Feelings of inadequacy

We spent yesterday and today among too many children.  Intended D is a cyclist and loves going to bike races...(he tried his hand once at racing and had a crash that gave him a minor concussion.  The beginning and end of his racing career thank goodness!)... We had back to back road bike races in the area yesterday and today, and went to watch them both.  Our good friend was racing in both of them.  We also got to spend time with his wife and baby, and other friends and their baby, and we were surrounded by another million or so other kids.  The cycling community seems to like to bring their kids to bike races.  I'm sure it's a nice way to keep kids somewhat occupied outside in the fresh air, get family time, and at the same time get to take in a bike race. It was a tough time although it was also good visiting with friends.  

My primary response to the two days with such a plenitude of parents and kids was anger and inadequacy.  I see these women and men carting around these kids and I just feel like after all these years of marriage, there must be a whisper campaign spreading through the crowd of young, blissful, proud, arrogant parents regarding why we don't have children.  My insecurity and inadequacy transforms the situation to the following scene: I picture a spotlight on me.   Parents go about their business but out of the corner of their eyes, they are watching me attempting to engage with their children and suddenly my standard comfort with children turns awkward and uneasy.  My arms are uncoordinated and ungraceful, and I try to carry a child in my arms or tickle them but it just causes me to appear like a clumsy ogre.  They are watching me thinking to themselves "boy, she doesn't really know how to act with kids, no wonder they don't have any.  But her husband is so good with them... poor guy..." 

Or the other situation is these perfect parents watching me playing with a kid and thinking "she's so good with kids, a natural... I wonder why she doesn't have any... maybe she is infertile... oh poor girl, how pitiful.  She must feel so pathetic.  I feel sorry for her...."  

Which one is a better scenario?  I don't know.  

Intended D doesn't seem to have this issue.    He is able to not direct any anger toward kids.   He loves them all... He is able to pick and choose which parents he is resentful of.   This is a phenomenon that is a cause of some consternation for me because he is angry at random friends whom he deems undeserving.  He (in my opinion, irrationally) decides who is deserving of parenthood based on some algorithm which I am not privy to.  But that means he harbors random resentment toward some friends strictly because they have a kid.  But another friend with similar circumstances seems to get off scott-free.  At least I am angry with all parents and all kids.  I don't discriminate.   Aaaaaaanyway....i digress...

Intended D wasn't bothered by spending this time with the kids.   I wish I could figure out how to do this-- harness some peace without such feelings of inadequacy.  When I feel well and unaffected, I am able to separate out myself from others.  I am me, I have my struggles and issues, and so does everybody else.  I totally get that.  But the 2ww isn't a great time to feel well.... The concept of pregnancy is so unthinkable to me.  For me it's as unimaginable and unlikely a human function as having a penis.  Parenthood in general feels this way, not just pregnancy.  And yet this is something that everybody else takes for granted.    What do I feel inadequate about?  Inadequate as a woman.  

Increasing your odds through giggling

We have decided to keep our respective parents "out of the loop" regarding our specific fertility treatments--it just seemed too hard to receive bad news ourselves and then have to deliver bad news to our parents and family. This will be our 3rd cycle without family knowledge....they know we are still trying...or at least they should know b/c it's obvious that we don't have kids yet! Well, this cycle our hand was sort of forced....

My uncle and his partner were in town visiting us during the exact time of our donor egg FET. We figured that if they wanted to hang out with us (we had been spending some time together) on our transfer day...then...well...we'd just tell them the truth. A gay couple can be generally empathetic with an infertile couple. Both groups have undergone some sense of grief that comes with things not working out the way they had always imagined....e.g., my uncle always imagined himself as a father and it doesn't look like it's in the cards.

