Yay! A Blog Award for Me!

Thank you, Willow, for bestowing me with this blogger-to-blogger award! I am relatively new to the blogosphere and not so technically savvy (still trying to figure out how to get a list of other people's blogs with current posts up as a sidebar thingie), but I love to write and share about turmoil that is the infertility process, so thank you for the acknowledgement! I love Willow's story--she has a beautiful and unique family-building process that I admire, and a writing voice that kicks ass. 

Here's how this Versatile Blogger Award works:

1. Winners grab the image and put it in your blog.
2. Link back to the person who gave you it.
3. Tell 10 things about yourself
4. Award 15 recently discovered bloggers.
5. Contact the bloggers you have awarded to let them know they have won.

Here are my 10 random things (I am an oversharer, so they may not be all that new): 

1. Like Willow, I am living where I swore I never would. I went to college at SUNY Geneseo, and while there found Rochester a horribly depressed, sad little city. Fast forward to 2001 and I had moved here with He Who Must Not Be Named, and I have never left! 

2. I have played location leap-frog with my mom and stepfather since 1998--A few years after I graduated from Geneseo and moved back downstate, my mom moved to Rochester to complete her coursework for her Ph.D. at Eastman. I moved up here for a brief time while she still lived here, then she moved back downstate. Then they bought a house up here to "retire" to, about 4 months before I desperately needed a place to live. I lived in the house for a year when my mom got a job up here and their primary residence has been Rochester ever since. 

3. I have played the violin for 26 years. I play for myself at this point mostly, but I do weddings and occasionally get paid for it by people who are not my friends or family. I just had to learn Beatles songs for a wedding for my chiropractor, which was fun (and stressful--when the guests start singing along you REALLY can't screw up unnoticed!). 

4. I am a special education teacher, but I haven't always been. My path to my passion has been twisty turny and a little circuitous... When I was at Geneseo I was English/secondary ed. Junior year I panicked and decided that teaching was not for me, but that as an English major/music minor my chances of poverty were high. I ended up going into children's publishing, did that for 3 years, moved to Rochester and got a job at a degree-completion curriculum house (got laid off when they went out of business 6 months later), freelanced as a writer and editor for almost a year (not for me), got a job at a yellow pages advertising agency (worst. job. ever.), when that ended badly I got a job at an HR corporation as an employee handbook specialist (soulsucking corporate climate, but I really liked my job--you would interview companies & organizations for their policies and try to dissuade them from, say, a Sexual Purity policy...), student taught, discovered that subbing puts you at poverty level and so supplemented with waitressing at a wedding hall and listening to calls for that same yellow pages agency, and then finally got into a district as a special education teacher and have been one since. Ironically, at the secondary level which meant that I finished my English/students with disabilities certification a few years ago. Full circle! 

5. I have a high-maintenance but very lovable greyhound, a pudgy little black-and-white cat who plays fetch with the foil caps on wine corks, and a three-legged cat (who unfortunately became that way under my care) who recently made a full recovery from a psychotic break. 

6. I am incredibly accident-prone. I get tons of bruises from walking into stuff. The first thing I did the first night of vacation in Maine this year was give myself a severe burn on the pad of my right middle finger while plugging in a toaster. I touched a bare lightbulb on the way and just seared my poor finger. Although it was fun to say "See my burn?" and hold up my finger... :) This morning I set the microwave on fire because I didn't realize that the butter wrapper (Maine butter) had foil hidden in it. On the plus side I found out that baking soda paste cleans out a dirty microwave really, really well. 

7. I proposed to my husband, via a letter that was really an essay on why marriage would be awesome for us despite our checkered pasts. I figured we had both been married before, but I had never proposed and Bryce had never accepted a proposal, so it made the second (and way better) time around fresh and new! 

8. I have celiac disease, which means I can't eat wheat, barley, rye or their derivatives or I get very sick and it damages the lining of my intestines. I just found out 2 years ago (although it runs in my family), which is good because there is a link between celiac and infertility. I have been gluten free the entire time we've been trying. I love, love, love to cook and so I was very depressed when I first adopted the gluten-free diet. But it has been a challenge and actually fun to try out new recipes. My turkey gravy (using sweet rice flour as a thickener) was the best ever this Thanksgiving!

