything about this, medically).
After the localized right-boob squishing, I got to hang out in the sub-waiting room until they called me in for my ultrasound. I have to say it was really nice to have an ultrasound that didn't involve being pantsless and in stirrups. However, I am used to having the screen tilted my way so I can concentrate on the picture show of my enlarged and follicle-filled ovaries instead of focusing on the giant wand probing my nether regions. They don't do that for a breast ultrasound and so my neck hurt a little from straining to see what a boob on ultrasound looks like. It looks weird, like one of those meditative sand art things you see on people's desks, with the sand and the water squished between two panes of glass and it makes wave patterns when you flip it over. But then there was a dark spot, and I freaked out a little again. The dark spot looked kind of like a follicle. So I told the technician that I was used to looking at ovaries (and she asked if that's what I do, so I told her no, it's what I see as a fertility patient), and this was totally different. But the dark spot looked an awful lot like a follicle and so I said, "Hey, that looks like a follicle! Is it mature? Is it ready to be retrieved?" I'm so glad she had a sense of humor and laughed (even if it was just out of politeness). She even measured it like a follicle. I just hoped it was in the "Definitely Benign" category.
She left to see the radiologist and then came back--it was normal! It was a "complicated cyst" which apparently is just a cyst with weird attributes but they name it something scary just to make you worried again. They come and go and it probably would have been felt on my OB/GYN breast exam (which I have been postponing because I hate going in every year and having to update with more horribleness and no pregnancy), but it will probably be gone on its own shortly. So it just came to visit at an already stressful time to mess with my mind. How nice. But, the upsides are multiple: a) I don't have cancer and so the angry spirit is apparently appeased for the time being, and b) I don't have to have another mammogram until I am 40. And hopefully am finally a mommy. And hopefully am the owner of boobs that have been/are being used for nutritional purposes. And hopefully can just get a nice, "You are normal" letter in the mail and avoid all this worry. (I do have to add that as stressful as this one-week episode was, I was grateful to be checked out--because if I did have breast cancer I would rather worry and then be diagnosed early than not have the stress of worrying and then find out later than is optimal that something nefarious has been hiding out in my boob. So I am totally for mammograms starting at 40!)
Bryce is glad now that I've been checked out and declared normal. He's probably also glad because I've stopped making dark jokes about having breast cancer that aren't really funny but helped me not be a total basketcase. I'm glad that I'm normal and healthy in the boobular area. And we're both glad that now we can move forward, get ready for our frozen cycle sometime this summer, and keep on moving towards that elusive but not impossible pregnancy.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Happy Mother's Day?
Here it is. One more year, one more Mother's Day, and no card/brunch/potted flowering plant for me. Oh, Mother's Day, how you stick that knife in and twist it.
I have been employing my Mother's Day Survival Guide this year, outlined in last year's Mother's Day post (go here to read that one). I've been pretty successful--since we don't have cable I am not barraged by a variety of ads on the rare occasions when I watch TV. Although the Roku box has been displaying "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!" on the home screen all weekend, but I can get past that pretty quickly. I avoid the mall as much as possible (if I need to go in for any reason, I avoid department stores and go in the entrance closest to the store I need). I will not be going out to breakfast today, even though that's our Sunday routine and I really, really want those super good homefries. But breakfast on Mother's Day is like a parade of bitterness for me--so many families, so many young families, so many mothers being honored for something I can't seem to accomplish. I can ignore the occasional baby, but out-and-out celebration of all the moms on a day I thought for sure I'd at least be an expectant mom is just too much to handle over scrambled eggs and perfectly crispy home fries. I went for a really nice walk with Bryce yesterday, because today will be a strollerfest and there will be houses with tons of cars and people hugging each other and grandchildren galore and I can't quite perfect my tunnelvision enough not to see all that.
