Living Infertility or: A Goddamn Bitch of an Unsatisfactory Situation

The wait is aggravating

2011-03-12T10:40:00.004-05:00

Well the title says it all. We are now into mid-March and this adoption process is still ongoing. Not to say it hasn't been moving along. I just had no idea that it would be this involved. I thought once we had the dossier in place, and got the referral, got him a visa to enter the country, got approval from our government to adopt, got approval from the other government to adopt, that we'd be good to go. But nope. still waiting for more approvals to adopt while our baby has become a toddler. It's really left me full of angst. I feel so helpless. I know these are very formative months/years for babies and I have no idea how much stimulation he's getting right now. Someone said to me (out of love) that this is like a pregnancy. Nope. It's not.

REFERRAL!

2010-10-06T23:19:00.002-04:00

We have news. We accepted a referral today, the same little guy who appeared and then disappeared in July. We now have a lot of paperwork and a lot of waiting ahead of us but our lives have taken on a new meaning somehow already.

I keep hoping this is real and is not going to slip away somehow. After 2 miscarriages, many failed cycles, and over 7 years of trying to have a baby, I am scared of being disappointed again. But I'm so happy right now!

Let's hope for a very satisfactory situation by the middle of 2011!

Status update

2010-08-04T19:43:00.005-04:00

We've had an emotional week but we have crossed another hurdle for now.

First of all, the emotional week stems from having a referral slip through our fingers. The bottom line is that Intended D and I had yet another realization that every step in this process is a growing experience.

It was too good to be true, and it worked out best for the little guy, which is what we all want.

And today, I finally put the dossier in the mail today! I know this sounds backward considering I'm talking about referrals and our dossier is just barely getting out the door. Well I'm going to avoid trying to explain it because I can't really explain it. It was an opportunity and it's gone.

Anyway, I had been waiting for our dear lovely friends to get me their letters, which all 3 provided very quickly. This has made me treasure these wonderful friends even more than I had before. I know that all 3 of them moved really quickly to make this happen because they all know how long we have struggled and they want us to be successful. Maybe they want us to stop complaining, I don't know. But Intended D and I are so lucky to have these people in our lives! So we got last of the letters last night and I was able to put it all together!

Our adoption agency wants 3 original copies of the dossier (and several photocopies of it!) and compiling the dossier was extra excessively time consuming because stupid me got all our forms notarized without having them fully completed. We were rushing because Intended D was going out of town for an extended period of time and I wanted to get the dossiers out to the agency before he got back. So what did this stupid act mean? It means:

1) I had to write each individual document 3 times by hand

2) I couldn't screw up or I'd have to do it all over again once Intended D returned

I also had financial documents and I had to block out the account numbers and again, in my haste I didn't do this before I made photocopies. So yes, I got to do each copy by hand individually. After I borrowed a black sharpie from someone else in my building. Yes it just kept getting better and better.

Well I'm so happy to say I put the dossiers in the mail today. SO happy. Yes it was a pain in the ass and it's possible I screwed something up and will have to fix stuff. But it's done for now. Another step forward. Bring on another referral universe! We're waiting!

Short and sweet

2010-07-22T12:16:00.003-04:00

This is gonna be short because I only really want to post an essay I read the other day. It's basically about how much a person learns about themselves going through infertility and striving so hard to become a parent.

I really love it.

Here it is: How infertility has improved my life by Maude Allen

Collecting documents

2010-07-19T18:21:00.002-04:00

We are gradually moving forward in this process of adopting. Today we spent $60 getting our police records and another $10 for the bank to send a silly letter indicating that we are their clients and how much money we have in which accounts. Talk about nickel and dimed. God forbid we just get into our account online and print up our balances. Too simple. The gentleman said he couldn't do it himself but somebody in India (yes, outsources!!) had to fill out an electronic form for us, "and it costs $10 to do this..." My response was almost "of course it does..."

Need to keep a running tab of all these expenses. We had a new friend at support group talking about how EVERYTHING in the adoption process costs money and at the time, it seemed like they were just complaining and they should suck it up. Well I'm now joining in on the complaining!!! And yes, because we are infertile, we have to suck it up. It just gets really old to have to keep sucking it up. I'm thrilled about the prospect of adopting. But I'll say what has been said time and time again. I'm frustrated by how unfair this process is. "Well, you could always adopt..." "fuck you."

OK now I've said it. Deep breaths and now we move on.

We have submitted our I-800A and are now we're getting our dossier ready to go.

The homestudy is done (and was submitted with the I-800A) and was really a relatively easy process. I think this is attributed to a really stellar agency that we worked with for the homestudy. I would send ANYBODY to these guys. They made it really unoffensive and as simple as possible. Although when we were in the thick of getting the homestudy done, it felt ridiculous. We started with getting fingerprinted at the county courthouse. Which was just about the most offensive event I could have imagined! Time to report our progress to date:

Homestudy began in mid-April. We had to get fingerprinted, go to the homestudy agency to get interviewed, have the social worker come to our home, get physicals for the homestudy (and the dossier), submit copies of our birth certificates & marriage license. We had to take 10 hours of courses online, and have background checks in every state we've lived in since we were 18 years old. I think that's it but I'm not positive.

So that homestudy was put in the mail with our I-800A form and on Friday 7/16 was sent to the US Citizen and Immigration Services office (part of homeland security) along with a check for $830. They have to approve that we are eligible to adopt internationally.

So now we are compiling our dossier which is composed of a statement from the bank indicating our finances, other info on our assets, tax information, personal references, medical history, plans for child care, criminal history clearance, birth certificates, marriage certificates, photographs of us and our lives, and all sorts of notarized documents which I do not understand but will sign where I am told. I know there are more, I just don't have the list in front of me. So today we got 2 more things crossed off the list.

Part of me knows to just keep moving forward, cross things off the list, and get to the finish line so we can hurry up and wait. But there are those brief fleeting moments when we think about what we have to go through and it just feels so unbelievable. yes, unfair, unfair, unfair. First infertility treatment, now going through the process of adopting. It's not simple.

Intended D and I were talking the other day and it made us feel better to really think about how we are literally working with our country and the adoptive country's governments to get a child U.S. citizenship. This is no simple matter and it makes it understandable why there are so many hoops to jump through. It's definitely a big deal. First our government has to find us eligible to adopt (this is the purpose of the I-800A) Then the adoptive country has to determine that we are eligible to adopt (using the dossier). Then the adoptive country gives us a potential child and then our government has to decide whether it's ok (the I-800). And then the adoptive country has to go through the process of placing their native child into foreigners' hands. Pretty intense and no surprise that it takes months and up to years to get this managed.

It's just tough. Ultimately we are very happy about this path and cannot imagine it any other way anymore. But losing my ability to imagine the simplicity of conception and childbirth is what I privately mourn in moments of weakness.

Letting our guard down...

2010-06-26T18:04:00.002-04:00

We've been in the process of moving to a different apartment and we are finding ourselves talking about the prospect of our child who will be our new apartment with us. It's been a strange experience. To be honest, I am a little scared about this new shift in our thinking-- what if we are disappointed again? How would we handle that? When we first started trying to conceive so many years ago, I planted tulips in the fall anticipating when they bloomed we'd be expecting a child and that was 7 years ago. Are we setting ourselves up for failure again allowing ourselves to be hopeful that we will actually be parents?

All our friends who have adopted continue to tell us that we are now embarking on a path that won't fail as long as we remain determined. We are letting our guard down little by little...

Another article about infertility...

2010-06-17T11:36:00.002-04:00

It seems weird to me that seemingly all of the sudden salon.com is publishing articles about infertility. All the articles I've seen so far have been basically of the "here's a funny/cynical/hipster-infused/heartfelt perspective on infertility". There's one today about jerking off into a cup to produce a sperm sample.

Again, I somehow couldn't relate anymore. I only vaguely remember giving my first sample and I did have a lot of these feelings: I hoped not to get stage fright on the big day, was wondering what the room would be like, videos or mags or what,...I just had no real idea about what it would be like other than stuff I saw in movies (like the scene in She's Having a Baby for example). Anyhoo, all in all it was easy for me. I for some reason don't get to embarrassed about it and was able to view it as pretty much a mechanical thing I had to do. Unlike the author of the salon.com article I viewed my "job" in the fertility corporation Intended Mommy and I were running as the easy part. She took shots, spread her legs, was generally poked and prodded and looked at with a spot-light in a room of AT LEAST two relative strangers. I jerked off in private into a cup. How bad can that be? Not so bad in the grand scheme of things. Hell, most guys actually jerk off on their own time for no particular reason other than some quick pleasure! No woman volunteers to go to the Dr's office, put her legs in the stirrups and have a vaginal ultrasound with a big wand that is digging around looking for ovaries. It's not fun. Plus, it's almost always followed by a blood draw. Sweet!

Lastly, DO NOT read the comments to the salon.com article! People on the internet (most of them at least) or some of the nastiest most purposefully hurtful people. It brings to mind an old phrase in my mind where the only response to these people is "what makes you think anybody gives a shit about your fucking opinion on something you obviously know almost nothing about."

the homestudy

2010-06-11T12:03:00.002-04:00

We had our social worker come to our home for our homestudy this week. I feel like I've been going through the motions to get through the "to do" list without really knowing how to process what a strange experience it all is. I'm happy to report, however, that the homestudy visit was really harmless. It was our 2nd time meeting her, the first time was when she did our individual interviews in her office. The agency we have selected for our homestudy is really great and I have nothing but good things to say about them thusfar.

Our social worker used the time to interview us further, but to also talk about what to be prepared for in the process of adoption. We discussed the potential for physical and developmental problems, as well as emotional challenges with attachment disorder and other issues that may arise. Adoption is a life-long process.

I found myself fairly emotional through the conversation, trying to hold back my tears almost the entire time...and it's hard to put into words why exactly. These are all issues that Intended D and I are well are of. We have read as much as we can about the possibilities, and we understand that we have to be prepared for a lot of possible challenges. I suppose having to talk about it out loud made it more real and less of a hypothetical. But until we are faced with real situations, how can we possibly really know what awaits us or how we will deal with it...

Not much else to write for now. I thought I'd be able to reason my feelings out as I was typing them but the words aren't flowing right now.

Hmm, interesting...

2010-06-09T14:15:00.002-04:00

Serono (a fertility drug company so feel free to question their motives) has an ad campaign out called Increasing Your Chances and there is an article at salon.com about it. They are pretty interesting and speak pretty well to the infertile community in my opinion. I don't really have much else to say about it...I was curious about what Intended Mommy would have to say but she hasn't gotten around to taking a look yet.

However, I noticed an interesting thing while watching them. I could relate and all of that but I found myself a little more "detached" then I usually am from this kind of thing. I think that the whole adoption process, as it becomes more and more real, is crowding out these feelings associated with infertility. It's not as if adoption is somehow a cure. It isn't. But, I'm finding myself less interesting in being infertile....less interested? Hmm. I'm not sure what that means or how to express what I mean but I'm just not interested in thinking about all of that right now.

It's probably b/c today we got another phase of our home-study accomplished and are on the finishing stretch. Of course, it will still likely be another 18 months or so until we are actually parenting a little rugrat and a million feelings are still to be felt and a million things have to go right and a million things could go wrong...but...the ball is rolling.

Little girls vs. little boys

2010-05-11T16:12:00.002-04:00

Intented Mommy and I went to an adoption open-house-type thing for some adoption agency a few months back. It was a 2-3 hour seminar type situation with a few speakers giving some basics about adoption and their agency in particular. One of the speakers--the owner or biggest shot in the room--posed a little riddle: why do people adopt little girls more often than little boys?* She said there was an answer that she was not going to tell us....ok, fine, food for thought.

I thought about this for a while trying to figure it out. The thing was that I always pictured us adopting a girl but wasn't sure why. On the other hand, I always imagined we would have girls naturally if that come had to pass. (My brother has two girls and, in a weird way, it just seems like girls are natural for our family right now. There are many more boys in the last 30-40 years and I think that the law of averages is making me subconsciously think of girls....anyhoo...I digress.) So why girls? There was presumably a logical explanation.

Ideas:
1 - Intended Mommy had told me (I don't know how true this is but I feel like she told me she knew it was true) that girls tend to take care of their parents when they get old. Ah-ha. That's why adopted parents want girls. To take care of them in old age. That seems pretty logical...but it didn't really resonate with me. Although, maybe, in part, I have the impression that boys are a little more rebellious and harder to control, more of a challenge to parent (which seems crazy since girls/high-school/dating seems like a nightmare) which dovetails nicely into the question of will the child be there to take care of you in your old age. This is also pretty culture dependent because often girls get married and become part of their new family and have responsibilities thereof.
2 - This is one I though of recently. One thing I grieve the most in this whole infertility experience is the whole miracle-of-life thing: the pregnancy, the newborn, the hospital,...the dream. If we had a little girl then chances are pretty good (although not guaranteed) that she would eventually have a baby the old fashioned way and we could vicariously experience the whole miracle-of-life thing that way.
3 - What else could it be?

Then I figured I would google for a while and see what the interwebs have to say. I found this old slate article: Why Do Adoptive Parents Prefer Girls. Of course, WDAPPG is the subtitle because slate.com just INSISTS on having some pithy little sophomoric catchy title for all their articles, hence, this one is called "Bringing Up Babes". Ahhhh, get it? Babes. Girls. A play on the famous old 1930s movie "Bringing Up Baby". Honestly, half the time I don't read these articles out of spite for the juvenile title! But, again, I'm off track...

So, according to slate it seems that there are a few things going on.
In a natural child birth, i.e., no infertility, no adoption:
- Men prefer boys
- Women prefer girls, although, women can be convinced to also prefer boys because boys pass down the family name which is, evidently, important to people.
- Add in a little bit of "boys play with boy dolls" (I know, action-figures!) and "girls play with girl dolls"--for example, my mom was SOOOO happy to finally have girls in the family (my nieces) so she could dress them up all pretty blah blah blah--and that adds to the gender preference even more.
That's the first part of the equation. The second is that:
- Women are usually the deciders (thanks W!) when it comes to the adoption process and make a lot of the decisions, hence, they tend to choose girls just like the "natural" situation--in which they don't really have a choice at all...just a preference
- When the men lose the genetic connection they figure "girls, boys, what's the difference?"

I guess that's it...the article goes in to much more detail. It's pretty interesting. But I wonder if that's all it is. The thing I find super fascinating is that in primate societies the males often are more bonded and protective of their sister's (is sister the right word?) offspring than their own. The reason is that there is a chance that their own offspring are not genetically connected to them, i.e., their ape of a spouse was a bit slutty. On the other hand, as long as they are sure that their sister is their sister, they can be sure that her offspring are genetically connected to themselves. Clever little monkeys, eh?

Lots of evolutionary stuff is involved in this sort of thing so I just wonder if there is more to the girls vs. boys thing in adoption.

Also, I read on the interwebs somewhere (where???) that maternal grandparents are often more involved and supportive of the adopted child than paternal grandparents. Apparently, the reason is that once the familial genetic connection is lost the paternal grandparents lose interest. Pretty lame, paternal grandparents, pretty lame.

* Obviously, there is the consideration of demographics and the fact that girls are more likely to be put up for adoption the world over and blah blah blah. But, the fact that adoptive parents prefer girls to boys persists when all this stuff is factored in.

Another Mother's Day

2010-05-10T12:48:00.000-04:00

Another Mother’s Day has passed.
Luckily, I have pretty thick skin. We sent Intended D’s mother flowers for Mother’s Day. We missed her call and she left a message to thank us for the gift. In her excitement, the end of her message began with a “Happy Mother’s D……” and trailed off, and she quickly recovered with a “Happy-All the Women in Our Lives-Day!”… Bless her heart. I know she tries and I’m lucky to have parents and in-laws who try to be sensitive. Mostly it hit my sarcastic funny bone and I couldn’t help laughing at how thoughtlessly that came out of her mouth… and then I quickly quieted down because I didn’t want to hurt Intended D’s feelings.
Hell, even our home study social worker (who has years of experience and whom we connect with incredibly well) wished me a Happy Mother’s Day! I tried really hard to not be annoyed at her either. Her enthusiasm was out of trying to convince me that this whole adoption journey WILL have positive results and the word “motherhood” is now a safe word. But if my adoption caseworker says it, how can my mother-in-law know how taboo it is?