9. I also love to garden. This year for my birthday I got gardening supplies/seeds/plants as gifts, and my tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, and herbs are all taking off like crazy. I can't wait to eat them all! I also have several perennial beds around my house that I am very proud of. Gardening is good therapy. 

10. A good friend has diagnosed me as a "Mindchamp." I am very, very smart (if I do say so myself) but can be incredibly, incredibly daft sometimes. I got this designation around 1999 while working in publishing, and it has really stuck. A few good examples--getting frustrated that I couldn't open Bryce's front door on our way back from somewhere only to realize I was using my housekey (I didn't have his yet); having a conversation towards the end of a grocery shopping trip in Maine and then stalking off with an empty cart, not our full cart, and not realizing it until a full aisle later; telling my best friend who informed me I was 2 minutes late for an appointment while I was talking to her that it was a little earlier here because I'm further west than she is... (That's the worst one. The sun may set later here but we're all on standard time, sheesh!). 

That was fun! Ok, so now I give the award to other bloggers. I am shamefully not well versed in a lot of blogs out there but am taking time over the summer to improve that situation while I'm off work. So I have wayyyy, way less than 15. But, I would like to give this award to the following blogs:  

1) Mommy Mahem

2) Que Sera Sera

3) Believe In Miracles

4) TTC

5) 100 Pounds Lost

Congratulations, ladies! I am in awe of your courage, your design skills, your writing voices, and how you express yourself through challenging times. Go forth and award away! 

Thanks again to Willow, who is expecting her second child via her first pregnancy! See her blog for her wonderfully written story.

The Ghost Of Infertile Vacations Past

While our vacation in Maine was beautiful, made more so by a distinct lack of infertility paraphernalia, the specter of infertility persistently hovered over us. It was more transparent than usual, but still, we were haunted. We made it through the whole week without tears caused by scads of happy young families (and man, does it seem like they get younger and younger, which just makes us feel older and older and even more dysfunctional than usual) flaunting their happiness before our barren (but very happy) twosome. I shopped for onesies and didn't cry. The lowered weepiness quotient was in part made possible because the Whale Museum in Bar Harbor was torn down -- a horrible and depressing sight for us, because it was such a wonderful place and now it is an empty hole where yet another giant hotel is going. Last year we went to the Whale Museum and thoroughly enjoyed it, but it resulted in a spectacular meltdown on my part (including stumbling down the street, blubbering and sobbing uncontrollably) because it was just the place we could envision taking our children to someday--it was full of science-y books and toys and activities for kids and it was full of families encouraging curiosity in their children. I guess I will never know if it would have had the same effect on me this year, because it was torn down to make way for big business. Which then made us more than a little sad because who knows how many things like that will be gone by the time we manage to have children of our own?

Last Night Toast in Bar Harbor

Anyway, the Ghost of Negative Pregnancy Tests really chose to give us a good haunting on our last night of vacation. Every year we go to Galyn's restaurant, a beautiful, classy, but not ridiculous place right on the main street in Bar Harbor that overlooks Frenchman's Bay and Agamont Park, a nice rolling green space. Every year I get salad, and Sauteed (Lazy Man's) Lobster, and a blueberry martini. Every year Bryce gets the Frenchman's Bay Stew and a muddled old-fashioned. And then we get a bottle of wine. Since this was vacation, after all, and I wasn't on meds yet, we did drink despite the closeness to our cycle. We have been cutting back/abstaining for three months now, but I thought it was important for our vacation to be our VACATION. Nothing too crazy, but some booze was totally appropriate. So this year was like the other two years we have gone to Acadia--we got cocktails to start and then Bryce ordered a surprise bottle of wine.

