Happy Birthday? Why, Yes, Happy Birthday!

It's not a secret that most people, the older they get, don't relish birthdays quite the way they used to. The thrill of balloons and birthday cake and a pile of colorful presents is overshadowed by the extra gray hair, the sun spots you keep telling yourself are just overzealous freckles, and those fine lines that used to only show up when you smile and are now increasingly ever-present, no matter what you slather on your face. There's the fact that your metabolism seems to screech to a complete and total halt sometime after 35 or 36 and you have to work harder to stay in your fat pants, much less get into skinny ones. A feat not helped by fertility drugs and the general malaise that comes with struggling with infertility for an inordinate period of time.

I have grown to detest my birthday. Not because of the obvious signs of aging on my face and my waistline, which actually chronicle many years of happy moments that I wouldn't want to erase, but because time marches on and certain things stay stagnant in our happy, fine-lined lives. My birthday is a reminder that another year has gone by and we are still, STILL not parents despite valiant efforts and a couple of somewhat encouraging but mostly heartbreaking close calls. I am now 37. THIRTY SEVEN. I am in an ambiguous place between mid-thirties and late-thirties. I am marching fast towards 40. And there is no stroller in the trunk of my car. How did this happen?

Now, to be fair, I shouldn't be so upset about marching towards forty. While forty has always been this mythical end point that women fear, the whole "Fertility Ends at Forty" armageddon sign thought pattern, I am not really worried about that. Mostly because who the hell knows when my fertility dead end happened but it was well, WELL before forty--was it programmed into my genetic code at birth? was it slowly building up as I lived a child in the 80s, when plastic and microwaving and the combination of the two were prevalent and we didn't yet know how harmful so many chemicals were, particularly BPA? was I incredibly fertile in my adolescent years where absolutely no sexual activity took place, or, because my cycles were already all messed up from the time they began thanks to undiagnosed PCOS, did I never really have a chance? was my "dead end" at 28 when I went back to school to become a teacher, at 30 when my divorce was being finalized, or at 33 when I was dabbling in IUI? Who knows? Does it matter? Not really. Besides, I have supposedly stopped the biological clock thanks to egg donation. I may be thirty seven, but I have the nubile eggs of a twenty-seven-year-old (just not in my body or retrieved yet). HaHAhaha. But, that whole egg business and the horrifying "expiration date" that all women face at some point or another is NOT why my age has bothered me.

My age bothers me because while we are still within the average for people having babies, most people I know who are my age and definitely want to have children...have them. Regardless of whether they live in a major city or not. If we are successful with this DE IVF cycle, I will be dropping my child(ren) off at kindergarten when I am 43. Not ridiculous, but not the norm, either. Plenty of people tell me how they waited or they know people who waited to have children and how it's perfectly fine. But you know what? It's not really all that fine for me. Because I didn't make this choice. This is not what I wanted. I wanted to be a younger mom, something I was worried was bygone even when I thought I had a shot at having my kids at 34 when we were happily remarried. That did not happen. I know you can make plans and none of it can happen, but this one really gets me because while I will play the hand I'm dealt, obviously, and I will still be a kickass, energetic, wacky mom in my forties, this was not how I envisioned things. And it's something I mourn. Usually by feeling pretty low on my birthday.

HOWEVER--lest you think this is a boo-hoo, woe-is-me, come-join-my-pity-party-I-have-margaritas post, it is NOT! This year I was really depressed about my birthday. Here we are, in a situation where my level of control over things is NADA (perceived control I guess) and we are in a way different place than I could have ever imagined and we are STILL CHILDLESS AND NOT BY CHOICE, one year later. Another year of no lasting positive pee stick, no baby bump, no baby. Last year my birthday came on the heels of a failed IVF cycle and I was definitely not in a good place. This year I anticipated not being in a good place and so I begged Bryce, "Please take me away." I wanted to go somewhere, where we could control what we did and I could basically ferret myself away and pretend it wasn't even my birthday. I didn't want brou-ha-ha. I didn't want nothing, but I just wanted to be distracted from the fact that this birthday business was happening, that time marched on and we were still here, clutching our Bordeaux but no baby carriage. So plans went afoot.

And it was AMAZING.

Mmmm... delicious miniature
birthday kickoff champagne.

We went away, but locally, to a spa and hotel on the Erie Canal. We pretended it took us a long time to get there and we got lost. We were able to park the car and then not use it again because everything is walkable and there is a restaurant right in the hotel, so we could pretend we were at a resort. We had champagne for the room when we got there, because this is sort of a new tradition (if you can call something a tradition that you've done once before) starting with our Christmas Grafton VT trip. Of course, we had to wait to drink it because we wanted to go swim and be generally childish and stupid in the tiny indoor pool, and the pool rules said very clearly "DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL AND SWIM" since there's no lifeguard. So we didn't until we came up, exhausted and stinking of chlorine, and I realized that I haven't gone swimming since my skin has changed to the drier side and HOLY HELL DID I JUST ADD 10 YEARS TO MY SKIN? I felt like one of those people in horror movies where you age decades in seconds. After showering and moisturizing and putting eye drops in so it didn't look like we'd been hanging out with Snoop Lion, we enjoyed our champagne and then went for a walk along the canal and through "this quaint town that seems quite nice." (We are such dorks, since we walk in this village pretty much twice a month and know it like the back of our hands.) Then, dinner at the newly renovated and redone restaurant, The Erie Grill. Which was delicious. We got dressed up and brought our bottle of Vosne Romanee burgundy, which was lovely and dusty from the cellar (have I mentioned we like our wine?) and went incredibly well with my roasted duck. Man, I am a sucker for good duck. It did NOT go well with the completely ridiculous "Salty Potato Chips with Onion Dip," which were a reasonable $3 and COMPLETELY DELICIOUS. If you go here, you must eat these. Bryce got the 

And...delicious dusty birthday burgundy.

Rabbit Sausage with Orechiette (with fried sage leaves and red wine drizzle), which also went incredibly well with the wine. Dinner was awesome, and then we still had the very romantic Champagne and Strawberries to look forward to in our room, a lovely surprise orchestrated by Bryce and blown by the very formal check-in-guy, who asked upon registration "And when would you like your amenity?" and Bryce, trying to figure out what the heck an "amenity" is (I kept thinking, you have to schedule when they put the chocolate mint on your pillow? Weird!), said, "Hmmmm, when would you suggest?" The guy had no clue what to do with that so he said "Anytime between 4 and 11 is customary" leaving Bryce no choice but to 'fess up, "I have NO IDEA what this amenity is that you speak of." And so, the birthday champagne and strawberries were announced. And very much appreciated. I have to note that the champagne bottles were both halves, and so we weren't total crazy revelers. Hilariously (and not totally inappropriately) the room service person who delivered the goods wished us "A happy Honeymoon to you!" despite the littered "Happy Birthday" wrapping paper all over the bed.



On a pretty walk in the village.

The stay was lovely, the dinner was lovely, the breakfast was lovely, and after I got over my initial crankiness of wearing my new bathing suit from last year for the first time and having it be a bit snugger than I remembered, I was generally pleasant and not all sad/angry/moody over the whole birthday thing. It was a gorgeous day, both days. We went for a walk several times and enjoyed the new leaves and flowers and flowering trees and general reconstituting of everything for Spring. It was awesome, and reiterated again to me how special my husband is to go to such lengths to help me have a nice birthday when birthdays are so hard lately. I am in a better place, since now we have our donor and we have our plan and I have dates and concrete things to hold onto. But it is still hard to see the little munchkins by the water oohing over ducks (not the same kind I ate) and wonder if we'll ever have our chance to go walking along the canal with our own little ones. We are more hopeful than ever, but nothing is a certainty. I can be positive but I can't 100% trust in anything anymore.