And so back to the pain of Mother’s Day. I have been able to see it strictly as a nuisance or an annoyance more than a painful experience. For me, it doesn’t rank with the twinges of pain I experience at the mention of baby showers, pregnant women, or boisterously proud new parents. I know I am lucky because I have a mom I get to celebrate. I don’t live near her but in my heart, it is a day that I relish my mother’s presence in my life, the influence she has had in creating the person I have become. I have too many friends who have lost their mothers. I grieve for those who don’t have a mommy to celebrate on Mother’s Day more than I grieve for myself for not having a baby to call me mommy.

Parent History Form

2010-05-05T13:45:00.002-04:00

What to say? We're in the middle of the homestudy and just told our current apartment complex to take a hike along with their 14% increase in rent. Come on!!! So, we're moving down the street which delays the homestudy or costs us $350 more so they can come out and see our new apartment after we move..and still delays it. So, we're waiting on the home visit part of the homestudy.

Tomorrow, however, we have individual interviews with the case worker. It can all be very intrusive and humiliating and unfair if you think hard about it. Before that though we need to fill out our Parent History Form. It has 20 something questions such as,

"Describe the family in which you grew up. Please include parents' ages,... How often do you see them?"

"What was it like to be a child in your family?..."

"How long have you thought about adopting? Who spoke first of it?..."

Anyway, at the end of the day I rambled on and on like Jack Kerouac for 10 pages or so. Intended Mommy slapped down about 10 of her own. I had half a mind to say "Look, I have a blog with about 70 posts and I'm pretty sure all the answers to these questions are somewhere in there." Actually I think the blog helped a lot when it came to this form b/c not only had we thought a lot about stuff like this we also put finger to keyboard on a lot of it already.

Most adopters dread the homestudy. It's apparently full of lots and lots of paperwork and appointments. Actually most people bitch almost entirely about the paperwork.

It doesn't really seem so bad so far....

Really?...I give up

2010-04-27T16:35:00.003-04:00

Today I found out that I didn't get a job* that I worked really really really hard to get. I felt like a had a really good shot and, in a lot of ways, it would have been as close to perfect as we have dared to dream lately. Needless to say, I'm very depressed about this and it makes me feel like a failure. The funny thing is...it got me thinking.

There were two things that I expected to achieve in my life. The two expectations where, in actuality, my long-term dreams but I didn't really consider them dreams because so many people achieve them with relative ease. One was to have a family; make love to my wife, get her pregnant, and have children. The other was to go college and graduate school in order to get the sort of job I always wanted. Now, this job is not "rock-star" or "football-star" or some stupid unattainable bullshit like that...it's not to be a billionaire or anything like that.. It's a job that most people would guess is readily achievable....as it should be considering it requires a fucking Ph.D. and, once you get it, a shit load of work and relatively modest pay.

Well, as this blog attests: the first goal/dream/expectation is not to be**, and evidently the second goal/dream/expectation is not to be. There is "always next year" regarding the job...but the writing is starting to appear on the wall in a darker and more readable shade and it is pointing to either (1) lowering my job expectations even further then they've already been lowered or (2) switching to "plan B" (after I figure one out!) and convincing myself that it is better than "plan A" would have been.

Somewhere along the line the following transformations occurred.
Expectation --> Goal --> Dream
My expectations in life became goals as I grew up and realized you don't get everything you want. Then goals became dreams since we could never seem to achieve our goals.

Lately, the most apt phrase to describe my thoughts is "How did I get here?"

* In principle, I could still get it but my chances are very very very slim.

** I know I know I know. Our goal is to be parents and adoption allows a person to parent in a very satisfying and beautiful way...but I'm fucking feeling sorry for myself right now and I just do not want to fucking hear it!

Honesty is the best policy...right?

2010-04-26T08:49:00.004-04:00

Ok, the title is hyperbolic. But I still think the point of this blog is for Intended M and I to be honest and understand our feelings about lots of different things. That said, IM is likely to be pissed or disappointed or annoyed with me for this one.

We're going on a trip in 3 weeks or so to a so-called "developing country". Intended M decided to start birth-control-pills so she doesn't have to deal with having her period in an uncomfortable situation. It makes sense and I understand her point.

The weird thing is that I find it frustrating*. It's so stupid. We are literally getting our fingerprints taken today in order to jump through one of the adoption hoops** and I'm finding myself frustrated because IM is going to be on BCPs for the next month and so there is absolutely no chance of her getting pregnant in the next month and likely a month after that. Crazy! We've been doing the naughty unprotected for YEARS and I still get frustrated when she's on BCPs? Really? I also get frustrated when we can't seem to do the nasty when she is likely ovulating. Again, really? It also used to happen when she took BCPs to ramp up to an IVF cycle. What do I think is going to happen? A miracle? I think it's pretty much evident through examples all over the world and in our own lives that miracles do not exist. It's pathetic.

* I also find myself sad and frustrated when IM starts her period. Honestly, it's pathetic. I just have one of those personalities such that if something is not literally impossible then I think there is a chance. It may be a 1 in a million chance but it's a chance. I'm like fricken Lloyd Christmas, "so you're telling me there's a chance."

** A quick question to all you mothers out there that gave birth the old fashioned way. Did the state and federal government take your fingerprints and do a criminal background check on you before you were allowed to take the baby home?

Location, location, location

2010-04-25T09:29:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Intended M and I are at Barnes and Noble checking out travel books for an upcoming trip. I was having a pretty depressed day and feeling like life was unfair--yeah, boo-hoo, life is fair compared to what? Anyway...back to this post. Intended M thought "I'm gonna go see what type of adoption books they have", couldn't find them in self-help, asked an employee (or probably team-member as they're corporate overlords like them to call themselves!), and was told they were in the Family-Health section. (I think it was family health...something like that.) So we go over there...me reluctantly since I was just not in the mood for this sort of thing yesterday...and they have (1) a totally weak selection of literally about a dozen books and (2) they are right next to all the "What to expect when you're expecting"-books and the "How to be a super breast-feeder"-books (are there such books?) and (3) there was a woman in that section sitting on a chair breastfeeding her baby with her doting husband attending to her and (4) it was right next to the Children's book section. Really?!?!

Now, I don't expect people to be completely sensitive and I suppose in some book publisher sense it is totally normal to put adoption books along side these others, that is, I'm sure at some big publishing house, the publishing-arm that publishes pregnancy books also publishes adoption books. But Barnes and Noble is trying to SELL books. There is a different calculation involved--location, location, location! I doubt the male impotency books are right next to the "how to look good naked"-books for young hot women!

Needless to say, we didn't look through their crappy selection of adoption books. I was thinking about why their selection was so crappy and figured it was probably because they don't sell many adoption books. I wonder why? :) I also thought about telling them...or emailing them...or whatever...but then I figured...who cares?

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting.

Baby Clothes and Baby Steps

2010-04-21T17:49:00.003-04:00

A couple weeks ago, Intended D was looking at some stuff on cafepress for some reason and stumbled across some adorable baby onesies with funny things written on them. I've been really working hard on being optimistic now that we have begun the adoption process. (we sent in our homestudy application last week!) I told him he should order a couple of them because they were so cute. I said: “When we want them in the future, maybe we won’t be able to find them!” And a couple days later, I discovered Intended D had indeed ordered baby clothes!!!!! You cannot imagine my shock when I opened the package.

Over the years, Intended D and I have known a lot of couples (mostly women) out there who began collecting baby clothes, baby shoes, baby whatever as soon as they started trying to conceive (ttc) . Hell, my sister-in-law bought a pair of baby Air-Jordans before she was married OR pregnant! (And unfortunately for her, she had 2 little girls whose bows and ruffles probably never matched the Air Jordans. They are probably still sitting in a box somewhere. Tough times….) I digress…

Back in 2002/2003 when we started ttc, we made 2 big decisions related to our planned critter: we bought a video camera (yes, VHS.…) and we bought a more reasonable vehicle with better mileage and 4 doors. Both seem like big purchases but we thought they were practical in the grand scheme of things. Somehow in the beginning, we resisted buying any baby clothes because it seemed premature until we knew whether we would have a boy or girl... and besides, we didn't have a ton of space as apartment dwellers. Anyway, as our reproductive journey turned into an infertility journey, we nixed the idea of investing in any other baby paraphernalia. It was just too heartbreaking.

Four years ago when our niece was born, we bought her a little t-shirt that had a Muppets-theme to it that Intended D and I both thought was really funny. Turned out it was too tight for her by the time we gave it to her. And rather than sending it back, we made a big decision. We kept it. Partly because we were both too lazy to pack it up and send it back. We let it take up space for a while, it collected dust, and finally decided we'd just hold onto it. We boxed it up and put it in storage. At the time we were doing IVFs. That shirt is still sitting in a box somewhere. I’m not certain where it is but I know we kept it.

From time to time Intended D has looked at baby onesies and t-shirts-- when we were doing the donor cycle and thinking about the possibility of twins, he was looking at silly ones like shirts that say "I'm with stupid" that are pointing at each other. Most of the time though, through our infertility journey, we've avoided looking at baby paraphernalia. It's just too painful. Most of the time we feel like we'll never have a baby. So purchasing clothes just feels so pathetic.

My friends I have made in the adoption world keep telling me that the great thing about adoption is that at the end of the day, we WILL have a baby in our home. Intended D and I have struggled to really believe that. This experience has had so many disappointments that we don't believe in ANY GUARANTEES. But I am so happy that Intended D purchased those two onesies -- he bought 6-12 month sizes so that we'll definitely be able to use them. It feels like such a big step to actually allow ourselves to "dream" again-- to believe we might be successful despite all the failures. We are maybe, just maybe, on a path to believing that adoption might actually result in a baby.

For now I'm not sure what to do with those shirts, but I'm glad we're keeping them.

This morning on NPR...and two posts in one day!

2010-04-19T12:01:00.001-04:00

I woke up hearing this this morning...being read by Garrison Keillor which made it a little odd. Intended Mommy was still sleeping.

Useful Advice

by Catherine Tufariello

You're 37? Don't you think that maybe
It's time you settled down and had a baby?

No wine? Does this mean happy news? I knew it!

Hey, are you sure you two know how to do it?

All Dennis has to do is look at me
And I'm knocked up.
Some things aren't meant to be.
It's sad, but try to see this as God's will.

I've heard that sometimes when you take the Pill—

A friend of mine got pregnant when she stopped
Working so hard.
Why don't you two adopt?
You'll have one of your own then, like my niece.

At work I heard about this herb from Greece—

My sister swears by doing quai. Want to try it?

Forget the high-tech stuff. Just change your diet.

It's true! Too much caffeine can make you sterile.

Yoga is good for that. My cousin Carol—

They have these ceremonies in Peru—

You mind my asking, is it him or you?

Have you tried acupuncture? Meditation?

It's in your head. Relax! Take a vacation
And have some fun. You think too much. Stop trying.

Did I say something wrong? Why are you crying?

"Useful Advice" by Catherine Tufariello, from Keeping My Name. © Texas Tech University Press, 2004.

...I hope I don't get in trouble posting this whole poem...but...well...I'll link to where you can buy more of Tufariello's poems. So there.

No, you're a dink!

2010-04-18T21:25:00.001-04:00

We had friends over for lunch yesterday...a nice lazy Sunday. They have a 14-15 month old daughter who is a cutie-pie :) Anyway, we got to talking about rent and cost of living and stuff like that and how our previous apartment was very expensive and the father (my friend) says "but you guys are dinks". I said "what? what's a dink" and made a joke about how I've always been a dink thinking of all the times my older brother called me a dink! He said "double income no kids". Check out wikis explanation for DINKY.

I'm not saying he was being insensitive although I felt bad and a little pathetic for a moment there and gave IM a little look intended to convey our entire complicated situation. My friend's point by calling us DINKs is that we can afford high rent or certain extravagances which got me thinking a little bit. I am well aware of the enormous expense of kids--and in a lot ways "little" kids are worse...day care (for people like us) blah blah blah. But DINK generally refers to people who are childless by choice--or these days it has started to refer to gay couples sans kids which imo is not good for them either since they do fertility treatments and adopt...but I digress. As we've probably documented enough on this blog, infertility treatments are very very very expensive. We have been lucky for a number of reasons and have been able to "afford" it by a combo of luck, charity, and being smart. Many people though take out 2nd mortgages on their houses, sell 2nd cars, take out huge loans, finance it through clinics, etc etc etc. But, all in all, off the top of my head, over the last 5-6 years of treatments we have spent close to $100,000....definitely over $50,000...and we are looking at another $30,000 or so to adopt a SINGLE child...a sibling costs another $30,000. That's not chump change or trivial. My friends can add a sibling for free and WITHOUT a background check! Besides, the money they spend toward their daughter is the purest form of investment. They are taking care of her...investing in her future! Our money went down the toilet--almost literally.

Sometimes I feel like I give this particular friend slightly too much...what's the word?...I'm too understanding of his lack of sensitivity. Parents of young kids are generally self-absorbed in a strange way b/c they aren't SELF-absorbed as much as absorbed in their child. But, they basically expect that everybody else is equally absorbed in their child. So usually I give the benefit of the doubt b/c I'm not surprised that he would look at the surface of my life and think "without this little kid and all her expenses we could eat out more...fix the dent on the car...buy an Xbox..."...I don't know, whatever :) However, then I think: come on, man, pull your head out of your ass, do you really think we are childfree on purpose right now, what do you think we are waiting for, we're your age, we pretty obviously want kids, maybe we're having trouble, maybe we're in treatment? At the end of the day, though, I think it just takes experience. Without someone in your life--a friend or a family member--experiencing infertility, it takes a LOT to be sensitive to our situation. This is basically why it can feel so lonely out here.

Feeling fluctuations

2010-04-12T17:04:00.002-04:00

I've been pretty down in the dumps lately. Actually, it's not that simple. More accurately, I've been fluctuating with pretty large amplitude and reasonably high frequency between feeling good about things and feeling depressed about things.

Let me stop and take a side trip first. I have a family member (sibling of a sibling-in-law...which I think makes her...I don't now). About two years ago she got cancer and had very very very little chance of living...but now she's alive and well and cancer free! The reason I mention her is because she is a super positive thinker (I actually suspect there is some darkness down deep down inside since she is human like the rest of us but that's neither here nor there). She borders on "The Secret" which I think is total bullshit mumbo jumbo that basically tells people that suffer failures that it is their own fault for not bringing the positive energy on themselves. Fuck you, "The Secret"! But, I have not had cancer and so she can think whatever the hell she wants and I will just try to learn something from her because she has heroically dealt with a completely unfathomably terrible situation. Ok, where was I? Oh yeah. One thing she says is that she viewed her cancer as a chance, an opportunity, to show the world how tough she was since she admittedly always talked a lot of shit growing up about how much of a hard-ass she was. Cancer was her chance to back up all that talk. An opportunity to show what she was worth and she did and there is no longer any doubt!

I try to tap into her thinking and sometimes I can. Sometimes I am able to tell myself that I always thought and assumed and expected I would be a great father. Well....here is my chance to back it up. Parenting an adopted child is not necessarily for the faint of heart. I've read too much about adoption to think it is a walk-in-the-park (not that parenting is ever easy) or the same as parenting your 'natural' child--ugh...there has got to be a better phrase than that! (I'm sure there is, I just don't know it.) To add to the challenge we will mostly likely adopt a mixed race child that is not either my or my wife's race....we would've produced our own mixed race child but...well...you get the idea. On good days, I relish the challenge and opportunity to be an adoptive parent. There are so many interesting and unique and beautiful situations that await us. The chance to connect to a different culture through adoption...or country...is super exciting. Blah blah blah.

On bad days I just feel too exhausted to step up to the plate and having a baby the 'old-fashioned way' feels like an easy way out.