This post is not meant to be so serious...so IM was on "bed rest" following the FET and my uncle and his partner decided to come over to our place for take-out chinese food (ahhh, three pepper chicken!). We're discussing fertility related stuff and generally having a good time and laughing and my uncles partner...call him P....his grandmother was from eastern Europe and he says he "channels" her spirit from time to time and that she had all sorts of "remedies" for every ailment :) Channeling his grandmother he decides that what IM should do is get cinnamon and sprinkle it on her belly and pat it with her hand (don't rub...don't rub it) for a while! It really was the funniest moment, by far, that we've ever had post FET!!! Meanwhile my uncle uses his iPhone to try and investigate this ridiculous witch-doctor remedy that P is performing. Low and behold he finds many google hits to cinnamon helping fertility! More importantly though he finds a link to a study that showed that infertility patients that were entertained by clowns following the egg transfer had a higher rate of success!!!! :) P is definitely a clown so we all decided that the grandmother's cinnamon sprinkling belly patting comedy routine remedy certainly passes the science test and so we should have a higher success rate this cycle thanks to our giggling!

today's transfer... just relax

Today was the embryo transfer for the FET! And our wedding anniversary to boot!

I was (and still am) on delestrogen for something like a month, a cause for concern but I am trying to not stress about taking these drugs for so long. This took a long time because we wanted our doctor. If you read the entry from the last transfer, you will understand why. The RE was incompetent with inserting the catheter and wound up using a hard catheter instead of a soft catheter, which our RE, Dr. O, said could have had an effect on the lack of success of the cycle. She had also indicated that cramping that occurred during the transfer could have adversely affected things. Since she herself had done a sonohystogram in the past, she decided she wanted to be the one who did the transfer this time since she knew the difficulty of the S curve of my cervix.

Well we transferred 2 thawed blasts, they both thawed beautifully: one at 100% of the original cells, and one at 95% of the original cells. Everything was in tip-top shape... I laid back, they prepped me, and then tried to insert the catheter... oh the catheter... what is it about my body lately? there seems to be an obstacle course and a guard who asks three questions before anyone can pass. Dr. O took forever trying to insert that catheter! She was taking it easy though --trying to keep me from cramping. Whereas the last RE was just jamming the end of the catheter into my tissue (with no regard to the fact that you cannot puncture your way through no matter how badly you may want it) our RE Dr. O was gentle and tried to keep it mellow. At one point she made a comment about how she may have to use a hard catheter after all. well my heart just sank... I queried the potential for failure using a hard catheter, and she could tell that wasn't going to be the easy way out... She even disposed of the first soft catheter and pulled out a second soft one because she had put so many bends in it, it wasn't working anymore.

It was probably 10 minutes of just trying to insert the catheter, 10 minutes of excruciating panic during which I wanted to jump off the table and go running for the hills. Why why why is this so difficult? With our own embryos, REs never had difficulty inserting the catheter despite my difficult cervix. And now that we have gone the best route with donor eggs, suddenly the transfer is the problem? Why can't we get a break?

Anyway, finally she got it through with minimal cramping. She said the end of the (already complicated) canal was shaped like a hockey stick. Good grief...

We transferred 2 embryos and here we are on "bedrest" for a day. Beta is on June 8.

Another funny part of this day occurred when we were in the waiting room leading up to the transfer. We saw this horrible woman whom we met one day when we were participating in a RESOLVE activity lobbying our senators and reps at the Capitol. Now I have to preface what I am going to say with the following: I am the child of immigrants and I am familiar with other cultures and traditions. I am not (by my knowledge) a bigot or a racist. I understand the plight of oppressed women from foreign lands. During lobbying day we all shared our stories with one another, it was a real bonding day getting to know the other women and their stories (men besides my husband don't seem to participate in these things...) So this woman is an immigrant who was going through IF and told her story. She married a man who threatened to leave her because of her infertility, considering it her problem. They obviously came from the kind of culture where the man holds all the keys and can do as he wishes if he is not happy with his spouse. Repeat I divorce you three times and turn around twice patting your head while hopping on one foot and suddenly you are divorced...(sorry for mocking)...

So this poor woman had done everything she could to get pregnant, seeking treatment to please him and prevent him from abandoning her. I can't remember her whole story but I think she had gone as far as IVF. But what I remember is she spoke of desperation, depression, the emotions we all experience with IF. She dealt with something like 10 years of infertility. Finally, she ended up being one of those miracle cases who got pregnant without treatment.

