The Best, Hardest Present Ever

January has been incredibly busy. I have been getting back into the swing of school after an amazingly rejuvenating vacation in Vermont over the holidays, and I have been getting back into the swing of being a fertility patient again. I am exhausted and tired and cranky. But, I really wanted to go back to a moment in Vermont that was really important. Beautiful. And so, so hard.

We had our Christmas in Vermont--packed up all of our presents that had been shipped to us by out-of-town family and our few presents to each other. We had a cap on the presents since, really, the awesome trip to the tavern was the biggest present and everything else was like a stocking gift. Not a jewelry-store version of a stocking gift (It's small but precious! Buy your wife these sparkly diamond earrings or she will hate you forever!), but small gifts that were meaningful but not expensive. I took the small part very literally, gifting Bryce with neat things that could actually fit in a real stocking. A little wine trivia game, a guitar pick punch (turn any gift card or expired credit card into a guitar pick!), things like that. Bryce had a few small things and one ginormo box for me. I was so curious about that big box.

We opened our presents on Christmas morning after breakfast--drawing out the process well into the early afternoon. We like to spend a little time with each present--admiring it, exploring it. One at a time. Make it last, be sure you appreciate the gift and the sentiments behind it. It was really, really weird not to have a Christmas tree (and I'm sure the hotel appreciated us NOT bringing our presents down around their real tree that was decked out in the "living room" by the fireplace), but it worked ok. We had Christmas music on the radio and there was snow on the ground. We were in Vermont, far away from all things fertility, and it was actually an amazingly relaxing and romantic holiday.

We made our way through the presents, carefully picking which one the other person should open next. The big box was near the end. Bryce seemed a little nervous about it. We're always nervous about the presents we get each other, always worried that what seemed meaningful and sweet while shopping becomes trite and crappy upon opening. It's super neurotic. And it's never the case--the presents are always sweet and meaningful and well appreciated. One year Bryce got me a set of stainless steel kitchen accessories from Crate and Barrel--a paper towel holder, a canister for utensils, a salad fork-and-spoon set, and measuring cups and spoons. Hefty, substantial, grown-up kitchen accessories from my favorite homegoods store. We didn't register when we got married because we had so much home crap from our assorted previous weddings (ice cream makers in closets! three coffee makers!) and from living alone however briefly that it seemed silly. So these gifts were awesome to me. His best friend thought differently, freaking out when Bryce told him what he'd gotten me. "She's gonna kill you! A paper towel holder? That's not a Christmas present! What the hell are you doing? You need to go back out shopping immediately before this is the worst Christmas ever!" Now, I get it--to some this would be the equivalent of the birthday vacuum. "I celebrate you with a tool to make my house cleaner all the time. Here you go, 1950s wife." But to me those stainless steel kitchen items were the most thoughtful present because I had always wanted really nice, quality things for the kitchen and now I had them. It represented to me an appreciation for the things that I enjoyed doing and for the fact that we were truly grown-ups, in our home together, finally in a secure place where salad forks could be a beautiful gift. I use them all the time. These things are part of my daily life, which is the way a good gift should be. Useful and beautiful and seen often.

So anyway, here I was with this mystery box, wondering what could fit our price cap criteria and still be in this mongo box along with the earrings (silver g-clef) and books (of the picture variety) and cds (country Christmas, sweet simply because Bryce HATES country music and it just isn't the holidays without Dolly Parton for me...) and other sweet things I had been given. I started to open it. And had a feeling of both dread and incredible love when I spotted something left on the box that gave a clue to what was inside.

The label said, "BABY BUDDHA."



It looks like it's in jail,
but really it's safely in
the baker's rack right now.

I opened the box the rest of the way and inside was this. This beautiful, well-crafted, devastingly meaningful buddha statue for the garden.

It was perfect. It was incredibly touching. And it made me so happy, yet at the same time incredibly, deeply sad.

Let me explain. When we lost the little almost-miracle but totally-ectopic pregnancy that fooled us with low numbers that shouldn't have continued and then numbers that doubled but weirdly, giving us hope and then dashing it with the scary tubal implantation that had to be surgically removed, forever leaving my belly decorated with scars that will always remind me of that loss every time I get out of the shower, we had a ceremony to commemorate that loss. We had an event and said goodbye, within a couple weeks of that tragic experience. I wrote about it here. But we hadn't done anything yet to honor the brief presence of our last loss, the one that in my mind was more tragic because while not as dramatic as seeing a misplaced pregnancy on a high-definition ultrasound and being whisked into surgery within hours, it just seemed cruel and senseless. I am having a hard time getting over this loss. Bryce is having a hard time getting over this loss. Everything was going so well and then BOOM. Gone. But we hadn't yet done anything to put something resembling closure onto the experience. I wanted to do something, buy something for the garden. Some people plant a tree or a plant or something, but what if we moved? I couldn't leave that symbolic representation of the baby that could have been behind. So I wanted a statue for the garden, that we could take with us wherever we went and keep safe in the wintertime. I wanted something peaceful that could both clearly represent our poor lost baby (really, babies--both of them) but not be totally morbid to others. And, that could bring a sense of peace. I wanted a Buddha statue that we could put in our side secret garden, that could go near the prayer bells we added a year or so ago. But I couldn't find just the right one. I looked half-heartedly, but just couldn't bring myself to pick one out.

So the fact that Bryce took it upon himself to find this beautiful, perfect statue that captured everything I wanted was amazing. There is so much emotion in this little boy face. He is holding an open book, which is perfect. The stone is beautiful and I can just see exactly where this memorial can go when it's warmer and there's life once again in the garden.