Unfortunately, I'm fluctuating between these two extreme thoughts quite frequently lately. Hopefully I'll land on my 'good-day' thoughts permanently pretty soon.

speaking of cleansing...

2010-04-05T12:29:00.002-04:00

So Intended D beat me to the punch today. (Thanks a lot babe!)
Yesterday was a start at trying to cleanse in many ways. It was spring cleaning on a beautiful day in our nation’s capital. I just read Intended D’s post and will lobby to remove the back up of the donor profile that we have saved somewhere. There is no reason to keep it in our home. I don’t want to stumble upon it in 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years. I’m over it. Like Intended D said, it was “nice knowin’ ya, and we paid you well to give us some of your genetic material.” And it didn’t work and we’re not going down that path again. I have no attachment to this stranger who was going to potentially be a genetic link to my child. NONE. As Michael Jackson sang, “she’s out of my life.”

I have a need to cleanse lately. Intended D and I are in a holding pattern as we move toward adoption, mostly because of circumstances that are out of our control. But I believe we are also in a healing mode. I have always been the type that jumps into the next step for the sake of my sanity. I am not an impulsive person, but I need to keep moving. I don’t like to feel complacent. So yes, I am happy to say I tackled our bags o’meds yesterday. And I do wish we would have had a ritualistic burning on par with the women’s lib bra burning bon-fires of decades past. Intended D wasn’t willing to participate which worries me a little bit because I think he needs catharsis. But c’est la vie. We are on different time tables. I don't think that's uncommon.

I haven’t had an intermuscular shot for– well, it’s been a few months now—and I still have pain in my butt where we have hit nerves time after time. Pain not deep down in my butt where the drugs were injected, but more from nerves that are closer to the surface of my skin. I believe it’s the nerves healing. I have had numb spots on my butt for years now from the many PIO shots I’ve had to endure. I have also developed hypersensitivity on certain areas of my butt where the nerves are healing. I have a medical background and I think I understand what’s going on so I’m not my normal hypochondriacal mess about it. Nonetheless, it’s a constant reminder of the last several years of hell. I’m still healing from the injections physically and obviously emotionally. I’m sure someone more poetically equipped than I am would be able to write novels about the parallels between the physical healing and the emotional. But I’ll abstain.

The point is that I have made a decision I’m not going back there again. I’m not going to put myself through any more cycles. I just cannot. I don't think it's good for Intended D either. This has been too painful of a journey for me to consider another needle. I need closure to this experience. I am so scarred by this experience I am pretty certain I have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). No I’m not kidding. My heart rate elevates when I see a pregnant woman. I can’t look babies in the eye. – well that was kind of joke because I started picturing avoiding eye contact with a newborn. So funny on so many levels. They can’t see a damn thing anyway.

But I digress… I know I’m scarred and I know that at this point, the only way I will recover is to find resolution. And finding resolution means having a child of our own through adoption. I think intended D and I both know that. I am not happy about our plight. I just know I need to protect my psyche. I know he understands why I can’t do another cycle and I’m pretty certain he is also done with it. But deep, deep down, I think he still wants to because of the “what if…” factor. Which I completely understand. Believe me.

So anyway, yesterday, I finally decided the bags of meds in the closet needed to be addressed. We have a small walk-in closet that is more like a narrow hallway leading to nowhere and at the end of it, we’ve had bags of meds, needles, and sharps containers that have accumulated over the years. Every time a cycle ends painfully (which they always do) one of us has dropped the new accumulation of meds into the closet to get it out of our line of sight. We had lupron, ganirelex, progesterone (in oil AND suppositories), and even some follistim. I’m not sure what else. I stopped looking at the labels. This was not a great walk down memory lane. I also had more needles than you can shake a stick at. I needed to purge it all. I could not tolerate the thought of this paraphernalia existing in our home anymore. I want nothing to do with them. They have caused us nothing but pain.

So I pulled out all the bags, threw all the meds away (I thought about donating them but to be honest, they have been sitting in a closet that gets 30 degrees in winter and over 100 in summer… I wouldn’t even want to use these meds anymore even if I WERE cycling!). I still have the sharps containers and the bags and bags of needles which I’ll take to the RE clinic when I have a chance.

Unfortunately it felt very anti-climactic. I tried to bring Intended D into it by asking for his help and letting him throw away a couple vials. But he wasn’t interested in participating. I feel like I need a ceremony or something. Or a party. Maybe that’s what we need. A 'WE'RE NOT FUCKING WITH MY BODY AND OUR MINDS TO TRY TO CONCEIVE A CHILD ANYMORE' party. Do people have those?

Ritualistic cleansing ... but I don't really feel cleansed

2010-04-05T10:11:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I started cleaning out an old laptop of mine. My mother-in-law could use an "Indian-soap-opera and Solitaire playing" machine and the old laptop fits the bill pretty well :)

Anyhow, I was looking around and deleting old files and I came across a folder with info about the egg donor we eventually chose. Hmm. I had saved the "bio-data" and about 10 pictures. We had stored this info b/c we figured it would be good to keep this stuff for our eventual child and I was in charge of storing it b/c we also figured it would be best to "hide it", in some respects. We didn't want it easily available for IM to look at any time she felt the need...I have better will-power when it comes to stuff like this :)

The reason we wanted to sort-of limit the availability of the donor's pictures and bio-data is due to this: we went to a donor-egg support group once and the leader, who had donor-egg twins that were toddlers at least (I think), had mentioned that she would, in weak moments, look at donor pictures (or remember donor pictures) and realize that her children resemble the donor and not her. That was not a feeling she particularly enjoyed. (This reminds me of my great idea!)

So...anyway...I deleted them (although not really b/c I have a backup somewhere and I'm not going to delete the folder in the backup b/c I just don't care enough to do that) and I'm not sure how I feel. It didn't seem really momentous b/c the donor really doesn't mean anything to us anymore. The cycle didn't work. I appreciate what she was willing to do to help us (and we paid her pretty well for the help) but it didn't work. So there is just no connection between her and us. "It was nice knowing ya" sort of thing.

Earlier in the day, IM had thrown away all the medication we still had (progesterone, lupron, blah blah blah). She seemed to want me to participate but I didn't really want to. I'm not sure how I feel about it but she was pretty exhilarated...I think. I think I feel a little bit sad and pathetic about it. She has been ordered to write about it....we'll see.

Faith in humanity partially restored...

2010-04-02T11:12:00.003-04:00

First of all, I fucking hate William Saletan! He is just fucking terrible...so pretentious and so 'all-knowing'....ugh. He makes me want to hit somebody in the face, preferably him. To those that don't know, he writes these "Human Nature" articles for www.slate.com and he is basically a self-styled bioethicist or sexual ethicist. Good Lord. As I've said before, "get a real job b/c nobody is interested in your half-baked opinions."

Here is a prime example of why I hate this fucker. I actually didn't have the stomach to read the whole thing so I jumped down to the comments where I was expecting to be even more pissed off from reading the usual "these people weren't intended to have kids anyway, they should stop playing god" type of bullshit. Well, much to my happy surprise the first comment said this (from "AJ"):

This is preposterous. People only "get" to the point of buying eggs when they've reached the very end of a long, painful and emotionally enervating process of infertility treatments. No woman or couple would opt for someone else's eggs to create a child, if they could use their own. When people select for certain characteristics in the eggs that they procure, they are attempting, as best as they can, to select for traits that are similar to what they would have expected their own genetic child to have had. It is possible that there may be inflated egos that inform that selection, yes, but the 40 year old chemist who has done three rounds of IUI, three rounds of IVF, suffered a couple of miscarriages, and is a hundred thousand dollars poorer for all her efforts, should not be faulted for seeking the gametes of a woman who is similarly brainy, blonde/brunette/redheaded, tall/slim/athletic/curvy, so that she can "get" a child as similar to her as possible.
Noone would choose someone else's eggs as a first option in trying to build their family. This articles, and articles like it, have little basis in reality.

Thank you AJ! I couldn't have said it better myself.

In fact, most of the comments are pretty decent and put Lord William (I'm stealing Digby's very fitting name for him) in his place, that is, he has no goddamn idea about what he is talking about.

Perhaps there is some collective education going on? Maybe people aren't all that bad...other than good-old Will.

Facebook sucks

2010-03-31T17:02:00.003-04:00

This blog is really a journal. I don't expect or care if anybody else reads it. Also, I'm hoping that someday I'll turn it into a screenplay and finally cash in on all the pain and suffering!!! So, it's probably best if nobody reads it so they don't steal our great and depressing stories. A guy can dream, right? :)

Ok, so what is new? Well, for one, facebook kind of sucks ass. My old girlfriend from high-school has reappeared out of the blue and found me on facebook. At first I thought "wow, she's still alive!" Then it became obvious why she had reappeared--so to speak. She was pregnant. She finally had something that she was proud of...something to say...some reason to reconnect with old friends. (At least that's what I suspect was her thought process...and coming from where I come from I think I can understand the feeling...it was very obvious in hindsight.) In a lot of ways, good for her. I'm happy for her. Things have not been particularly easy in her life so far and she deserves some good luck and happiness.

Of course, often stories like hers are the type that drive these fertility 'myths' b/c she told me that she was really surprised that she was pregnant "it was a shock" b/c she was told by the Dr (no doubt some total quack told her something that she wrongly interpreted) that she would never get pregnant. I'll bet dollars-to-donuts that the Dr told her she had endomytriosis and might have trouble getting pregnant and she interpreted that to mean she would NEVER get pregnant. Ultimately though, who cares. She has her miracle. So...her boyfriend accidentily got her pregnant. How sweet. I remember a million years ago when IM and I would get 'worried' from time to time when her period was a little late. Ha! Joke was on us b/c it just meant her cycles were all fucked up most likely...besides we were super careful. Good thing we were so careful, right?

This brings me back to facebook. Since old-girlfriend is my facebook-friend I get to see some updates about her pregnancy...some pictures blah blah blah...today I got to read how, although she is due in 4 weeks, she will probably deliver in 2. Fine. Good to hear. You can 'hide' people on facebook but I don't want her completely hidden. I also don't want to spoil her fun. I cannot, however, participate in her excitement....from a distance I hope and pray everything goes perfect...and she lives happily ever after.

Alright...I got nothing else today. I have the flu and am feeling pretty down and depressed. Such is life.

Ummm...what was I saying?

2010-03-26T12:33:00.003-04:00

Yeah, well....what's going on? In an attempt to not drop this whole blog/journal completely and let it disappear I thought I would try to say something.

The last post was Dec. 14th or something like that which is about 3.5 months ago.

Since then we have done the following:
- went to an adoption support group
- went to an adoption open house
- visited a lawyer and put him on retainer (is that the right terminology?)
- considered private adoption and enlisted our marketing guru friend to help--although this hasn't really gone anywhere as of yet. It's a lot of work and a little overwhelming to even get going. It's sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack.
- wrote up a "Meet IM and IF" letter to prospective biological mothers--that was a pretty emasculating and humiliating experience...
- considered domestic agency adoption and thought about all the issues surrounding trans-racial, mixed-racial, blah blah blah adoption. We're already a mixed race couple so, well, who gives a shit right?
- considered international adoption
- received a check for $25,000 from our IVF clinic for our shared risk program :) So I guess there is an upshot to failure, but I would trade that money any day....besides it just gets invested into adoption.

Our good friend and 'mirror' couple has recently announced their pregnancy as well.

Emotionally? I don't know. Wrecked. Distracted. Work has been helpfully distracting both IM and me but I think we are both itching to get things going again. It's just really amazing when other parts of your life creep into the infertility part. You realize how different, and mostly impossible, your decision making strategy is due to the infertility. For example, moving to a different state because of a job opportunity is now horribly complicated. I guess at least we are not, and won't be, in the middle of a IVF cycle which would certainly prohibit moving and even traveling. Anyway, I talk to my father from time to time on life advice and what-not and he, being such a planner, is always trying to advise towards planning for the future. Is he kidding? He knows our story. It is just too hard to understand I guess. We had plans. 6 years ago we had plans and children were a BIG part of those plans. Things change. IVF is very hard, but possible, to plan. Adoption is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to plan...impossible in the "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" type of questions. "Well, 5 years ago I didn't see myself here, so well, who fucking knows!?!?"

Well, that's about all I got right now...I'm feeling a bit numb about the whole thing. On the other hand I no longer really fantasize about IM being pregnant and us having a baby. I fantasize about our adopted baby--whoever he/she may be. I guess that is progress. It can just be pretty lonely out here. Not many people can understand how we feel and empathize in any meaningful way. That can be a very lonely feeling.

I'll take one miracle please...

2009-12-14T14:46:00.002-05:00

I honestly don't know why I am writing anything today. I have nothing to say that is different from what I've said before or is in any way constructive. I am just soooo depressed. Things seem completely insurmountable and horrible. I cannot snap out of it. IM is feeling the same.

We are moving on to the next step...obviously since we've failed at every single thing we've tried. Adoption. "Hey, you can always adopt!" "Hey, have you thought of adoption?" Yes and yes...I have heard of adoption before, like all other sentient human beings!!! and yes, in a way, one can always adopt. HOWEVER, it is entirely more non-trivial then just about anybody realizes. It is no surprise to me that some couples opt for yet another IVF cycle. At least that is a known...you know what it costs...how long it takes...what it entails....the emotions that will come with it. By now, we are pros at IVF cycles. Not that they are easy but we know what we are doing. But, what is the point of another? The writing is on the wall--it's been on the wall for a year. It's just never gonna work for us. I have just as much confidence in IM becoming pregnant naturally through a miracle or immaculate conception as I do in an IVF (natural or donor) cycle working. That as, I have almost zero confidence in both. I feel like I'm locked in a room and there is no way out. There are a few doors but they are locked and I don't seem to have any keys and, in fact, I'm not even sure if keys are what I would need to open them at all or even if they are actually real doors and not just mirages of doors. There are no windows and no way to communicate with anybody outside. The only way out of this room is via some sort of miracle. Where is our miracle?!?!
Without a miracle I don't see any way out of this place.

So...adoption? How's that sound? Well, our situation is slightly unique (only slightly) in that we are not a "typical" white couple or a typical black couple or a typical hispanic couple...ok...we're an interracial couple and finding a child that "matches" us is seems pretty much impossible without a miracle. (Of course, what does "match" me and is that a ridiculous concept to even think about? Probably.) International adoption has become completely absurd in that it takes nearly 2 years from the beginning to finally having a baby, and it is almost not even a baby since, at the youngest, it will be nearly 2 years old. Anyway, all of our concerns are surmountable I know. It is just a matter of thinking them through and tackling each of the so-called issues one at a time and most likely determining that they are not really issues at all.

After all, we've gone through this process before. First it was dealing with the prospect of seeing a Dr about fertility. Then it was actually getting tested--sperm test, ultrasound, blood test, etc. Then it was actual treatment--actually seeking out help to do something that is supposed to be done naturally...something that is supposed to be magical and wonderful. We didn't know it at the time but it was THEN, 5 years ago, that the dream died. It just wasn't obvious at that point. It seemed the dream was salvageable. (I don't mean to sound horrible and cynical and negative, I'm just begin realistic and pragmatic....my life, fertility-wise, is all too real.) Then it was the whole process of going from simple, relatively inexpensive treatments to the big daddy; IVF. Then it was donor eggs. Now it is adoption.

I'm just fucking exhausted. I need a miracle....oh I'm too realistic...I "want" a miracle but I "know" they don't exist. Please, can I have a miracle anyway?

Trying to keep my head up

2009-12-07T12:14:00.003-05:00

I am feeling so sorry for myself today. I've been on the verge of tears all day and my boss even asked me if I was OK. Which somehow made me feel worse and I almost broke down right there on the spot. I'd like to blame it on hormones but it's not. It's just this. This whole experience.

I found out two of my colleagues from my last place of employment (whom I still work with from time to time) are both pregnant. For one, it's her second. For the other, it's her first and she's only been married for about 6 months. And of course I am thanking my lucky stars that I don't work with them anymore. Because I know I could not have handled it one bit. I am a wreck at just the thought of them. The idea that this comes so easily to everybody else but me.