I'm not sure where to incorporate this next part of the story so I'll just insert it here... During the day, the subject of "stupid things people say" came up... You know, stuff like: "maybe you need a vacation..." or "it'll happen when it's time..." or "maybe it's God's plan..." or "maybe you should just relax..." or "you should just adopt..." or "you know, I knew this woman once, and she tried..." (fill in the blank...). We were all commiserating on how frustrating, upsetting, ridiculous this type of advice was. OK. I had to incorporate that for the following reason:

This woman at the lobbying day approached me toward the end of the day (after that conversation about pet peeves) because she seemed to feel some type of kinship because we came from the same hemisphere of the globe. She decided to give me some advice from her experience with infertility since now she was a mother. And you know what her advice was? With a gushing optimism, as if she had discovered the holy grail, she advised me to "JUST RELAX AND IT WILL HAPPEN"...

arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

At the time, I was completely shocked that she would say this to me. Seriously? I think I was initially dumfounded. Couldn't find the words. I went from this response to laughter, thinking she was pulling a comedy act on me. When she didn't back down, I realized she was actually serious. She genuinely believed, after all the discussion that day and her own medical interventions, that it was all based on her ability to finally relax. Wowza. At that point I mocked to her face about how absurd her advice was, and she was somehow totally didn't get it. She remained convinced that she was giving me the best advice I could possibly ever seek. Sarcasm doesn't translate in her homeland perhaps. I don't know.

Well anyway, I was not a fan of that woman. She was at the clinic today when we were there for our transfer. Which brought comedy to a new level. So what happened to her ability to RELAX? I sound like such a rotten person. Don't I? Intended D keeps accusing me of eliciting bad karma infertility. I am just confounded...perplexed...confused... how could she actually believe it was relaxing that did the trick? That is the type of myth we as infertiles must try to dispel... NOT perpetuate. Apparently her trick of just relaxing didn't treat her so well while trying to have another child.

She approached us to say hello and all I could think to say (which I didn't) was "So what happened to just relaxing???..."

Unbearable and unusual and unfair decisions

We're about 2-3 days until our FET Donor transfer. We have 3 frozen embryos and had "decided" to risk twins by transferring two. Embryos survive the unthawing process (sounds like Austin Powers or Demolition Man) at a rate of about 90%--we were told at least. Then the rate of pregnancy is actually much lower. It is, if I recall...at our clinic, about 30% per embryo. This is in contrast to 60% per embryo from a fresh donor egg cycle. Lame odds for sure. So the plan is to unthaw our embryos until we have 2. In theory they could all die, two could, or one could. So we may very well have no embryos left after this.

IM is having a very hard time with all of this. She's feeling out of shape (hasn't been working out) and is looking forward (not really) to two weeks of light to no workouts at all...post transfer. She's also been getting delestrogen shots every 3 days for what seems like a few months now and we just started PIO shots which are everyday. Since we had such a small gap between this cycle and the last it feels like she's been taking these shots continuously. So, she comes back from a work out thinking "let's just put back all 3 embryos this time". Hmm. The major issue is that getting pregnant with triplets is not ideal...not ideal by a long shot and potentially very dangerous for mother and children. Of course, the odds are lower for a frozen cycle but they are still too large for my comfort. Her comfort on the other hand is not even really how she's thinking about it. Her hope is completely gone. Completely. I think she figures "this is NOT going to work...there is no chance...so let's just use up all our embryos so we can stop doing this" coupled with "our only chance is to put back all three" coupled with "there's no way I'd get pregnant with triplets b/c all three would have to implant and I've never even had one implant".

I'm thinking triplets are risky and I just don't want to use up our all embryos in this one shot. What if something goes wrong with the transfer? Then we lose all three? For example, it's possible that the reason our last cycle didn't work is b/c of the transfer! I'd like to spread the embryos around to a few transfers to help our odds. I don't know if that's even sensible. Mostly I think I just figure that our luck seems to be so dismal and nothing seems to go the way we want it to go that if we put back three then IM will get pregnant with triplets and the pregnancy will be a disaster! That seems to be our luck....or lack thereof. What's that Naughty by Nature lyric? "if not for bad luck, I would have none"?