But man, it was a tough present to open. I held it and just welled up and didn't know what to say. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was heartbreaking. I lost it. And then Bryce lost it. He was so worried. Maybe this wasn't the right time...maybe it would put a shadow over Christmas. It took that thin layer of healing and opened it up so that we were hugging and crying and holding this little statue and just feeling the loss all over again. But it wasn't a bad time. It was perfect. I wanted to have the ceremony or memorial item in hand before we started our next cycle. I wanted closure to a year that once again held a lot of sadness for us and loss of hope that we keep regenerating, although never quite as strongly as we were once capable of. I'm not going to lie, the statue made me feel incredibly sad. I was in a bit of a funk for hours. But I was so grateful to Bryce for having the strength to do what I just couldn't. He found the perfect statue. He combed internet sites and catalogs until just the right one came to be. It can't have been easy. To find it, to receive it in the mail, to wrap it, unsure if this was the right time to give this incredibly gorgeous but extremely hard gift to your wife. But it was. That took some strength that I deeply appreciate.

And now, we have that closure in a sense. I see the Buddha every day and see it not only as a memory of loss but a peaceful reminder of the hope to come. We were so close, and the changes we have made will bring us even closer. Even though we have suffered what seems incredibly disproportionately on this journey to the ever elusive expanded family, one that has talking family members, not just meowing ones, we can keep looking forward to what we have to gain. Appreciate the loss, and hope for the future...for the baby that stays. 

Magazine Intervention

My magazine problem knows no bounds. I am a magazine junkie. I have subscriptions to Glamour, PEOPLE, Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Country Gardens, Whole Living (although I've let that one expire)... and Parents magazine. Yup, Parents. I used to have that awful subscription to American Baby but due to a marketing ploy and a small lie on my part about due date that could have been but wasn't (not an actual successful cycle, so it's not as awful as it sounds) it went away. I graduated to their partner (and not free) magazine, Parents when my "baby" was 6 months old or so. It was just as well, because this was for my vision board and my Baby Binder. The vision board is now facing inwards in the closet in our back office/junk room because it is just too painful to look at at this point. So much hope went into that board, and I put three cycles worth of embryo pictures on it with the caption "We Love You and We Welcome You!" on the orange cardstock frame. And then we lost you. Every one. So the board became less a beacon of hope and a wondrous imagining of what world lay ahead for us and more a reminder of all we kept losing. So I didn't really need pictures for that anymore (although I can't bring myself to dismantle it and I kind of want to just rearrange it a bit to "freshen" it up and put it in the little room during our next cycle...). The Baby Binder still exists at the bottom of a drawer in our coffee table, next to the drawer that holds all my medical crap and plans from all of our cycles, including several beautiful pictures of my rosy, perfectly fine little uterus (inside and out) from various surgeries. The Baby Binder is another beacon of hope, but one that I can stuff to the bottom of a drawer when I can't bear to read articles about an experience that I am worried I may never have. It is a beautiful book, but I haven't taken it out since our last doomed cycle.

The Parents magazine was supposed to be for Baby Bindering in the absence of American Baby. I ordered it when I could get 12 issues for just $1 and I was pregnant. Shortly after I ordered it I was placed on bedrest (but it was too late), but I still hung on to the thought that things could work and it would be fun to receive in my mailbox. Nope, not the case. But then I thought about it, and I wrote about it, and I said, "I can read it and razor it for the Baby Binder when I'm in a good place, and I can stuff it in a drawer when I'm not. It will be fine." Needless to say I have not added any pages to the Baby Binder anytime recently, or rather anytime since I was last filled so completely with hope in the face of possible (and then certain) tragedy. They have been stuffed in the drawer, too painful to even be out on the coffee table. I have about 4-5 months of largely unexplored Parents magazines waiting to be cracked open when I feel like this experience is in my very near future. The one thing I do check for every once in a while is recipes. This magazine is a crazy treasure trove of deliciousness. Roasted Broccoli is a favorite in our parent-free home, as are the Cider-Roasted Carrots and Parsnips. If you want tasty veggie recipes, apparently Parents is the place to go. The other stuff is great, too, I'm sure. I will gorge on it when I am actually in that place. Past the first trimester this time, probably.

Although maybe not. Because I DON'T LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES. I have this crazy selective memory and shiny optimism that overcomes all logic and sense. Today I received a SPECIAL OFFER in the mail--from Family Fun magazine! Oh, holy jeezum, THREE WHOLE YEARS of Family Fun for only $11.99!!! Strangely, as I wasn't even trying to have a family at that point, I used to subscribe to Family Fun years and years ago. I was a Big Sister mentor, and it has awesome craft activities that I used with both my Little Sister and my next door neighbor, and I made a Craft Ideas Binder that has become neglected and dusty in the basement craft area because I have no one to craft with at the moment. But again, this stuff does not go bad. These crafts won't go out of style when I finally have little people to craft with again. This is a wonderful magazine with great activities and tips and again, photos that worked well for that vision board. So I spent a lot of time looking over the awesome direct mail marketing materials--so glossy! So inviting! So persuasive! So many great ideas for an expanded family I DON'T HAVE!!! I started talking out loud about it. I started admiring the crafts and thinking loudly about how this could be a fun magazine to have--hey, we're headed into a new and exciting cycle that could be our best chance yet! Why not? I think the thinking out loud was a subconscious cry for help. Because Bryce, wonderful Bryce, paused chopping jalapenos for the slow-cooker chili and very carefully looked at me and said, "Is this such a good idea? Maybe you hang on to this offer for a little while. Do we need another magazine like this? Maybe having something to look forward to isn't such a bad idea." He is so wise! But of course, my first reaction was to say in a slightly whiny tone that means I know he's right but I'm not ready to give up, "BUT IT SAYS I ONLY HAVE 10 DAYS FOR THIS SPECIAL OFFER!!!!" First he said, "How about you wait until the 11th day to make your decision?" I gave him the evil eye. And then he just looked at me. And I knew just what he was thinking. How do I save my wife from more heartbreak at the mailbox? Family Fun came from the Parents subscription, if she signs up for this one we will officially be on parenting mailing lists and the mailbox will become a veritable minefield of sadness. And we are coming up on LUPRON here, so this is NOT GOOD. Please realize this is a horrible idea without me saying any more. Realize it! Realize it! Realize it...  And so I looked over at the pile of Parents magazines that I had just hauled out from the drawer, searching for that stupid Cider-Roasted Carrots recipe, and I looked at the shiny happy families and small children that are years in the making for us, and I teared up and realized. THIS WAS A VERY BAD IDEA. I don't need one more thing in my mailbox to remind me that we are a unwillingly childless household. I don't need to keep confusing my mail carrier who can probably tell by looking at our house and our carseatless vehicles in the driveway that I am a big fat poser. I need to wait this one out, as tempting as it is to have a shiny glimpse into the world we haven't quite entered yet. Today was a kind of good day, a hopeful day, but it is true that the evil Lupron days are coming sooner than later and this is the kind of thing that sets off the waterworks and the crazypants funks.