I don't know why, but that bottle of wine (which turned out to be Moet Chandon Imperial Champagne, ooh la la) sent me over the edge into a sea of self-pity. Here we were, toasting the last night of an utterly relaxing vacation, where the infertility-talk was present but not overwhelming, where we could truly get away from it all. And I was sad. I felt like a bit of an asshole because here was Bryce, so excited with his unusual wine choice and "big shebang" end to the trip, and here was me, mopey and teary eyed. Part of the problem was that my seat faced out towards Agamont Park. And Agamont Park was full of young families, baby carriages, ripe-bellied pregnant women...everything we want and haven't yet managed to secure for ourselves. It was like a torture parade and I couldn't quite tune it out. Another part of the problem was that end of vacation meant the start of our cycle. And shouldn't I be excited about that? Shouldn't I be just totally thrilled to be having another chance at pregnancy? Yup, mostly--but part of me is scared shitless. We aren't going into our first, super hopeful cycle like we did last year. We know that a negative test is a distinct possibility and we know what that feels like. And so for as hopeful and excited as I am leading up to a cycle, once I'm in it I start feeling anxious about where we are going. It is hard to "live in the moment" when you have lived through these moments before and had them end badly. I can't help thinking of each hurdle we must cross before we get to transfer of healthy embryos and then can wait for the ultimate hurdle that we have tripped over and lain sprawled, broken on the ground beside. So, the end of vacation was sad to me, because the carefreeness of being in Maine, pretending that we are just a normal married couple who have chosen not to have kids yet and just enjoy each other because we can, was coming to a close. Reality waited at home.

But the number one reason why I was sad was that last year, at that exact time, we were sitting in Galyn's, at a different table with the same view. And last year, we sat there talking about how next year at this time we would probably have our vacation with a brand new baby. We were a little sad looking out the picture window at the seemingly perfect lives of those families (maybe even some of the same families), but we were so hopeful that we would be joining them. We never in a million years thought that we would come back, just the two of us again, with two IVFs under our belt and no baby, no pregnancy. So for me, it really hit home that here we were again, toasting the end of another lovely vacation, heading into yet another IVF cycle. As hopeful as we can be but with the bitter taste of the previous failures tainting our slightly sweet, yeasty champagne.

The majority of our feelings are positive towards this next cycle. We have a lot going for us this third time on the cruel merry-go-round that we just can't seem to get off of. Maybe we'll nab us a baby (or two) and slide effortlessly off that ride. But, with everything we've already been through, it is impossible not to think about the possibility that we could face another defeat. The trick is to somehow balance the two--the upbeat optimism of YES! THIS IS OUR TIME! and the cynical, more realistic IT COULD STILL FAIL. "THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM" ISN'T ALWAYS THE CASE. WHY SHOULD THIS BE ANY DIFFERENT? Unlike last cycle, to protect myself from utter devastation, I have to let the fear of failure be a little more than a back-of-the-brain nugget. But I also want to be positive. I think the tricky part is to go into it hoping for the best, but prepared for what comes next if it's the worst. Somehow to think that it will all be okay either way and let go a bit. Which is way easier said than done. It probably just takes some practice and time--kind of like how by the third glass of champagne I was a little less saddened by the whole thing and could, at least for a little while, be happy that we were still on vacation and heading towards hope.

Cycle Gifts

Every IVF cycle that I have done (this makes three) I have made a point to give myself a gift. In part it's a gift to me, and in part it's a gift for the baby/babies that have yet to grace us with their presence. An IVF cycle is tough--it's demanding on your physical body, it's challenging for your emotional state to say the least, it's relatively unpredictable (we have a roughly 3-day span for when retrieval might be, and then transfer is 3-5 days after that, and then testing two weeks after retrieval--which makes planning for anything in that span of time very, very difficult). Social obligations are difficult to fulfill when you have a) very little expendable cash and b) you have to rush home for an injection that has you c) feeling like total crap. So, as a bit of a reward for putting myself through this, and as a recommendation from Elizabeth Swire Falker in her book, I decided to purchase a present each cycle.

My first present was my owl purse. I was feeling the owls and thought that the purse (which I spied at the Park Avenue Festival) would be the perfect present for me. Little did I know that that purse would bring me to my yoga group. The woman who makes the purses did so to fund her own treatment, which came out when I picked up my goody. She introduced me to the healing center where I go for fertility yoga, maya massage, acupuncture, and a support group. Shortly after joining the group, my friend the Purse Lady had a successful frozen transfer and her little girl was born this month. Pretty amazing stuff! I have loved my purse to death, but it wasn't quite the magic present for me. Instead of bringing me a baby, it brought me a community of amazing women and ways to increase my chances of success. When the time is right I will probably order a diaper bag in the same fabric.