I do, however, have a really, really good feeling that my next birthday will be extra special (I have had these feelings before to no avail, but I really think this is different). That the world will keep spinning and we'll finally be moving forward, too, instead of being stuck in this dreadful holding pattern. That would be the best birthday present ever, but this birthday, this weekend of celebration and helping me to enjoy the day instead of curse it, is a damn close second. Thank you SO much, future father of my children, for making this day not morose at all but magical.

Anatomy of an Egg Donor Cycle

This is a post that has been kicking around in my head for months, and I am so glad that I can finally set it free. I want to thank everyone who has been incredibly supportive and kind in the past week and say that I have really enjoyed getting to know new bloggers through NIAW! I am slowly slogging through all of the "Join the Movement" posts (read them here) and am just amazed at all of the incredible voices out there. It makes me feel so special to be a part of this group of strong women (and men) battling infertility.

I'd like to take you through what a donor egg IVF (DE IVF) cycle looks like--at least what it looks like for me. Like all IVF cycles, there are variants in medications. Unlike all IVF cycles, there are differences in how you match up with a donor. Other clinics have databases where you make the decision, where you see photographs, where you get a lot of information. Other clinics have you work with an agency, which can often be very expensive. Costs for DE IVF vary just as costs for "regular" IVF vary--my IVF cycles have cost around $8600 plus medication, so with help on the meds front and occasional financial boosts no one IVF cycle has cost more than $10,000, and often it has cost less. Other clinics in other areas of the state and country can charge upwards of $20,000 for a "regular," "fresh" IVF cycle. Cost is relative, and we are lucky to live in an area where, while this treatment doesn't exactly fall into what normal people consider affordable, relatively speaking it is less expensive than many other places. The cost for a donor cycle is quite a bit more, but again, for us it is still less than $20,000 (although hovering around double our normal payout), when it can be $30k or more elsewhere. All of these variants can make your head spin, so I'm going to focus on what this process looks like for us, Bryce and Jess, in Rochester, NY.

Decision Time
First we had our consult appointment, in September 2012, following our devastating early pregnancy loss from our last frozen transfer. After being given our options, we pretty much felt it was a no-brainer to go with a change in plans rather than to keep beating our heads against the wall, searching for the mythical Golden Egg. It may still be lurking in the crusty recesses of my polycystic ovaries, but I just don't have the wherewithal to keep on the quest when it has caused us so much pain to gather the evidence that my eggs are probably not chromosomally normal. (Again, a bitter pill to swallow, because we are still in the "probably" camp, with no concrete evidence that this is definitely the case, but a lot of anecdotal evidence which is good enough for me. But still, that question mark exists. Grrr.) We wanted to take a break, have a Fertility-Free Holiday Season, and then start up in January. We were told a basic overview of what would happen, and then were mailed home some forms.

Step 1: Donor Forms
The forms that arrived in the mail were the most intimidating things ever. In order to eventually be matched with a donor, we had to provide information about ourselves and then what we would like to see in a donor. Which seemed interesting at first, until you realize that you are needing to prioritize what pieces to the genetic pie mean the most to you. Which opens a Pandora's Box of questions...what comes from the egg??? What is genetic, versus something you pass on through the environment of your home? Would I still have been a violinist if I was not genetically linked to my very musical parents, but had still been brought up in a highly musical home? (In my mind, the answer is yes.) If we had been able to use my eggs and had my genetics in the Punnett Square Soup, is there any guarantee that I would have a baby with curly hair? With dark hair? With dark blue eyes like mine? Whenever I visualized our FutureBaby during meditations or daydreams of a time when this is all a distant nightmare, the baby (sometimes boy, sometimes girl, usually two years old for some reason) had curly towheaded hair. Bryce was a towhead, and that's pretty dominant. My hair is naturally curly, but my mom's is not. My dad's is wavy, but my cousins run the gamut of straight, wavy, and curly. See how much time I spent just on hair? Now imagine filling out a form where you are deciding if eye color is important, hair color and texture, height, weight, skin tone, ethnic background, and then the very difficult short answer portion at the bottom that asks about personality factors. It was overwhelming. It felt weird. It felt like after mailing this in, I should receive an American Girl doll in the mail that looks just like me, but not really. It caused a lot of angst. It lived on the coffee table for months (because what was the rush, really, if we didn't have to make this decision until January or so?). I cried every time I tried to fill it out. We had conversations about what was important. Can you really concretely make a decision on what are the genetic traits that you would like someone else to give to your child? How the hell did I get to this point? It could have felt like picking out positives, like the wish book catalogs that JC Penney used to mail out before Christmas. But it felt a little more like "What am I willing to give up so that I can have a donor with proven fertility? What do I need to sacrifice?" The one thing that was non-negotiable was that the donor needed to have proven fertility, specifically previous cycles that resulted in babies.  I would give up just about anything for a chance at success. It was so hard, especially since we made the decision so quickly after our loss that I don't think I had fully mourned both the loss of my last fully genetic babyling AND the loss of any future fully genetic babylings. But, in January, the paperwork got mailed.

Step 2: Psychological Evaluation
Yup, we had to do a psychological evaluation. A two-and-a-half hour process involving 350+ questions that needed bubbling in of circles labeled "Always, Often, Sometimes, Never" and were things like, "I think of death daily," "My favorite hobbies are archery and stamp collecting," "I feel that my thoughts are being transmitted to the world," and "I am destined for something special." Which I thought was unfair, because thinking you're destined for something special in itself shouldn't be a red flag (I am destined to be an awesome mom! That's pretty special... but then again if I think I will be Queen of the Universe and rule everyone from my sky castle, well then that might be a problem). It was apparently patterns within the psychotically voluminous battery of questions that raised the flags. We could not take it seriously. I mean, we answered the questions seriously, but laughed a lot and tried to guess what psychological disorders each question was trying to ferret out. They only contact you if there's a problem, so thank goodness we weren't coded, but then that begged the question...are you not approved for parenthood if you have mental illness? That seemed not quite right either. After the battery of multiple choice, we then had what was basically a couples' therapy session where we outlined our family lives, previous relationships/marriages, our relationship, and then our story of trying to conceive. That was exhausting. Then we had to discuss the intricacies of DE IVF from an emotional standpoint, and whether we were prepared for failure. Cheery, no? I totally understand wanting couples to be ready emotionally and well-thought-out in their decision to proceed with third-party reproduction. They require this of the donors, so they began requiring it of the recipients as well. But I'll be honest--I kind of felt like I was undergoing an approval process--were we decent enough, well-adjusted enough people to be parents? NO ONE ELSE HAS TO DO THIS type of invasive exploration of all things you unless you are engaging in third-party reproduction or adoption. It seems the more you want a baby, the more difficult it is for you to accomplish that, then the more hoops you have to jump through to get to that final step. So not fair when no one asks the meth addicts if they're adjusted enough for parenthood, but Step Two it was.

