I'm Glad I'm Not a Salmon

Wait, what? What on earth does a salmon have to do with infertility? Today, EVERYTHING.

Today was a lovely fall day. Despite a really hot and really dry (and then at times really wet) summer, we have the most vibrant fall colors I've seen in a long time. It's gorgeous. So Bryce and I went for a walk today in a nearby nature park to enjoy the foliage and warmish fall day and get some exercise. We are lucky to have trails with waterfalls and marshes and woods within walking distance to our house. It was good to get out, because I have been (if you haven't guessed it already from recent posts) having a bit of a hard time lately, emotionally speaking. This nature park is, however, a magnet for the stroller set. So I braced myself and hoped that since it was 5, most baby-toting woods-enjoyers would be heading home for a feeding and bedtime. Little did I know the thing that would make me sad was not adorable babies in carriers, bouncing along the trails. It was a freaking fish.

The fish in question is in the photo above, bravely taken by Bryce as he balanced on a slippery, leaf-strewn rock in the middle of the Irondequoit Creek by Postcard Falls. This is a salmon. The salmon are running. For those of you who fly-fish, the salmon are running practically in my backyard. I don't fish so this does nothing for me, but apparently this sets the fisherpeople salivating. Anyway, apparently the salmon run when they are getting set to spawn. As in lay their eggs. As in procreate.

This particular salmon was stuck. It had chosen its path unwisely, and ended up in a shallow section of the brook where it was having a devil of a time launching itself up over the rock and into the deeper water. Of course once it gets to the deeper water, it has a set of little waterfalls to get over which were much more daunting than the one rock it couldn't leap over here, but I guess in deeper water the salmon can get more of a running start. This salmon was screwed in the shallow water.

We came up on it when there was quite the audience. The question was, do you help the salmon or not? Bryce valiantly took his shoes and socks off and started rolling his jeans up. He was going to be a hero to this little stuck salmon! He was going to try to snatch that salmon up like a bear, and instead of ripping it to shreds for dinner, toss it into the deeper water and give it a fighting chance for survival. Until this one guy started talking.

"You can't mess with Mother Nature," the guy said. "That fish has to get up those falls, and it probably has a bellyful of eggs. They're stronger than you think, these salmon. But, if it can't get over that rock, it probably is best to let Nature take its course." Enter an ENTIRE CONVERSATION about how if it's not smart enough (or able) to get over that rock and get unstuck, it's probably best for those multitudes of eggs to die with the salmon so that it doesn't pass on weaker offspring. Oh, and salmon do this to spawn, and it's fun to watch, and when a lady salmon can't spawn anymore, SHE DIES.

Can you imagine why this got me both pissed off and depressed at the same time? I mean, GIVE THE FREAKING SALMON A BREAK!!! Just because it took a wrong turn doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve to lay its eggs, especially if once it can't do the egg thing, its purpose in life is over. I hope that guy is wrong and the lady salmon have the chance to do some living after they reproduce. I thought about what it would be like to be a salmon and then teared up. Because man, I would make a shitty salmon. All I could think was, screw this "let nature take its course" crap! Help a salmon sister out! But I guess this is why it's good that I'm not a salmon. We left it alone, even though I thought maybe Bryce could be the equivalent of the salmon's reproductive endocrinologist by tossing it over the rock. And Bryce gave me a hug once I told him how pissed I was about the stupid fish, and said, "you are NOT a salmon." Somehow, that made me feel better.

Why I Won't Get Pregnant "On My Own"

Yup, I know how negative this post title sounds. This is the dream, right? To strive and strive for a pregnancy only to miraculously find yourself pregnant, on your own, when you least expect it. Everyone knows someone this has happened to -- usually someone who was told it wasn't possible to get pregnant on her own, ever. I suspect everyone knows the same handful of people, or has read the same magazine article or seen the same daytime talk show about this phenomenon.

A phenomenon that gives credence to the "just relax" people -- "See--they'd totally given up, and THAT'S when it happened!" A phenomenon that backs up the asinine "adoption-as-fertility-treatment" theory--that once you put your stress over getting pregnant to bed and start the adoption process, BAM! Pregnant. Because you weren't thinking thing about it. Even though I actually know people who experienced this mythical miracle, I know a hell of lot more people who did NOT get pregnant on ther own. Or after adopting. Because that is NOT the norm.

It's difficult to respond to incredibly well-meaning people who assure me that now, in the break time, I could get pregnant. "You never know! Stranger things have happened!" Sometimes all I can do is just smile and weakly nod and say, "Yup, it's not impossible..." instead of explaining how UNBELIEVABLY IMPROBABLE that is. From multiple standpoints. I guess part of me doesn't want to burst that bubble of magical thinking. They have more hope than I do on this front.