The second cycle I decided to do things a little differently. I bought three things, all for FutureBaby and not for me. I was in Anthropologie and found this beautiful pop-up book about fairies--each interactive spread was a different kind of fairy house. Well, it was old fashioned and beautiful and something I would have loved as a child. Bryce is convinced we will have girls, so I bought the book as a present to my FutureBaby girl (knowing that if we had a boy and he liked it, cool, but if we had a boy and he didn't at least I would still like the book). I also followed the advice of a yoga group friend who has been successful twice and bought some items for FutureBaby. I bought a onesie and a bib set. The onesie was adorable--white with blue trim and a frog in a lotus pose on the front (the bibs matched). It was feasibly unisex and adorable. I washed it and the bibs and set it out in the room that will be a baby's room in the future but is still firmly a guest room. The bibs I stuffed into each of our pillowcases, for good luck. These items are still here for the FutureBaby, but they are hidden away. They didn't work. Or, as Bryce said, "they didn't have the right magic." (This, coming from ultra-logical Bryce, is pretty amazing. Either my craziness must be rubbing off or he's really good at effortlessly appeasing me.) I don't even know where the baby clothes are--when the cycle failed I was so upset I had Bryce remove the items and hide them somewhere I couldn't see them.

So now, for this third cycle, I need new presents. I can't use the other onesies, so I went on a hunt for new ones. And what better place to hunt for cute, good-juju onesies than Maine? It took days of searching. All the stores in Bar Harbor have decided to sell the same brand of onesie, which can be cute (like Duck Duck Moose) or absolutely horrific (a cute blue whale on the front with "BLOWOUT" printed across the butt. Classy.). The biggest problem was that the cute ones were obviously one sex or the other. When looking for good-juju onesies, it's important to pick out unisex styles. You don't want the Universe to think that you are asking for a particular brand of baby. I wanted to leave all doors open. So much so that I bought not one onesie, but two. I didn't want to discourage the idea of twins (far from discouraging, I encourage the notion). Onesie number one I found in our favorite out-of-state Mexican restaurant--El El Frijoles (get it? Loosely "L.L. Beans?" hahaha). I almost cried, it was so perfect. 

Yup, that's a lobster in a taco.

It was yellow (non-sex-specific), and soft, and commemorates a restaurant we love. And there's a wall of pictures in the restaurant with people and babies wearing the t-shirts/onesies in different cities. We want our baby on that wall next year! (I am resisting the urge to stuff Abner into the onesie and send a picture of that for now.)





But then I was in trouble. I didn't want to buy TWO El El Frijoles onesies, but I needed a second. And I'd already combed through most of the shops in Bar Harbor, only to find more of the same crap. One onesie was awfully close--it was orange and brown stripes with a brown patchwork moose on the front, but it kind of overwhelmingly screamed "boy" to me. So it was a pass. I was feeling discouraged.
 

On our last night, we found it--a non-crappy onesie, also yellow, from Maine. I'm really not sure what it means, but it will do. I don't know if Moose Rock is an actual place, or if it means "Moose ROCK!," or if it's like a Jailhouse Rock kind of thing. But it's cute and it's tiny and soft and it has a little moose on it, so it spoke to me.



As Bryce said when I bought "Moose Rock," I may have to get another onesie if I see one that speaks to me between now and retrieval (as an extra, not as a ploy for triplets. I'm not crazy). Actually, I don't know why I would need to curb my baby prep at retrieval--I guess I can still dream up until testing. These onesies are special--they are washed and set up in our room to bring good baby juju our way. We are NOT "nesting" or preparing a nursery by doing these small purchases. We are NOT opening ourselves up to gifts of baby stuff. It's a hard distinction to make, but the juju only works if it comes from us, it's the right onesies, and there's a small enough number of them that they won't break my heart if I need to put them in storage again. The last thing I want is a tub full of bad-juju-onesies, but I have a really, really good feeling about these. I have a really good feeling about this cycle, period. Am I nuts for collecting a small trove of baby stuff? Maybe. It seems I just can't dial back the pre-cycle exuberance. I can see a little baby (or babies) stuffed into these adorable yellow outfits. Maybe, with the extra-special magic of Acadia, this will be the extra push we need.

A Beautiful Gift

View from Camp deck.