Step Three: Mock Cycle
Before you can be matched with a donor, you need to do a mock cycle where all the special lining-thickening meds can be adjusted when the stakes aren't so high. Again, not all clinics do this but most do. I called in January with my first day of my cycle, and was shocked that it would be weeks before I went onto Lupron. That's right, my nemesis Lupron is again a part of this protocol. God I hate Lupron. I was on Lupron for a couple of weeks before starting estrogen patches in February to build up my lining and get my estrogen levels up. A donor cycle is like a frozen cycle--the goods aren't being made in your body but you have to be ready to receive. The drugs are different because you have to be able to have some flexibility since you are dependent on someone else's stimming. So, after Lupron shots every morning that make you crazy and menopausal, you start the dizzying process of the estrogen patches. They stick on your belly, but have to be numbered with a ballpoint pen because after the first couple days of "on a few days, off and put a new one on" it becomes a crazy "Who's On First" tracking of which patches come off when and sooner or later you have 6 or so patches on at once and your tummy looks like a bar code. It is so bizarre. The patches alone didn't work for me (again, good to know before I am getting ready to receive actual embryos), so I also had to take Estrace pills. Little, blue, oval pills. And not orally. I had to take a teensy little blue pill and shove it where the sun don't shine, which is exceedingly difficult since it is not meant for that type of administration. Tiny pills with no delivery device make you feel like you are going to lose the thing, and hurt your ego by making your lady parts seem unimaginably huge in comparison. And then there's the bizarre side effect... what goes in must come out, and I did mention these pills are blue, right? I'll just let you figure out what happens a day or two later. So disturbing. Anyway, you go in for an ultrasound to check your lining and if all looks good, you are cleared for matching!

Step Four: Matching
This is where that scary and emotionally conflicting doll order form comes into play. After a successful mock cycle, the doctors and the nurses in charge of the donor program look at what you have deemed most important, and look at their pool of donors, and make a decision on what profiles will be considered good matches. I guess typically you are presented with 1-2 profiles, and you either approve or deny them. If you deny, they look again and see what they can do and the process may take longer. In my case we put all our trust in our medical team, and were presented with one profile which we approved because it was perfect. A profile contains the most basic of basic information and NO photo--age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, skin tone, ethnic background, career choice if applicable, and interests (again, do interests come from an egg? Does a love of hiking come from the fact that my donor and I have this in common, or that we strap our darling baby into a carrier from the get-go and get deep into the woods on a regular basis?). The staff at our clinic know the donors pretty well, and attested that they are all fabulous people who are largely doing this philanthropically. Lest you think we are "buying" eggs from some strapped young lady paying for college, this is a terrible way to make money. This donor will be shooting herself up with all the lovely follicle-stimulating drugs I did (although less of them, since she is actually a normal fertile lady and won't need the complex cocktail I did), go through the pain of very sore ovaries and multiple internal vaginal ultrasounds with Mr. Wand, go through the surgery of egg retrieval, and need time off of work for both the surgical procedure/recovery and any bloodwork/ultrasound monitoring appointments. For all of that she will receive several thousand dollars. Not exactly a cash cow given the time commitment and pain of needle sticks and an aspiration needle going through your vaginal wall to retrieve those golden eggs. This also isn't an adoption of sorts. Eggs are an ingredient, not an entity. Any semblance of "parental rights" that could exist are relinquished, as those eggs are nothing until they are embryos and implant into my nourishing uterine environment. All of that said, at this point in the process we are matched and thrilled with the match. Due to the intricacies of getting two lady cycles on the same page and some preexisting travel plans on the part of our donor, we are looking at the summertime for the curtain to rise on the actual cycle. And so now...we wait. Which apparently we are expert at.

Step Five: Actual Cycle!!!
We aren't here yet, but one day in the late spring we will receive a call that our donor has received her period. Very strange that I log so many cell minutes on discussions regarding my period and/or someone else's period, but we have to be all synced up for this to work. Which is why I've been on the Pill for some time (always cracks me up that I need birth control to feasibly get to the point where I can actually GET pregnant). Then I will go on Lupron (and so will she), and then I will start the hoopla of the estrogen patches as she stims. Her job is to make fabulous follicles and my job is to make a plush home for the fertilized embryos to snuggle into. When she has her egg retrieval, Bryce will come in and make his contribution (always awkward), and I WILL BE THERE TOO. I will be a monkey's uncle if I am not in the same building when all the pieces are being put together to make those beautiful embryos. It is so weird that I don't even have to be in the same zip code for the embryos to be made. After the donor's eggs are fertilized with our sperm, they will call us a day later to let us know how many fertilized and made it to Day 1. And then the game looks pretty much like a "normal" cycle from there on out. They will decide if we will do a Day Three (8-celled) or Day Five (blastocyst) transfer. They will only transfer two of them--they won't do three like I've done on multiple occasions (with limited success and no multiples). This is because we are far more likely to end up with twins with two embryos than ever before, because these will be SuperEmbryos. I will welcome those sweet little ridiculously robust embabies to the Mother Ship. It will be back to the regular scenario--me in the stirrups, Bryce holding my hand, and both of us watching our potential future children come home to my uterus. Except now we will both also be thinking of that incredibly special person, that amazingly selfless woman who is giving us our best chance of finally actually experiencing the miracle of pregnancy. We will be excited as we've never been before, and so, so grateful that this whole shebang exists and that there are people out there willing to give us this very special gift. We will be more hopeful than ever that this process that takes longer than we thought and is more involved than we thought and more emotionally challenging than we thought will bring us more joy than we thought possible, and bring us that much closer to meeting FutureBaby.

Join the Movement: Being A Proud Voice for Infertility

Happy National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW)! It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone and it is time again to spread awareness and accurate information about the disease of infertility, its many effects on the people who live it with it, and the many treatments available. This year's blog theme is "Join the Movement" -- how you have contributed to the movement of infertility awareness and education in ways big or small.

I started this blog in September 2010 with a post titled "To Share or Not to Share". It explained my purpose in writing a blog about my infertility journey, which had just ventured into the exciting and terrifying world of IVF. I had experienced my first in vitro cycle and my first failure, and was floating in a sea of sadness and confusion. IVF was supposed to be my silver bullet and the first attempt that seemed so promising had resulted in two decent 3-day embryos, no frozens, and a big fat negative test. Despite the fact that I had had 24 or so follicles on my last ultrasound before the egg retrieval, the results were pretty dismal. I was involved in not one but two support groups, a fertility yoga class, and had been active on an online forum site. But I was feeling frustrated--outside of these groups very few people knew what I was going through. The people who did know found themselves getting quite the education from me on how lady parts and the miracle of conception works. But I felt disingenuous, because I was still holding all of this very close. I wanted to share my story with others and process it through writing a blog, and I wanted to let others know that they were not alone who may not have support groups at the ready (or who were involved with support groups but still feeling pretty alone). And so I decided to share my story, publicly. I write this blog completely and totally openly. It has been posted on my Facebook page from day one, and so it is the farthest thing from anonymous. Not everyone reads it, but it is somehow always shocking to me when I see how many reads there are within hours and days of putting a new post up. Not everyone thinks that I have made the right decision to be so open in my journey to motherhood, that it is "no one's business" and perhaps uncouth to share so much about doctor's appointments, the internal ultrasound process, what follicles on my ovaries look like, or information about what it really and truly feels like, physically and emotionally, to have a miscarriage. But I don't do this for them. I do it for me, but I also do it for the people who message me either privately or publicly. Many comments come privately via messenger or email, people I had no idea were struggling with infertility (secondary, recurrent miscarriage, unexplained, you name it) but who say that the blog has resonated with them. Or they have shared it with friends or family who are going through something similar because my honesty about the process and particularly the emotional journey of infertility really hits home and explains what they perhaps cannot. This makes me feel awesome, because while I am definitely not a fan of being a long-time fertility patient, I am thrilled that in some way I am able to educate people and give a voice to the experience of infertility and loss. This is how I have joined and embraced the movement, by educating people and sharing, even when difficult, especially when difficult, what it is like to suffer the disease of infertility.