Here are the factual reasons why it's highly, HIGHLY unlikely that I will find myself magically knocked up:

• I have PCOS with ovulatory dysfunction. I rarely ovulate without drugs. No eggs, no baby.
• Even if I did ovulate, the ectopic pregnancy left me with only one tube--so 50% of the time that egg that would go nowhere fertilizable.
• We have significant male factor--those swimmers are scant in numbers and floundering in inflatable swim aids. THe chances of a rogue sperm making it to an actual traveling egg are miniscule.
• In all our attempts, our fertilization rate WHEN THEY INJECT A SPERM DIRECTLY INTO MY EGGS is anywhere from 50-70%. Not looking good for that poor swimmer and floating mystery egg on their own.
• I typically use assisted hatching with IVF, which means my poor, sad, defective little eggs have a crusty shell and can't hatch and attach without help. Even with this modification, my embryos haven't done well implanting.
• In 7 IUIs, 4 fresh IVFs and 2 frozen transfers, we have had 16 confirmed embryos and 2 implantations. One in my tube (less than 1% chance of that with IVF! Go team on hitting THAT improbability!) and one in my uterus that crapped out shy of 6 weeks. Not great odds.
• My miscarriage and poor implantation rate suggest a high probability of chromosomal abnormality. Which means if I did get pregnant on my own, it wouldn't likely last long.

So, between my faulty eggs, Bryce's faulty sperm, my missing tube, my disagreeable ovarian function, and embryos that can't get their shit together despite lots of help, I think it's probably not looking so hot for a miracle. Even though a miracle is technically success in SPITE of all of these overwhelming odds against us.

Which is why, as unbelievable as it is for some to understand, the biggest reason why I won't get pregnant on my own is because I choose to be on the Pill during my break. WHY deny yourself even a chance to have a miracle during your off time? is a cry I've received more than once. It seems counterintuitive, but here's why.

I am an incurable optimist when it comes to my dsyfunctional body. Because I don't ovulate, it takes me forever (if ever) to get a period. In the meantime, if I feel remotely tired, nauseous, sensitive to passing cigarette smoke, sore-boobed, etc. -- I WILL THINK IT'S POSSIBLE I'M PREGNANT. I will mull over it for a day or two, I will worry that I had margaritas or too much wine, and imagine my poor Fetal Alcohol Syndrom baby miracle who will hate me forever for being so irresponsible. Then I will turn and imagine how I will joyfully tell people that YES, I AM A MIRACLE. I will be tempted to pee on a stick and agonize over whether it's worth the money to buy a test (it's not). I will then call the clinic and request Provera to bring on a period, since at this point I have to call and say I haven't gotten it by day 35 or 40 or something equally ridiculous, and they will send me for a pregnancy blood test. And I will be actually upset when it is inevitably negative. It is ALWAYS negative. I have literally cried over a possible pregnancy that WAS NOT POSSIBLE. It's torture. The last time I put myself through this was particularly nasty, because I stayed off the Pill for weeks and weeks after my miscarriage and had spotting, then nothing. IT'S IMPLANTATION SPOTTING!!! I thought, with more hope than was healthy. Who knows, maybe my body became normal after a short-lived uterine pregnancy and it was actually a dress rehearsal for my REAL pregnancy! Um, no, crazypants. My system just sucks. And raging PMS is pretty damn close to early pregnancy symptoms, I just forget what PMS feels like because...my system sucks. And so, my silver lining outlook is ultimately cruel to me. Although I did actually get my period, on my own, two weeks later, no Provera necessary--which is actually an ironic miracle all its own.

Therefore, I go on the Pill. In part so I get a regular period I can plan on like a normal person, but also so I can keep the miracle pregnancy fantasy tamped down. I need my break to be a real break, where I drink coffee and wine and tequila and eat processed Halloween candy and don't worry that I'm damaging my fragile fetal (nonexistent) miracle baby. Where I can get my body into decent shape with exercise that makes me sweat and raises my pulse and my core body temperature...again, without worrying that I'm damaging a fantasy fetus.

It keeps me sane, not "trying on my own." It gives me a rest from all this brou-ha-ha. Which in turn, I hope, gives me a better shot at actually getting pregnant under the expert direction of our fertility team, when it's time to go back into battle again.

This Break Thing

I am having a little bit of difficulty with this break concept. I am trying to truly be on a break, but I am finding that incredibly difficult to do. How do you take a break from something as monumental as infertility? I can take a break from treatment, I can take a break from filling my days with infertility-focused things. But I can't take a break from myself. Infertility has been a journey filled with loss, sadness, loneliness, occasional spurts of hope and happiness followed up by crushing grief... and I don't think you can take a break from grief. It sneaks up on you. It seeps out the cracks. I don't have enough fingers to plug the holes.

See, even if you are physically taking a break, you never stop being infertile. You never stop feeling sorry for yourself when the pregnancy or birth announcements come through and you and your husband are still a household of cats, with no baby in sight. I can be happy I don't have to stick myself with needles right now, I can be happy that I can enjoy margaritas and wine. I can relish in sleeping in on Saturdays because I don't have to get up for a) a butt shot or b) a very tiny someone who needs something. The butt shot I can do without. The very tiny someone is a giant hole in our house and our hearts.