I spend some time on Friday night with an old friend who had a kid about 3 months ago. He knows our situation except for the donor component. He feels for us, I know he does. And yet he spent several hours talking to me about how his wife is depressed and feeling lonely, burdened with the new responsibility of being a mother, and how much work the baby is. Well boo hoo. It was a fine line because he obviously has this disconnect between talking about my situation and talking about his. I mean, he doesn't realize he's complaining. And realistically speaking, he's NOT. But of course, to me, he is complaining and it's almost unbearable at times. I finally told him I don't feel sorry for them. That was about it.

And I have had indications that another childhood friend is pregnant. If she's not, she will be soon. I know they are trying.

I think it's all just too much for me right now. I'm just so depressed. I wish I could go home and have a good cry. I need it.

Testing a new mantra

2009-12-02T13:13:00.003-05:00

Well, the cycle failed. The inevitable question is "now what?" Adoption? That's most likely since we've just about run out of reasonable medical options when you factor in that IM is totally exhausted and demoralized by treatment. Unfortunately, adoption is not a particularly easy road to travel either. Such is life. Anyway, something occurred to me while thinking about all this stuff and I wrote the following email to IM:

"You know...for some reason today I'm feeling like wishing and hoping for us to have a baby through IVF or some miracle is equivalent to wishing you were taller. You know what I mean? What's the point? We are what we are."

Perhaps that will be new mantra. We are what we are. Is that any good?

Of course it was...

2009-11-23T09:30:00.003-05:00

IM took a home-pregnancy test last night when we got home from our trip. Of course, it was negative. Of course it was. It seemed completely inevitable. After all, I actually went on the trip with her so I could administer her shots and all that jazz. $380 and 3 days off work so that I could give her a painful shot every morning while the embryo inside her most likely was already dead. The official pregnancy (beta) test is Tuesday but, really, what's the point? I know, really without any doubt, that miracles simply do not exist--I have never experienced one, so, what's the point of a pregnancy test on Tuesday.

Even having been through this many times before it is always devastating. I laid on the couch for about an hour and then went to the store to get beer and wine so that I could get drunk. Honestly. That lame, drink your sorrows away, type of drunk. The kind where the sorrows don't really go away at all.

IM keeps saying this is like some sort of cruel joke. We have sacrificed so much and compromised so much and given up so much and been through so much. Enough already.

This has been an impossibly hard year and I'm completely exhausted and beaten.

2009-11-21T11:25:00.002-05:00

Right now I'm sitting in a hotel room trying to work while IM is going to a conference at the hotel. You see, I came with her on this business trip so that I could give her shots in the mornings since we are still in the 2WW and she has to have delestrogen (every third day) and progesterone-in-oil (every day). So...about $300 to make her life a lot easier. She's not the type that can give herself shots. These are hard-core intermuscular shots with big needles, so I don't blame her. At first she thought maybe there would be a clinic close by she could go to and have them give the shot. Ugh. Considering the amount of $$$ already spent in this process, $300 is not too big a deal so I came with her. Luckily, my job allows this kind of thing. But it really does provide a good example of how much work it is and how inconvenient going through fertility treatment is.

We have a pregnancy test for Tues and IM will most likely take a home-test on Sunday when we get home.

I'm feeling really down about this cycle and really negative. I don't know why. It just feels pretty hopeless right now and it seems like it cannot possibly work. But...I don't know anything and there is obviously still a chance. The transfer went pretty close to perfect...no...it was perfect. The embryo thawed out almost perfectly with 95% cells intact and growing. That's all good news.

Anyway, the hotel is actually really nice, I've been running every morning, and I have been able to see some family that we have that lives here...so all in all it's not so bad.

Let's just hope IM is pregnant. Then all of this, and all the BS we have been through, will have been worth it.

Breathing...

2009-11-16T14:46:00.001-05:00

Waiting, waiting, waiting. To quote my mother-in-law "breathe innnnnn, breath oooouuuuttt". I wonder how our little Mr. Bubbles is doing? I suppose we will find out soon enough.

Embryo transferred

2009-11-11T15:01:00.005-05:00

Well the little guy thawed out just fine as it turns out. The doctor said we had 95% of the original cells which is great great great. So we made it thru the first hurdle. We were both fearful that it wouldn't thaw and this would all be in vain.

The transfer today was smooth, partly because of the dilation of my cervix last month before the cycle started. My RE was the one who did the transfer which was wonderful because she knows my crazy roller coaster of a cervix anyway. But it went smoothly.

So now we have the 2ww ahead of us. The clinic gave us a picture of our little embryo-- this is the first time they provided this. Our previous clinic used to give us a chance to see our embies under the microscope which was super cool. But today we got a picture which was exciting. We are calling the embie mr. bubbles for now. It may evolve. I wanted to call him mr. blob but that was just too ugly.

So now we wait. Intended D has already been doting on me and i love him for everything.

Wish us luck...

2009-11-11T07:44:00.003-05:00

Today's the day. We have the FET today--frozen embryo transfer. A lot of things have to go right today. The embryo has to survive the thawing process just like Austin Powers. I've been worried about this and full of anxiety for a few days now. We only have one embryo so really nothing bad can happen. So, wish us luck or say a prayer or whatever!

IM is got a bag of frozen peas on her butt right now and I have to go give her a shot. Lot's of fun around here!

Cycles, emotional that is....

2009-10-29T12:00:00.002-04:00

IM mentioned to me the other day that a couple we know (they are loooonnnngggg time friends of ours and nearly the same age among other similarities) are TTC. Trying To Conceive.

Riding my train to work this morning a thought popped into my head, for no good reason: If this cycle we are doing right now fails--and it certainly has a good chance of failing considering our previous record--and our friend gets pregnant, I don't know how I'm going to deal with it.

The thought literally made my heart sink in that anxious way. You know that feeling? That emotion that makes you want to simultaneously curl into the fetus position and run as fast as you can for the hills? That emotion that makes you want to "check out" of your life and start anew? That feeling that made Forest Gump start running? That's what I felt when this thought came creeping into my brain. To make matters worse and more complicated I am very unhappy, guilty, and frustrated that I feel this way regarding somebody we love having success. Not only success, but the realization of a dream most couples share. It is certainly our dream. Ah, but there's the rub, right?

I fucking hate this!

...our next step if this cycle doesn't work is relatively obvious. We are running out of options after all. Adoption...another donor cycle...another fresh cycle? Childfree is not in our future...we are not a childfree kind of couple (not that there's anything wrong with that...we're just not). Even though the next step is pretty well established it fills me with unhappiness and anxiety which is 99% due to just sheer fatigue. A normal human being simply cannot fail repeatedly at something they long for with such passion without long-lasting detrimental effects. Post-traumatic-stress-disorder? Seems about right.

How's that for melodramatic? What was my "mantra" again?

Officially started

2009-10-20T14:57:00.004-04:00

Last night I game IM a shot of delestrogen and the cycle is officially under way! It sucks that the tears she was crying had nothing to do with the shot physically hurting, although I'm sure it did. She has had hundreds of shots by now. It is beyond old at this point and starting shots again for another cycle just reminds us that we've been down this road before and it ended in failure. Anyway....there's no need to be depressed just yet...there's always plenty of time for that later...so here's hoping for a successful implantation in a few weeks!

Well...it has begun

2009-10-19T12:09:00.005-04:00

Today we went to the IF office to sign our waivers or whatever you wanna call it. I would prefer to just put my signature on file and mark my preferences once and for all. We've filled out these stupid forms about a dozen times and I'm just getting sick of it. Initial here..initial there...sign here. Fine. Do whatever you need to do to impregnate me wife! I'm okay with it!

Anyhoo, IM had blood work and an ultrasound. I'm sure everything is ok and depending on blood levels she'll get a shot, administered by yours truly, tonight to officially kick of the festivities. For a FET cycle IM has to take progesterone-in-oil and delestrogen (I think). They are both intramuscular shots and, hence, painful...and not very fun to give either. The progesterone-in-oil is the worst b/c it's a large dosage, hurts like hell, and the oil doesn't really break down well so IM will get knots and bruises....her bruises don't really show which is nice I guess but they still hurt. Let's just hope I don't hit a nerve (LITERALLY!) on accident. The whole point of the meds is to prepare her body to be pregnant since it's not a natural cycle and she won't ovulate so her body won't be ready. I'm sure we've blogged about the details before and I'm losing interest in these types of things anyway. I know way too much about a woman's cycle considering the fact that I'm not a medical doctor. Plus, I didn't become a Dr b/c I'm just not that interested in this stuff...so there! And, yet, I now know it anyway. Great. Still, though, the science behind ART is pretty amazing and fascinating.

Many things have to go "right" this cycle. IM's preparation via drugs hopefully goes well and she remains relatively healthy for the cycle. The embryo needs to survive the thawing process. Both embryos survived perfectly last time so hopefully this one will too...but you never know and it is a painful thought to consider that it might not make it. Pretty devastating. Plus, a bunch of unneeded drugs would've been taken. Then, the transfer has to go well. We've had potentially important issues with that since IM's pathway to the uterus is like a twisty path of death evidently...we've blogged about it before. So I'm hoping for the best and repeating the mantra of "Why not us?". It could work. Nothing says it can't and IM actually got pregnant last cycle...so it did work in a way. So this can work too. IM, of course, is taking the usual tactic of assuming it will not work since it hasn't after all this effort b/c she doesn't want to be disappointed when (if?...let's stay positive) it doesn't work. Whatever. At the end of the day our success or lack thereof for this cycle doesn't change depending on our fucking attitudes. The world is too cold and cruel for attitudes to matter. I know that as an incontrovertible fact through my personal experience. The "universe" doesn't fucking care about anybody one way or the other. Shit happens for random (but well established scientifically) reasons. It's not as if we don't have a baby yet b/c IM and I are not sufficiently positive and hopeful. I mean honestly. This isn't the fucking Secret. Oh wait...what was my mantra. "Why not us?" Ahh, there it is. "Why not us?" "Why not us?" "Why not us?" "Why not us?" ...

Stories seldom told....

2009-10-16T16:44:00.004-04:00

I meant to write about this quite a while ago but never got around to it. Since today I'm feeling quite lazy regarding this blog I figured I may as well say something in an attempt to jump start things a bit.

Emotionally I'm in that lame limbo...or purgatory is probably a better word...state where we are going to start all the meds here in a little bit for the next cycle. We have one frozen embryo left and are hoping to hell it works. Anyway...I don't want to write about how shitty I feel about everything infertility and how infertility feelings infect nearly everything else and start eating away at my ability to feel confident in other life areas and take pride and feel happy about my job and blah blah blah it goes on and on.

So...I thought I would give a Cliff's Notes version of a story. This kind of story is very seldom told because it's just too fucking terrible to repeat more than once or twice.

We have an infertile friend who is in somewhat the same situation as us. (By friend I suppose acquaintance is better but IF brings people together on a different level.) Her situation is easier than ours (in that they have not been at this as long as us) and harder than ours (her family situation is much more pressured and frustrating). Anyway, she and her husband decided to do a donor cycle. Of course, as documented on this blog, this decision is agonizing and long and hard in itself but they did it and chose a donor they were happy with. The did a cycle and everything worked splendidly. She got pregnant with twins! Of course, twins is not what you want because there is a higher chance of complications but...whatever...people have healthy twins all the time. Well, as shitty luck would have it they lost one of the twins quite early on....but late enough that they were able to hear two heartbeats...so this I'm sure was a devastating loss. Then...as luck again would have it...she lost the other. This time, however, was much further along. IM knows how far along (I can't remember) but it was far enough that she had to go under the knife, as it were, to take out the fetus. I suppose in a warped sense it could've been worse and she could've been asked to deliver a dead baby. I literally cannot imagine how they are dealing with this loss. So many compromises of dreams and compromises of entitlements--simple things 90% of people get automatically--are made before a person even gets to donors. Then a whole new set of compromises and grieving the loss of a whole other set of dreams kicks in. Then, if the cycle works, a sort of miracle occurs (honestly, the more I think about a successful donor cycle the more astonished I am with the....miracle of it all). To have that brutally taken away is something I wouldn't wish on Satan himself. There are no words to comfort them and there is nothing I or IM can possibly say. Not to mention the very real fear that something like that could happen to us.

Women that get pregnant through IVF or donor cycle IVF do not have normal pregnancies. Not that they are full of complications necessarily but the naive joy that 90% of women experience during a pregnancy is always rudely taken away from infertiles by fate and life. That's one of those hard things to learn personally and harder to explain to somebody else. It is also at the root of how a successful IVF cycle DOES NOT CURE INFERTILITY. It does make you a parent though and that's ultimately what we are all hoping for!

...update...

2009-10-05T08:46:00.004-04:00

One of the main points of this blog (to us at least) was to document this so-called journey of ours. So, in that spirit, here's an update.

The last cycle failed in a miscarriage. IM almost had to take some sort of miscarriage inducing drug to...well...what's the word...force a period and hope everything came out on it's own. Otherwise, a surgery (D&C I guess) would have been necessary. Everything, however, went fine and we didn't have to do anything besides let it happen on its own... and we are thankful for small blessings. After the period she went back on b.c.p.'s b/c the Doc wanted to take a look inside her uterus to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. This last Friday, IM had the procedure which is non-trivial to some extent since it requires anesthesia (a lot like an egg retrieval) and they put a scope up through the cervix into the uterus and look for polyps, fibroids, scarring, and anything else. She passed with flying colors! So, that's good....and bad in a way since we have no idea why she miscarried. I guess sometimes shit just happens and there's no explanation. Besides, had something been wrong she would've been looking at another surgery. The one bit of news is she evidently has some sort of polyp in her cervix which can't really be removed without risking real problems and it doesn't really affect anything anyway. What it does do though is it makes it hard to put a catheter up the cervix into the uterus for embryo transfers...which IM has always struggled with. The last couple times it has been a painful and frustrating exercise as the Dr is trying to insert this catheter up there again and again. Then the Dr has had to switch to a harder catheter which, as our luck would have it, has lower success rates...I guess it is more likely to damage the embryo on transfer. Then there is also the issue of IM's pain and cramping as the Dr tries to shove this catheter up her cervix....there is the potential that this cramping hurts the chances of the embryo implanting. Sooooo...because of this surgery, IM's cervix is dilated (from the surgery and will stay that way for a while up to the transfer hopefully) and the Dr mapped out the route through the cervix to the uterus in great detail. Apparently you go straight in and take a sharp 20 degree right turn! Whatever.

Well, with all of that done we have the green light to go ahead with our last embryo which is literally chilling out waiting to be hatched. The transfer is set for Nov 11. I'm trying to be positive and imagine it working but it's very hard since we've had so many repeat failures. The upshot with this whole endeavor is that if this doesn't work we get a boat load of money back since we are on a shared-risk plan (that will soften the disappointment a little bit I suppose). Also, that means the Dr is highly motivated for this to work too :)

...alright...I'm not in the mood for anything more.

Out of the archives...

2009-09-22T14:50:00.005-04:00

It's been a couple months since I posted or even looked at the blog. It seems like the hit counter is a lot higher than last I looked. So if anybody is reading this, I hope it's helping. Or means something to you. It's been really a couple rough months. The miscarriage happened in June. It's now September and my body is just barely recovering. Mentally I'm not sure I'd say I'm as well. Intended D and I have been fighting more than we probably have in the last 8 years of our marriage total. We are at a point where we both feel really helpless. "I feel impotent and out of control. Which I really, really hate."--- to quote Clueless. (would it be funnier if impotence were our problem? I dunno.)

I am not worried about our marriage per say. I'm more just worried about our mental health. We have finally reached that point where it feels like there are no answers. Having a donor cycle fail. Man. We just didn't see that possibility as a strong one. Donors are supposed to be the solution aren't they? That solution that we finally take the plunge and accept. The option we finally embrace as that one gift that comes with a huge compromise --- but a compromise that gives us so much that it's worth it.
And then when that fails, then what?...
Then we move on of course. But it's so painful. How many times do we have to compromise?