This whole situation of choosing how many to put back just exemplifies the title of this blog....A goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. These are not normal decisions a person should have to make. IM has been crying from all the stress!

p.s. I'm sure the Dr will STRONGLY discourage us from putting back three anyway but ultimately it's our decision.

Distractions

Ugh. We're currently knee deep into a FET donor cycle. IM just got her first shot of progesterone-in-oil last night which always signifies the real, true, start of a cycle. She loved it :) Our transfer is in a few days...on our anniversary. Nice timing...I just hope to god that it's a sign. A positive sign! It's so distracting to have all of this hanging there. Waiting, waiting. My concentration is completely gone. It's not that I have much to actually think of, you know, regarding the cycle. If I believed it would help I suppose I could pray--but, you know the saying--"Prayer, how to do nothing and still think you're helping." There is nothing I can do. Things are scheduled and that's that. It's out of my hands. My part was done months ago. I just hope things go well. I hope that a couple of our embryos actually survive the thawing process and I hope the transfer goes well. It is our turn for some luck. It has to be our turn. We're ready. Ready and waiting. Trying to be positive.

...if only I could distract myself with work....only I'm too distracted to work.

Timeline... setting the record straight

Intended D posted a really nice blog 2 days ago about how our sex life has been pleasantly unaffected by procreation. It is true, it is a blessing that we haven't had this side of our marriage affected by IF. I echo everything he posted, and I also echo the sadness over the likely fact that we will never be able to relate our someday beloved child back to an experience of intimacy. We have sex for sex, and we go to the doctor for pregnancy. Strange but true.

I found myself lashing out to Intended D, however, because I felt that he minimized the years of ttc before we moved on to IVF. Somehow, perhaps it's a blessing that he has a short memory, my beloved portrayed the journey as an abridged version of the truth. I sent him a scathing email based in my own emotional turmoil over how long we have been dealing with this, and his response was that this was something to be blogged. So here I am. I think perhaps his memory is short because he was not as engaged in this process in the beginning. I was the one who wanted to start trying. He was apprehensive and was probably hoping that it would take a little while because he wasn't ready. So the months ticked by on my calendar while he may not have noticed.

To set the record straight and perhaps give a brief review for my own memory, this is our timeline:
I went off the pill in October of 2002. Over the first year, we ttc spontaneously, and then started using using basal body temp (BBT), and after a full 12 months of ttc, we finally went to an Ob/gyn -- the moron ob-gyn-- who suspected endo, and did surgery. The surgery was a laparoscopy, a hysterosalpingogram because this MD wasn't skilled enough to get a catheter thru my cervix while I was awake, and a D&C which to this day is a mystery to me. Miraculously the next month I got pregnant naturally.

In May 2004 I miscarried at about 6 weeks, although we never saw a heartbeat. Our first RE suspected that the D&C done by the ObGyn may have created scarring that actually caused the miscarriage...

So from 10/02-5/04, life was not easy and sex was not as fun as it is nowadays.

We started clomid cycles after the miscarriage. May 2004 until February 2006 we tried clomid, clomid + IUIs, and finally moved on to injectables with IUIs. We did one cycle with injectables, and finally decided enough with the IUIs. During this time we also moved coast to coast, so along with moving came having to find a new RE, jumping thru all the hoops all over again.
Spring of 2006 was when we tried our first IVF.

Anyway, in response to Intended D indicating that although sex has not been for its natural purposes, we've been very happy to do it for other fantastic reasons. This is my counter that hopefully will not depress him too much: sex was not just for fun for a long time in the beginning. Even during the IVFs I think we have been hopeful that we might be one of those miracles. I lost my hope a long time ago but Intended D still seemed to have it. But since the donor cycle, that's done in my mind...It's different now. Now we are pretty certain that my eggs aren't heros.