Here are the good things about being on a break:
- I can enjoy evening drinks
- I can drink pumpkin coffee (sadly not the pumpkin spice latte, the syrup isn't GF, but I've had luck with DD pumpkin coffee)
- I am not planning my schedule around doctor's appointments
- While I am carefully thinking about what foods I eat, I don't have to be militant about it. Soft cheeses are my friends.
- Bryce and I can plan little driving getaways--a fancy night away for our third anniversary, a Christmas vacation that's romantic and old-timey.
- We can save up the money we'll need for our next steps
- We have enough time that we can save up the money without feeling completely under the thumb of infertility

And here are the things that stink:
- This break is pretty long, by design but also by necessity. I am so jealous of people who can try to get pregnant on a monthly basis. For us it is now a yearly event.
- I am seemingly incapable of not thinking about our longing for a baby during this break. We are technically only a month in (I cannot count August, since we miscarried at the beginning of August and so that month was spent in thought and planning next steps and a whole lot of soul crushing grief), and I am failing miserably at not walking around with my scarlet IF on my chest all the time. I can't stop thinking about it. And I have nothing concrete to look forward to until 2013 in terms of ending this neverending process.
- Because, while I can enjoy the life that we have now, and I am grateful for everything that we share and the miracle that is our relationship and marriage together...I want this part of our life to be over. I want the "getting there" part that seems never ending (THREE YEARS of effort and disappointment and devastation with virtually no payoff) to get to that grand finale, so that we can enjoy our life without all this horrific uncertainty. We can go to dinner without feeling bitter about the family sitting behind us with the baby and the parents are easily 10 years younger than us (those parents will still be young in comparison when we're parents, we'll just have the "parenthood" part to ease the bitterness). Or overhearing people say things like "She gets pregnant if I sneeze on her" that in some other world are funny but to me is an amazingly foreign concept and a reason for incredible unfairness over why this is so easy for others and so, so hard for us.
- I don't know how to do this on a break thing. I don't know what to leave and what to keep. And I feel pretty lost about it.

Just to elaborate on that last one, I have been a terrible blogger. I have a million posts in my head, but I sit down to write them and I freeze up. I'm supposed to be on a BREAK! How can I keep writing about infertility if I'm supposed to be away from that? (Because it's impossible to leave it be, that's why.) I keep getting stuck. And because writing these blogs is a huge part of how I process all this, I am feeling emotionally constipated. I am stopped up but don't know how to fix it while still trying to be a "normal" person for a while.

Also, I started going to Fertility Yoga again. I went three times. I don't know if I can go back anytime soon. The yoga itself is very relaxing, and I like feeling like I'm preparing my body. But do I need to prepare my body months and months in advance when I am surrounded by reminders of just how infertile I am? The first time I went was surprisingly hard. Probably because the last time before that I got to share that I was pregnant and everything was looking great, and I was looking forward to my first ultrasound. So coming back with my tail between my legs, UN-pregnant and devastated, was not easy. So, at the beginning of class when everyone goes around and says something about where they are and what they need out of the practice that evening, I kept thinking "What am I going to say?" And then it was my turn. And I couldn't say anything. I said "My name is Jess, and..." I burst into tears. I was not expecting that. It took me a minute to get it together and then I sobbed, "I'm sorry, last time I was here I was pregnant and now I'm not and I'm on a break, on a break, on a break, and it will be good and I will get better and we will try again next year since 4 fresh and 2 frozen IVF cycles have not exactly worked out for us so far. I need shoulder-opening poses, please." It was interesting, because while I felt bad about exposing the raw grief of years of losses and doing everything I can to make this work and having it not result in a happy ending because there were so many first-timer Clomid IUI ladies joining up, at the same time I felt kind of like it wasn't so bad to let people know that there is the possibility that the path will be long and arduous regardless of effort. I feel like a jerk saying that, and it's not that I wish that on anyone at all, but I know that I am not alone in having a trip to the baby aisle in Target that has one hell of a gauntlet involved. And it's not a bad thing for people to know that.

I did have a good practice that night after the tears, and I did see a few people I hadn't seen in a while which was nice. So I decided to go back again. The next time I just said "I'm Jess and I'm on a break" and left it at that. Which was a little liberating. But then, someone announced a pregnancy (very exciting--it's wonderful when that happens, especially for someone who's had a very rough go of it herself), and it was fine during class but after class all these people were asking about ultrasounds and when you see the heartbeat and when you see the fetal pole and what to expect from the first weeks of pregnancy and I booked out of there like the place was on fire. Because I know what early pregnancy feels like and I know how exciting it is to go to your first ultrasound. And there it stops for me. Because my ultrasound experiences have been "Hmmm, there's nothing in your uterus, OH SHIT it's in your tube, let's get you into surgery tonight!" or "Let's do an ultrasound and see a sac but a few days earlier than your scheduled viability ultrasound because you are BLEEDING--oh look there's a sac! [go on bedrest, try to keep said sac from leaving, several days later...] Hmmm, I'm so sorry, there's nothing but debris in there." NO HEARTBEATS. No joy in either viewing. So listening to everyone talking hopefully about what their first ultrasounds would be like was very painful for me because I have never had an ultrasound that didn't result in horror.