We have one more frozen embryo using donor eggs. One more. So now the questions start surfacing... Should we get a second opinion? (or more like a third, because this is our second serious IF clinic and we have had the same outcomes from both of them...)
So a third opinion would have to be from one of the miracle clinics... Cornell or Sher or one of the voodoo doctors who don't follow the protocols established by the mainstream docs but who seem to make occasional miracles happen. But are they really miracles?
And the more important question is: do we have the emotional stamina to actually track down the miracle solution? *sigh*

From the archives of my email I found an email that I consider a third, fourth and fifth opinion. We were the case study that was presented at our clinic's monthly case study. They all discuss the case, figure out as a group what's going wrong. This was from February 2008. Yes, a year and a half ago, when we started up with IVFs at our current clinic and had a failed cycle. It was already our 3rd IVF total. So the following is an email I sent to Intended D. Because we are using this blog as a record of sorts, I thought it would be a good idea to post it here so remember these details which I am prone to forget in the abyss of treatment cycles and protocols, conversations and phone calls that have occurred over the years...
---- Original message ----
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008
From: Intended Mommy
Subject: conversation with the doctor
To: intended D

So I spoke with the doctor for about 15 minutes.

The information from the cycle indicates to her that it goes back to my egg quality again. We had 27 mature eggs, and only 14 fertilized normally. There were another 7 that fertilized abnormally. She said that is an indication of egg quality, like what we talked about with (our first previous favorite RE).

Normally this is correlated with diminished eggreserve, but of course in this circumstance, I havelots of eggs, they are just abnormal. She had no explanation for this, the science hasn't come that far (although she didn't say it that way...)

She is going to present our case at their weekly case meeting, to get other feedback from other doctors. So that'll help, and she'll get back to me next Tuesday. The suggestion she made re: protocol is changing it to another protocol where you don't use lupron, but use another drug to maintain suppression of the ovulation. It's called an antagonist protocol if you want to look it up.

There is no data to suggest it is going to work. It's just another thing to try, to see if the embryos look any better.

She suggested if this next cycle doesn't work, she would be ready to recommend donor eggs, although she would be willing to work with us up to maybe 6 cycles if we wanted to. The arbitrary chances she gives us are 25% chance of IVF working. She has seen women in my situation, but it's not common. (The more common situation being diminished egg production...)

She doesn't recommend genetic testing because it requires removing a cell from the eggs at day 3 and then putting in blastocysts. It takes 2 days to assess the chromosomes. She doesn't think the embryos would be worth compromising because our embryos don't survive to day 5 anyway. NONE of the embryos grew AT ALL after day 3 this time around.

One thing she would have us try is a blood test checking OUR chromosomes -- checking the karyotype. If we come back with any mutations in our chromosomes, it might explain the poor quality of the embryos. It's UNLIKELY because we don't have any strange qualities that manifest. But it might indicate something that would at least tell us that we are not likely to create a health embryo at all..., so she is going to send us a lab slip to get it tested. It takes a month she said.

She doesn't think it's immunologic because that is typical for recurrent pregnancy failure more than just poor quality embryos. And she doesn't think it's the endo because again, all signs lead to poor embryo quality. Bottom line is there isn't much that can be done about poor embryo quality. (Unless we see a miracle doctor, of course) So for now we are going to wait until next week to see what comes out of the conference with the other REs.

(aren't you glad I took notes?)

---------------------------------------------

if anybody is wondering, the karyotyping came back normal, the immunologic testing I had after the miscarriage in June indicated an abnormality in the MTHFR but not an abnormality that explains anything. And of course here we are with donor embryos and we've still failed. What do we do now? Plan F was and still is adoption. We will love our child regardless of where the child comes from. I'm just tired.

At the movies...

2009-09-21T11:40:00.008-04:00

IM and I went to see Julie & Julia yesterday afternoon...matinee price, baby! It's certainly a good movie and that "phony-balony" Meryl Streep is amazing in everything she touches. So when you add Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci...and, hell, I'll even include Nora Ephrom...then you are guaranteed at least an enjoyable movie.

(one might consider the rest a "spoiler" so if you haven't seen the movie and can not accept any surprises being ruined, however slight, then stop reading)

There really interesting thing to IM and I is that there were a couple scenes pointing out Julia Child's apparent infertility (or to be fair her and her husband Paul's infertility...not like finding who to blame is even a worthwhile enterprise except for diagnosis and treatment). The first scene is really subtle and I wondered who else noticed (other than infertiles) where Julia and Paul are at the park and a woman pushing a stroller strolls by :) and there is just a pause...and Paul squeezes her hand a little bit more and she glances his way. The 2nd is when she reads a telegram announcing that her sister is pregnant. She reads it in Paul's presence and proceeds to break down in tears while assuring him that she is very happy for her. It kind of chokes me up just writing it. It was a very well done scene.

Anyway, another interesting thing is a few movie critics (notably salon.com) and film bloggers noticed the infertility part and mentioned it in their reviews. Of course, any asshole with an opinion can opinionate and the review at salon.com got some interesting ones...such as this one, this one, and this one. The first two are completely asinine and rolling infertility in with feminism...come on! There is a rule: don't talk about shit that you don't understand. It's very simple and yet so many people don't follow it. The third one though is a little more interesting. How do we know Julia Child was infertile...was she? According to her biographies she never had kids and thought it would have been nice to have had them. But, I think it's a stretch to say it was no big deal to her. How do we know what a super positive, private, woman of her generation thinks. We barely talk openly about infertility now and it's 2009 for god's sake.

I guess I'm just curious about Child. There is always that sense of the infertility "club" so to speak and learning of a member you were unaware of is always kind of fun. Is fun the right word? I suppose it's nice to have evidence that you are not alone and that someone as accomplished and famous as Julia Child dealt with the goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation too.

Oh...and evidently Julie Powell has PCOS....so she's in the club too. Too bad for her...but I'm happy she's open about it.

immunology testing

2009-08-16T18:49:00.003-04:00

I have not posted in a long time because I just feel totally overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused about the whole situation right now. Well I'm totally overwhelmed, frustrated and confused about a lot of things in my life right now but that's another story.

But because Intended D wants to use the blog to keep track of our path, I should post the latest events. The RE decided since we had the 2nd miscarriage that we should finally do immunological testing. Thank god she didn't have to use any deductive logic, because the little computer gave her a red flag when she typed in m/c #2... So much for independent thinking.

So the results are back. I've not mentioned this before, but our nurse is one of those people who cannot complete a full sentence and uses "you know..." to fill in blanks far more than a person should. She talks to me as if I've been through this shit before. Well I haven't...So she leaves a lot to be desired in the communication department. But my RE is out of town until the end of the week so the nurse had to give us the report.

The MTHFR tests show 2 mutations. From what the nurse says, they show that I don't absorb folic acid normally. So I am supposed to now start on Fogard to help with absorption.

Despite the mutations, my "fasting homocysteine" was normal (I didn't do this fasting, btw... does this matter?????) so this indicates that the miscarriage wasn't the result of a clotting issue.

Secondly, my RE wants me to get an anti-thrombin 3 panel done, so I just had the bloodwork for that done a couple days ago. So now we will await the results of that.

Finally, I haven't had a period in almost 8 weeks. So they tested my estradiol, progesterone, and a beta. Beta was obviously negative. The nurse told me that my system is "quiet" so now they want to put me on provera to get things started again. It'll cause a lining to build up, followed by shedding. When I asked her if this would result in normal cycles again, the nurse advised me to start on BCPs again when I'm done with the provera and resultant period.

But she DIDN'T answer my question...

Of course it makes sense to start on the BCPs because we're planning on a hysteroscopy next. But it is disturbing to me that this is treated so lackadaisically. Isn't this kind of a big deal to just NOT have a period for so long?

So I might start on the provera tonight. I'm a little reluctant about this whole fucking mess. I'm anxious to talk to the doctor about it all. My nurse is useless.

This feels like a bad joke....

2009-08-13T14:53:00.002-04:00

...so IM goes back into work after our 2 week vacation to find out that she will not be getting the job that she was promised months ago after all. Wow. Now she has 6 weeks to find something else....after turning down and not pursuing many other promising options of the last few months. I hope something better is around the corner but this year is really really really turning out to be quite lame. What's that phrase? "Fuck my life!"? Oh yeah, that's it.

Fuck our life.

Life goes on?...or does it?

2009-08-10T18:34:00.003-04:00

...two steps forward and one step back....

Well, yesterday was a big day. Two couples, one family and the other basically family, welcomed new healthy babies into the world. Congratulations to them (and us too I suppose since we will be interacting with these little ones eventually and sharing in the joy).

Why do I feel so sad?

Life goes on?

2009-08-07T16:30:00.003-04:00

I suppose life does actually go on and in that spirit...and in the spirit of keeping this blog moving along as well....I'm gonna blog about something pretty non-personal but interesting.

CNN.com has an article I stumbled across today with the title "Who's your daddy? A celebrity look-alike". Essentially, all it is about is a sperm bank in LA that tries to describe what the sperm donor looks like by comparing them to a celebrity that they resemble the closest. I think this is actually a great idea!

From the article:

"The goal was not to say you can have a baby that looks like Bob Saget," Brown said. "The goal was to say this donor happens to resemble this celebrity."

This is something I have thought a lot about actually...you tend to think a lot about a lot of stuff like this when you are going through this :( The same type of thing is also true of egg donation places where you are sometimes shown a few select pictures of the egg donor, sometimes only a baby picture of the egg donor, and sometimes nothing at all. The entrepreneur side of my personality was thinking of a egg donor agency (or whatever the preferred word would be) where the couple or woman meets with some of the staff and given some family photos. THEN, using most likely a combination of computer modeling and human intuition, a donor is chosen out of the egg donor database that will most likely provide the DNA that will produce a child that most resembles the family doing the choosing. Make sense? As we have blogged about before it is extremely difficult emotionally and technically to make a decision of an egg donor. Also there is the "issue" of knowing what the donor looked like...looking back years later at your child (hopefully...if it worked) and thinking "my child looks just like the donor and nothing like me!" My idea could take that away b/c you wouldn't really know what the donor looks like at all and yet hopefully the child would "fit" in looks-wise into the broader family, i.e., brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, etc. Anyhoo....I'm getting sidetracked and giving away one of my many great ideas :)

So, at any rate, I think the celebrity sperm donor look-alike thing is a great idea. But....this is also a quote from the article:

Bonnie Steinbock, professor of philosophy who specializes in bioethics at the University at Albany in New York, said it magnifies the superficiality in society. "There's something strange about a culture that has stratified rigid types of beauty where everyone looks alike. Now they're trying to create children through who the [actor] of the moment is."

Oh, come on! Get a real profession you hack! Bioethics? Do some real work! :)

Ultimately though this sums it up nicely:

Bioethicists are divided over the program. Sperm banks routinely allow clients to search based on ethnic background, hair color, eye color and skin tone. They offer extensive details such as donors' height, weight and educational background.

"There are legitimate reasons for this, so the child fits in with the already existing children in the family or so the child looks more like the social father," said Mark Rothstein, director of the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky. "Most people would consider that to be acceptable. ... If you're creating a little Keanu Reeves, then I have problems with that."

Firstly, "social father'? That's a new one! How about father! Why is it so fucking hard to call a father a father and a sperm donor a sperm donor???
Secondly, "bioethicists are divided"? Oh good, I thought there were "real" problems with the program :)
Thirdly, I have a bit of a problem with "then I have problems with that" quote. Oh, you do? Well, luckily, it's none of your fucking business what motivates a person.

Whatever, I say it's a great idea. It's just too bad that cnn.com and people with little to no experience in these sorts of matters insist on having opinions. What is it they call these types of opportunities? Teachable moments? Perhaps this could have been used to discuss the complications, emotions, and heartaches of being faced with choosing a sperm or egg donor? Oh, nevermind, why start now with responsible reasonable journalism.

Today's bloodwork appointment. Another egregious offense?

2009-07-09T09:40:00.002-04:00

So again another interesting exchange with staff at my RE’s office left me thinking that not enough training goes on for the support staff. If you read my post about the phlebotomist from hell, you know what I’m talking about. But she’s not support staff. She’s direct patient contact. So was today’s faux pas. She was the person who checks the patients out at the end of the visit, the person who you pay and who schedules the next appointment if necessary.

We were talking about MJ’s funeral, which is of course all over the news and my RE’s office has CNN streaming into the waiting area at all times, so it’s ALL MJ all the time. There was talk of the dermatologist who was his doctor, and apparently (according to the check-out woman) the sperm donor for his children. Don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, you heard it here first!!!

So the check out lady continues by saying that she doesn’t know if people are talking about it yet, but you know when they do, “it’ll be all about how this guy’s the kids’ dad, not MJ”...

As I am sitting here writing this, I believe it sounds like perhaps she was saying “other people” will be saying it’s the doctor’s kids... As if she knows proper donor lingo and that it’s NOT the doctor’s kids, it’s MJ’s kids. BUT believe me. That’s not what she was saying. She was referring to MJ’s kids as the dermatologist’s children.
Oy.
I was a little stunned and wondered how far to take it. I didn’t have it in me to pursue. I just left the office with my head spinning. I suspect they already see me as—well who knows how they see me. The waiting room was empty, no other patients in there but me. But was it really up to me to have this conversation with them? I believe my complaints are now going to come in the form of complaining to the doctor, or perhaps writing a letter to the clinic. Listing their egregious offenses. Can’t decided if I’m hypersensitive. But ultimately I believe if there is one place that hypersensitivity needs to be acknowledged and allowed, it’s in an infertile woman’s safe place. Don’t you think?
So now we wait for the final (hopefully) blood draw results. Never hoped for a zero before. strange... isn't it?

Recovering ... or trying to.

2009-07-07T11:06:00.001-04:00

Ugh where to begin? Well first of all, my last beta was at 11. So I’m almost there. I am scheduled again in a couple days, and they are hoping to have it be 0 again. So it’s been almost 3 weeks and here we are. Amazing how long it takes for the beta to drop.
Also, we got the results from the blob back. So the doctor called me to talk about the “next step”. She called me several days ago to tell me that the blob didn’t show any “product of conception” in it so there was nothing to assess for karyotyping. But the testing may not have shown any ‘product’ simply because it was still so early.

So now, since I’m up to 2 miscarriages, I officially qualify for testing for clotting issues. It’s funny. Before we embarked on the donor cycles, I asked her what else could be done, what else could be tested, etc... at that time we were told “nothing else”. But add one more miscarriage to the list, and suddenly it has a red-flag next to it saying “test for x,y,z...” do these REs not know how to think on their own? Are they down to such an algorithm that they are not allowed to think outside of the box and say “well, this patient has only had 1 miscarriage but 5 failed cycles and she’s only 33.. blah blah blah... so perhaps we should consider a, b, or c. But no, only when a donor cycle fails TWICE that she decides something more should be done. Suddenly it's a "trend"...It’s so fucked up.

So now once my beta hits 0, I get to have some bloodwork done to test for thrombophilia (I think?)... She says everything else has been done but that. Also, she mentioned perhaps doing another sonohystogram to check my uterus and do another mock embryo transfer...I asked about whether it’s worthwhile to check my uterus for other problems, and then the discussion of a hysteroscopy came up. The benefits of a hysteroscopy is that it’s more sensitive (obviously since there is actually a scope looking at the inside of the uterus!) than a sonohystogram. So we discussed this, and at first I was more than a little wary of having another procedure. The last time I had a hysteroscopy it turned into a laparoscopy because he couldn’t get through my cervix or had some trouble... so he had to cut into my belly. They fill you full of gas, and it’s pretty painful. It’s a tough recovery for the first couple days, I thought I was going to die from the stabbing pain!!!

But apparently they would do it right in the office, under twilight anesthesia, and there is no risk of doing a lap because they don’t have the facilities for it. She felt pretty confident she could navigate my cervix again, and not puncture anything (yikes!)... And the best part is that through the course of the procedure, she would dilate my cervix. So the next embryo transfer might not be so heinous. I also asked her why the last 2 transfers have been so difficult.. what could have changed in my cervix to cause it to be so closed up? Of course we have no answers for that.