So I ripped up my special offer and recycled the direct mail pamphlet and burst into tears. I just want so badly to be ready to order freaking Family Fun. But it is absolutely the right decision to wait. It's not going anywhere. I need to remember my promise to myself to not buy or sign up for anything pregnancy or child related until I am absolutely viably pregnant, as much as that can be assumed. It's better that way. And I can trust that Bryce will keep me in check, for his sanity as much as mine. It's a wonderful thing to want something so much and be so optimistic about it. However, I am grateful to have had a mini-intervention tonight to save me from my Pollyanna tendencies that would cause my mailbox to, yet again, become a black box of torture. Well done, Bryce. Well done.

Happy New Year

Well, 2012 has come and gone. Gooooodbye, 2012. I hate that I seem like a party pooper, because it seems every year the New Year celebration comes and every year I'm like, "Adios, stupid year! You were a stinker! Next year will SOOOO be better!" And, so far, this is a repeating chorus. I am getting mighty tired of this song.

Now, I can't say 2012 was a total stinker. In the baby department it sure didn't meet expectations, to put it mildly. But there were many things that were good, if relatively good. Let's start with the bad stuff, so we can end with the positive.

Good Riddance, 2012 Things:
- A Christmas frozen transfer that was negative. First frozen blastocysts in my uterus, way to start the New Year horribly disappointed that even awesome quality frozen beauties wouldn't stay put.
- A fresh cycle with our best ever egg retrieval--something like 26 eggs (I count it as a good thing that I don't remember the exact number), and 6 usable embryos, 3 of which were frozen and 3 of which went into my uterus. Those 3 fresh day-3 embryos didn't stay, either. Cue 36th birthday hot on the heels of another failure, the fourth fresh transfer and fifth transfer, and 13th embryos to go in and decide it wasn't a good home. Good times, good times. Not my best birthday.
- A summer where we couldn't go to camp in Maine because the week we normally go wasn't available and we couldn't reschedule because we didn't know how the frozen cycle with our three last frosty hopes was going to go. Which meant a summer of stepping into the L.L. Bean and stepping right out because it made us cry.
- A frozen cycle with three blasts of varying quality (one beautiful, one that had better have had a good personality because it wasn't going to win any beauty contests, and one ugly duckling), that resulted in our first real BFP ever. A starting number of 60 something (again, so proud of myself that off the top of my head I can't remember the number) that doubled and doubled like it was supposed to, no mind games and no life-threatening tubebaby. A call from the doctor that we'd waited for for so long that lead to one of the best days of my life so far, where Bryce and I were full of so much joy and hope that we were truly on our way out of this reproductive hell. A beautiful dream that ended in a cruel, drawn-out way with a crazy bleed (that still has me trying to avoid my Grandma's bathroom like the plague and hyperventilating when I can't wait to go somewhere else), bed rest, rapidly dropping numbers, and an ultrasound that a week earlier showed a sac trying to hang on in the bleed but now only showed debris. By far the low point of the year.
- A delayed trip to Cape May, NJ with my best friend and her mom, aunt, and cousins that has been an every 2-4 year experience since we graduated high school, that became a trip I could not go on at all. At first because I was freshly pregnant and perhaps with all the close monitoring we infertile ladies get once we hit the jackpot, a trip down the shore wasn't such a good idea, even if one lady was a nurse who wouldn't flinch at giving me the PIO butt shots. Then it became a canceled trip because I did not care to miscarry all over the Jersey shore and be the ultimate shark protector, the sacrificial swimmer who lures the sharks away from her friends. (Usually this person is the furthest out, which actually doesn't matter to sharks but makes us feel better anyway, or the reckless person wearing sparkly nail polish which apparently does attracts sharks, or the person with their period, haphazardly swimming in sharky waters anyway, like a tampon is going to deter a bloodthirsty shark.) That trip that never happened was part of my loss because I was so looking forward to my time on the beach, a vacation in a vacationless summer full of needles. Oh well.

But, all was not terrible. Pretty much everything was fertility-related that was terrible, but there was plenty of non-fertility related stuff that happened in 2012 that was notable and good.