Which is why I have felt very conflicted lately. I pride myself on honesty in this process. I share thoughts that can be ugly, "unladylike." I explain the pain of jealousy and feeling left behind, even within the infertility community. I explain my frustration in how TV, books, movies, and magazines portray infertility in unfair and completely biased and/or inaccurate ways. I try to be sensitive, but there are just so many ways that the world is a minefield of pain for those going through infertility, especially those who have been at it for some time with no real success and a sense of stagnancy while the rest of the world, even fellow infertility patients, get their happy ending. So, while I pride myself on honesty (no matter how painful), and on transparency in my journey so that it is clear just what all of this feels like and how difficult the choices are that people in my shoes have to make all the time, I have been dishonest lately. I have hedged around an important issue. And I feel like, 9 months after making this decision, that I am finally ready to go back to being utterly honest for the sake of giving a voice to infertility despite how scary it is for me (and for my husband) to be honest.

I am diagnosed with PCOS with ovarian dysfunction. I don't ovulate on my own. My husband is diagnosed with male factor infertility, so without IVF with ICSI (injecting individual hand-picked super sperm into an egg in order to give fertilization a shot due to poor motility, overall counts, and morphology) we would not get pregnant. But now, 3 years, 4 fresh and 2 frozen transfers into the world of IVF, it has become apparent that something else is wrong. I have a fabulous uterus, supposedly. The miracle of ICSI has made male factor not really so much of an issue anymore. But still I cannot get or stay pregnant. Sixteen embryos have journeyed into my uterus, and none stayed. One freakshow ectopic pregnancy (through IVF! Please explain this to me when they put the embryos INTO YOUR UTERUS... that embryo had wanderlust apparently), and one early and devastating miscarriage are all the positive results that I have to show for all of this hard work and expensive medical treatment. Now it makes sense, but from the beginning we had just enough improvements to lead us to believe that we still had a fighting chance, excellent odds even, of getting pregnant via IVF. After two miserable cycles that produced a ton of follicles and very few viable embryos (none to freeze), using PCOS protocols, we switched it up and tried a new protocol. An egg quality protocol. A protocol that a friend of mine used who has premature ovarian failure (POF). I was a little concerned, because I don't have POF. My FSH levels have been very good, indicating a fabulous ovarian reserve. Before my last fresh IVF cycle last spring, I had AmH levels tested (the new gold standard in determining how many eggs are in your basket), and I came out like a champion. So why is it that the new protocol, the one that resulted in a misplaced pregnancy and a short-lived pregnancy and a grand total between two cycles of 5 frozen embryos, was the best one yet but was also the one meant for women with poor egg quality? Something fishy was afoot. We have had beautiful, textbook-quality embryos. And we have had some funky looking embryos. I always thought about support group and the women who said "ugly embryos can make beautiful babies" -- that you can't always tell true quality from the appearance alone (go figure). An embryo can look beautiful but be chromosomally faulty, resulting in poor implantation rates and yes, early miscarriage. Uh-oh.

After our hideously depressing and devastating pregnancy loss last summer, we had to take stock. We had to figure out what was really going on, because at this point we were at a crossroads. We could not continue on with the status quo and expect some miracle to occur. It had not happened and, quite frankly, I was exhausted. We wanted to know--what were our options at this point, really? Because I WOULD LIKE TO BE PREGNANT AND GIVE BIRTH TO OUR BABY. This is my right as a human being, something that many people don't have to give a second thought to. I have a medical condition and I deserve the right to treat it how I see fit. I deserve the right to build my family using the choices that are available to me, based on my own stamina and financial capability and dreams that I hold. Dreams and hopes and a picture of a future that most people have and don't realize are so incredibly fragile.

Infertility is like a strip poker game that isn't any fun. You start off wearing all of your clothes, your hopes and dreams for having a family like so many can do with a carefully planned night of romance. Then you shed your overcoat with the fertility consultation, your first clomid cycle or IUI. You accept that you are going to need medical intervention in order to make this family happen. You accept that now instead of a sexy night in you will be exposing your lady parts to a variety of nurses and doctors and a scary-looking catheter will be delivering the sperm to your waiting cervix and supposedly ovulated egg. This takes time to accept, but in the desire to have a family it is worth it. If you are lucky (as I was) you have insurance coverage for IUI, and so it costs a hundred dollars or two after copays and prescription drugs and blood draws. If you are not lucky and do not have insurance, this portion of the journey costs hundreds of dollars per shot and starts the financial drain that makes future options harder. If you succeed here, you have a hard-won happy ending. But if you don't succeed, your choices dwindle. You need to take off another layer and accept that either you need to move to IVF (which is hard physically, emotionally challenging, and fiscally difficult), move to adoption (which is emotionally challenging, fiscally difficult, time-consuming, and not at all a "just"), or choose to be child-free (which is emotionally challenging and difficult in its own right). I chose IVF. I chose to shed more layers and accept that now conception would occur outside my body, that now I would be exposing my ladyparts to a vertible roomful of people while unconscious, and that we would have better odds but no guarantee of success (no option gives you a 100% guarantee of success, just ask anyone who has suffered a failed adoption). We would also need to put ourselves in a financial holding pattern. This is an option that not everyone can afford, because there is no comprehensive mandated health coverage for IVF. Which is a sin in itself because not only is IVF an amazing family-building medical treatment for a disease, it is a diagnostic tool that can tell you more explicitly about what exactly is happening during and after conception.

This brings us to now. Or rather, the decision that we made 9 months ago. After so many failed IVF attempts, we knew that we were throwing efforts and money at something that just wasn't working. That has been very, very hard to come to grips with. This leaves me standing in my bra and undies at the poker game, exposed and shivering, because now my choices have dwindled even further and I need to give more up. We were told that we could do PGD, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (or PGS, screening, since we weren't looking to diagnose a known genetic issue), if we wanted to continue on the traditional IVF path. This would mean traveling to another clinic either in NYC or NJ that specializes in this technology where one of 8 cells in a 3-day embryo is biopsied and tested for chromosomal abnormalities, and only healthy embryos are transferred, resulting in a much higher implantation rate and a much lower miscarriage rate. This would cost tens of thousands of dollars, uproot us to another part of the state or a different state for at least two weeks, and had no guarantees of success. It was very likely that all this time our embryos weren't chromosomally normal and that was why our journey had been so long and hard and fruitless. We weighed this option carefully, because it was the last option that involved both of our genetics. It did not make sense. We could invest all of this money and time and I would have to likely take a leave of absence and we could end up with NOTHING. And then be so financially drained that we had no money left for other options. Our other option was to consider Donor Egg IVF. This has been in the back of my mind for some time, given the clues that our Great Whittling from follicles to embryos has shown and the fact that the only protocol that produced good (but not happy ending) results was an egg quality protocol. The majority of the health of the embryo comes from the egg. The egg is the cell to blame when things go awry, because eggs are old (even if you are not so much). Eggs are more likely to go bad, and everyone knows that women carry an expiration date. I have said multiple times on this blog that "I am very attached to my uterus, not so much to my eggs." I didn't really think that I would have to put my money where my mouth was on that statement.