Every year for three years now, Bryce and I have taken a trip to Maine from the last day of school in June through the July 4th weekend. Bryce has a family friend who has a camp on a lake near Ellsworth, which is maybe 30 minutes away from Bar Harbor. It's wonderful. We have a blast every time we go and really and truly get to relax. Which is great, because usually the reason why we go this particular week is because it is right as soon as school ends and then right before summer school starts. I have had to cram a lot of relaxation into that one week.

This year, I am not rushing back to dive right into summer school. Of course, this is the year that summer school doesn't start until June 11th, so even if I was teaching over the summer I would still have one more week to wind down from the year. But this year, I am not teaching over the summer. This is the summer of Operation Stork Capture. We're going to lasso that damn bird and force it to grace us with its elusive (to us, anyway) gift(s). The thing that kind of sucked was that I was slated to start Lupron during the week we were in Maine. I have a packing list all set and I had to write in "sharps container, alcohol swabs, syringes" which hurt me a little on the inside. But, no matter--if I'm going to be put into a sort of chemical menopause for a while there is no more beautiful place to have hot flashes than Acadia National Park. It meant that we had to plan any strenuous hikes for no later than Monday, since I wasn't sure what Lupron would do for my stamina. It meant that we were going to do "Acadia Lite." It meant that infertility was encroaching on our sacred downtime, our precious hike-and-kayak-and-kick-back-with-a-bottle-on-the-deck vacation. It was worth it to get started early on the cycle. But it still sucked.

But then...we were given a tremendous gift! We had our follow-up consultation with our wonderful fertility doctor this week. And I am flabbergasted and amazed. I am being put on a completely different protocol than the last two times. There is very little that is the same about this IVF cycle--and that is so encouraging. But the BEST part, the part that actually put a tear in my eye, is that I don't have to take Lupron at all this time. They are doing an antagonist protocol, where my only suppression is the pill and then I will start taking Ganarelix to keep me from ovulating about day 6 of stims through egg retrieval. Holy wow, that is the best news I've gotten in a LONG time! This means that I do not have to deal with the side effects of Lupron at all. Ganarelix doesn't have any of those nasty side effects (hot flashes, headaches, insomnia, extreme irritability, and the awesome Lupwon Bwain effect that makes me feel like I've had a stroke and have lost all my words). And, best of all, I don't have to take needles with me to Maine. We can have a (relatively) infertility-free vacation! I don't know who is more excited about this, me or Bryce. I am not a pleasant person on Lupron. And to now be completely and totally free of that nasty drug for the entirety of this next cycle...it feels almost too good to be true! I am beyond thrilled.

See ya, infertility--you aren't wanted here!

So now, instead of only doing carriage road trails, we can hike the way we like to. We have a real, true vacation to kick off our cycle, not a sort-of vacation that still includes that insidious red plastic box with the biohazard symbol on it. We are free!

It's All in the Timing

It's amazing how where you are in your cycle affects your state of mind. It affects how you react to things, and how much you can handle on a given day. I would like to think that because I have been at this for a while now (jeez louise, coming up on two years of medicated cycles), that I am more mellow,  more experienced with the ups and downs, and more able to better handle things in general. But I don't actually think that's the case. I think it totally depends on where I am in the fertility calendar.

The Best Of Times
I am feeling my best and my most well-balanced when I am heading into an IVF cycle. Like this past month and a half or so, I've been feeling really well-adjusted. I went to visit my best friend (the one with three children 4 and under) this past weekend and I didn't have a single moment where I thought I might burst into tears. This is a house that has every last drop of the joyful chaos that I desperately want--a baby to soothe, toddlers vying for attention and giving heartfelt "I love you, Mommy" whispers. Even when it is crazy I want it. Because my house is dead quiet in comparison. When I first indicated that I wanted to come visit, my friend was cautious--she wanted to make sure I was sure it would be ok. I have been a hot mess in months past, so it was reasonable that she would worry that I would be torturing myself. However, I was going into a cycle. I had given it a lot of thought before even bringing it up (I would never offer it up if I couldn't handle it in the first place). I was in a place of hope and positivity. And the visit was great--I didn't have to use my "out" that I set up (going to Starbucks for some quiet time if it was too much). I didn't cry once. And my friend's husband gave the ultimate gift of taking all three kids out to visit grandparents for the day on Saturday so that we could have grown up time just the two of us. It was lovely. I held a 3-month (fresh) baby, changed her, fed her, burped her, and was projectile vomited on by her. It made me feel good, not horribly sad that I didn't have it. Because my mindset now is, Soon this will be mine, too. I live in a place of hope during this pre-cycle gearing-up phase.