2012, You Weren't Entirely Sucky Things:
- We did not lose any pets this year. This sounds like a depressing positive, but seriously, we have lost a greyhound to organ failure, then lost a greyhound to relocation because the dog needed more attention and space to run than we could offer and frankly fertility had sapped all of my capacity to deal with anything the least bit stressful at home (a very hard but very good decision), then lost my beloved three-legged cat, Rocky, to a mysterious illness that robbed him of the use of his two back legs over a period of weeks and deteriorated further of course, the week of our Christmas frozen transfer, and so I had to put my cat down (which was horribly botched and traumatizing for all involved) two days before Christmas, the day after my transfer, and during a time where I was supposed to rest and relax and avoid stress. I'm sure hours of wracking, heaving sobs covered that. BUT, that was 2011! 2012 started with our rescue cat, Lucky, and while his namesake didn't rub off on our transfer, he has been an excellent addition to our home. He has been playful and cuddly and gets along decently with Abner, and curls up on your lap and purrs when you need some good cat loving. We have lost no one furry in 2012, and that is something to be grateful for.
- Bryce's job was very stable and excellent in 2012--he was pretty happy with all of his projects and he did an amazing job with everything, winning accolades like crazy. Good stuff in an uncertain economy.
- I received tenure in September! I have a somewhat new and, while exhausting, very rewarding and exciting job teaching 8th grade self-contained Reading and English as well as three 9th grade resource room classes. I have more job security (although how much more is questionable in these times where teachers are so villified by the public and budget cuts run rampant, cutting tenured teachers left right and sideways). So if I do get cut, or I do go out on maternity leave, I at least can get called back and have a job waiting for me when I return. Which is a huge relief. And a big accomplishment.
- We received a positive pregnancy test. Even though it ended in a heartbreaking miscarriage that is by far the most difficult of our losses to bear, it was proof that I CAN GET PREGNANT. In my UTERUS. Now we just have nail down the staying pregnant part.
- We have a new plan, something different. Our next cycle isn't like our previous cycles, and I am excited about that. After six cycles that all ended in heartbreak of varying devastating degrees, it is good to know that this next chance has a much higher rate of success and we are changing things up. I have had time in the fall to take a break and get used to this new plan. I am still terrified to put embryos in a place that so far has not hauled out the welcome wagon, but everyone medical believes that I truly do have a perfectly good, welcoming uterus that will seal the deal for us. And so I ended 2012 in a place of hope.
- We celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. Sad that there's still no baby or bump in sight, but grateful and happy that we have so much to celebrate in our marriage. We are a team. We are solid. We are awesome together. We can do this. And we will do it with grace under pressure, stronger as a couple through this horrific gauntlet that will one day, so help us, end in a child.
- We celebrated our Christmas in a wonderful, magical vacation in Vermont. A separate post about this vacation will come after, but wow, what a way to cap off the year. We reconnected (not that we had far to go, just this year has been EXHAUSTING). We romanced each other. We spent tons of time laughing and hiking and eating and drinking and acting like newlyweds. It felt like a honeymoon. If we weren't so horribly infertile and I wasn't on the pill, I would say it was the kind of vacation so magical you could totally get pregnant on it. Except that kind of story just doesn't happen for us, but maybe all the relaxation and romanticalness and wondrousness of this vacation set the stage for a terrific cycle in 2013.

So there you have it. The good, the bad, the ugly. No year is every truly all good or all bad, but this year was really a mixed bag. I can hope that 2013 holds the key to our family expansion project. I don't dare say "THIS is THE year for us, baby!" because I've said that too many times. My ability to be completely enthusiastic about a new beginning is...impaired. But not destroyed. I hope that 2013 is our time, and our time for keeps. None of this fakeout shit of 2011 and 2012. As long as our Good list is longer than our Bad list, I will be happy. And if that Good list contains the one item we have been longing and hoping for, for YEARS now, I will be freaking ecstatic. Bring on the ecstasy, 2013.

Lovebirds, ending the year in our room in Vermont.

Fertilty-Free Holidays

Here it is, the dreaded holiday season, and I am...ok! This has been an incredibly difficult year, and usually the holidays are the capper on the crap cake. But not this year. Why? Let me tell you.

- I am not in any kind of cycle right now. I absolutely refuse to do holiday cycles anymore. I tried not to last year but ended up having at test right smack in the middle of Christmas for our first ever frozen, the first attempt after the tragic ectopic business. And it did not result in good news. And the holidays were spent drinking champagne out of a can and weeping over songs that feature a VIRGIN MOTHER and a MIRACLE BABY and I could relate to neither. Although, I will be closer to being a virgin mother through this process, since there is absolutely no sex involved in our particular brand of procreation... But getting back to the point, no more holiday cycles for me. They are too difficult.

- Instead of crying over the fact that YET AGAIN there is nary a baby or bump to be seen on our holiday greetings, we made a fun, irreverent photo card featuring us dressed up and being goofy, our hearth with two stockings and a little kitty stocking full of catnip mice (and a tiny Christmas tree with a bird on it), and our cats. In bowties. It is the gateway to cats in onesies, people. If there is no baby in any way shape or form on our card next time I can't guarantee that I won't cross over into cats dressed up like babies territory...

- I am determined, DETERMINED to enjoy December. After losing our last babyling in early August, pretty much every month after that has been difficult. I have been an emotional wreck. I have not dealt well with the cumulative loss that is slowly hacking away at my capacity to hope. I have been pretty functional at work, but at home...not so much. A lot of crying. A lot of just epic sadness. A lot of mourning. But, as a wise woman once told me, "you can throw youself a pity party but don't stay long because no one else will join you." Time to brush off and stop sitting in the sadness so completely. Time to enjoy this month with no evil needles and no possible reproductive heartbreak, and try to be a normal person before once again I am shooting up with drugs that turn me into a faux-menopausal freakshow. So far, it's working pretty well. I got a nasty virus in December, but because I am not in any treatment I didn't feel bad taking some sick time to try to get over it. I am pretty much a normal human this December.