We have done 4 fresh IVFs and one frozen IVF. And now we have officially moved into the category of failure with donor IVF. It's almost impossible to believe. I am 33 years old. Looking at the statistics of donor IVF, I fall into the 3% of women my age who have required donors. And 60% of those who have tried a fresh cycle works the first time~ So where does that leave us? In about 1% of the population of women my age who are ttc. One fucking percent.

This morning I had the lining check for our FET. I have been on delestrogen for a month now and I wonder if that's healthy. Too late now. Lining seemed OK but we won't know for sure until I get the phone call. Then we'll be back to progesterone shots. My boobs are already so big, I can't imagine how my body will deal with the PIO shots. I'm feeling like Marilyn Monroe for crying out loud! My body type is the athlete type, not the voluptuous type. I don't know how to carry myself anymore, I'm too top heavy!

I looked at the computer monitor at the doctor's office while getting dressed after the ultrasound. There was a box that said "number of cycles: 4". Oh did that get me depressed.
When the phlebotomists know my name personally, I know it's been too long. This is not the type of physician practice where you want them to get to know you. Family doctor, yes. Pediatrician, absolutely. But the RE's office is one that you want to be a fleeting memory. I am a regular.

Sex and infertility...what's the point?

IM has got me reading a book right now (I can't decide whether to tell which book it is b/c I hate when things are given away...even small things...before I've had a chance to discover them myself...so I won't say which book). However, there's some infertility in it. The man describes a bit about how sex for the sake of sex has been replaced by sex for the sake of procreation and how that's just no good. That got me thinking a bit about our situation....

We've been going through this a long time so perhaps we are just past "that" stage but I don't feel that way at all. Amazingly, I don't feel as if infertility has hindered our sex life at all. It seems that we have sex purely for the pleasure...only for the pleasure since I can't seem to get IM pregnant the old fashioned way. We've been having unprotected sex for....well...a long time....5 years at least. We did go through the ovulation test phase of ttc (trying to conceive) to time our sex for when IM would be most fertile but it seems like we only did it for a limited time in retrospect. Now things are strange (although we don't really know it any other way) in that we have sex for fun and we go see a fertility Dr. to try and have a baby! How's that for infertility turning your world upside down. The good thing though is that we have no pressure in the bedroom at all. We don't feel as if there is any hope whatsoever that IM will get pregnant naturally so we don't have sex for procreation at all. What would be the point? You go to the Dr. to have a baby! The help you create an embryo and then that embryo is place directly in IM's uterus. It's always been that way :)

I was talking to IM last night about all of this and I speculated that it was b/c we moved rather quickly onto IVF (she argued about "quickly" with since we tried naturally for over 8 months, did two...or was it three...IUIs before moving on) and so didn't spend a lot of time on the ovulation testing and sex timing and once we were into IVF we figured that we just have sex for fun. She, on the other hand, figured it had to do with us having our proverbial shit together sexually, i.e., having a good sexual relationship. I suppose that's true b/c when we were using ovulation testing and having to have sex at 11am on a weekday I was more than happy to abide by her command! People speak of spontaneity of sex being lost when going through infertility but once you reach the part of the journey where having a baby with natural sex (sans Dr.) seems hopeless then it's like being a new couple and having sex for fun, except better, b/c you have no anxiety whatsoever about getting pregnant.

Still....I know we are missing out on something fundamental; not being able to experience getting pregnant by having sex the same way our ancestors have done for hundreds of thousands of years. That hard-to-explain, ethereal, cosmic feeling of producing a baby...offspring...descendants...through nothing but sex. I'm sure that's a really profound feeling to experience. Oh well...things are what they are. I have lots of flaws and many things in life aren't perfect. This is just one of them. Besides, people without our problems often don't think heavily enough (out of blissful ignorance of the issue) to even know what they have. Such is life.

A break from seriousness....

It seems everything that either IM or I write about is serious. That makes a lot of sense since the topic of infertility is very serious. There are very light and funny moments though. I suppose I'll eventually get around to blogging about some of them....like giving a sperm sample, keeping a bladder full to the point of explosion for a transfer,....