So as soon as I get my bloodwork back with a 0 beta, I can get the clotting testing started. That will take a couple weeks. In the mean time, with my next period, I can start on BCPs (what’s the fucking point of that? As if my body is actually going to get pregnant.. I mean – to quote Gob Bluth- “C’mon!”)... While on BCPs they can do the procedure, and then do the FET the month after that since I’ll be on the pill already...

Anyway, that’s a possible next step before we move on to the final embryo. I am not really in any hurry to do this. I am not in any hurry to do anything. My body is still in a state of flux, and although I’m not spotting or anything, I can tell things aren’t normal. I need a few months to just recover. My butt is still painful and numb from the IM shots, my brain is still jelly and my heart is still broken.

It’s so painful to think about, I think I am just trying to move one day at a time. I am in a mode of feeling and believing that there is nothing to be gained from allowing myself to hurt too much. This was such a terrible experience, I just want to get past it and move forward. Intended D subconsciously (and sometimes not so subconsciously) blames me for being so negative. As if I am the reason it didn’t work. We are definitely a yin and yang – you have to remember this is the same man who, for the first 2 years of ttc, kept deciding our problem wasn’t infertility, but that it must be random that EVERYBODY else out there gets pregnant in the first few months, the first YEAR at the most...and that we should just wait it out...
and of course his reply would be that I was ready to adopt after the first 6 months of failure. Yes, we are opposites.

At this point, I’m being practical. I am the type who doesn’t go back for more pain. It’s not like I was negative during the cycle. It’s that at the end of the day, my eyes are on the goal of having a little one in our home.

I believe that when we get to that point, we’ll be OK. It’s like when we had our brief encounter with a pregnancy and neither Intended D nor I were feeling remorse, regret, or disappointment over having used donor eggs. Instead it was elation and excitement and relief. My having agreed to use donors was a leap of faith that when it’s all said and done, we’d be happy. That’s what everybody always told us. So what choice did I have but to believe those who came before me? Well isn’t this the same thing? Adoption was not our first choice, nor was donors. But at the end of the day, what is our goal?
Anyway, I’m worried that I am not dealing with things that well but I don’t know how else to handle it. Thinking about my friends who are having children, either naturally or through their own miracles, has just been a reminder of our failure. Even my IF friends are mostly having children now. I am the last woman standing. I think it’s tough because nobody we know has done the adoption route yet. So it just feels so strange. I can’t bear to think about it all or I just want to break down and cry.

I'm losing it...

2009-07-06T13:35:00.002-04:00

I'm having a really hard time. I just finished reading Harry Potter (book 6) in preparation for the movie :) and was struck by a passage towards the end (no spoilers so don't worry) between Dumbledore and Harry. Harry was worried about the similarities between himself and he-who-must-not-be-named considering their biographies, among other things, are similar. Dumbledore remarked that a main difference is that Harry had not allowed himself to be consumed and taken over by hate and that, considering the life he had lived and all he had been through, was quite remarkable. This passage from a children's book struck me because I feel that I am falling victim to hate similar to Voldemort!

I can't get over this miscarriage and the unfairness and unjustness of it all. I have no hope left, no love. It is all just too unfair. We deserve more than this and I can't seem to snap out of it. I understand that, in the grand scheme, infertility is something that can be "dealt" with--so to speak, i.e., it's not HIV, it's not cancer, it's not life threatening. I get all of that and more, it's just I can't stop feeling sorry for myself. It's terrible. As I've blogged about before we have friends that are expecting babies or have had them very recently and I absolutely cannot be happy for them. I just can't right now and it makes me feel completely horrible! I had a flash of panic thinking about the "what if" of my brother and his wife getting pregnant and having another baby (the third). I panicked because I don't know how I would react. The mere thought of it happening makes me sick. This is what infertility can do to a person. The inconveniences, the intrusions, the procedures, the money, the shattered hopes and dreams are all things I've been dealing with, in my opinion, rather well. But this new one...this loss of love and ability to be happy for others and this self-centered pathetic feeling of sorrow for myself, I cannot shake and I feel terrible. I am continually challenging the powers that be (but probably aren't) to make things right. This is too unfair and unjust to stand. IM and I have sacrificed soooo much...tooo much...to have a little success. IVF with donor eggs is not a miracle (although it is if you think hard about it). I'm not asking for a miracle here....I'm just asking for a chance to be able to fulfill a shadow of our dream when we got married: to have kids and a family.

Another thing I've had the wonderful opportunity to learn through this infertility journey is how couples that have experienced a tragedy break up. Whenever I heard of these couples that lost a child to a murder or accident and then eventually got divorced I was always amazed at how something that should have brought them together actually pushed them apart. I get that now. It has nothing to do with a lack of love between each other or of blaming the other for the tragedy (that's what I used to think) or whatever. Instead, I think it is a matter of having no other way to move on. It's just very difficult to move on WITH that person. I'm not suggesting that IM and I are having troubles...we're not. But I can understand the feeling. When IM and I got married we always always always imagined having a family. It was a given and something both of us were looking forward to when the time was right. To have the dream severely altered or taken away entirely is a pretty tough thing to confront and "moving on" is difficult. To start a family was "our" dream...together...it makes no sense without the other.

Distractions and unintentional insensitivity

2009-07-03T17:15:00.004-04:00

This may not deserve a post in itself but I figured "why not?"

Last year, a few coworkers and I had what we would call a good year. This year hasn't been nearly as successful for the both of us. While discussing this in a matter of fact sort of way and trying to think of excuses for ourselves my friend said very jokingly "Jimbo (not his real name) and I have brand new little babies at home, what's your excuse?" Hahaha :( I had no response to give him but what I was thinking was "Well, I suppose my excuse would be continued frustration of infertility, failed treatments, loss of financial stability directly caused by infertility, and a miscarriage--which happens to be happening right now! Not only babies are a distraction you know, a lack of baby is a pretty big distraction too."

He was joking and doesn't really know our situation (especially the miscarriage) so...whatever. In truth, if there was a time to let this particular friend know about the pain we are going through right now that probably would've been a good time but, oh well, the moment passed. The last thing I'm in the mood for lately is reliving it all and trying to explain the situation.

But...it got me thinking a lot about how much of a distraction infertility can be. It's so funny because I catch myself thinking very often that if only we could be successful and IM was either pregnant or we had a little baby I could settle down and really dedicate myself to and, mostly, CONCENTRATE on work. Of course, that sounds crazy to a person with a baby because kids are a huge distraction and a LOT of work. Be that as it may, the effects of infertility on the rest of your life is very easy to underestimate because it sits there hidden and isn't obvious to outsiders or even yourself sometimes. It's similar to a chronic debilitating illness in that way. It's just so frustrating because so many other things take a back seat to this desire to have a baby and start a family--so many other things just seem trivial and it's hard to motivate myself to do things whose outcomes are so far down my list of desires. Make sense? A baby is by far the most important thing to me right now and second place is so far down the list it's like everything else is just tied for second since I have almost no interest in them. A success at work? A dream job (promotion)? Yeah, that'd be nice and I definitely want those things and am striving for them. But I'd trade them all for a baby. No question.

Today's experience: insensitive phlebotomist and "products of conception"

2009-06-24T20:47:00.003-04:00

I had to get my beta checked today to make sure that it is dropping the way it should. It trips me out to think that I am still rockin' a positive beta. Technically I am still pregnant. I should be taking lots of HPTs! They'd all be positive, as I've always dreamed. It's just not fair. Beta was 274 so it is definitely dropping.

Today I experienced an insensitive staff person talking about things she shouldn't be talking about. It's interesting how sensitive these people must be.... and how well trained they have to be in order to be good at what they do.

There is a very well calculated reason why pregnant women and children are not allowed at RE offices. We infertiles are very sensitive to seeing any sign of pregnancy and children. Particularly in our "safe" zone: the RE office. Doctors don't even advertise signs of their own kids in these offices if they know what's good for them.

Anyway, I digress...The girl drawing my blood today was a new one. She was talking to the other phlebotomists while drawing my blood, as if I wasn't there which is the first no-no of patient care...

She asked her co-workers if they had seen some show on TV last night.

She said "so and so is pregnant! Can you believe that?... blah blah blah... and she had a couple miscarriages I think..." blah blah blah. The other girls were just kind of quiet and not really talking too much. I was getting more and more emotional -- first with the conversation of somebody being pregnant can be enough on a bad day. When the conversation turned to miscarriages it was just too much for me. I started welling up with tears and my heart was pounding. I was livid because you DO NOT talk about this kind of thing in a IF clinic.

So I said very harshly : "You need to think about what you are talking about around patients."

She really quickly looked up at me and apologized and was silent for the remainder. The other girls turned around, and looked totally embarrassed. It's like they had forgotten I was there or something!!!

I was furious, I was almost crying. That's just not OK to talk about. Too much sensitivity around the subject. I almost said "You want to talk about miscarriages? I'm having one right now. What should we talk about?"

Part deux: product of conception

I ended up asking my nurse about bringing in the blob I gave birth to yesterday. I want to do whatever testing can be done on it to ascertain some answers. As i mentioned yesterday, i stored it in a tupperware container. They said for me to bring it in today rather than waiting until tomorrow. It needs to get into the right solution ASAP or something technical like that. ( i wasn't sure if it should have been refrigerated or something... how does this stuff work!?)

Anyway, the nurse said they will do a karyotyping if they can, and a pathology report to identify if there is indeed a "product of conception" in the blob. PRODUCT OF CONCEPTION? Does that mean fetus? Does that mean ... placenta? What does that mean exactly? It's such a protective term to keep us from having to say yucky words and have yucky thoughts. I found it absolutely fascinating that that's the lingo they use.

I don't resent it necessarily. Mostly I just found it interesting.

So I had to go home and pick up the blob and take it to the clinic. It was a strange experience handing over this tupperware container of the blob for somebody to analyze. What a strange job that must be! It crossed my mind after I left the clinic that I should have asked for the tupperware container back. I would have loved to see the look on their faces! It makes me giggle to think about. I don't think I could have said it with a straight face though.

the ultimate in self-loathing...

2009-06-23T19:34:00.002-04:00

Well ladies and gents, wonderful intended D gives me a wee bit of grief from time to time for not being a dedicated blogger. So since he's otherwise indisposed traveling overseas, here I am to share my tale of woe.

The absolute worst offense to a woman who has to give up on her attempt at a pregnancy is the pain that comes with a miscarriage. It is excruciating. It is beyond words. It is an offense to the psyche that transcends all emotional pain because it is a concurrent pain in the abdomen.

I have had 2 miscarriages in my life now. I don't know if I should be proud of that. One seemed like a fluke. It was so long ago. Here I am able to officially claim two now. My pain today was so bad, despite more Advil than was probably safe, that I felt that I was going to pass out. That kind of pain that gives one nausea. I have rarely experienced it but today was a day to remember. And here I was crying on the phone to intended D as he is boarding a plane and will be out of reach for who knows how long until he makes it to his destination. What a loser I am for worrying him like this.

The grossest part is some of what came out is now in a tupperware container. Should I take it to the doctor tomorrow? I'm not sure what the point of that would be. It's not like we need to test is whether we have chromosomal issues. This is a donor. We have one more embryo left. And I don't see us using this donor again because what's the point? (what's the point of anything, really...) Does anything need to be tested? I plan to keep it in the tupperware for a while longer. Maybe I'll do surgery on it myself and look for the critter that might be somewhere in there the size of a pin head. Congratulations to me!

If you read Intended D's last post, you'll see that he expresses himself in more optimistic hues than I do. Although the beauty in his post didn't go unnoticed even in my current state of mind. Parenting is an act that is more than giving birth or having a genetic tie. What he saw on the train was priceless and I'm so glad it meant something to him. I have married an amazing man whom I would not trade for all the chocolate in the world!

Mothers and fathers...

2009-06-22T14:49:00.003-04:00

With infertility a person has to really evaluate what it means to be a mother or a father. Is it having a genetic connection to offspring? Is it parenting? Is it the constant worrying that comes with these little people that you are responsible for? I suppose it's all of those things but the first one I listed--genetic connection--is way down the list usually. Not just for infertile people but for most people I think. It's like the old saying "any asshole can be a father but it takes a real man to be a dad" or a parent or whatever. You get the idea.

Anyhoo, I'm riding the Metro today and I see a lady in her mid-forties, white, grayish hair...with two little girls about 8 or 9 years old. The girls are black--as in african american--with corn-rows. As they get off they both took their mother's hand and walked away (at least I assume she was their mother) and I thought that there's the true definition of a mother...that's what it is all about. Being a parent.

Whatever. The point is quite obvious, but being pregnant and giving birth does not make you a mother. Maybe a "by definition" mother but certainly not a parent. Parenthood is something that you work for and earn. Luckily, for IM and I--as if we had a choice in the matter, we want to be parents and someday we will be parents. I wonder who the lucky kids will be! :)

Reconnecting?

2009-06-20T16:08:00.002-04:00

One of the worst things about dealing with infertility is lost or paused or strained relationships. There have been friends in our past that have started families or even infertile friends that have been successful and moved on. Losing those friendships..due to their success...brings on a lot of guilt (at least for me). I wonder why I am not strong enough to maintain certain friendships but it can be very hard. Obviously, friendships can be strained when one side starts a family and the other doesn't. These "trivial" differences can be simply not wanting/caring about preschool or dance recitals or blah blah blah. It's hard to relate to those things when you are not dealing with them and so, for that reason, relationships can--sort of--naturally move on.

Mostly, what I am speaking can be exemplified by a few friends we have. One just had a baby and another is currently pregnant. (we've "lost" many friends like this) It's just very hard to maintain strong, or rather close, friendships with people who are achieving what we so desperately want. I'm not excusing us. We could be stronger. But...we're not. And, also, it's not as if these people are less of friends. The friendships, especially the ones that make us feel the worst, are such that we will always maintain deep friendships...family-like friendships..at least I hope these friendships will remain (hopefully the bridges are still there and not completely burned). But, maintaining day-to-day contact is very trying. Of course, the other side of the equation is they can often not understand our position. I don't blame them.

The interesting thing is that while IM was officially pregnant for that happy, fun, and exciting week we started having conversations regarding reconnecting with lost and neglected friendships. Hoping that this was our chance to get back in touch and hope that all was not lost. Then...then the beta hcg started to grow slowly, eventually stopped, and now is decreasing indicating a miscarriage. So, we're not having a baby after all. All of that talk of reconnecting neglected friendships vanished in a flash. I actually feel like cutting myself off even further...even from family. My brother's family, has been exempt from my feelings in this regard, for a long time but my resentment over infertility is starting to creep into that relationship too. I am not being a very good Uncle...that's for sure. Or a good brother. It's as if with every failure I (or we) sink deeper and deeper and it is harder and harder to see the outside world. Old friends seem farther away and our motivation to reach out becomes less and less.

The miscarriage is still very fresh and so is the wound so...hopefully...I will start feeling better and normalizing all of this eventually.

Miracles don't exist

2009-06-17T13:55:00.004-04:00

IM had another hcg beta today and an ultrasound. The ultrasound didn't show much (the Dr thought there might have been something in the uterus but it was only a tiny blip). Then we got our hcg beta number back and it was 647. That's a very slight drop from the last number of 649. Here's the table and plot:

Here are the numbers:
date beta days-post-ovulation
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20
6/12/2009 - 398 - 22
6/15/2009 - 649 - 25
6/17/2009 - 647 - 27

The embryo (or whatever you call it at this stage) has apparently stopped growing and I guess that's the end of that. No miracles for us. This was not an entirely unexpected result considering how things have been going but IM is feeling really terrible. I'm still in the analytical stage and feeling emotionally numb about.

The good news, if there is any, at this stage is that the Dr does NOT think it was(is) an ectopic pregnancy since IM has not had any pain in one side or the other and nothing could be seen on the ultrasound. So IM stops taking meds today and the pregnancy will hopefully resolve itself over the next 4-5 days. ...which is not a pleasant experience to say the least but it is certainly better than having to induce it happening by taking methotrexate--that drug has a few nasty side effects one of which is you're not supposed to drink alcohol just at the time you need it most.