I have good coping skills, which is fortunate since if I hadn't developed those by now I'd probably be living under a comforter in a closet, crying all the time, eating gluten free brownies, and eventually needing to be taken out of the house by forklift. But every year gets harder. Especially since Mother's Day seems to fall right after my birthday (I guess it always has, but since now my birthday and Mother's Day are fairly equal in their ability to cause me pain, it's more apparent to me). Especially since the little voice in my head keeps whispering that I should really get over it and celebrate the moms in my life on their special day, and shove my own difficulties with this holiday to the back burner. But that little voice just needs to shut the F up. I have every right to choose to celebrate moms on another day, on my post-Mother's Day brunch next weekend. I have every right to send cards and call for this day, but not actually have to submit myself to the torture that is pretending that I can be ok on this day that makes it even more apparent than other days that I have failed so far in my quest to join the special club of Mothers. It is more important than ever to be "selfish" on this day, to take care of myself and know that people who have the tiniest bone of empathy in their bodies can understand why I duck out of Mother's Day on the actual day. It is not selfish to still celebrate moms in your life but to do it at another time, especially when your society and culture is stuffing how awesome and amazing it is to be a mother down your throat. Like all the things you see that are "For all you moms out there" or "There is no love like a mother's love" or "You will never truly understand love until you are a mother." Stop for a minute and think what that might make a body feel if they desperately want to be a mother, have moved heaven and earth to try to make that happen multiple times, and still haven't made it. Is my love less important because I don't have a baby? Am I less of a woman, less part of the womanly culture, because I'm not a mother? It's kind of how it feels at this time of year. Logically I know that's crap and that plenty of women who are not mothers have, in fact, experienced very special love and have huge hearts and lots to give others. I am special even though I am not in the Mommy club.
So, today I stay inside (maybe weed outside until the Stroller Brigade starts rolling through), I clean the house, I read my books, I have a cocktail or two. Bryce and I were actually thinking about going to see Dark Sha.dows today, because as far as I can tell there's no pregnancy or fertility subplot and the likelihood that that godawful trailer for What to Expec.t When You're Ex.pecting isn't likely to shove birth humor in my face. We'll see how we do on this one. I typically don't like to leave the house on Mother's Day, but a gothic yet funny vampire movie might take my mind of the holiday barfing all over the stores and restaurants surrounding the theater. Today I also celebrate the fact that I am an expectant mother, in a philosophical way. I have been trying to get pregnant for 2 years and 9 months, with massive medical intervention and limited success. I am the mother to 16 embryos--13 that haven't made it and 3 little nuggets of hope, sitting in the freezer, waiting to hopefully make me a physically expectant mother. I hope that next year, Mother's Day 2013, is the year that I can get tipsy on mimosas while out to brunch with the rest of the celebrating world, and not tipsy on salty cocktails in my house, tinged with the taste of disappointment and loss. Of course I will only be getting tipsy if I've managed to birth my miracle child before Mother's Day, not if I am actually carrying said miracle child. Wow, I am lucky to have Bryce for an editor--this would have totally negated the "I am going to be an awesome mom because of this experience" theory and given me children with fetal alchohol syndrome and visits from CPS instead...
Happy Mother's Day--to my mom, mother-in-law, sister, and grandmas. Happy Mother's Day to my friends who will celebrate with their new babies, young children, older children, and little babies-to-be tucked in their tummies. But a very, very, Happy Mother's Day to my infertile friends--may today be the last tear-filled Mother's Day, may today you celebrate your sheer determination to be a mother, may today you celebrate the amazing mother you WILL be, when all of this is over.
I have been employing my Mother's Day Survival Guide this year, outlined in last year's Mother's Day post (go here to read that one). I've been pretty successful--since we don't have cable I am not barraged by a variety of ads on the rare occasions when I watch TV. Although the Roku box has been displaying "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!" on the home screen all weekend, but I can get past that pretty quickly. I avoid the mall as much as possible (if I need to go in for any reason, I avoid department stores and go in the entrance closest to the store I need). I will not be going out to breakfast today, even though that's our Sunday routine and I really, really want those super good homefries. But breakfast on Mother's Day is like a parade of bitterness for me--so many families, so many young families, so many mothers being honored for something I can't seem to accomplish. I can ignore the occasional baby, but out-and-out celebration of all the moms on a day I thought for sure I'd at least be an expectant mom is just too much to handle over scrambled eggs and perfectly crispy home fries. I went for a really nice walk with Bryce yesterday, because today will be a strollerfest and there will be houses with tons of cars and people hugging each other and grandchildren galore and I can't quite perfect my tunnelvision enough not to see all that.