But, my topic today is best illustrated by a famous line in Arrested Development usually said by George Sr. The line is "Pop-pop horny!"

IM is currently taking delestrogen intermuscular injections. We're getting pretty good at the injections: me giving and her receiving! It's also no fun to be taking hormones but the upshot of this particular drug (especially from my perspective) is the side effects. IM's got some big...how shall I put this...boobs lately and she is also very...how to put this delicately...horny! Not so bad, eh? :) As far as side effects go, from both of our perspectives, having big boobs and being horny is actually not so bad!

Ok, that is all. I don't want to waste too much time writing this because I suspect that IM is gonna make me take it down.

p.s. watch some Arrested Development on Hulu.com here!

Mother's Day condolences

Last night I had quite the pity party. Intended D was sleeping but I couldn't sleep... Mother's day is a hard time for infertiles. It's a reminder of what we don't have, what we feel like we'll never have.
I have been able to usually focus my energy on my mom and Intended D's mom. We are both blessed with mothers who are living, and fairly healthy. Rather than feeling my own sense of loss and the absence, I use the Hallmark Holiday to bask in the priviledge of having a mom whom I am able to call on the phone. I am lucky enough to hear her voice whenever I want. Although she is still only in her 60s, I try to appreciate her presence. She still mourns the loss of her own mother, my grandmother, who passed away 8 years ago this month. She has an empty place in her heart which will never be filled and whenever we talk about her, my mom gets a very far away look in her eye full of regret for not spending enough time with own mother, and not appreciating her enough. So I have learned to transfer my sadness to joy. My parents are visiting for a few days, and having her in my home over mother's day weekend is a special treat for me.

So now I have prefaced how I have tackled every mother's day for several years now. Well, an infertile friend who is now in the midst of a twin pregnancy using donors send me an email yesterday, the first one she has sent since our negative beta. I was wondering why I had not heard from her sooner actually. She knew I had used a home test and it was negative, and that I was feeling down. but she never contacted me to find out what the actual beta was. She sent me an email yesterday just telling me she was thinking about me. Which meant so much to me. Once an infertile friend moves on to the world of pregnancy and subsequent motherhood, that connection and link is basically broken when you get left behind. (which I have lived thru oh so many times...)
So hearing from her was really meaningful. She even said "you don't have to write back." This girl understands that we are basically cutting the rope here. She has made it to the other side, and I am still here. I watch her wistfully, standing still, while she walks ahead, turns, waves, and then keeps on walking. I am happy for her.
But the interesting part is that she mentioned that she is thinking of me especially because of this upcoming weekend. whoa. Suddenly my appreciation turned to anger. fury! Her understanding suddenly turned to pity! Yuck! Yuck yuck yuck!!! It's like writing a desparately single friend on Valentine's Day and saying "my thoughts are with you during this difficult time..."
What is that???
And the problem is that I think if I were in her shoes, I might have done something similar. She was just reaching out to me. But I felt like it was just the knife turning to mention that, it was strange. I am not completely in tune about why it upset me but it did. I mean- it's obvious why it upset me but I am surprised it bugged me so much. It's another layer of this bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. I couldn't sleep last night thinking about all the new mothers who are now old friends. Not current friends, old friends.

This world of infertility turns relationships on their heads.

What happened to movin' on?

ID already posted an entry about the upcoming FET. The transfer date is set for our 8th wedding anniversary. I am not a believer (in anything) anymore, or I would make a big deal out of that. It's just another day. It's a special day, don't get me wrong. But it's not an auspicious day. Hell, our last transfer was on Easter for god's sake, the most fertile of pagan holidays! If I can't get myself knocked up on Easter, why would my anniversary have a chance?

You know what's hard? This donor cycle was supposed to be the one-shot chance. The "sign up for shared risk-- try it once-- plan on fantastic odds--and if it doesn't work, get our money back --and finally move on to a sure thing (adoption)" type of cycle. And right after we found out it didn't work, that's exactly how I felt. But after the acute emotions passed, now we are in a situation where I can't imagine moving on yet.