The Worst of Times
By far, the time when I can handle nothing is right after a failed cycle. This was evidenced spectacularly by my second failed IVF. I seriously did not want to leave the house and I couldn't stop crying. Babies crying in restaurants reduced me to a puddle over my guacamole. I couldn't talk to my same friend (whose babies I bathed and fed and read stories to over this past weekend) unless her children were not around. I couldn't stand to hear that joyful chaos in the background and be reminded again that my house is filled with animal sounds, not small-child sounds. Watching TV was difficult because any number of storylines (or advertisements) could send me into self-pitying hysterics. Going on Facebook was tough because inevitably there was a birth or a pregnancy announcement and I'd have to offer congratulations to what felt like everyone but me. This is a deep, dark hole. But it is a relatively short-lived hole. After each failed IVF the hole gets a little deeper and a little wider, because my ability to remain hopeful and think this is actually possible for us suffers. But it's still temporary. Once I have a plan, once dates are in place, and especially once I can say "I start Lupron THIS month," my outlook improves vastly. Somehow I can find a way to climb out of the hole, get hopeful and enthusiastic again, and pretend that there's not another potential pit waiting to swallow me up.

The Crapshoot Times
During a cycle is my trickiest time. This is when anything goes. I could be hopeful and buying Maine onesies one moment and sobbing into my American Baby magazine (that, incidentally, I ordered for myself on a hopeful upswing) the next. I might need to get out and not think about anything baby.  Or, because going out makes it impossible not to see a million pregnant women and babies in strollers or slings, stay in and not think about anything baby. I am so hopped up on hormones that I don't even know which end is up. I can be excited and terrified at the same time. I am entering this time, because the closer we get to getting started the more excited and equally apprehensive I can be. I will say, for those who may misinterpret my words, that I am more saddened by the plethora of bellies and babies I don't know than those of my friends. At all times of my cycle calendar I am able to be happy for my friends when they hit the jackpot. I might be a little more sad for me at the same time depending on where I am, but I am always genuinely happy for the lucky ones.

The upshot of all this is that I am in the best place in the time leading up to an IVF cycle. I can believe in this time that I am "next," and that I will be buying maternity clothes soon. I am in the worst place right after a crappy cycle, where it seems that I will never be "next" and the stork just likes to take a shit on my house, not deliver a prize package. I am a tricky mix in the in-between times, the medicated times, the scary in-the-moment of "this might be the time I actually win the lottery and get pregnant." I have spoken with ladies in my support groups, and it seems to be pretty universal--where you are in a cycle governs what you can and cannot handle. But, as a rule of thumb, things that (while in this process) I cannot handle regardless include: Baby Showers, Mother's Day, Small Child Birthday Parties, Post-Birth Hospital Visits. Those things fall in the No-Matter-Where-I-Am-It-Hurts-Too-Much category. Hopefully this gives some insight into how a infertility-plagued state of mind (or at least, mine) shifts depending on where you are headed and where you've been.

Infiltrated Again? Really?

A while back I wrote a post called "Stop Sneaking Up On Me!" about infertility weaseling its way into my favorite modes of escape. Books, movies, but mostly books. One book that caught me by complete surprise was The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs--a hilarious and informative memoir about his quest (and success) reading the entire Encyclopedia Brittannica. You read a blurb for a book like that and don't think "There is an infertility story hiding in there!" But there was. A.J. and his wife, Julie, were trying to have a baby and it wasn't going well. It was the entire second theme of the book. (SPOILER) They did get pregnant by the end through some unspecified infertility treatment that wasn't IVF, but they did find out via a phone call from a nurse. Slices of my own personal reality that I am really not looking to see reflected in my pleasure reading.

I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea, but I picked up The Year of Living Biblically, also by A.J. Jacobs. This time, instead of delving deep into the world of the encyclopedia, he immerses himself into taking the bible as literally as possible for a year. It looked funny. It looked informative. I checked it out of the FHS library at work.