I have good coping skills, which is fortunate since if I hadn't developed those by now I'd probably be living under a comforter in a closet, crying all the time, eating gluten free brownies, and eventually needing to be taken out of the house by forklift. But every year gets harder. Especially since Mother's Day seems to fall right after my birthday (I guess it always has, but since now my birthday and Mother's Day are fairly equal in their ability to cause me pain, it's more apparent to me). Especially since the little voice in my head keeps whispering that I should really get over it and celebrate the moms in my life on their special day, and shove my own difficulties with this holiday to the back burner. But that little voice just needs to shut the F up. I have every right to choose to celebrate moms on another day, on my post-Mother's Day brunch next weekend. I have every right to send cards and call for this day, but not actually have to submit myself to the torture that is pretending that I can be ok on this day that makes it even more apparent than other days that I have failed so far in my quest to join the special club of Mothers. It is more important than ever to be "selfish" on this day, to take care of myself and know that people who have the tiniest bone of empathy in their bodies can understand why I duck out of Mother's Day on the actual day. It is not selfish to still celebrate moms in your life but to do it at another time, especially when your society and culture is stuffing how awesome and amazing it is to be a mother down your throat. Like all the things you see that are "For all you moms out there" or "There is no love like a mother's love" or "You will never truly understand love until you are a mother." Stop for a minute and think what that might make a body feel if they desperately want to be a mother, have moved heaven and earth to try to make that happen multiple times, and still haven't made it. Is my love less important because I don't have a baby? Am I less of a woman, less part of the womanly culture, because I'm not a mother? It's kind of how it feels at this time of year. Logically I know that's crap and that plenty of women who are not mothers have, in fact, experienced very special love and have huge hearts and lots to give others. I am special even though I am not in the Mommy club.
So, today I stay inside (maybe weed outside until the Stroller Brigade starts rolling through), I clean the house, I read my books, I have a cocktail or two. Bryce and I were actually thinking about going to see Dark Sha.dows today, because as far as I can tell there's no pregnancy or fertility subplot and the likelihood that that godawful trailer for What to Expec.t When You're Ex.pecting isn't likely to shove birth humor in my face. We'll see how we do on this one. I typically don't like to leave the house on Mother's Day, but a gothic yet funny vampire movie might take my mind of the holiday barfing all over the stores and restaurants surrounding the theater. Today I also celebrate the fact that I am an expectant mother, in a philosophical way. I have been trying to get pregnant for 2 years and 9 months, with massive medical intervention and limited success. I am the mother to 16 embryos--13 that haven't made it and 3 little nuggets of hope, sitting in the freezer, waiting to hopefully make me a physically expectant mother. I hope that next year, Mother's Day 2013, is the year that I can get tipsy on mimosas while out to brunch with the rest of the celebrating world, and not tipsy on salty cocktails in my house, tinged with the taste of disappointment and loss. Of course I will only be getting tipsy if I've managed to birth my miracle child before Mother's Day, not if I am actually carrying said miracle child. Wow, I am lucky to have Bryce for an editor--this would have totally negated the "I am going to be an awesome mom because of this experience" theory and given me children with fetal alchohol syndrome and visits from CPS instead...
Happy Mother's Day--to my mom, mother-in-law, sister, and grandmas. Happy Mother's Day to my friends who will celebrate with their new babies, young children, older children, and little babies-to-be tucked in their tummies. But a very, very, Happy Mother's Day to my infertile friends--may today be the last tear-filled Mother's Day, may today you celebrate your sheer determination to be a mother, may today you celebrate the amazing mother you WILL be, when all of this is over.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Don't Ignore That Infertility Alters Your Dreams
When I was younger, I had a specific trajectory in my head of how my life was going to go. A "life plan." I was too young and naive to know that life plans are ill-advised because they assume that you have the ability to control the chaos around you, that you can actually make career, marriage, and family occur when you want (apparently you know some things at 35 that aren't obvious at 20). To some extent, though, you can control those life events--if you are mostly focused on the timeline and aren't thinking about the quality of what you seek. I wanted to be married at 24, establish my career, and have two babies by the time I was 30 (for two reasons: I had read somewhere that having babies and breastfeeding before 30 lessened your chances of breast cancer, and babies in your mid-to-late 20s seemed ideal in terms of young-but-not-too-young parenting). I cared more about those things I deemed important life events than what they actually looked like. I'm not saying that I didn't love my ex-husband, of course I did. I'm just saying that when