- We are escaping for Christmas! We are leaving town and going on a fabulous, romantic getaway in Vermont. The same place we went in February for a few nights, only this time we're in one room the whole time and we are staying five nights. Including Christmas. Which is FABULOUS. There is nothing in Vermont that reminds me of being pregnant or trying to get pregnant. I have never brought a sharps container to Vermont. I have never been waiting for news in Vermont. When I go to get a towel, I won't be staring at medication and bags of needles, like I do at home when I open the linen/aka Injection Closet. There will just be books, and games, and wine, and delicious food RIGHT DOWNSTAIRS in the Tavern restaurant. I am SO EXCITED. We decided that we needed this. We didn't get to go to Maine over the summer, and that was a huge mistake. We need to get away. We need to unplug and have no chores to do, no schedule, no work hanging over our heads. We need to recharge and renew ourselves so that we can undo some of the harm this past year of incredible loss and frustration has done to us. We need to get ready for our next go-round in 2013, which is coming up lightning fast. But not so fast that we have to think about it while drinking our Welcome-to-Grafton champagne or soaking in a hot tub after a long day of snowshoeing. This is the best Christmas present we could have given each other. (Except for a baby. A baby would have been better, but a Vermont getaway is a close second.)

So there it is--a truly happy holiday even though there's no tiny people to share it with in our home, just cozy cats ever so slightly pissed off at having been collared with jingle-belled bowties. A romantic, decadent week of holiday bliss to slowly melt away some of the stresses of 2012 and start 2013 fresh, strong, and ready to put a baby (or two) in this fertility-fat belly already. Come on, 2013, be our year of miracles! (Not to get all crazy or anything, but this year coming up is the Year of the Snake, and snakes are my favorite animal EVER, so maybe that means something? Nope, nope, just me being crazy. If the Year of the Rabbit (super fertile critter!) and the Year of the Dragon (my birth year and supposedly super strong juju) didn't do it, then I can't really count on that Snake. But I can dream, right?)

A very happy holidays to everyone, and may all your dreams come true this coming year.

Good TV, Bad TV

Infertility is insidious...it filters into every aspect of your life. Maybe it's because I'm hyper-sensitive, but it seems like lately all matters reproductive are ALL OVER the TV show subplots. My list of shows has been dwindling, because I usually drop them once they begin a fertility-related subplot (that means you, Gray's An.atomy!). Even if it is decently portrayed, I don't watch TV to see people injecting themselves and enduring heartbreak over the inability to get pregnant. I can see that in my kitchen on a regular basis, thankyouverymuch. But lately, it seems like there is a thread of smugness out there in TVland about how it is you go about getting pregnant. So, not so much an infertility piece, but a total disregard for how 1 in 8 (or is it 6 now?) couples have difficulty getting pregnant "the old fashioned way."

Let's start with Modern Fam.ily. I love this show. I love how it shows different kinds of families. I love how those families are funny and warts-and-all. I loved their honest portrayal of how the adoption process can be difficult and heartbreaking, and how it is NOT easy to "just adopt." I can tell you, I do NOT love the blase treatment of pregnancy and babymaking that is rife in this season where Gloria is the recipient of a 40+ whoopsie pregnancy. (Fun fact: apparently women heading into the end years of their reproductive life are just as susceptible to unplanned pregnancies as teenagers, since their cycles go a little nutty and unpredictable. That part is true.) I nearly threw my dinner at the TV when, in one of those lovely ending interviews that shows the lesson of that particular episode, Gloria makes the statement, "Making the child is easy. It's what comes after that's hard." OH REALLY, IMPOSSIBLY HOT GLORIA. Because that sure as hell doesn't feel the case to me. And while many people like to tell Bryce and me that "Just you wait, it's so hard and expensive once that baby comes"--um, I think we get it. And, quite frankly, I think that it will be LESS expensive once that baby comes than the oodles of dough that it has taken to come close to bringing a baby home. And I'm pretty sure the uncertainty of not knowing when this ghastly hell of reproductive gauntlet-running will end is way worse than the overflowing poopie explosions and night after night of colic and fear and expense once you have that child. Because, not to state the obvious, YOU HAVE THAT CHILD. And all the joy that goes with the poop-up-the-back and vomit-in-the-night. Right now we have all the sadness and loss and financial stress and emotional stress and physical distress without the payoff. So, um, NO. Making the child is not the "easy" part. Not for us, and not for other couples like us.

I will give them a smidgen of credit, though--when Jay and Gloria go to the baby class at the hospital and make their jokes about how she gets pregnant just sneezing on her (haHAhaha. ha. haaaaa.) to a couple who's been trying for years and finally hit the jackpot, I relished in their dagger stare. I loved that they showcased, if for only 5 seconds, how incredibly insensitive and idiotic Jay and Gloria were being to brag at being able to get pregnant by accident. At 40. That was one 20-watt shining moment.

And then it was eclipsed by an episode about Phil's vasectomy. Which we never saw, even though supposedly it was very funny. Because the beginning interview had Phil and Claire talking about how they wanted to make sure they didn't have an oopsie like Gloria (because that's so common), and how they wanted to be sure they could live a life like people without kids, now that their kids are getting older. Like these neighbors of theirs, who travel all the time and have such an awesome lifestyle because they were never able to have kids. OH HOLY JEEZUM, IS THAT WHAT MY LIFE IS??? I totally forgot. If I would just be ok with not being able to have children at this point, I could totally just give myself up to a life of less responsibility and going off to Bali at a moment's notice. All the time. The way they talked about it was so incredibly blase and disrespectful and insensitive to me AND Bryce that we turned the TV off and yelled at it for a good 5 minutes before choosing something else to watch. That one really bothered me. And again, maybe I'm hypersensitive because I don't see my infertility as a ticket to a responsibility-free, college-tuition-free, vacation-filled-permanent-adolescence type of life. (I don't think my friends who choose not to have children see it this way, either...) And I am resentful of people who make the assumption that "you should be traveling! You don't have kids!" and say it enviously as they think of the chaos filling their homes. Beautiful, heartwarming chaos that we would snatch up in an instant.