For the last few years, i've been sooooooo ready to be done with IVF. We are now in year 6 of infertility. It's been a long road. I had accepted not carrying a pregnancy, dealing with the complications that arise with an adopted child questioning the "why was I given up by my birth parents" types of questions, and had even accepted the idea that our child might not look like us. I am what some call "ethnic"--meaning brown-- which means adopting from my motherland would be ideal, but obviously that takes ID (who is not "ethnic") out of the equation. And adopting from the motherland is no simple alternative currently. They are coveting their kids pretty heavily right now. We would probably have to move on to other countries and I had considered that--and had decided the goal is motherhood and whatever comes along for the ride will be dealt with accordingly.

As I had come to move toward adoption, ID was not quite ready to give up on having the potential to control the pregnancy, having a pregnant wife to show off to the world, having that "new-baby" smell in the house, and starting with a clean slate. All that shit. Because I too benefitted from the idea of donors, getting to enjoy all those things that ID wanted so badly, I worked through the emotional pain of coming to terms with using a donor, I was on board.

But now, after having tasted the possibility (with such optimism) that we might actually have a child that looks biracial-- the mutt we've always dreamed of-- and all the other great things that come from a donor cycle, i am having a hard time thinking that after these 3 embryos are exhausted, if we still don't have a pregnancy, we'll take back our 25K shared risk money from the clinic and move on to adoption. Suddenly now I am actually allowing myself to consider another donor. I am furious that I am considering that!!! But I am. How much $$$ are we going to put into this??? When do we decide enough is enough??

So i have been full of anxiety for the last weeks, am not sleeping well, and am riddled with guilt that my husband got dealt a bad hand. Yes, he already posted about it. Up until now, it was assumed that he was dealt a bad hand selecting a woman like me. But now we have proof. We got great embryos out of another woman, and my body once again was the root of the transgression. It's just ridiculous.

Why did I bring it up? I didn't bring it up with him to so he could convince me that he's not going to leave me, and I didn't bring it up to give him permission to leave me. I didn't bring it up so he could convince me that I am the most wonderful woman in the world, and I didn't bring it up to have a pity party... (well, ok...i suppose it was a part of my pity party...).... I brought it up because if the roles were reversed, I would have moments deep deep down where I was disappointed that I got a bad hand. So of course he must have those same deep dark moments. Of course he has never, and would never, tell me.
I just wanted to state the obvious. I know this is me. We both know this is me.

To add to my frustration, an old friend of mine just had a baby on Friday, (thank goodness mother and baby are doing fine...) and there will be a cascade of births of other childhood friends in the next couple months. ID and I were hoping I would be pregnant by now to shield us but alas, here we are...Not to mention, the last of my new club of local infertile buddies just announced a miracle pregnancy. This is the third miracle pregnancy I have learned about in the last few months. By miracle, i mean tried for years, going thru treatment, and naturally conceived. I spent years debunking those damn stories of miracle pregnancies when my family told me to "relax", "it'll happen when it's time", blah blah blah... Apparently these miracles do happen. They just don't happen to me.

I am now the last woman standing. I see myself being passed by time after time. Even my infertile buddies see success, whether thru treatment or thru the stars aligning for them. Where the fuck is my miracle?

I have regressed over the last month. I am returning to anger. I haven't been in the anger phase for a couple years now. I don't like it.

Dreary days

It's weird today. IM and I are both feeling very blah--she especially--and it's rainy and dreary. Life goes on around us regardless if we feel like we are standing still and our emotions are so unstable it's ridiculous. The perturbations pushing us out of equilibrium these days is a bunch of friends/infertility-buddies getting pregnant and/or having babies. IM's good friend (a real big sister/little sister relationship--IMs the big sister) gave birth a day or so ago---meanwhile two infertility buddies are now pregnant,....there's more but why belabor the point. The point I'm trying to make here is to illustrate the instability of our emotions. I was having a good day at work and feeling positive, almost optimistic, and in a good mood. When I got home, IM was messing about on Facebook, I ask what's up, and she reluctantly says "so-and-so is in labor" in a depressed tone. Well, there went my good spirits. How fucked up is that? That's good news not bad news. It's weird b/c it doesn't seem like I have any control whatsoever and the feelings are a whole mess of contradictions. I mean, what kind of a prick is unhappy for a friend that's having a baby? I hate that I can't be happy for people sometimes...but I can't. I know that I need to be honest with myself and I can't pretend.