Still, I tried again this week. And it was the first time that there was no one from the first three waves of people that I have gone to yoga with--there were people I've met very recently, but no other "veterans." I thought I would feel better somehow if it turned over completely. I didn't. I felt worse. I felt like a dinosaur, I felt very alone, and I cried all evening when I got back. I don't think I can do Fertility Yoga anymore, not when I'm on break. There's a waiting list, so maybe I shouldn't be going anyway since my procedures aren't for a while. But ultimately when I go the yoga part is great, but before and after makes me feel awful. And doesn't make me feel like I'm on a break. It keeps me in it.

So instead I'm going to go to regular yoga classes. I'm going to a crazy Yoga Sculpt class on Saturday mornings that is NOT fertility related at all and incredibly challenging. The only disadvantage is I am a chubber in that class and some poses make my hips hurt. Because, believe it or not, my progesterone butt shot sites STILL HURT. Amazing. My body doesn't want me to forget, apparently, either. But, I am trying to beat it into submission with weighted balance poses and side planks and pilates moves.

I am going to try my best to be on a break for the next couple of months. I may not always talk about my infertility during this time, but it is always there, lurking not far under the surface. I can do a better job of dealing with things that while in treatment would send me into a tailspin, but don't forget--I am still infertile. I am still grieving the loss of a baby that should have been. I am grieving the loss of years of treatment that has failed us, and coming to grips with our next steps. I may have a drink in my hand and be able to hold other people's babies at family functions, but inside I am still hurting. It doesn't go away. And so when I remove myself from conversations that can be painful (announcements, baby name conversations, etc.) please know I'm not rude, I'm just still infertile. And not superhuman. I will do what I need to to protect myself. And I will try my best to enjoy this break and not perseverate on the grief, but it is definitely there. Sometimes I need to sit in it. But sometimes I can just sit back and have a glass of Bordeaux and a dry aged steak with my husband on a Saturday night and be truly happy where I am, right now, despite all the mess we trudge through to get to this elusive goal of parenthood.

Weekend Blues

Holy cow, I seem to always forget how the first weeks of school take every ounce of everything a body has. This year was exciting, because I actually got to start the year at the start. Novel idea. But it has been stressful, because I'm teaching two new classes (new to me) and the structure of how the classes are taught are different than how they've been in the past (no pressure), and teaching self-contained English and Reading is a LOT of lesson plans and coordination and isn't easy when you're a traveling teacher between two schools. But I feel like I have a plan and I'm feeling a little more into a groove, and I am feeling more sane at the start of this second full week of school. Always a plus.

I always feel like I have to fix everything all at once, like I have to plan everything all at once, like things have to be mapped out. This is good in a sense, but it leaves no room for flexibility, and then I get stressed out when plans change. But, good teaching is planning but also reflecting and having the flexibility to adapt your plan to the changing needs of your students. It's kind of like life that way...if you create a life plan and you feel you have to stick to it, you will be incredibly disappointed when needs change and things don't go the way you envision. You have to roll with the punches. Or roll with the happiness? I guess I just always think of punches because that's what it feels like so much of the time. One rolling wave of suckerpunches to the gut after another.

But now, it's school, and I'm officially "on my break" from fertility. Which is a laugh a minute, because the break is physical only. I cannot for the life of me ever stop thinking about it and coming to grips with it and planning our next steps and dealing with our next steps. I just am doing it on my own time, away from the constant injections and doctor's appointments and the trusty dildocam. Honestly, school has been so busy and so stressful that I haven't had much time to think about things. I compartmentalize really well at work--school is school and I try really hard to keep all this fertility crap out of it. I can't be an effective teacher if I'm crying all the time. So at school I'm Teacher Jess, not Sad Sap Infertile Jess. They are very, very separate and I'm trying to make it even more separate this year so that when we do start up again in 2013 I can try to have a little more space between school and treatment. It's impossible to be completely divorced from all this when in the midst of things, but I think I do pretty well keeping infertility from totally infiltrating my professional self. And right now, it's so very busy I couldn't think about infertility whatsoever. With one caveat.

Weekends.

Even though I am still pretty busy and doing school work in evenings and weekends, there's a little more space on Saturday and Sunday. Things slow down a bit and I have space to breathe. Which means I have space to think. Which apparently means I have space to grieve. Both Sundays since school has started have been messy. The first one was a combination of anger and stress over feeling so overwhelmed at school and feeling like I couldn't get myself in order, and then spilled over to sadness which then manifested itself as a massive bitchfest. I was hideous. My awesome counselor is always reminding me "It's easier to be angry than sad, but you have to sit in the sad, really sit in the sad, to get over that hump." And boy, was I avoiding the sad and sitting in the mad. And taking it out on anything, animate or not, around me. The stress just brought out the worst in me and then I went from pissy and yelling and even throwing my 36-year-old self on the bed like a classic toddler tantrum to outright sobbing on the floor and feeling completely desolate in my loss. But then I had to get right back to work, so it couldn't last long.