...I've got nothing left to write at this point....

It looks like its over...

2009-06-15T15:59:00.011-04:00

We got the hcg beta number back. 649. That's well below what we had hoped. As you can see from the new plot that point is well below the 66% threshold point. In fact, the two-day growth rate over the three days (from 398 to 649) was 47%. That's the slowest yet. So, that coupled with the fact that there was nothing on the ultrasound pretty much sums it all up and it's pretty much all over now.

Here are the numbers:
date beta days-post-ovulation
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20
6/12/2009 - 398 - 22
6/15/2009 - 649 - 25

Now the question is: what's going on? Is (was) the pregnancy ectopic? What's up? The ultrasound didn't show anything at all...including no irregularities. So what they do next--assuming the beta continues to drop, grow this slowly, or stay the same--is IM will get a shot of methotrexate which is (to quote wiki) "commonly used (generally in combination with misoprostol) to terminate early pregnancies (i.e. as an abortifacient). It is also used to treat ectopic pregnancies. In the case of early missed miscarriage (particularly a blighted ovum), in which fetal demise has occurred but the body has not expelled the fetus, methotrexate may be used to help the body begin the miscarriage process." Lovely. I don't know what happens after that, i.e., does the embryo expel itself from the uterus. If not, a D&C will probably have to be done. The other crappy thing is IM goes back Wednesday for blood work and possibly a methotrexate injection, then again on Sunday for blood work and maybe ultrasound, then again on Wednesday for blood work and ultrasound, etc.

To make this just terrible, I go out of town on Thursday through Sunday and then I leave again on Tuesday and don't return until the following Monday. So I will be gone throughout almost all of this. That's such a painful thought. IM should not have to do this alone but I can't get out of these trips I don't think.

I suppose also that my Mom will also want to know how things are going. That conversation will not be fun at all. She likes to pray for things...and to be fair there really isn't much else she can do...but so far, along this infertility journey of ours, prayer has absolutely done NOTHING. But, neither has anything else. If I could just sink into a puddle of mush right here on my office floor I would.

When, if ever, is it going to be our time? When? We've had enough pain, enough disappointment. Enough of it all. Enough experience. Enough growth. Enough. We've learned all that we're going to learn. We've learned about our relationship. We've learned about ourselves and how we see parenting and genetics and the whole nine-yards. Enough. We've learned enough. Considering we've already learned how to have a miscarriage I'm not quite sure why we're being forced to learn this one again! I guess this time we're learning how to have an abortion--in a way at least. This is just a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation! It's our turn. When will it be our turn? I'm just so tired of being disappointed. I'm right back to where I was a few months ago: I can't imagine actually being successful in this. I just can't imagine it.

Memories

2009-06-15T10:52:00.002-04:00

Today IM had a blood draw (we should get back the beta hcg number later today) and an ultrasound. According to my math the beta is most certainly below 1000 and you're not expected to see anything on an ultrasound if the beta is below 1000. Of course, considering that we are 5.5 weeks along (or so) it would be better if the number was higher and thus it would be nice to see a nice old gestational sac right smack in the uterus doing it's thing. Well, needless to say, the ultrasound showed nothing. Once again we have not experienced a miracle. A miraculous occurance where suddenly the embryo starts growing like a champ and we end up being in that 15% of normal pregnancies with initially low beta numbers. The ultrasound didn't show anything else abnormal either...for whatever that's worth. So, we'll see what the number is today and go from there. Most likely we'll have another ultrasound on Wednesday where the beta will be either well above 1000 or we're screwed...in which case answers will be a little easier to come by.

I'm sooooo down right now. I just don't care about anything right now. I have lots of work to do and an upcoming work trip to Italy (Tuscany even) which one would think I would be looking forward to. Right now, I'd rather not go. This has got me thinking about memories and the whole "it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved" mantras. The weird thing to me is that present experiences severely shape your memories of the past. IM and I spent this last weekend (the one before this one) in NYC with family having just moved past a bunch of positive hpt's and a positive beta hcg blood test. We were kicking around the idea of calling IM pregnant, getting used it a bit, we told our parents the good news (all while remaining cautiously optimistic...we've been burned before). What's weird is I can't recall that good feeling anymore. It's gone. The only feeling I can remember is how I feel right now. You know, that feeling that comes along with "who are we kidding, good things don't happen to us". It has truly been a terrible year. It is hardly believable to be honest...all the things that have or have not happened this year. I was starting to think that odds alone would garantee a pregnancy out of this donor-egg IVF cycle we are doing. How could it not? How is it possible to have continual bad luck and no success. I don't want to complain too badly. Things suck all around to all people and it's not like everything has been terrible---baring one important exception. However, we have just had no success. Everything we've tried to do or wanted to happen or hoped would happen hasn't.

I don't know...I'm off track. Mostly I just was contemplating how interesting it is to be unable to recall the happiness that I was feeling only a week ago.

Weird Dream

2009-06-14T11:27:00.002-04:00

Last night I had a weird dream. I was on a resort like island (think Bahamas) with people I know but I can't say who. The island was filled with other youngish people vacationing. Now, everybody had either a lizard or a snake and these little reptiles served a purpose for what I can't remember. Anyhoo, as it progressed, I'm driving my car back from somewhere and I had been keeping my lizard in my pocket. I was worried that he was going to die so I decided to hold him in my hand and he kept biting me. Not painfully but still. Then I was also carrying a snake in my other hand (for somebody else...it was somebody else's snake and I was returning it or something) and it had wrapped around my hand and was biting me too. Eventually, the snake became too much and I stopped the car at a little creek and thought "screw this, I'm throwing this snake back in the water...it's just not worth the pain". Now I'm back in the car on my way and my lizard jumped out of my hand and started running around the roof of my car and I thought "oh well, no big deal, I'll get him later." Then it was morning.

So? Wtf was that all about?

New numbers

2009-06-12T17:24:00.003-04:00

IM had her hcg beta tested again on Friday and we were expecting the worst. It came back...well...sort of in the middle. 398. So, we're calling the little critter, the 5-day blast that's hopefully still there trying his best to grow "398". We're trying not to get too attached so...well...isn't it obvious why?

So, here's are numbers now:
date beta days-post-ovulation?
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20
6/12/2009 - 398 - 22

In case you're keeping score that is a growth rate of about 62%. That's slightly lower than the "magical" 66% that you commonly hear and read. But....it's higher than our last growth (from 159 to 246) which was 55%. Our first growth rate (between 70 and 159) was 73%. I'm not sure what to make of it all. I made a plot where I added our new point above. So, our little "398" is still hanging in there...but only barely. We have another beta test on Monday and we will hopefully see a number of over 700 or 750--something above 800 would be great.

If you're interested in a couple of hcg calculators out on the internet here's a couple here and here and here.

Ok...gotta go. We have some friends coming over for an Arrested Devolopment marathon!

(sigh)

2009-06-10T23:28:00.000-04:00

I just argued with IM about our cycle. What did we argue about? Well...we argued about whether this cycle was doomed. I took the position that we'll have to wait and see but it doesn't look good. She took the position of doom until I finally admitted that yes, the cycle was certainly going to fail and would be a miscarriage. The numbers bear this out. Fuck this! This is what infertility does to you. It reduces you to arguing about whether the cycle is going to fail after all...after all of this positive feeling and happiness.

Oh yeah, and I still have to give IM her shots. Two tonight! Delestrogen and PIO! What fun.

.....I am just fucking miserable right now.

Numbers: or "Never tell me the odds!"

2009-06-10T16:35:00.003-04:00

IM had her 3rd hcg beta test today and....(drumroll!!!!!)...246. Hmmm. Lame. Here's where we are:
date beta days-post-ovulation?
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20

Ok, days-post-ovulation is a bit tricky b/c IM didn't actually ovulate. But, we transferred a 5 day blastocyst on the 26th of May which works out to making today 15 days post 5 day transfer, which I believe, the IVFers around the internet call 15dp5dt. They love acronyms! Now essentially you add these numbers to get 20 days-post-ovulation. At least I think that's how it works :) Anyway, where was I?

Evidently, it is best for a viable pregnancy if the beta doubles every 2 days, or doubles every 48 hours, or sometimes you read doubles every 48 to 72 hours. Another number you read/hear is 66%, in that you want the beta to grow by 66% every 48 hours. Considering 48/72 = 66% that must be where the number comes from. What it really means is that if your beta is on the slow end of the spectrum and doubling every 72 hours it will be growing by 66% every 48 hours. Make sense? Well, if you crunch our numbers a bit you see that between our test on the 8th and the one today (the 10th) the beta grew by 57%. Of course, like everything in IVF there is some controversy about how solid a number 66% is and whether a person should start feeling discouraged yet (why do I feel discouraged then?). In that vain, you read numbers like 50% and 60%. Well, fine, whatever. It still doesn't change the price of oil in Egypt...as they say. (Do they even say that?) Being the nerd that I am I made a plot.

So here where are back again, 360 degrees in a full circle. A betting man would be betting against us....again. I want to cry, scream, and just sink away into nothing and disappear. And to think....I was feeling really confident this morning until we got our results. It's just amazing how emotionally labile I am these days. (Labile...that's IM's favorite word.) I'm high and low and all over the place. I'm feeling soooo discouraged right now and this morning I was feeling confident that if I wasn't quite a father yet I would be one soon. How's that for pathetic? Why will this not happen for us? We've compromised so many of our dreams so far that it is just nearly unacceptable for this not to work. I would say I'm ready to give up...but I'm not. I don't know what I am. Plus, this cycle we are in right now and the fact that IM is in fact pregnant right now...as I write...well...let me just say it's still a possibility that this will work and we will finally get our dream. Our next number is very crucial in my mind. The beta needs to hang on to the lower end of these growth curves or I think we're fucked and all I can contemplate right now is: what then?

...I'm trying really hard to channel Han Solo right now when he admonishes C3PO to "never tell me the odds!"

Expectations...

2009-06-09T11:24:00.002-04:00

I've always been a big believer in the idea that much unhappiness can be traced to having expectations that are not warranted or unrealistic. Unrealistic expectations are obviously dangerous but even unwarranted or ignorant ones are equally dangerous. For example.....

...quick recap....IM took some home-pregnancy-tests and all were positive....then on Friday she had a blood test and a positive beta with a number of 70....the nurse says "well, we usually like to see over 100" but then she realizes that our original beta was supposed to be yesterday, i.e., 3 days after the one IM took...so the nurse renormalizes and says it's actually looking good....so on Sunday night IM takes another h.p.t. and gets a positive (that was a pretty obvious result considering she had a positive beta two days earlier but she likes to see a positive h.p.t result!)...so that brings us to yesterday....

Yesterday was supposed to be the original blood test and they like to see a number above 100. Well, IM's number yesterday was 159! Good news! Things are growing and everything is moving in a positive direction. However, two weirdish things happened:
(1) we got playing the expectation game this weekend. We were feeling really positive and happy about our situation. We told both of our parents the news (we know...it's early...but why not share happy news) and were allowing ourselves to feel good. Then we start talking about the nuts and bolts of betas. How the beta is supposed to double every 2 days (it turns out there is quite a window of acceptable range for the doubling though) and we start making "bets" on what the beta will be. IM figures it'll be 250. I figure it'll be around 200 b/c the beta grows exponentially and blah blah blah who cares :) So, right before our eyes...unbeknowest to us...and against my usual philosophy we set up an unwarranted expectation--an ignorant one. So, even before we had the beta results I found myself feeling really down yesterday. I was stressed out and dreading the result. There was all this pressure that the beta be high...at least around 250 or hopefully better...I wanted the number to be even higher than we thought and then that quietly and stealthfully became what I expected the beta to be. But, there's the rub. What did we base this expectation on? Almost nothing.
(2) Meanwhile the nurse tells IM the result and then tries to temper any excitement by saying that it's right on a "border" of growing too slow...something about 66% and 154. Huh? This could very well have been IM's first beta and it would've been over 100! The nurse also lets out that the Doc wrote something like "beta increasing as expected". That sounds like a good thing, right?

So, yesterday, we're both at work and IM calls me with the results and she's really negative sounding which totally affected my reaction. Then we both spend a hour or so messing about on the web looking at beta calculators and other mishmash. Ultimately, it seems there is quite a huge range of beta numbers that constitute normal growth...so we're doing fine! This whole thing just makes me furious b/c now I'm trying to build back up to a positive mood regarding this whole thing. It's just amazing how fragile your mood and emotions are when you are undergoing IVF treatment like this.

All in all, the beta is increasing and has, in fact, more than doubled in 3 days from the first beta. This is normal growth indicating that everything is going as it should! IM is pregnant! It finally happened!

Stay tuned for the next beta.... :)

Cautiously optimistic

2009-06-05T14:00:00.005-04:00

Here's some visual evidence. Perhaps not the boldest of lines but a line nonetheless--this pic is (I think) the second of three tests in as many days which were all positive and the newer one being slightly "darker" than the last. Plus, IM had a blood test at the clinic today and...sure enough...it's positive and her number (70?...what are the units?) is about right. We're expecting it to increase with some regularity over the next few days and IM will have another blood draw on Monday...then again...then again....then again....for a while to establish that everything is a-ok. Meanwhile she gets to get injections from me for quite a while longer too!

The feelings are quite strange. We're both totally distracted and scared, happy, terrified, relieved.... Name the emotion and I'm pretty sure I'm feeling it a little bit.

Another interesting thing is how different this one feels compared to our last one about 4 years ago. I remember feeling kind of scared about the prospect of being a Daddy. I knew that I could and would do it but I was nervous about the prospect. Now I'm not nervous at all. I'm absolutely ready for it. We've been waiting and waiting and waiting to be parents for a long time now...so we're pretty much ready. I know people like to say "no one is every fully ready". Hogwash, we're ready! I think that I had decided in my mind that eventually...somehow...someway....we would be parents. It was just a matter of time and effort (and money) to get there (or here I guess). And I think I've pretty much considered us both a Mommy and Daddy in waiting. I'm so excited for everything that lies ahead.

"Cautiously optimistic", however, is our mantra and we chant it often. We're as early on in a pregnancy as it's possible to be--most would only call this a chemical pregnancy at this point. But a chemical pregnancy turns into a regular one almost all of the time. So we are optimistic and right now...at this moment...we're going to have a baby!

testing...testing...

2009-06-03T11:48:00.006-04:00

I don't know if Intended D is going to post anything today or if I am beating him to the punch. Last night after my pity party about being told by the nurse that I might not be able to go to Italy, I decided to buy some HPTs. I decided that if I test this morning and it's negative, I am going no matter what because duh... I'm not pregnant. So why would I rob myself of not being pregnant and also not getting to go on vacation. What a load of bullshit to not get to go...

Today is 8dp5dt. First thing this morning I tested. It started with just the standard single line which I was expecting so it was just confirmation of the deprivation that is my life...Then slowly this second line started to appear out of nowhere... really slowly and really faint but definitely visible. (I want to put in exclamation points here but it's just too soon. I'm scared to.) Upon seeing this second line start to appear, I was basically numb. My heartbeat didn't even accelerate as far as I could tell.
Here's what strange although probably not uncommon: I would almost say seeing that faint second line (that started turning slightly darker but was not solid yet...) caused ambivalence to surface more than anything else. Fear of being taken for a ride, of having a false positive, fear of having a happy moment taken away by a bad test or a decreasing beta. Or another miscarriage. Better to not have a happy moment at all? I didn't know what to feel.
Intended D was still half sleeping, aware I was testing and probably wishing I wasn't...
I was trying to think of how to tell him this unexpected, completely random, unbelievable and still unconfirmed outcome of the test. Back when we thought I was still fertile and we thought we were ordinary, when we started ttc, I had thought about how I would give him the news. Women get to be one step ahead of the man in this arena and I wanted to make it something special the way I'm sure most other women do... To annound our pregnancy to Intended D, I had prepared to surprise him with a copy of She's Having a Baby (a favorite movie of ours) and a baby rattle or spoon with a bow tied around it. (oh how cliche...) But infertility has robbed us of any spontaneity we could have ever hoped for. Even in our current situation I had daydreams that I've gotten good at suppressing.... I had imagined seeing a double line, calling out his name, to see him come running, I'd run to him and meet him halfway holding the sacred HPT between us, tears and laughter and he picks me up and whirls me around. Elation, excitment....
....nope.... I couldn't do it. I couldn't get excited about it and I couldn't get him excited about it.
One of the many natural emotions most adults who have children get to experience that we have been robbed of is the naivety of a positive pregnancy test. I know too much.