Another show that ticked us off was The Offic.e. I haven't been the biggest fan of this season anyway, without Steve Care.ll and Mindy Ka.ling it's just not the same. But man, did they go fertility-offensive with an episode a while ago centering on Dwight being upset that he didn't father Angela's child. (Oops, spoiler alert too late for those who are a season or two behind. Sorry.) Jim has pranked Dwight that there is a radiation issue in the building by having a half-popped bag of microwave popcorn in Dwight's desk (or somewhere near his crotchular region), so that they can get some time off and he can take his wife away for a few days. Funny concept, nice enough idea to do something nice for your wife and mother of your children. (Pregnancies that created subplots that made this show difficult to watch for a while, but not awful.) What made us downright mad was that Dwight disappears to the roof of the work bus he's rented to thwart the free vacation plan, and he is upset. He is upset because he didn't father Angela's child and the radiation is probably further proof that he is sterile and can't father children. At first he seems to be having an honest conversation with Jim about fears of infertility, and I was like Wow, The Of.fice is really evolved! and then that was short-lived. Because it was totally irreverent (I know, comedy show, but still). He asks Jim how long it took them to conceive (answer: instantaneous and largely unplanned), and then mourns his loss of children to pass along the Schrute name. And Jim's answer? But you have us! You have BuildingKinder, since you are our building superintendent. We are all your children. And somehow this appeases Dwight. This trite, ridiculous argument that if you don't have children, there are substitutes that are just fine. Like your dysfunctional, on average age 40 year old coworkers. Or like when my yearbook salesperson called to see if I wanted a high school update book and asked for my updates, and confused that I was 35 and married and childless, said to me "Well, you're a teacher, I guess your students are like your children to you." NO. NONONONONONO. I love children, and I love teaching, and I care very deeply about my students (who by the way are 13-15 years in age, just what you want to snuggle into a onesie), but I am NOT childless because my students are "enough." I do NOT want your children, especially grown adult children. (So help me, at least three people offer me their annoying preteen/adolescent/young adult children every freaking year. That is SO offensive. I want my child, I want a baby, I want the experience of pregnancy. I'm pretty sure you wanted that too. STOP OFFERING ME YOUR CHILDREN WHEN THEY ANNOY YOU. It's not cute, funny, or remotely helpful.) The whole concept of this episode had me horribly offended, especially since Dwight falls for it hook, line, and sinker. Yes, you are all my BuildingKinder. My urge for fatherhood is abated of course. You are so wise, Fertile Jim. UGH.

Sometimes, though, there is a good show. A respectful show. A show that treats fertility accurately and doesn't reinforce stereotypes or gloss over the processes of medical treatment or adoption and doesn't continue to put it out there that it's common and normal to get pregnant in your 40s unaided. This show, recently, for me is The New G.irl. I love this show. It's zany, it's ridiculous, it makes me laugh, and I want to be Jess's best friend. I could totally hang out with Jess. But wait, this show is about a single girl living with three single guys! She's on the relatively young side! What could this possibly have to do with fertility, since no one seems to be getting ready to reproduce? I was home sick this week and backlogged on the show, so I watched a couple episodes while my lungs tried to kill me. My Roku box brought up the next episode, which was titled Eggs. Oh, boy. This could be an annoying episode. I watched it anyway. And I was so glad I did! In this episode, Jess has a dinner party where her friend, an OB/GYN who is also a lesbian, announces that she is pregnant. She and her wife are super excited, and then the doctor says, "I really feel like I got this one under the wire." Jess is so confused, I mean, you can get pregnant always, right? She explains that after 30, 90% of your eggs are gone. (I'm not 100% sure on the accuracy of this statement, but believe it since you have a gazillion eggs from the time you are in utero yourself, and they die off throughout your lifetime. 10% of your eggs is still a lot of eggs, but there is now an expiration date on your reproductive years...) But, that there's a test that can tell you about how many eggs you have left. (They didn't go into detail on this, but I'm guessing since they referenced hormone levels that it was some kind of FSH/AmH testing for ovarian reserve. I am SUCH a fertility nerd that I immediately wondered what hormones they were testing and needed to feel like this was accurate.) So she and her wife took it and she was the better bet, since her wife states, "I'm 32 but my eggs are 48." This sends Jess into a tailspin. She's 30, single, and wants a family someday, but is now panicked that her eggs are numbered. I CAN TOTALLY RELATE TO THIS!!! I was once also 30 and newly single, terrified that my fertility was dwindling. (Little did I know there was more than a nugget of truth to this fear, sadly.) Jess starts talking about dust in her uterus and eggs dying left and right--I used to joke all the time about my kamikaze eggs! (not so funny now...) She gets on fertility websites and starts removing anything toxic from the apartment. I have gone this bonkers, too! She takes the test and is terrified, but she ends up ok. Someone else is not, but I feel like it was handled sensitively. I felt like even though this was a fertility-related episode, it was AWESOME. Thank you, thank you, for talking honestly about declining fertility. It is not an old wive's tale. It is true. Thank you, thank you for giving such an adorable voice to the fears so many women have about not making it in under the wire before those eggs expire. It did make me feel a little sad, and I did want to also throw out there that you can also have infertility that is entirely NOT age related. You can be 32 and have your ovarian reserve peter out early. You can be 25 and suffer from hormonal imbalances that prevent you from getting pregnant unaided. And, like me, you can be 36 and have FANTABULOUS numbers when it comes to FSH and AmH--I have a reserve like a champ (or at least I did last it was checked this past year), but that reserve is full of duds. You can't tell if your eggs are necessarily good quality from those numbers, and I am proof of that. Lots of eggs in your basket doesn't guarantee that they'll hatch little chickens in your uterus. Ew, gross metaphor. I do not want little chickens pecking around my uterus. I do, however, want a baby or two growing strong and healthy and then welcoming itself into the world through my body. Regardless, I was proud of that show for not sweeping fertility under the rug and addressing the issue that Hollywood obscures all the time--fertility is not something you can take for granted.