This past Sunday was a beautiful autumn day. I was far less stressed and felt much more in control of the school situation. I was determined to enjoy my freaking weekend, dammit. It was all working out pretty well--Saturday came and went with no tears, and Sunday was off to a great start. We slept in (or Bryce slept in and I got up and ate some fruit and went for a walk and then Bryce got up...), went to our favorite diner for our favorite breakfast, and then went to Lowe's to get the first wave of fall mums and maybe a pumpkin for my garden chair. I think the funk started at breakfast, because we were talking a little about how long we've been at this and how many people have expanded their families around us since we've started our journey. I feel like a broken record with this image, but we really do feel like the stationary object in a print with time lapse photography...the two lone pine trees in a field of rotating stars. (Earth science friends, I know that the stars actually aren't moving and it's us who are rotating while the stars stay relatively stationary, but it sure doesn't feel that way. Gaaaah! 9th grade curriculum is messing up my metaphor!!!) Earth science aside, our incredibly depressing stationary status started the funk.

The funk just kept going when we were in Lowe's and finding some (really really awesome) Halloween stuff for the house, and looking at all the autumn displays, and picking out pumpkins and mums. Just the first splash of the season, as I like to get our actual pumpkins and mums at a farm stand and not a national chain store, but still festive all the same. I started to feel panicky in the mum section, as Bryce was looking for some post and beam materials to rebuild our fence. I started to feel tight in the chest and claustrophobic. We finished our business in the store and checked out, and I honestly didn't think I was going to make it out of the store before dissolving. I made it just to the car, and then burst into hysterical sobs. Wrenching sobs. It was like all my sadness and loss had been fermenting and finally was bubbling up to the surface and erupting out, like a shaken bottle of champagne. Sad champagne, not celebratory bubbles. I was just overwhelmed by the pure UNFAIRNESS of everything that has happened to us. How, HOW can it be almost October and we're not pregnant? How is it that we have been at this for THREE YEARS and have nothing but loss, disappointment, extra pounds, and a lot of receipts to show for it? WHAT THE HELL???? It just washed over me in wave after wave of OH MY GOD WE ARE STILL JUST THE TWO OF US, EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING we have done. And then realizing that our next steps are our last shot at carrying, a dream that I am not ready to lay down yet. A dream I've had for seemingly ever, a thing that you're warned left right and sideways as a teen and young adult could happen at ANY TIME and yet is incredibly elusive to me. It was a horrible moment of just abject loss. Loss of our pregnancy, loss of how we imagined we'd have children, loss of all our efforts to date to just do what so many people can do without even really thinking about it. WHY IS IT ALL SO FREAKING HARD? Poor Bryce, he didn't know what to do. I was completely inconsolable. It lasted a full hour. My face was puffy the whole rest of the day. But it needed to happen. It just sucks that it only happens on the weekend.

I'm hoping that I can uncork most of this sadness so that I have a slow trickle, instead of these great geysers of loss that take me by surprise on my time off from work, when I have time to think about everything that's happened. I'm hoping that I can actually enjoy my break from infertility from an emotional standpoint, too, instead of just playing things over and over and constantly trying to plan and fit things into a schedule for our 2013 adventures. My brain just can't stop churning. It's why we can't take a longer break...I think I would truly lose my marbles. I feel like we'll hit a balance here soon. I have to remember, this last loss happened only about 7 weeks ago. Maybe that's another reason why it's bubbling over now. Around now I'd be hitting my second trimester, and feeling like I could start sharing our exciting news. That seems like such a foreign concept, sharing unadulterated good news. I have to believe it's in our future. I have to believe that it's possible and this next leg of the journey will bring us the incredible experience of bringing life into the world that we yearn for. I also have to believe it's possible that I can go and buy pumpkins and mums without hysterics in the car. This is our favorite season, dammit! I need tear-free autumn activities. Maybe next weekend.

Back to School

Here we go again...tomorrow is the first day of school. A new school year, some new assignments, and no maternity leave in sight. I was so hoping this year would be my year to be able to stand up in a faculty meeting when they say, "Does anyone have any announcements they'd like to make?" and say, "Yes! I'm expecting my first child!" I feel like a jerk, but I am dreading the announcements that will inevitably crop up this year. Life goes on, just not for me. It's hard not to feel a little bitter about that.

Going back to school is a good thing for me. I could use the routine and regular schedule that school provides. I compartmentalize better when I am in school, and can (for the most part) be a normal human in that role. I am the teacher, I have students who depend on me, there is no time to cry into my plan book and woe-is-me myself at school. That's what my car is for. Ha, ha. Seriously, I have bigger fish to fry traveling between two schools with two new classes in the morning. I have tried to be prepared and have spent a lot of time either in school or on my laptop over the past few weeks. I just can't wait for the year to start and the momentum to get going. I'm excited for this year. I am good at being a teacher. It distracts me from being really awful at reproducing.