And so the decision was made. This new option that I have hinted at and danced around, the one that gives us much better success rates and is a total game-changer, this choice that we have made is to move forward with IVF, but no longer with my eggs. Whew. I have been holding that in for a very long time. Why have I kept silent? Because, while people are increasingly open about infertility and IVF treatment, there is, relatively speaking, very little out there on donor egg. It is a big step. It is a hard step. And, maybe due to human beings' strong biological need to carry on the line, to continue bloodlines, to pass on genes, it is somehow shameful to admit that you will not be passing your exact genes along. People are open about IVF, open about adopting, and some wonderful celebrities have come out and said that they used IVF in order to conceive their children. Celebrities like Marcia Cross and Courtney Cox, to name a couple. Gestational carriers are enjoying more openness as well--it is perfectly acceptable to talk about having someone else carry your own genetic material. Look at Giuliana Rancic, Nicole Kidman, and Sarah Jessica Parker. All very open about gestational carrier as a third-party option. But no one, NO ONE talks about egg donation, even those "miracle pregnancies" at 48 and older, mysterious twins born to women who could possibly have an egg or two that is still viable but that's really suspect and incredibly unfair to perpetuate the myth that you can totally get pregnant, "naturally," as you are heading towards AARP. And when it comes to the infertility community, there are a lot of blogs out there that discuss egg donation IVF. But there are not a lot of them who are currently heading towards a cycle or struggling through the process. Maybe I have not been able to do a good enough search, but when I even go to sites that have specific "rooms" for donor gametes and all the blogs I find either are pregnant or have babies/children from DE cycles, and I go through five of them and can't find a fellow person at my place in the journey, I just can't bring myself to keep looking.

It is encouraging, don't get me wrong, that the majority of these blogs are happy endings. That is thrilling and so hopeful. But it is also incredibly lonely not to be able to find anyone on the journey. It is incredibly lonely to be in support groups and have very few people who are where you are because while egg donation is a wonderful option you usually don't just jump right into it. It takes time to get to this stage in medical treatment. I have written about how the longer you are at this, the harder it is to go to support groups and feel as supported as you are a support and source of knowledge to others, and so there aren't a whole lot of people left in support groups who are at this point in the journey. I felt that there was a hole in the voice for donor egg cycles. What it feels like to make this decision. What it feels like to struggle with nature vs nurture. What it feels like to come to terms with the sacrifice you must make to have a better chance at the glorious gain. What the REALITY of the process is versus the rare and not always accurate portrayal of this infertility treatment in the media. (For one, a recent article in Glamour magazine about a sister who gave donor eggs to her sister listed the average costs for egg donation near $40,000 or so, when my donor cycle will cost us less than a NYC fresh "regular" IVF cycle. Plus the article addressed known donor eggs, but not anonymous donor eggs through a clinic program, so it was like a gentle foray into the world of egg donor where it is still keeping the family bloodlines going, not the majority of egg donor experiences which are done with anonymous donors.) There are many ways to go through this process, but I have found that there aren't as many resources out there as I would like. I have felt horribly alone. I have felt like if I shared this I would be judged unmercifully (although that hasn't been the case with the people I have shared this with in person). I have felt my own feelings of being less-than because I cannot be the one to provide my half of the genetic variables, but then joy in knowing that I provide the solution. E + S + U = P, and I am the Uterus, I am the Pregnancy. I am the carrier. I am the one whose blood courses through the embryo, nourishing it and growing it and providing all of the environmental pieces that can give it the best chance to succeed and thrive and become our take-home baby. There is actually evidence that the biological mother's genetics influence the genetics of the embryo, no matter whose material created it in the first place. It's called epigenetics, and it is exciting. There is a limit of course--if my donor had dark skin and brown eyes my momma-blood-transfer is not going to turn that baby into a pasty-skinned blue-eyed person like me. But there is signficant data on the genetic contributions from the carrier, the biological mother. From me.

I will be writing more about the donor egg IVF experience in detail in posts to come. I can only explain this feeling as having been horribly emotionally constipated, unable to process all of the complex decisions and emotions and acceptance that comes with going down this fork in the path. But now (not to be gross) I am unblocked, I am regular, I am able to let these thoughts flow and finally write the posts that haunt me in my sleep. I can be honest again.

I'm not going to lie, this disclosure is scary on many levels. Once you share you can't unshare, and that has been my mantra since the decision was tossed about in August and then committed to in September (notice how much time this process takes--we took a break and didn't start pieces of the process until November, with the first medical pieces of the process occuring in January-February--this cycle is not going to take place until sometime this summer, so it has been a LONG HAUL). Once I put this out there, I can't take it back. But I trust you. I trust that the people who will disapprove have always disapproved of my choices to continue with IVF when I could have "just adopted." Instead of going on a rant about that, I direct you to a fabulous blogger's post on that subject, here. She hit the nail on the head in my opinion. (I respect and admire people who choose an adoption journey, but this is just not my choice at this moment in time. And that's more than ok.) I trust that you will not hold this against my beautiful future child, who I am so hopeful is even closer to his/her arrival into our lives. This is a sticky wicket, because while this is our story as parents fighting to have a child in our lives, the way that we would like to fight this fight, it is also our child's story. I can't help but feel that I am robbing my future child of privacy by sharing this part of our story to have a child. We will be open with our child about the amazing medical possibility that made him/her possible and the incredible love that we had for years before he/she was born that gave us the strength to keep fighting for the chance to have that moment in the hospital where he/she is placed in our arms. And the sharing of this journey will be worth any risks involved because maybe, just maybe, there are other people who are heading down the Donor Egg IVF path and are looking for a voice that mirrors their own, a voice that helps them feel less alone and less strange for having the complex feelings that go along with making this decision and the emotional issues that arise. A voice that says it's OK to feel this way. A voice that says that egg donation is not shocking, or shameful, or secretive. I am proud that we continue to fight the good fight, just with different weapons this time. I am proud of our choice. I am proud of the strength that we have. I am proud already of the FutureBaby who we will raise to be strong and independent and well-educated on the miracle of his/her conception. And I am proud of you, non-anonymous readers, who will take this as an opportunity to be educated on a not-often-publicized facet of infertility treatment and learn about the possibilities that I am so grateful exist.

This has been a difficult journey. It has been hard on me, and hard on my husband, but we are thriving and surviving. Bryce had a request--that I end with a message to our FutureBaby. He or she (or they) need a voice, too. So, FutureBaby, I hope that you will understand why I felt such a strong desire to make public your conception story. I hope that you will understand how much love we feel for you already, and how hard we have fought to make your existence possible. I hope that you will forgive me for sharing what is really your story as well before you had a say in the privacy of your beginnings. I did it for you, so that you can grow up in a world where all manners of family building are accepted and openly discussed and no one, NO ONE has to feel ashamed about where they came from or how they came into this world (or how they brought someone into their family). Donor Egg IVF needs more voices, and I needed to be one of those voices. I needed to fully and completely Join the Movement.

Read here for more information regarding RESOLVE and the disease that is infertility:

Basic Information on Infertility
Information on National Infertility Awareness Week, NIAW


 

My Phone, My Frenemy

As an infertility patient, my phone has become my worst enemy. And my best friend. And then back to my worst enemy. It's definitely my frenemy.

The phone tells you good news--when you can start treatment, what your estrogen levels are, when you need to make ultrasound appointments, what medication to change to get the best possible results.

And it gives bad news. Disappointing changes in scheduling, hormone levels that aren't up to snuff, negative pregnancy results, bad HCG reports.

But the worst thing that the phone does is stare at you, taunt you, torture you with waiting for it to ring.