bad things happened (all the freaking time) I would overlook them because if I broke up with my boyfriend at 22, how the hell was I supposed to get married at 24? It was scary. I was rigid. I spent a lot of time in my 20s trying to make my reality fit the white picket fence dream I had set up for myself that wasn't working because it wasn't right. I established a career in a marketing facet of children's publishing, an area that I was proud of and enjoyed immensely. But on the marriage front my ex-husband wanted to move away from the NYC area and up to the Rochester area, where a cluster of friends were. I was hesitant (um, there's no children's publishing in Rochester, helloooo....), but also couldn't ignore that the Life Plan Believer in me thought, oooooh, if we move to Rochester then we can buy a house sooner, and it will be cheaper to live, and we can start a family in a very family-friendly area, and maybe we can even afford for me to be a stay-at-home mom for a little while. Even though it meant moving away from my family and my best friend and my work, I flipped the switch and made the change and found a job in Rochester. Because I thought it might get me closer to that life plan. Because I was 25, and the time to have two babies by 30 was starting to close in. Over the next few years I had several jobs, all editorial in some way but varying in focus (curriculum coordination! yellow pages advertising! human resources specialist (my favorite of the three)!), as I figured out that I definitely wanted to go back to school to be a teacher. This was the first blip of my life plan, the first time that I actively sought to change something. I was 27 and we hadn't started trying to have a family yet. I had brought it up, but there was always an excuse, always a reason, until there was no reason and my ex-husband said "I just don't know if I want kids right now." Wow. Dealbreaker. Suckerpunch. NOT what I wanted to hear. (Turns out he didn't want to have kids because he was too busy having multi-year relationships with other women during our marriage, and I was an unwitting sister wife of sorts, but whatever.) So I changed the plan. For the first time, I changed my vision of the future. I tossed out an ultimatum: either we try to have a baby, or I go back to school to get my Master's in Education. I had zero support for either option, but luckily (I thank my lucky stars EVERY DAY that I had planned and that I stuck by education over baby with Voldemort) I had socked away enough money freelancing as a writer and an editor to pay for my whole first year of graduate school in cash. Can't really argue with that. Although someone, a passive-aggressive individual who shall not be named, left the message congratulating me on my acceptance into the program on the answering machine for days without telling me and then said, "Well, we haven't decided you can go yet." So, so many reasons to change that life plan and find a partner in life who was supportive and not a total asshole, but again, I was scared of the big open space of no plan. Even though I had already changed my expectations, and moved the babymaking a little past 30 (I would graduate halfway through my 30th year), it wasn't dawning on me that I wanted to procreate with someone who didn't want to commit to a happy healthy life with me, and me alone. If I got a divorce in my late 20s then who knew when the babymaking could happen? Too scary. Better to stay put. At least until the lid blew off the extracurricular nonsense, the Christmas I was 29, and suddenly my plan was shattered. My ultimately self-destructive plan that had whispered (loudly) in my ear that I needed these set milestones but not quality of life within them, that I was undeserving of true happiness and a household free of yelling and pushing and projectile objects (and gross sex in my marital bed with other people).
Wow, that was a very long tangent, but I promise it is related. My mind wants a life plan. It is very hard for me to be flexible, as the saga of my 20s has illustrated. But, when push came to shove, I was capable of throwing that plan away. I got a divorce at 30 while student teaching and broke and starting completely over. And then I met my husband, the one I was meant to have, the one I had to walk through Hell to get to. And I started a new career, that I love and that I truly feel is what I was meant to do, as hard as it is. And I had to try to squash that voice in my head that kept formulating a new plan. I can't stop trying to control my life. I had timelines in my head of when Bryce and I should move in together, when we should get married, when we could start trying to have children. But this time I relegated those thoughts to the far back recesses of my mind, to let things be more organic. To account for changes, such as when, a month and a half into dating this mystery man that I met through Match.com purely by chance but who turned out to be the perfect husband for me, we sat around a firepit in his backyard and he let me know that he'd had difficulty with fertility in his previous marriage and couldn't have children. A little overly dramatic, there's a difference between male factor infertility and complete sterility, but still, it was a bit of a shock to my system. I waited for The Plan alarms to go off. Instead, I realized that I wanted what was now, that I wanted this amazing man in my life, that I was falling in love with him and children were somewhere in the future but what was most important to me was this man, now. We could figure that other part out later. I wasn't going to base my decisions on The Plan anymore.