In one of my schools, teachers create and display collages to show a glimpse into their life and interests. It's a great way for students to get to know you. Last year I did not do a collage, because I started the school year at a disadvantage (a week late, thanks to the ectopic experience). I could have done one retroactively, but I just did not feel like it. I had other more pressing things to take care of. This year, although my summer was tainted with loss again, it was not the kind that hospitalizes a body, and so I had time to do a collage. I may have gone a little overboard. I may have done one for both buildings, since I had already bought the materials and had plenty of photos. I may have made this a kickass, scrapbook-y collage. See, most collages have the wedding photos, the vacation photos, and then A SLEW OF BABIES AND/OR SMALL CHILDREN. The halls are lined with family portraits. My collage is missing those, unless I add some embryo pictures (I do realize this would be incredibly ill-advised, no need to worry). So, I decided that my collage was going to be pretty and highlight all the ways that we have a very full life without all those adorable photos of babies or siblings holding hands at Christmastime. Kind of like our Christmas card last year, which, since it was still missing a baby, was full of pseudo glamour shots of the two of us to show just how awesome it is to be just the two of us. (It is pretty awesome, minus the CRUSHING sense of failure in the family-building department, financial stress, and feeling that we are stationary objects while the rest of the world moves on to the next stages of their lives...but still we are awesome just the two of us.)

Here it is, my creation that took up the larger part of our dining room table for several days:

I have shots of Maine, wedding shots, both kitties (which were not labeled as "furbabies..." because...ew.), glittery fall leaves, owls, snakes, my gardens, reading stuff, and some tasty vittles that I cooked up. Not bad... For those family members out there, I decided it was easier to just keep it to me and Bryce. To include even just nuclear family would require a much bigger piece of paper (two sets of divorced parents means four sets of paired parentals plus siblings and their families=a collage in itself). I had fun picking out stickers (Dimensional pumpkins! Snakes! Music notes! Glitter leaves!) and putting the whole thing together. The other one is a little different because I didn't have doubles of all my photos, but it basically shows the same thing. We have fun and I am an interesting person, even though I do not have children. The only thing that was a little sad was looking through all the pictures of Maine. We really, really missed our annual vacation there this year. The week we normally go was not available, and we couldn't book another week because we had no clue how things were going to go with the FET. Next year we will go no matter what--it was way too sad to miss all of our favorite places and the ultimate relaxation that is camp. Going through the pictures I could almost feel the sea breezes on my face and feel the gentle rocking of the kayak on the lake. We have lots of great memories, but it was sad to realize that we hadn't made any new ones this year.

So, I started thinking--what should I say when people say "How was your summer?" I know that this is not meant to be a soul-searching question, just a conversation opener at most and nicety at least. I decided to think of all the GOOD things that happened this summer, completely separated from fertility. I'm taking fertility out of the mix because other than realizing what a completely kick ass team we have for our medical needs, it all pretty much sucked. Here is the good stuff:

- I was nominated for a national blog award.
- I read 17 books (and half of two more books that I had to abandon for upsetting subplots)
- I designed and planted a butterfly garden.
- I spent a lot of time with my Grandma and realized I am still a Scrabble whiz.
- I cooked a lot of really good food with Bryce at the grill helm.
- I spent time with new friends and old friends.
- I picked 5.5 pounds of blueberries.
- I grew a ton of tasty cherry tomatoes. (Trying to focus on that and not that my big tomato varieties all rotted from the bottom up this year...)
- I was a 4-H Evaluator at the NY State Fair for record books, scrapbooks, and creative writing.
- I am still smiling, despite having the second horrible August in a row (couldn't resist, but it's a major accomplishment).

I did pretty well, given all the bad things that happened this summer. I think I can pull something pleasant out of my hat when people ask what I did this summer. And now I have a collage that makes me smile and reminds me of all the good that I have. I am ready to focus on that for the time being, and not all that we lost and are having a devil of a time trying to gain. Despite our loss, it was a good summer. I am somewhat recharged and refreshed. I am ready to go back to school.

Basements, Dark Woods, and...the Bathroom

Some places are inherently scary. Horror-movie scary. Basements, for example. Classic place of terror. I want a first floor laundry room because the basement, no matter how clean or well-lit, is a place where the killer always hides. The woods in the dark--another scary place. My husband is always making fun of me because normal animal sounds that come from the ravine behind our house (definitely not deep woods by any stretch, but woods with wildlife nonetheless) scare the pants off me, often. Foxes that sound like a maniac screaming or a small child being killed. Owls or some other night creature that make creepy tittering sounds that follow you or seem to get closer and closer. Deer that crash through the woods and make it sound like a killer is coming to get you. (I may have an obsession with a vague "killer" who lurks in all kinds of environments and sadly has me afraid of tent camping.)

The bathroom has just made the cut of places that freak me out.