Except I should have checked the copyright dates. I thought that it was earlier than The Know-It-All, but I have no idea why. I think maybe I forgot that there was an infertility subplot to that one. But, no. The book comes after, when his son is 2 years old. And about a half inch into the book the freaking infertility theme comes roaring back into play--they have been trying naturally again (why you would try naturally after having to use assistance the first time is a mystery to me) for a year. No dice. But then they decide to do IVF. Yay, IVF in my frivolous escape book! Just what I was hoping for! It wasn't quite as prevalent as in the other book, but still. Tales of needles, training for intramuscular injections. Magic Marker circles drawn on hindquarters. Julie saying "I hope this works because I don't think I can do this again." A sentiment I can totally understand, but coming from the side of having done a couple of these jobbies I am a little jaded. Why should it work on the first try? This was not the book I was looking for.

But, I have been sticking it out. Except now I am having a really hard time continuing. Because they had their egg retrieval, and their transfer (a nice 5-day transfer of two blastocyst embryos, must be nice to get to that point). The big decision day came. (SPOILER). Julie gets the call and it is... positive. But wait! She doesn't look happy anymore! Why? Because her numbers are super high, indicating that both embryos likely took (or, less likely, she has one hulk embryo). Not happy anymore. UPSET. So much so that there is the quote, "'Two-for-one deal,' she says flatly. 'Double the fun.'" I just about lost my shit and threw the book across the room.

I realize that I may be being a bit harsh on A.J. and Julie. Really, just Julie, because while A.J. is stunned he does sum up his feeling with "Be thankful, just be thankful." Twins are an incredible expense and increase the complications of pregnancy and delivery. But, I'm sorry--if you are doing IVF and you transferred two embryos, you have to have at least prepared yourself a little that there's a chance you might have twins. Frankly, I would be THRILLED to be in those shoes--first IVF, and positive with twins! (Granted, I'm starting from zero and they have a two-year-old, so going from one to three is a little different than going from zero to two.)

It makes me angry, because I would love to have twins result from my IVF. I would not say "Two for one deal" FLATLY. I would be jumping up and down (gently as not to accidentally dislodge said twin nuggets) and popping the non-alcoholic bubbly. But no... I am now reading a book where people are not thrilled that they are finally pregnant and managed to do it on the first round, not the third. If there is complaining about this twin pregnancy I think I will definitely put it up.

The problem is, I like the rest of this book. I like learning the lesser known stories of the bible, tawdry stories and odd laws and rules that I've never heard of. I like stories of A.J. riding the subway wearing all white non-mixed cloth garments, playing a 10 string harp and sporting his giant untrimmed beard. But I do not like reading about infertility when I don't mean to be reading about infertility. And I certainly don't like reading about people who achieve success on the first try of IVF and are upset because they got twins. There's elective single embryo transfer if you truly don't want twins (although the embryo could still split to identical twins, since the processes for IVF make the embryos more likely to cleave in that way). So I hope this subplot shuts the hell up so that I can enjoy the main thrust of the book.

It's only halfway through, so it's possible that there will be unfortunate outcomes (in which case I'll feel guilty for badmouthing this couple who were newly pregnant with twins from their first IVF in 2006ish). Or it's possible that, like everything else, it will all turn out just hunky-dory for them. They might complain the whole way through their pregnancy. And then I will have to save reading the rest of The Year of Living Biblically for another time, when I am ok with reading a book that is really partially about infertility. And when I am slightly less bitter about the whole thing.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

I am not proud of myself, but I have lied recently. Purely for my own benefit. But I didn't feel too bad about it. You see, there's this magazine that I see every week at the public library where I go to observe a student working. The magazine is American Baby, and it looks like an awesome publication. Lots of articles and tips on pregnancy, birth, all the crap you need (and don't need), and your baby's first year or two. It's a division of Parent magazine. And it's free. I have seen this magazine month after month for the past year and flipped through it (especially when hopeful that a current or upcoming cycle will work/has worked). It's awesome. I thought that I should sign up for it, because I need this information too even though I'm not yet pregnant. I am ready to get this information delivered to my home even though I'm not glowing, not yet at least. I struggled with it (because once you sign up for something like that, it inevitably changes the types of catalogs and offers and coupons that are mailed to your home), but I finally signed up a couple of months ago, when I did my last injectible IUI.