But now, after discovering that on top of male factor infertility we are faced with female factor infertility (thank you, PCOS), we seem to be up against a dash of unexplained infertility, too. Because both of our challenges are overcome by the process of IVF, and we end up with embryos, pretty embryos, and then no one can figure out why they never stay in my apparently beautiful uterus and make a baby. Very frustrating to the planner in me. I can't control it. And, to get back to the title of this post, this whole process of infertility has altered my dreams. I did not ever envision myself at 36 (my birthday is a week from today, hip. hip. hooray.) with no baby, no pregnancy, and no good reason for why that is. While my 30s have been a Figuring Out Time (figuring out what I want and deserve in a relationship, what my career should be, what our plan for overcoming infertility is), I can't figure out how to make sense of how we got to this particular point: five IVF transfers, thirteen embryos come and gone, one destructive, life-threatening and short-lived pregnancy, a few brief years before we hit our forties, and no idea where to go from here.
Infertility has altered my vision of what the path to parenthood would look like in countless ways. It prompts us to make hard decisions. We have many options and weigh them, constantly. We research everything. But it doesn't change the fact that we have had to take our (my) plan and throw it out the window. As we adjust and readjust and realize that there can be no life plan surrounding this experience, we have to decide or at least mull over different very hard questions, questions that a lot of people on this journey have to consider:
- At what point, if there is still no answer other than poor gambling skills, do we move on to something else? It's so hard to even think about moving on when we have no idea if the next time is THE time, if the stars will all align and they mystery will be solved. We can't give that up quite yet, not when we don't have data telling us it's not going to happen for us.
- What is most important to us? Is it genetic material, the experience of pregnancy, having a baby, or having a child? (I am attached to my uterus until someone can prove it's truly malicious and defunct. I am not nearly as attached to my eggs.)
- Do we need to get a second opinion? (We love our medical team. We love, love, love our doctor. But, if our sixth transfer doesn't work out, if we have transferred 16 embryos without success, would we be stupid to not seek the opinion of other doctors, even if they are not in our local area? We are super loyal people so this is a hard one to ponder.)
- How long do we keep at medical intervention? Even if we are excellent (although not feeling the excellence so much anymore) candidates for this process, if we wait too long will we no longer be able to put emotional and financial wherewithal behind the adoption process if we choose that route? Will we still be eligible? Or will we be too exhausted to enter into another process? With our current situation undefined and unresolved, we just can't enter into the hard realities of adoption yet.
- Do I need to come to grips with the fact that at this point, my only chance at two children is to conceive twins? That if we succeed and have a baby, that I will have to embrace my role as a mother of an only child? That was not my plan, I wanted siblings running around my house, but has infertility made that out of our reach if it's taking so much just to try to get viably pregnant once? I would be thrilled, THRILLED to be the mother of one child if it meant that I could be a mother at all. But it's an adjustment.
- Do I need to accept, that in my push to try to give us the best chances ever, that I could go the other way and become a mother of triplets? Unlikely, given that thirteen embryos have cycled through, often three at a time, with no more than one waylaid implantation taking place, but it's an increasing risk the older I get and with the number of embryos I push for, but is taking this risk for the chance at ONE fetus worth the risk of having three? (Yes. The answer is yes, for me.)
- When this is all over, because I do truly believe (although it gets harder each time to sustain this belief) that we will be successful, will we have the financial stability left to parent the way we envisioned? Will I be able to take full advantage of my maternity leave benefits, or will our bank accounts be too depleted to justify living on one income for any period of time? Will our love be enough to make up for the lack of sleepaway camps and expensive family vacations and all the techno-gadgets that I desperately do not want in my house but fear we won't be able to avoid? I think so. Looking back at my own childhood, I had a lot of love and quality (often free) experiences, and not a lot of expensive "stuff." I think that was highly valuable. I think expensive doesn't equal happy. But I don't know what the world will look like by the time we can bring a baby into it--I don't know what opportunities I will have to turn down for my child because we simply can't afford it after everything we've been through to conceive.
- Did we ever truly know how much we wanted to be parents when we entered this process? I had no idea that we would have this level of strength, of resilience, of motivation to make this work. I always, always wanted to be a mom but now I know how very badly I want it and just how far I am willing to go to have that experience. How we do it may change over time and with new information on our situation, but I had no idea going into this how far we'd be willing to go to fight for our right to reproduce. To see what a little Bryce and Jess combined together would look like. To add to our already happy household, our relationship that has stood the tests of this cruel and grueling process.
Below are links from RESOLVE to help further the understanding of infertility and awareness:
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