Well, to be fair, bathrooms have always creeped me out for other reasons. Prepare yourself to be introduced to some of my more embarrassing, bizarre fears. I have that fear that when I'm washing my face with my eyes closed (always a good idea), I will open my eyes to see something scary in the medicine cabinet mirror. Or someone will be behind me and smash my face into the sink. It never happens, and I don't know what combination of movies or urban legend has put this fear into my head, but I am always creeped out when washing my face in the bathroom. I'm not afraid of the shower, but when in the bathtub with bubbles there's always a completely illogical fear that something will come up the drain. Or, if you submerge your head (which I NEVER EVER do) a killer will get you. Thank you, creepy tub movie scenes (Fatal Attraction, Black Swan...). The toilet has been a source of terror since early childhood--I'm not sure if I was potty trained too early or what, but when I was a child (and possibly into adulthood) I used to be terrified to use the bathroom at night--I had to be back in bed before the toilet stopped "singing" (oh, old homes and their eccentric plumbing), so that if some evil spirit came flying out of the toilet it wouldn't know who had used it last. Later into adulthood the fear wasn't the mythical Toilet Beast, it was that the flushing toilet could alert the killers that someone was awake in the house. I really have to figure out what this killer business is all about!

But now, the bathroom is terrifying for entirely different reasons.

When going through infertility, the bathroom is a place of potential tragedy or potential for good. It can signal the start of your period (bad if you were hoping you were pregnant, good if you need it to start to get into a cycle). It can signal bleeding that is a bad, bad sign. It can also signal bleeding that means something good--implantation spotting. It's where you go to pee on a stick (I hope). That stick can be your best friend or your worst enemy. And it all happens while you're sitting on the toilet.

Now however, having experienced a miscarriage, the bathroom is definitely a place of terror. And of sadness. I have had two losses, but they were totally different. With the ectopic, I started spotting the day before the ectopic was confirmed visually on a fancypants ultrasound. Things were already not looking so hot, so it wasn't exactly a surprise. Upsetting, but not shocking. With this last pregnancy, everything was looking so good. Although, I wasn't feeling good the day I apparently lost the vital part of the pregnancy. I was a little crampier than normal, and downplaying it because when you are pregnant, sharp cramps are a very bad sign. And if I ignored that very bad sign, maybe it wasn't really happening. But then I definitely felt like something was up to no good in my nethers, so when I got to my Grandma's apartment I had to go to the bathroom and check things out. And it was bad. After the teary call to the nurses, I checked again on my way out. It was worse. It was like a horrible nightmare. This was no spotting, this was a horror show. It was terrifying. But at least it wasn't MY bathroom. After crashing the fertility clinic and seeing things on the ultrasound screen, everything slowed down to a stop within hours. My own bathroom didn't betray me in the same way. Soon it was normal. But then it was apparent through my bloodwork that everything was not normal and I would probably start bleeding soon. But I didn't start bleeding again until 10 days after the initial bleed. So every single day I would go to the bathroom and there would be nothing. I would steel myself for the horror show, and nothing would be there. I went through a lot of feminine products unnecessarily. My heart would be in my throat as I went into this room that everyone uses multiple times per day. And I was still using it a fair amount more than usual, because it also took some time for my numbers to totally drop. For a horrible week or so I still felt totally pregnant even though I knew the important part, the sac, was gone. By the time I finally bled for real it was actually a relief. This horrible suspense was over. It could conclude and resolve and at least leave me, if devastated, absolutely sure of where I stood. Because while I wasn't bleeding yet a very, very small part of me was hanging on to the hope that maybe it was all a big mistake.

So now I am left with a problem. This miscarriage has given me something new to be afraid of. I never really thought that this would happen to us--I know so many women who had a hell of a time getting pregnant with IVF, had negative after negative, and when it finally stuck--it stuck for good. They didn't experience a pregnancy loss. So why should I? I had a loss before, but an ectopic isn't the same as a miscarriage. I didn't reject the embryo. The embryo just chose its home location unwisely. For all we know, that embryo may have been completely and totally normal. But this one, this one could not stay for other reasons. Who knows what those are, but most likely it was flawed in some way and missing the code it needed to continue developing. And so it left. Seemingly reluctantly, but it went. And now I know that I can get pregnant in my uterus, but I also know that I can miscarry. This was Bryce's biggest fear. I was deathly afraid of ectopic pregnancy, so rare and improbable especially with IVF. Bryce was afraid of miscarriage, fairly common but really, why would we have that experience? We got both. Two Augusts in a row, filled with loss and fears realized. Miscarriage is pretty common, though. Most people know someone who's had at least one. Just because I had one doesn't mean I'm more likely to have another.

That's the logical take on things. I, however, am now concerned that I am going to need a xanax before going into the bathroom during our next round. I don't quite know how that's going to go, now that I know what it feels like to miscarry. I feel like if we can ever get to 7 weeks it will be party-worthy...I want a cupcake to commemorate each week after 6 that we make it to without incident. I want to believe that this is possible, that we can move on to our next steps in our dream to experience pregnancy together and welcome a child into our lives through a birth. My birth. I want to believe that this was a fluke, that I don't have to be terrified of the bathroom.  I want to feel safe in my body and believe that it will actually sustain life instead of systematically rejecting it. Someday this will be possible, I truly believe that. Someday I will go back to being scared only of the killer in the mirror and the killer-alerting midnight flush.