The lying part comes in when I filled out the online form. Not surprisingly, they asked for either a due date or a child's birthday. I don't have that kind of information, although I've had a slew of almost-due-dates. Thanks to the marvels of the internet, you can put your retrieval date into a calculator and get your due date for any given cycle. It works for inseminations, too. So I put November 16th, which could have feasibly been the day my miracle baby from the IUI was born. It was a little early so it was possible that I had just peed on a stick and found out the happy news. Just the thought process that took me to get to the place of typing in a fake due date was a little psycho, not to mention my mindset when I committed to the fraud and pressed enter. I think my punishment for this little act of deceit was that my first issue came the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend. Excellent timing.

But, I have to say that I believe I deserve to sign up for this magazine just the same as any other expectant mother, despite the fact that I don't have a baby or a nugget yet. I need to make my Baby Binder full of page-protected articles on pregnancy, babies, development, and parenting advice. I need images for my still-evolving Vision Board (it's finally up on the wall, it's just not totally filled yet which is quite all right with us because our vision is a little fluid when it comes to our new, slightly fictional family). So why shouldn't I get to have a pre-parenting magazine? I know, there is a magazine for people who are trying to conceive (and not succeeding so much), Conceive magazine. This one is ok, but it has a lot of Infertility 101 type articles in it and I feel a little beyond that. It was great in the first year of the journey, but now I read the articles online that are relevant (on www.conceiveonline.com). I want to focus on the end prize, not what tests I need to determine if I am infertile (I know we are).

Which brings me to a moment where my crazy-lady eyes came out in Barnes & Noble last weekend. At checkout, the cashier asked if I bought a lot of children's books. I do, for my friends' children and for school (and occasionally for my slightly fictional future small children). He then asked if I wanted to sign up for the new Kid's Club, an extension of the regular membership that I already have and pay for. It's free and I get $5 for every $100 spent. Sounded great, so I started the paperwork. And I was feeling great until I got to the bottom, where it said "Please enter your child's name and birthdate. YOU MUST ENTER AT LEAST ONE." Out came the insane bug eyes. "Excuse me," I said, "Do I have to have an actual CHILD to be in this club? I don't HAVE an ACTUAL child. I have FRIENDS' children. Can I not sign up unless I have an actual CHILD?" The cashier looked a little frightened. Bryce looked a little embarrassed but not surprised. "No, no, you can put one of your friends' children down. You don't need to have children." I said, "Oh." I put down my best friend's oldest son and still felt angry that I had to put someone else's kid down, that I couldn't just check a box that said "Currently childless but buy a crapload of books for everyone else so I am totally eligible." It sucked.

Then, this morning I called to update my information in the alumni directory that I always update and never ever buy. The man I spoke to was very friendly, very personable and had a really great radio voice. I was feeling very accomplished when he congratulated me on my two degrees and my teaching career. I felt less accomplished when the email address I had on file was my previous married name ("Ok, I am confused here. Now you are Tennant and your maiden name is Haney so what's this Perez?" I said, "I think you can figure this one out on your own." Not too hard, since I'm not a con artist on the lam from the FBI.). That was a little embarrassing. However, the hard part came when he asked if he could list any children in addition to my spouse. Nope, no children. There was a silence and then he said, "I guess your students are enough for you, right? Am I right?" I laughed a hard, terse laugh and didn't say a word. I wanted to say "NO, actually, that's kind of crazypants to suggest that. And actually I've been trying to become a mom for going on two years now with an intensity that is exhausting in every possible way and I just haven't quite gotten there yet." But that doesn't fit neatly in the alumni directory.

I survived all of these experiences without tears, which I hope means that I'm growing and getting more resilient. Or maybe I'm just growing numb. Or, maybe I've realized that I can't let stuff like this bother me every single time because it will happen, over and over and over and I just can't stop it. Maybe it's just because when these things happened I was much more balanced emotionally having had 6 months since my last truly disappointing devastating cycle. It's probably a combination. I just have to find more ways to laugh at my shenanigans to get free baby stuff to prepare for my long-awaited pregnancy, my capacity to terrify a teenage cashier at B&N, and celebrate my ability to smooth over a question that would have thrown me for a total loop just 6 months ago.