These phone calls rarely come in the morning, but you know when to expect them. And so for me, the world kind of stops spinning until that stupid marimba ringtone goes off. I can't concentrate on anything else. I try to go about my business, but I can't, not really. The phone goes on a shelf in the bathroom when I shower or take care of other business. The phone is in the kitchen. The ringer is on high so I can't possibly miss it. I don't make other phone calls in case they call right when I am calling someone else and it goes straight to voicemail. Because I hate when it goes to voicemail. The nurse line at my clinic is very responsive, but if you miss that call there is nothing to do but call back and leave another message, then wait some more. I hate receiving news from voicemail. I need to speak to a person who can answer questions, no matter how simple those questions may be. I hate waiting and uncertainty. And so I stalk my phone.

As the day goes on when I am expecting a call and it hasn't arrived yet, all kinds of crazypants scenarios go through my head. They are waiting to call me until later because it's bad news and they're putting it off. They are pulling straws to see who has to be the one to share this bad news. They are strategizing just how to tell me another piece of bad news. Something has fallen through. Something is falling out. Something is horribly wrong. It's like an exponential form of when I talk to my husband and he says he's wrapping up at work and will be home in 10 minutes, and 45 minutes go by and he's not here. Instead of thinking something logical like he got a phone call or absorbed himself in solving a problem and lost track of time or was stopped in the hall by a chatty coworker, I immediately think he's dead on the side of the road in a flattened car. He's been mugged on his way to his car and is bleeding to death out of sight of anyone who can help, in between cars in the parking lot. Something along those horribly morbid lines, pretty much always dramatic and related to a horrible death or injury. Same thing when family members call at odd times. My mind goes "Who's dead?" instead of "how nice someone is calling me at an unexpected time." What the hell is wrong with me? It just spills over into the fertility phone calls.

Really, you can't blame me too much for catastrophizing those fertility calls. While Bryce has never actually called me to inform me that he is dead on the side of the road or being rushed to the hospital with a stab wound, I have gotten my share of shitty calls from the nurses. I know they don't love these calls. I know they feel badly for delivering horrible news (or just disappointing news). I know that they strive to find ways to deliver bad news in as sensitive a way as possible, and they don't enjoy listening to people like me either keening or sounding like they are dead inside on the other end of the phone. I keep hoping that soon the calls will be positive. All the calls. I will get beautiful HCG results and then each call after that will be to tell me how robustly they are doubling and tripling and then we'll have a call to schedule an ultrasound where something will actually be there and thriving. All the calls will be good and there won't be a single "I'm so sorry" in the mix. No one will tell me to stop my baby-sustaining medications ever again.

I can't wait for this glorious time to come and take away my fear of my phone, my inability to let it out of my sight, my pit-in-my-stomach feeling every time it rings when I am expecting a fertility call. You would think I'd be immune by now, that my phone anxiety would be less for just being so numbed to it. Nope. If anything, the nerves are made more raw by the history of bad news calls, I'm-sorry calls, prepare-to-have-your-heart-shredded calls.

Bring on the good news. Retrain me to expect something good. Make my phone into a friendly communication device again, instead of the harbinger of doom it seems to have become. I'm ready. Bring on the joy. Come on, phone, keep the smiles coming!

40 Weeks Ago

Today I want to remember a beautiful moment. Not the horrifying and devastating loss that came after, but the beauty of a cycle that seemed so wonderful and promising. And it was, for a short time. I have a lot of pictures from last summer of the beautiful moments, and since technically my due date would have been around today or tomorrow from that cycle that proved I CAN get pregnant, in the RIGHT place, I think today is a perfect day to celebrate the joy and happiness that came from my last frozen cycle. I'm going to do it through pictures--pictures that are precious to me and I think capture just how these brief days of joy felt. Those days were important and sustain us to keep moving forward in our journey.

READY FOR TRANSFER

This is me, in the Magic Room. If you are an IVF patient, this is the room where it all happens. Not exactly romantic, eh? Note the ultrasound and scary wand to the left of my smiling, excited face. You actually get to see when your embryos are loaded into your uterus--there is a bright white flash and you know they are home. Hopefully to stay. Also note how freaking high those stirrups are and just how much you have to throw modesty to the wind. Good practice for birth, so I hear.

Despite this being my 6th time in this room, I actually was genuinely super excited and ready to have my next best chance at motherhood begin.

TRANSFER JOY

 This next picture is a beauty. This is during the waiting period, after the embryos are loaded, and
before you are cleared to go home, rest, and let those embryos settle in for the long haul. We felt so positive--despite everything that led up to this last frozen transfer, we were filled with hope. Three embryos were settling into my Mother Ship and at least one of them looked really, really good. After we took this picture I thought, Wow, this really looks like a hospital picture--like our baby is right below our smiling faces or in the bassinette thingie next to us. I feel like this is a peek into our future!


UNCHARACTERISTICALLY HAPPY WAIT

This is a super silly photo. We had taken a day trip to Sodus Point, NY (that's the lighthouse behind me) to take our minds off the wait. That dreaded two week wait where you read meaning into every twinge, every hunger pang, every tiny spot of blood you look for as evidence of implantation bleeding. Which, incidentally, I had this time and when I had the ectopic pregnancy. The wait is an exercise in torture, but for some reason it wasn't quite as stressful this time. Which is weird, because if this cycle didn't work out we really weren't sure what we would do next. One reason why this wait was easier was because it was shorter--frozen transfers are 5 day embryos, so the wait is almost half. Incidentally, my boobs look HUGE in this photo. An unfortunate cutoff point in the photo, but also thanks to the PIO and the early pregnancy hormones that I didn't know were already building up in my system, I was more buxom than usual. Something more to look forward to when I have breasts that are functional in the future! (Note high levels of sarcasm)

 

 

 THE BEST DAY EVER
I have seen these photos on Facebook before--people's "We're Pregnant!" photos, where both parties are just oozing joy. This is ours. I never got to share it because it ended too soon, but I'd like to share it now. This is what two people look like who have fought so hard for that good news. I thought my face was going to bust from smiling so much. We had received the call from our actual doctor just an hour or so before this stroll through trails in a field chock full of butterflies, and were just floating on the high. We had our first REAL pregnancy test that was positive without caveat--no low numbers (although in retrospect 61 was just over the threshold of "viable"), no "it's positive BUT," just pure joy. We had made it. We could hardly believe it, and yet it was true. And we couldn't bring ourselves to be overly cautious because we didn't want to miss a moment of this joy. Every day of this pregnancy was spent just marveling at the fact that we had made it to this point and it seemed real. We celebrated, we laughed, we planned. I actually don't feel sad anymore when I look at this picture. I feel such a strong sense of hope that we can have a picture like this again, and this time it will be followed by pictures of my growing belly. We'll have more than one ultrasound with a sac in it to prove that we can do this, we just need a little more help than we thought.


SPEAKING OF PROOF

Here it is. My second ever positive pee stick. It doesn't stay saying "pregnant" -- they fade after 10 minutes. I did get this picture though to remind me that I wasn't nuts, it wasn't a dream, I really was pregnant in my uterus last year. It can happen. We know more now and so we have our new plan to make this a lasting reality. Sadly, this picture of the pee stick isn't the happy one I peed on after getting that call. (I do NOT pee on sticks until after I have numbers that will show up -- I am not an early tester. I did that for a little while and it only added uncertainty and early heartache, so I stick to the bloodwork and pee on that stick when I KNOW it will give me the news I want to see!) This was after things had gone south, I was on bedrest, and I had found out that my numbers had dropped dramatically from several thousand to several hundred. I had actually called the folks at Clearblue Easy to see what their threshold was for HCG (it's 25, FYI), and so I peed on the stick to see if I still at least registered as pregnant. I just didn't want to believe it was over. I refused to go off my progesterone until they could prove to me that there was nothing in my uterus anymore. Stubborn? Crazy? Maybe. But when you are at this point in things and you thought that your happy ending was in your grasp and even your medical professionals are a little confused about how your numbers could drop like that so fast, you need proof. This stick was my proof that I WAS pregnant, that I could be pregnant, that some day I will have pee sticks that aren't showing that HCG is still coursing through my veins after a loss but showing that I am gloriously, sustainably pregnant. This picture, although steeped in sadness (and pee), is actually a photo of hope. It proves that we haven't lost it. We have been through so much on this journey and it seems just completely and utterly neverending, but somehow we have not lost hope.