Okay

Social norms are a funny thing. There are certain interactions that are supposed to be pretty rote, and it really screws people up when you don't give the expected response. Case in point: last week during a (probably ill-advised) foray into public to get some food at Wegmans for dinner, I ran into a teacher from my district. We exchanged hellos and how are yous and then he asked me, "Are you having a good summer?" Easy question. And the socially acceptable answer is YES, HOW'S YOURS and then change the subject if inside you are screaming NO NO NO. But I couldn't do it. My answer was an emphatic, "No, not really." And then I realized I had no followup and he looked uncomfortable and so I followed up my gaffe with, "How's YOUR summer?" since explaining that this is the Summer Of Miscarriage for me probably wasn't the way to move the conversation into a better, less horribly awkward direction. And that poor teacher couldn't move on to grocery shopping, far, far away from me, fast enough. But this exchange got me thinking. How many times to we answer questions with the acceptable response rather than how we're really feeling? The answer: ALL THE TIME.

For instance, "How are you?" is a fairly innocuous question. You're supposed to say "I'm good, I'm fine, I'm okay" with "I'm okay" being the most negative of answers. Think about the last time you had something sad or disappointing happen and someone said, "Hi, how are you?" You can't stop yourself! You say "Fine/Good/Okay" even if you're SO not. It's the polite thing to do. Except lately I'm having a problem with this. Because I can't answer in the positive. And I feel like there's an expectation for me to do so, because if you answer "Not great, actually" too many days in a row people get concerned. But why is it so uncomfortable to hear someone answer "How are you" honestly? At what point, really, am I supposed to be okay? Okay is relative. Is the definition of okay that I got up and showered today? Or that I made it through a day without gut-wrenching sobbing at one point or another? Is it that I'm no longer sitting on the couch, unable to concentrate on books or magazines and just sitting in my disbelief that this pregnancy didn't stay? All last week I could not say "okay." I played around with honest answers, because I believe in being honest even if it makes people feel a little uncomfortable. You asked (and, by the way, THANK YOU for asking), and I assume you really want to know. I am not going to paste a frozen smile on my face and pretend everything is okay because somehow I'm supposed to be well on my way to healing from this loss, and my obvious pain is a little hard to observe. So I've said, "Not good," I've said "oh, I'm just awesome," (don't recommend this one so much, as even though I adore sarcasm it tends to be alienating, since asking "How are you?" is as rote as the glib answers we typically give) and lately I have been using "I'm as good as I can be right now." That's my favorite, because I am a little better each day, but it sets the expectation that I am going through something that will stay with me for some time. The physical effects of this miscarriage alone are nowhere near completion, and the loss of what we thought was our hard-won forever baby is incredibly hard to take. So no, I'm not okay.

And, while we're at it, it's not okay. That's another horrible rote response that I'm working hard to train myself away from. Whenever faced with a loss or personal tragedy of whatever proportion, people say "I'm so sorry." Which is a lovely response. This experience is hideous, and frankly it is something to feel badly about and empathetic about and when people express this to me it is so appreciated. I'm sorry too. But the rote response to "I'm sorry" is "It's okay." And it's not. It's decidedly, 100% NOT okay! But it's so hard not to say that. Bryce's response to this one is "It's not your fault/You didn't do anything," which is a little on the humorous side but also not my favorite. Because when I say "I'm sorry" to someone, I'm not assuming blame for their troubles, I'm expressing that I feel a sadness for their pain. It's a different kind of "I'm sorry" than if I were to accidentally back my car into your light post, for example. So my response, that I actually have to think about so that I don't slip out a "It's okay," is just "thank you." I want to thank you for expressing that you feel for my loss. It's not okay, I don't think somehow you caused this, but I appreciate so much you telling me that you're sorry this happened. Because that's what "I'm sorry" in this context really means--not "My bad," but "I'm sorry this is happening to you."

I don't know why loss makes people so uncomfortable. Maybe it's a reminder that these horrible things could also happen to you. Maybe you honestly just want the person to be better, and when they're not and you can't control that or make it better it puts you at a loss for what to say or do. But I can honestly say that this loss that we are experiencing is the most difficult loss we've had to deal with so far. It's not disappointing, it's downright devastating. It shattered a dream of what the next year was supposed to look like. I keep waiting for the landscape of our lives to shift and change and evolve to this next step we desperately want, and we keep getting little tremors but nothing lasting. And it's hard. I may not be crying all the time anymore, I may not be staying in bed or on the couch, unable to face a world where I'm not pregnant anymore, but I'm pretty firmly entrenched in my grief and my loss. I'm sad and angry. I am crossing into more hopeful territory as we discuss our next steps and what we'll be doing after we take our break. I am finally feeling like a semi-functional human being. But I am still not "good." I am, however, better. I am on my way to okay. And that's...just fine. Thank you for asking.