It is hard finding TV that is an escape and doesn't touch on my personal tragedy in one way or another. If this is your life, if you struggle with building your family and finding the right way for you to do it, it is definitely hard not to be sensitive to anything in the media that seems to be poking fun or portraying this situation dishonestly or making one choice look easier or more morally ethical than another. So I really, really appreciate it when there are not only shows that don't touch this issue (I love 666 Park A.venue for this reason... there are ghostly children, not the urge for children), but shows that handle it with sensitivity, reality, and grace. And humor that doesn't make me want to hurl my gluten free pasta at my TV.

What Good Planners, These Royals

All week there has been soooo much news. Well, sooo much reported that's not really NEWS, per se, but seeing as how we live in an incredibly baby-crazy society, and we have a weird obsession with royalty even though politically they don't really hold any power, just lots of money, and they're not even OUR royalty, the airwaves and print and internet media is all over this royal pregnancy. Oh, Will and Kate, you "finally" sealed the deal. Really? "Finally?" That was splashed on a checkout tabloid (thankfully not my beloved PEOPLE magazine), over a smiling picture of the royal parents-to-be and next to a picture of Jennifer Aniston, who was reportedly also pregnant. I don't trust this particular magazine though, and feel intensely badly for Jennifer, because the media is always examining her midsection and calling her desperate for baby and plotting for baby and, my least favorite, "is it TOO LATE for baby?!?" Leave these people alone! Stop printing pictures that could just be overindulgence at dinner or a poorly tailored dress and calling it "Bumpwatch!" Gargh. The "finally" makes me mad directed to anyone, but with Will and Kate it's obnoxious--they've been married a year. They said openly that they wanted to enjoy marriage a bit before having a family. There is no FINALLY about it.

Anyway, I had written a blog post earlier about how it must suck to be a newly minted Royal Family member, the kind that is expected to be an instant breeder. See here for that post, "I'm Glad I'm Not a Royal." Again I wrote about my conflicted relationship with PEOPLE magazine. I devour it almost instantaneously, and it kicks off my weekend usually, but it almost always makes me sad with baby announcement after baby announcement, and detailed spreads on things like Snooki's nursery. Ugh. This time, my PEOPLE magazine pissed me off for a different reason. I'll admit, I read every word of the multiple-spread bonanza that was Royal Fetus coverage. I wanted to see if Kate was looking pregnant, and what cute maternity clothes she was wearing. I was disappointed, because even though she is incredibly slender and you would think a fetus the size of a sesame seed let alone a strawberry would show on her, she is purportedly only nine weeks along. Part of me was sad that she isn't granted any privacy at all and the world has to know about her pregnancy when it is so early and tenuous--she might have kept it a secret longer if she hadn't had to be hospitalized for a very serious condition where you can lose 5% of your body weight from excessive vomiting (a very REAL condition that is being treated pretty poorly in the media, I might add--she is not a wuss, it is not "just bad" morning sickness, it is a scary and pervasive medical condition that many women suffer). Part of me felt like this is the new thing, sharing your pregnancy in the first trimester, having everything work out just fine, and then sailing into your somewhat safer second trimester. I do realize I'm being sensitive and she didn't have a choice, plus what do I care really as this isn't a friend of mine, it's a freaking Duchess in another country who I don't know from Adam... But still. I was a little irked to find that she is still in single-digit weeks.

The part that really upset me was how the pregnancy's origin was discussed. First point of contention: "The baby news makes a very nice endpiece to the year. It couldn't be better planned." Enter more discussion on how the royal couple were very careful not to overshadow the Queen's Jubilee with baby announcements. What? People can actually plan this stuff??? I thought maybe the press was just being stupid and not realizing that conception is actually NOT an exact science and it's kind of rare to say "I want to get pregnant...NOW" and have it happen, like some magic wand is waved and POOF! Fertilization, implantation, and all that good stuff happens. When you know as much about how babies are made (or not) as I do, it is a freaking miracle that anyone can plan a pregnancy. Normal, fertile couples have only a 20% chance any given month of conceiving with all the incredibly intricate timings that have to happen between ovulation and sperm getting where they need to go and the egg being exactly where it needs to be in order to be fertilized and travel to the uterus to implant in just the right spot and then stay there. I do know people who said "I'm going to try this" and immediately hit the jackpot, and while I am happy for their success I won't lie. I resent them like people who buy a lottery ticket for the first time and hit the Powerball megamillions right off the bat. And now here are these people, who are under tremendous pressure to conceive, as it's pretty much their biggest job to produce an heir, and they turn out to be conception cyborgs who are genetically programmed to seal the deal on command. More quotes of fury... "[she is] around nine weeks or so, according to some estimates, given that the ever-cautious princess likely would not have become pregnant until after the couple headed home from their tour of Asia on Sept. 20th and stopped taking their antimalarial medication." The preciseness of this conception is mind-boggling. The short window and immediate success is impressive if infuriating to a woman who, with an entire medical team and precisely planned medications and procedures at her disposal, has yet to produce a non-royal baby. Of course, maybe they just got lucky. No one would make a 10 page article about a Royal Whoopsie, so maybe they made it seem well planned when really it was a romantic night of incredibly expensive wine that created this royal baby-to-be. But the images in my mind are a roomful of people, setting this up like racehorse studding, taking basal temperatures and testing royal spunk and telling the royal couple that they must have utilitarian conception whoopie at precisely the 8th bong of Big Ben on Thursday next in order to conceive in a well-timed and considerate manner.