 

These pictures are my proof that that joy is attainable. They are bittersweet reminders of the best days of our lives before that was inexplicably snatched away. We grasped the dream once, we can do it again. I cannot wait to share the pictures of our next happiest days. Thank you, short-lived embryo, for giving us this gift.

Infertility Feet

Yup, feet. As in my feet, which really have nothing to do with infertility, but the items I cloak them in do. I swear this will make sense shortly.

I have these black shoes:

See? They're still reasonably
cute on, despite their age.

Battered shoes by themselves

I love these shoes. I actually have them in brown suede, too, which are less beaten up looking (probably because they are suede and so I don't wear them in inclement weather, and I live in Rochester, NY, so that is pretty much NEVER).

Here's the problem with these shoes. Take a close look. They are obviously well-loved and well-worn. The insoles are totally cracked and offer zero support. The stitching is frayed and fuzzy looking. The toes are turning white and no amount of Payless black shoe polish will keep them shiny and black again for more than a day or two. And, they are Aerosoles, which used to be wildly popular (I think, I have never really been much of a fashion hound), but now I'm not sure that they exist.

That's because these shoes are easily 10 years old. I bought them and their brown counterparts at a DSW when I first moved to Rochester (I've been here 12 years now, so 10 years is a guess) and my friend Lynn bought the same ones. They are like getting away with wearing bedroom slippers at work. They have seen me through several moves, two marriages (one bad, one for keeps), and the lovely transformation of my feet as I age. I should thank them and scoot them into the garbage, since they aren't even remotely supportive anymore, and this lady needs arch support and shock absorbency. Because I'm moving into my late 30s with my next stupid birthday (hello, 37) and my feet are fairly abused. But I just can't get rid of them.

Why? I can't justify buying new shoes. Isn't that dumb? Your feet are super important (I know this because my mom has had horrific issues with her feet in the past few years, including several reconstructive surgeries, and so I know not to take feet for granted!). I am on them all day long as a teacher, and the halls I walk are a very hard, unforgiving linoleum. I should spring for the more supportive and yet attractive shoes. But I just can't.

This goes along with my pants conundrum. Why don't I buy new pants unless mine are tattered beyond repair? Because I want the next pants I buy to be maternity pants. I have been hoping for that shopping excursion for years. Ugh, it hurts just to say it...YEARS. I've been close twice, and I am the proud owner of two belly bands (which I mostly used when stimming and bloated beyond belief, and wore when bloated from PIO and early pregnancy, and may possibly wear on days when my pants won't button thanks to infertility fat), but still no stretchy waisted maternity pants in sight. So why no shoes? Because, in addition to the fact that nice, supportive, grown-up shoes are pretty freaking expensive, I don't want to buy shoes right before my feet change. That's right, I've had enough friends and exposure to pregnancy magazines and American Baby and Parents and everything like that to know that when you are pregnant, your feet swell and change. And they often don't go back to their pre-pregnancy size. So why should I buy new shoes?

Actually, the crazy in me thinks maybe I should buy the new shoes. Maybe, if I buy the new shoes, the Universe will laugh and say, "HA! She bought nice new shoes! Now we'll change her feet because she'll be pregnant, pronto, haha!" and little will the Universe know that that's what I really wanted. So I will trick it. (Sound crazy? It should...) Except I've tried tricks before. And really, there is no logical correlation between the purchase of shoes and the possibility of pregnancy. I would be buying shoes like mad if that was the case. Nope, I just don't want to retire these shoes until I am going to need to retire them in favor of a slightly bigger size. And honestly, they're a little stretched out and would accommodate swollen pregnancy feet pretty nicely. So I really shouldn't get rid of them anyway.

Do you see how exhausting it is to live life this way, always hoping for that event to occur and keeping things on hold in the meantime? That shoes could be such a complex issue? Everyone says you should just live your life at this point in the game and if you need new shoes, well hell, you'd be thrilled to have shoes you can't wear anymore! But I just don't work that way. I've tried, and it is just not me. I want to live my life, but this infertility nonsense is like a shadow I can't get rid of, tinting all my decisions and thoughts with but, what if what if what if what if this works out finally? which doesn't seem all that insidious, but those what ifs just keep going and going and they take over my thought processes completely. Especially since at the moment we are in what seems like a never ending holding pattern, waiting for all the pieces to come together so that we can even just get started on our next attempt. I am surrendering a lot of control (control I never really had, but at least I thought I had some) in this next process. So, I guess it's not so crazy that I want to control my shoes. My beat up, worn out, faded, but comfortable old constant friend shoes. Maybe it's like not changing your socks during playoffs or something. I have let go of so much, it's not so weird to hold on to this one little thing.

Lucky wanted to get in on the
photo shoot. Isn't he cute?

Then I realized I was wearing these socks.
Those are hospital socks that they give you
during retrievals and unfortunate tappings for
OHSS. I love these stupid socks, too... and
apparently Lucky is a little too interested.

So, shoes, you get to live another day. Just hopefully not for too much longer.

Living in a Lonely Space

Sometimes it feels like the world is an incredibly fertile place.

Sometimes, despite the fact that infertility affects 1 in 8 couples, it feels like I live in an island of inability to conceivedness, and no one else in my day to day life is infertile.

Not that I wish infertility on anyone, JEEZUM that is not what I meant. And I know quite a few ladies who share my struggle through support group connections, but that is a bubble where EVERYONE is infertile. I'm talking about every day life, where it seems like 1 in 800 couples are affected by an inability to conceive/carry.

Work/School
I am a teacher, and so I work at a school. Two schools, actually. And schools are fairly family-friendly places. And teachers, you know, LOVE kids. So it's no surprise that schools are hotbeds of fertility. People are always getting pregnant and having kids. Talking about their kids. And why not? I mean, that's where life is! And there are so many people to talk about pregnancy and kids with, because just about everyone is in that same boat. Except me. I am off in a sad little raft made of a door that refuses to open, listening to these conversations but I just can't get on that raft. That beautiful, fun, join-the-club raft.

I am sure I am extra sensitive to all this because my fake cycle to test out my new meds is over and I am just waiting for the go-ahead to get started. I am in this limbo where I am sort of on my way, but also stagnant. I feel like my new beginning could be right around the corner, or it could be months away, and I don't know PLUS I have no control over it. Which is incredibly hard for me. So I am super sensitive to talking with people at school in the hall or in meetings or at lunch and having all of the conversations be about having children. I smile and nod and laugh at the funny stories (because there are a lot) but inside I feel like crying because I am incredibly left out of the reality of all these things. Several times this week I had conversations with teachers who share students with me either in the hall or in their classrooms and "because I have kids..." and then a launch into a wonderful story about living with toddlers came up, and it was like being the freaking Little Match Girl, standing outside in the freezing cold, holding my little blue fingers up to a frosted windowpane, watching someone else's warm life with golden light play out in front of me, but on the other side of that glass. I can't get to the warm side of that glass.