So, a day or so has passed and IM is moping about the apartment trying to study. Then she asks me, through tears, if I ever regret marrying her or think about how my life would've been different had I married someone else--obviously she means fertility. What is there to say to that? Of course, I don't. On a practical level, if I was the type that had any potential for regretting a marriage or if our relationship wasn't as good as it is then after 5 years of infertility I don't think I would be still around. This particular hell wouldn've been all the excuse either one of us would've needed to pack our things and leave. The thing is, IM is so much more than her fertility and I wouldn't risk changing any aspect of her for fear that I would mess up something else. She's too close to perfect as it is!

I am lucky though b/c for whatever reason I seem to have developed a sort-of defense mechanism where I don't allow myself to regret stuff. I figure it's pointless to go back and rethink things b/c every subsequent decision was made based on the previous outcome so while it makes sense to think "I would change this if I could" you gotta think about where you are NOW and how unhappy you are NOW in order to change the past and potentially fuck everything up....and I'm no where near unhappy enough to risk where I am now. Does that make sense? (of course, it's all masturbation anyhow since we can't go back and change anything.) In fact, other than infertility...which is a source of serious unhappiness I admit...I love where I am. I have good job (not money wise but happiness and fulfillment wise), live in a cool place, and have a great marriage with a beautiful, smart, wonderful woman. There's no way I'd risk losing all of that for an easy baby :) I say "easy" because we will have a baby....through IVF, donor eggs, adoption,....somehow, someday, we'll have a baby and be parents. That's the whole idea behind our screen names. We intend to be a mommy and daddy.

On your mark.....

We're nearly off and running. The recently failed cycle completely sucked ass and we have both been rather hopeless since the bad news. But...for some reason I don't feel completely shitty today, which is ironic, b/c I got hardly any sleep last night, woke up with a terrible headache, and have a dull one right now 8 hours later. Well, whatever.

We went in to see the Dr today so IM's junk could get checked out. Everything's quiet and normal although I wonder how much they really know--at least IM's follicles are small, no cysts, lining is thin, blah blah blah. I suppose when things check out it's easy for us to say "what? they don't know shit" but if they catch something we are thankful for their diligence and expertise.

Anyway, IM's back on the delestrogen shots tonight. It's an intramuscular shot but it's only every 3 days and not nearly as thick as progesterone in oil--so its not as bad--of course, all I do is administer the shot!

I think we're both happy to be getting this cycle going. We signed up for a shared risk plan so in a totally morbid negative way we both originally thought (after the failed cycle) "let's hurry and get these cycles over with so they can fail and we can get our 25K back!" That is an upshot of failure, that's for sure. We've now done it both ways. We've going around the bend. In the beginning I thought all of these shared risk plans were hogwash b/c the odds were strongly on the side of us being successful with 3 cycles of IVF, in which case you don't get your money back. I know too much statistics and mathematics to be swindled into this type of "shared risk". I figured there was no way a clinic would offer something like that unless the odds were in their favor and I determined the odds were in their favor. But, now, it's different. We've failed quite a few times now. Luckily, IM is young so we still qualify for a shared risk. Plus, the jokes on the them for offering b/c we failed our fresh donor egg cycle. God, it still pisses me off. How on earth did that cycle fail????? Everything seemed perfect! (sigh) Well, it's that question that makes us both think these FET donor cycle(s) will fail too. Where are you, hope?

Anyhoo....we'll see how it goes? It always feels better to be "doing" something as opposed to waiting in a two-week-wait or grieving after a failure. No time for grieving!