Of course maybe it's only my twisted brain that thinks this way. Maybe I'm just as bad as all the magazines and talk shows for examining this poor woman's very public pregnancy so closely. But then again, I can't feel too badly for her because she IS living in a castle and the Royal Pram DOES cost a disgusting $3995, and the cost of my next cycle is probably contained in a few hangers in her closet. You can't marry a prince and not expect some scrutiny. So, I am by turns disgusted by the military precision of this planned pregnancy and also kind of want to give Kate a standing ovation. Under tremendous pressure she conceived pretty much on demand after age 30, and she and her husband in a weird sort of way did it under their terms (not within a year of marriage, like every other royal before her), honoring their royal marriage first. Brava, Royal Gestator. Brava.

Being Thankful

Bryce, Jess, and the Thanksgiving spread (all GF!)...
and not a small selection of booze behind us.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone! The holidays are upon us and it is a mixed bag. I have been lax in my bloggy duties (both posting and commenting, but I am trying to catch up) because I hosted a family Thanksgiving and had family in from out of town, which required a lot of preparation and very little downtime. But I've had this post brewing in my head for days if not more, and I need to release it from my subconscious.

My mom is taking the picture. It's a nice full table,
just no kids running around.

The holidays are a funny time for me as an infertile woman, for us as an infertile couple. It is a time to be thankful for all that we have, but it is also a time when the baby-sized hole in our lives is painfully present. There is no kids table at our Thanksgiving. We do not have grandchildren to help entertain visiting parents or add that extra layer of joy and laughter to our home. We have cats, who are very snuggly and affectionate but just not quite the same as a cooing baby or a giggling toddler. I can make a kick-ass Thanksgiving spread and have food to feed many more people than actually were in our home, but I can't make a baby (yet). It's a lot to take in.

This is made even more bittersweet by my emotionally abusive relationship with Facebook. Facebook, you bring me flowers when you catch me up with friends I haven't seen in a while, but then you call me barren and empty when you scroll me through page after page of baby photos and ultrasound photos and bump photos and evidence of everything everyone else is so thankful for that we can only dream of at this point. I am happy for the new and burgeoning families out there, happy for Christmas crafts and milestone onesies and first cupcakes and first turkey and hospital photos and family portraits that will no doubt decorate the onslaught of baby-splattered Christmas cards we are about to receive. Your joy is palpable and I am happy for those who have this--either easily or hard-won through battles like mine. Many of the babies and small children I see online were born not of candlelit evenings or liquor-induced whoopsies but of injections and waiting for nurse calls. They are families born through birth mother sacrifice and joyous airplane days, not joyous pee stick bathroom moments that are immediately shared as though tragedy is something you hear about, not something you experience. I don't begrudge anyone their family, but I especially don't begrudge the ones that are happy endings to arduous journeys. It's just incredibly hard to see everyone's miracles when ours are so short-lived. It leaves us feeling very alone.

But we're not alone--we have each other. We share a relationship made stronger through all this unfairness. We have families who fill our table at Thanksgiving. We have friends who care about us and cheer us on. We know this, but it is hard not to feel sorry for ourselves when evidence that we have been left behind (sometimes two or three times over) when it comes to extending our family is all around us--on Facebook, via email updates, via the families (with mommies and daddies 10 years younger than us) that inevitably sit at the tables next to us at the diner...everywhere. Everywhere but car seats in the back of our cars or cribs in the little room that will someday have small people rifling through the picture books, not a sad 36 year old lady with no one to read bedtime stories to. (Again, unless you count the cats, and I haven't quite traveled down that road yet.)

So while a holiday entirely centered on giving thanks and sharing with family can be difficult for us as we mourn the chances that ended poorly and our continued childless state, it is nice to reflect on what we are thankful for. There is actually a lot, even though there is a gaping chasm of nothingness where what we would love to be most thankful for is missing. But there is a lot to be thankful for.

- Each other. I am lucky to have the love I share with my husband. We are truly a team, and a kickass family of two.
- Our families. They show their support in different ways, but they are incredibly supportive and want to see us happy.
- Our friends. We are grateful for the people who cheer us on when we're ramping up, who ask us how we're doing, and who mourn with us when the tide turns tragic. People who will see silly movies and go for walks and listen.
- That we have the ability to pay for fertility treatment without a huge amount of sacrifice. Don't get me wrong, it's hard to shell out the tens of thousands of dollars and see no return, and we have sacrificed a lot and feel financially shackled to the sharps containers, but we aren't racking up debt in this quest and we aren't facing really, really tough decisions when it comes to what we must give up in order to pay for the opportunity to expand our family. We have worked very hard to be in this spot, and we do stress about coming up with the large sums of money all at once, but we are grateful that we can afford treatment. Others are not as fortunate.
- That I can make an (if I do say so myself) amazing Thanksgiving dinner and share it with others. I am thankful for my gorgeous turkey, which was my best yet this year.
- That somehow I can keep trudging through this incredibly difficult time in our lives and not totally lose it. I am definitely at a breaking point, but I am not broken. I am sad almost all of the time but am able to function and do well at my job and separate that out. Infertility has not quite destroyed my spirit, and I will keep fighting to keep it from doing that. It's trying incredibly hard, but we still have enough hope to stave off the attacks and keep them from doing permanent damage.
- Our kitties. They are not children, but they are part of our family and they bring us so much joy. You can't be sad for long when a soft, fuzzy kitty nuzzles your neck and settles into your lap for a purry snooze.

There. I am sad, and I am frustrated by the fact that we are still on this ride with a ways to go before we have the chance to photograph our own "My First Thanksgiving" bundle, but we have a lot to be grateful for. And a lot to look forward to. Someday.



Me, my mom, and my grandma. I would love to add a fourth
generation to this picture next year...