Then, yesterday was an oddball Friday faculty meeting, and there was time for announcements. Anytime there are announcements I steel myself for the inevitable pregnancy announcement. Yesterday there were several, most of them second babies. There were so many announcements about babies coming in August/September that someone behind me said jokingly, "Must be something in the water!" Ha ha HA ha ha. I have to stop bringing in my water from home because maybe THAT's my problem. I hold myself together for the most part at school, but yesterday between that and some very confusing information about APPR, I was in tears on my way home and not the most pleasant sight for Bryce to come home to later in the afternoon. It's just so hard to continually be the odd one out. I am left out and a passive observer in so many conversations because people with kids love to talk about kids (I will too someday, this is not a criticism in the least), and when we have meetings everyone asks "How are your kids?" or something along those lines. No one asks, "How are your cats?" because that would just be weird. And for some reason, I don't get a lot of small talk that starts with "How is your husband?" I am in a no-man's land. A no-baby-land. I have a core group of people who know about my situation and they will ask me how I'm doing with things, which is nice. But then there are other people who kind of sort of know my situation and it sort of feels like they have given up on asking how things are going because the answers are just always so depressing, or at this point it's obvious that I'm not pregnant, so why bother asking because the answer won't be good. It hurts just a little bit. I just hold on and keep telling myself, someday this will be you... someday this will be you... someday this will be you... but it feels like someday is just so far away, even though we're on the cusp a new opportunity, because someday keeps sneaking up on us and then passing us by. Someday keeps almost coming, but just missing us.

Facebook:
I haven't been too active on Facebook lately, partly because it is IEP-writing season and so my life is not my own, but also because it is like a freaking time bomb. Pregnancy announcements run rampant. Pregnancy posts run rampant. Bump pictures and nursery pictures and hospital pictures and first weeks home pictures and all those super cute month birthday pictures with the round stickers on the onesies... they are everywhere. It's great, for those people immersed in the happiness of their new and exciting lives. But it seems like it is everyone, EVERYONE but me. I know this isn't really true. I know I'm being hyperbolic. But there has been a rash of second babies that are being born to people who got pregnant with their first baby when I was already heavy into fertility treatment. That hurts. That really brings it home to me how long we have been struggling and how easily life goes on all around us. I do not begrudge people their pregnancies. I live in awe of people who get pregnant easily or even relatively easily. I just don't understand how the Baby Fairy has so completely skipped over my house. I feel horrible, but I find myself dreading engagement announcements too, because at this point some of those people have passed me by on the road to parenthood and I start wondering if this newly minted couple will be among the lucky who get pregnant immediately and whose pregnancy announcement I will be reading long before I share my own. So when I log in to Facebook, looking for, oh, I don't know, funny things my friends say or memes about how Friday is your second favorite F word or videos of a loving relationship between a barn owl and a cat, and I am instead barraged by evidence that fertility is everywhere but here, it hurts. I feel horribly left behind. I want to be writing about when our baby is arriving. I want to be writing about the funny things my firstborn wants to name my secondborn. I want to be writing about the trials and tribulations of stroller/crib/glider assembly. But I'm not. I just watch it all scroll by.

Infertility World
I almost feel like this one is a little taboo to talk about. I feel horribly left behind by so much of the infertility community, too. I am pleased as punch for all of the long-awaited, battled-for babies out there. But it is a little startling to go to your blogroll for your infertility blog and find that almost everyone you follow is either pregnant or has had a baby recently. Again, PLEASED AS PUNCH, but when you start a search to find some people who are still fighting the good fight in your particular area of treatment and are really struggling to find someone who isn't pregnant, who is feeling similar things that you are feeling on the journey, that is hard. But, don't get me wrong, this situation is also incredibly hopeful--because if they are all pregnant that means, eventually, THIS WORKS. But for the love of all that is good and holy in this world, could it please work for me at some point before our world collapses around us? So many of those facebook babies are fertility babies, and that makes me happy. But then there are some tricky associations. For instance, I read an email from a fellow infertility fighter recently and she mentioned that she is 35 weeks and anxiously awaiting the arrival of her baby. On the one hand, this is awesome news--she is so close to having that baby in her arms! She's almost made it! Hurrah for the third trimester in a world where the first trimester and even the second hold no guarantees whatsoever despite all you've done to get there! On the other, slightly bitter hand... I felt punched in the gut when I read it. Because this fabulous mom-to-be got pregnant two days after I did in July. And she is almost ready to give birth, and I am...not. To realize that it could have been me sitting on a couch with my hand on my giant belly, maybe feeling some movement while typing this message of incredible hope, was really hard. I am not a mean-spirited person. I don't wish ill will on anyone. But I just don't understand why we BOTH couldn't have been in a position to bring babies home in late March/early April. Why did the stars align for her and not me? This is not a pretty side to infertility, but it exists.

Caveat
I have a lot of joy in my life. I am so fortunate to have so many things in life that others struggle for. I have a good job in a highly competitive field that is relatively secure-ish. I have a wonderful husband who loves me and treats me spectacularly well and is supportive in a way I didn't know existed in another life. I have a beautiful home and the means to take care of it. I have wonderful family who supports us in every way imaginable and awesome friends who are the best cheerleaders ever, and when we finally do make it to babyland they will be so ecstatic. I don't want to imply that I live this dark life in the shadows, lurking around other people's happiness like an infertile Gollum. But it is incredibly, heartbreakingly true that my wonderful life has a giant hole in it. A hole that we have tried to fill for 3 1/2 years of medical treatments with very little success but always great hope for the future. A hole that feels like it increasingly sets us apart from...almost everyone else. I know that even though my 37th birthday is looming in the not-so-distant future I am "still young." But I don't feel it. I was upset to find that a teacher that I work with was several years younger than me a month or so ago--not because he was younger than me (and not by much, so who cares?) but because he has multiple small children and so I thought that he had to be at least my age. I forget that people have children in their late 20s/early 30s. That not everyone gets started later only to find that this journey will be incredibly long and arduous with no foreseeable end that is trustworthy. I would love to believe that this next opportunity is going to do the trick, and I will be on the other side of the glass. But I just can't trust it anymore. I will feel differently once we are truly on our way. I always do, because I am an optimistic sucker. But until we are headed towards our transfer, I am kind of living in this gray limboland. And, despite my awesome support network, it is incredibly, incredibly lonely.

I also want to put out this caveat--I am sharing how I feel because I think a lot of people in this situation feel the same way, and aren't sure that it's "OK" because it's dark and/or less than the positive thinking that infertility patients are encouraged to display ad nauseum because somehow having a negative thought could make you less likely to get/stay pregnant. Which is crap. I think that validating ALL of the feelings that come with infertility, pretty or not, is super important to mental health. Get positive again when you are ready, but great jehosaphat, if you've gotten to this point in your journey to have a child and are still unsuccessful I think it's ok to have dark days, sad days, gray days. Even weeks. However, sharing this honesty does not include an expectation that I want people to change their behavior around me--at times I have written honest posts about how certain situations feel only to have people take it completely to heart and feel awkward or distant around me afterwards. I want to hear your stories about your kids. I am happy for your pregnancy announcements/births/milestones (I just might "Like" it on Facebook rather than commenting, because if I comment then my notifications are bombed with comments congratulating people on their baby which turns my phone into a torture device). Please don't leave me out of those moments because you don't want to make me feel sad. I am GOING to feel sad, but I WANT to share your joy. I don't want those things to change. I want my situation to change so that I don't feel this way on the inside every day. I want to join you. I want to leave this lonely space and move on, leave this stagnant period of my life behind and go forward to the world of parenthood.