I walked around the corner to him still in bed and announced "Well, rather than saying it's negative, I'd say the results are inconclusive..."
judging from his response, his immediate upright posture and request to see the test, this was probably the best thing to prepare him that I could have said. Intended D is a scientist and I know how he thinks. His response was the best ever... He concurred that he, too, saw a faint line, and processed the implications of it. He said that this second line is definitely some thing different, because typically there is an abnormally white area next to the single colored line, just to rub in how so very negative the test result is.

We spent the morning in shock and disbelief, and for me, a pinch of denial. We took pictures of the positive because I don't know when I'll ever see that again and I want to savor it forever. The only other times I've ever seen a second line was my ill-fated pregnancy (with subsequent miscarriage) 4 years ago, and ovulation tests which I LOVED taking back during our IUI phase because I got to finally pass a test with a second line and see what success feels like!!! How pathetic is that? So I have two more sticks, which I will use over the next couple days, and if things are going well I'm sure I'll give some HPT company a boost in their share value by buying more HPTs so I can see more double lines... just to try purge years of dissapointing BFNs.

I am afraid of reacting just yet. I know it's still way too soon. But this is something. I'll definitely say that much. This is something.

absolutely no control whatever... sigh

2009-06-02T18:55:00.002-04:00

I am so furious and frustrated and ... ugh. I can't think of enough proper adjectives. I feel so helpless. Intended D has the opportunity to travel to Europe this summer, two different stints just a couple weeks apart for work. So we decided -- hey, let's have the wife (me) come along since I haven't had a vacation in a long time. Would be fun right? Expensive, and hard to fit into our schedules right now but it's hard to pass it up when his expenses are already paid. Time to live spontaneously. I've been trying to break out of the mold and this is a good time to go. IF by some one in a million shot I'm pregnant, wouldn't this be a nice way to have a vacation before life changes forever? And if it's negative, well obviously this gives me something to look forward to on the horizon to get me through this...

Well travel needs to be booked ASAP because Intended D is supposed to leave incredibly soon. We finally looked seriously at tickets, hotels, etc. And he said "should we ask the doctor if it's OK for you to travel ...just in case?"... to which I replied "Why would we have to ask... pregnant women travel all the time... but OK I'll send the nurse an email."

Well the nurse replied telling me that she forwarded my email to our RE and to not make any travel plans until we've heard from the doctor... she's guessing it's going to be a problem. WTF???

So let's assess the situation. I have been powerless to becoming pregnant for, oh, like 6 years now. So we all agree that I've already got a pretty low level of control to start with. And here I am trying to plan a vacation so if this cycle fails (which has a 70% likelihood) then I can have at least something to look forward to. WELL, the small chance in hell that I am going to be determined to be pregnant next week is going to hold me back from being able to plan a trip to Italy, because timing is becoming an issue and we need to book our tickets ASAP so we don't get raped with the costs of the travel. If we wait until the results of the cycle next week, we'll have to likely pay a lot more if I go along. This is a trip we can't really afford as it is, so obviously if the costs increase a lot, it's prohibitive. I feel like I have no options and I am tired of it. Today i was just thinking that once we've exhausted our donor embryos (we have one frozen left...) if we don't act on any subsequent treatment, nothing would happen. We would most likely never have a child. We have to actively actively actively seek out help or this is it. This is our life.

I am feeling so confined right now, so powerless, so fucked.

Feelings of inadequacy

2009-05-31T20:53:00.005-04:00

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

2009-05-28T12:11:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-26T17:14:00.007-04:00

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

2009-05-24T13:32:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-22T15:57:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-21T09:23:00.004-04:00

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?

2009-05-19T12:59:00.004-04:00

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....

2009-05-12T17:37:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-08T10:39:00.004-04:00

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?

2009-05-04T15:40:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-03T16:04:00.002-04:00

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.....

2009-05-01T16:29:00.002-04:00

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!

The aftermath

2009-04-27T13:23:00.005-04:00

Ok. Where to begin. Firstly, it didn't work. Why? Who knows? I suppose one can have the opinion that it sometimes doesn't work. In fact, according to statistics of other people like us going through procedures like this it only works about 60-70% of the time. There can be any number of reasons why a cycle works or doesn't and sometimes we just cannot know. The implantation part is particularly mysterious still today. Anyway, WE seem to be on the losing end of these statistics again and again so the statistics are starting to seem pretty meaningless to IM and I. In fact, everytime I see success rates of 60% (or something) I unwittingly consider our failure rate of 100%-60%=40%. Why are we always in that column?

So, here's how it plays out. IM takes a blood test early in the morning on the prescribed day (usually I go with but it's really uneventful and I skipped it this time). Then we get a phone call, usually early afternoon, with results. We've also learned not to answer it but instead listen to the message they leave instead. This time IM and I were at our respective jobs. They called her cell but she chose not to answer and they didn't leave a message....instead they left a message at our home. We had plans that night to take our minds off a negative result (as we figured it was since the home pregnancy test 2 days earlier was negative) and I was gonna meet IM there. But, there was potential beer drinking to be done and so IM wanted to confirm the negative so she could drink which meant I had to hurry home so we could listen to the message from the nurse together...it's super lame for either of us to do it alone. Well, it was negative. You can tell from the first word...not that we'd know since we've never heard a positive message. Such sorry and pity in their voice. I don't expect anything else. It's good bedside manner I suppose but still it's pretty hard to hear that pittying tone...."unfortunately, your test was negative...." Where was our miracle? Just one fucking time I'd like for us to be lucky. You know, get a negative (expired) home pregnancy test and be surprised by a positive blood test result. Why not? This kind of shit happens to people. My sister-in-law wins every fucking stupid raffle she signs up for....she won a fucking diamond once! A diamond!!!! And two beautiful kids too. No such luck for us. Even when all our ducks are in a row and everything is looking super positive we lose. Always.

Ok...enough....so then later in the day the Dr. calls. Now of course they try to think about or speculate what went wrong. They never have any fucking idea ever so the point of these conversations is usually unclear. Actually, it is to preliminarly map out what comes next (we have 3 frozen blastocysts still). But this time it was slightly weird. Our clinic has a on-call Dr rotation doing embyro transfers (that's probably not the right medical term but you get the idea) and the Dr we got kinda sucked. IM has a tricky little passage way through her cervix into the uterus and good Drs manage it perfectly. This Dr sucked. It hurt and IM had a lot of cramping. Then the Dr switched catheters blah blah blah and it worked, but not without a lot of pain for IM and cramping. Back to our conversation with regular Dr. Regular Dr indicates that having that kind of thing happen during a transfer (cramping presumably) can effect that outcome of the cycle and might be why it didn't work. WHAT THE FUCK!!! Really? So, the Dr might as well have just dropped the embyro on the floor? That fucking thing was a beautiful looking five-day blastocyst that essentually cost us ~$2000 and the donor to overstimulate and the on-call Dr fucks up the transfer. I almost, literally, cannot let myself think along these lines for too long b/c I just become furious! Well, we got a promise that the transfer for the frozens would be handled by our MAIN Dr or a pro, in the very least.

Good, right? No. Not good. The odds for frozen embryo transfers is about 30%/embyro compared to about 60%/embryo for a fresh embryo. Awesome! Our best chance has been official lost and maybe it was the Drs fault. So, this time we'll go with a two embryo transfer since the odds are shittier--hence the odds for twins or triplets is rather low (actually the twins odds are still 20% but the triplets are low). Great. Oh, yeah, and there's a 90% chance the embryo will survive the thawing process. But, to me, that big 10% is standing tall and proud and laughing at me.

Well, ala George Costanza's instincts, if our cycles fail miserably when the odds are in our favor then perhaps it will work if the odds are not in our favor. :)

This type of experience really kills the hope in a person. I unequivocably believe that miracles DO NOT happen! It is so hard to keep going and keep trying. The best attribute to have when going through IVF is be stupid and have a really short memory. That way you can blindly do cycle after cycle and eventually you get lucky. Luck? There's that word again...and I remember that I don't believe in luck. Not anymore.

It's official...

2009-04-24T16:23:00.000-04:00

Negative. IM is crying. Me? I have no idea.

I give up.

2009-04-22T10:55:00.003-04:00

We have learned throughout our many IVFs that getting a phone call midafternoon from the IVF clinic telling you that the beta (pregnancy test) is negative completely sucks. As such, we have started to try and soften the blow a bit--IM takes some home pregnancy tests (hpt) before our blood test with the clinic. That way...if it's positive we are excited (although that's never happened) and if it's negative (that's happened a lot) then we aren't completely devastated when we get the blood test results. In my mind it's always been a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" prospect anyway b/c a negative hpt is pretty devastating too. But, whatever, we've tried it both ways and it doesn't suck any worse one way or the other.

Well, our blood test is Friday and IM decided she wanted to take a hpt this morning (we had one lying around b/c we got a free package at a RESOLVE conference we went to a year or so ago--how's that for lame?...initially I hid it from her last night before I went to bed, which was at 3am since I couldn't sleep since I was dreading this hpt test I knew was coming this morning, but I relented....mostly I think I just didn't want to be "surprised" with her hpt result announcement unprepared). Anyway, as per the title of the post, Negative. One line. Of course. How could it be otherwise?

I have so many emotions swimming around in me right now. Unfortunately I was mean to IM which, needless to say, is the lamest thing I could've done. Our personalities are just different and she is forever the cynic that prepares for the worst and hopes for the best. I am a combo of the blind man and the optimist. Hope for the best and ignore the worst possibilities until they are upon me. I'm a bit like "Hans" Solo---"never tell me the odds." Anyway, I said something to effect that I feel like this negative is a self fulfilling prophesy since she expects it to be negative anyway. Not that I believe in any of that "The Secret" positive thinking bullshit---or religion for that matter but that is another post. You are or are not pregnant via science. Period. But it sucked pretty bad the way I said it and that I said it. Hopefully, she'll forgive me.

There are just so many emotions. Helplessness, frustration, anger, sadness, unfulfillment, discontentment,... This feeling and desire to have a baby is just so strong. I don't feel like it's possible to move on with my (our) life without it. I'm just not particularly interested in other things. I have little interest in anything besides this these days. I'm sleepwalking through my career right now b/c the baby situation is so distracting. It's just one of those situations that I don't feel I can move on to anything else until it is resolved. So, I'm completely unfulfilled and discontent. It's funny too b/c I like where I live, I love IM more than anything, my job is satisfying. In other words, OTHER than having a baby I really wouldn't change a thing and the things I would change I would almost feel greedy, you know? I could be skinnier, better looking, nicer apartment, better job, blah blah blah . The usual. I just don't really give a shit about any of that compared to starting a family. I can only vaguely remember that in my past life I cared about things like a new care, a new bike, a new computer, apartment, clothes. I have so little interest in material things these days....Evolution really did a number on us humans b/c this drive to have a family is so ridiculously strong we behave completely irrationally under it's spell!

The other bad feeling I have is I just feel completely alone. I said that to IM this morning and she echoed it by saying she feels left behind. Left behind somehow doesn't resonate with me and doesn't seem right but I'm sure it's a different angle to feeling alone. We have been leaving our families out of the fertility loop for a while now (we found it a bit easier to suffer disappointment alone) so they don't know. They suspect b/c they aren't idiots and know we're trying to have a baby....but they don't know specifics. It's just that with every disappointment I feel like I (and probably do) take a step away from everybody--family, friends, etc. I'm sure it's simply a desire to be alone....I don't know.

I hope I can get back on track. I have work to do, as usual, and perseverating about this won't make it better. Empathy and love are the only things a person needs in life and I hope to get some of it back pretty soon.

p.s. I suppose there is a chance IM's Friday test could be positive. Who knows? Hpts can be wrong, it could be too early, blah blah blah. We've just been down this road before and know where it goes.

What a difference sleep makes.

2009-04-19T16:28:00.002-04:00

Weekends are difficult during the 2ww. Today is 7 days post 5 day transfer (7dp5dt). At least at work, it's possible to have distractions when deadlines are approaching. I'm a student, and working. (something I highly recommend when undergoing infertility treatment--keeping busy and becoming a student again has improved my sense of self-worth that infertility took away from me, and helped pull me out of the depression of treatment!!!-- but that's the subject of another post for another day..) So between the job and homework, distractions have been great. But this weekend is particularly difficult. And nonetheless, somehow I'm not in the depths of despair today. I had a good night's sleep, after two back to back nights of insomnia. I think my exhaustion finally overwhelmed my anxiety. I dreamt I started bleeding and the IVF didn't work. So the anxiety reared its ugly head anyway. Nonetheless, somehow I remain optimistic today. ID isn't feeling too hot today however. As long as we can remain out of phase with each other, hopefully we can keep each other sane.

Each day that we get closer to the beta will be more and more difficult. ID and I are trying to decide when we'll start home pregnancy tests (HPTs). Or as gals in the infertile world call it, peeing on a stick (POAS). I think I need to be armed with information before we go in for our bloodwork. But ID made a good point today. As soon as we test, if the second line doesn't appear, my motivation and my tolerance for the shots may drop.

(aside: I have hated hated hated the progesterone shots during previous cycles, to the extent that I started using the suppositories instead. ID accidentally hit a nerve during our 2nd IVF a few years ago, and it was extremely painful and left me with an area on my butt that I literally couldn't feel for almost a year due to the nerve damage. But this time the doctor really encouraged me to go back to the injections, so I had to dig deep and put myself into a happy place during this cycle. It has been OK. I think my anxiety fed into ID's anxiety and we psyched each other out in the past. I hated the shots, and ID knew I hated them so he hated giving them to me. But this time I have remained calm and positive, and ID has been a hero giving me the injections followed by a wonderful massage.)

So back to my motivation. He's worried that if I test negative on a POAS test, my attitude may change and those shots are going to become a nightmare all over again because of the thought that we're doing it for nothing. I know better though. I'll keep doing them. So I want to POAS on Tuesday, exactly two weeks post retrieval. Too soon? I don't know.

sleepless nights

2009-04-18T02:48:00.005-04:00

It's almost 3:00 a.m. and I cannot sleep. We are 5 days post 5 day transfer (closer to 6 days post 5 day transfer considering it's basically tomorrow!) and my brain is relentlessly busy. A couple days ago every little cramp would cause me to feel lightly optimistic. Right now, I wish I could channel that optimism. I am so unsettled with the potential for success and what a failure would mean for my and ID's psyche.

Earlier today I was looking at the daily/weekly embryo development chart for pregnancy. I was able to allow myself into the "yes, it could actually work" phase for a while and it felt so good. "Why not us???" is something we have been repeating for days now. And then a switch flipped and I was right back into the darkness of thinking "No, this whole world of having a child, having something actually work-- it's not something ID and I can have." The idea of me being pregnant is just so far off. It sounds cliche but I can't imagine having a life growing inside of my body. And going through all the changes women go through. And allowing my darling husband to experience what he wants to experience. It just doesn't seem realistic to even hope for it because it has become so intangible.

I automatically went to plan E in my head when my thoughts turned negative again. Adoption is our backup plan to donors. I began checking around for which countries are open and operational right now. It's forever changing depending on many factors. My first country of choice has got some issues right now, but Ethiopia has always been an option ID and I have considered. So I am already preparing for plan E even though we have 3 frozen embies. It's amazing. I'm a planner by default but it's ridiculous.

I'm totally anxious and can't sleep. ID posted the fantastic "memorabilia" post and how we'll throw away the bracelet if I'm not pregnant this time. Well, will we throw away this entire blog? It could all become a painful memory of another failed attempt.

I'd like to blame it on hormones, but I also think I am troubled with how at this point, the embryo either started the implantation process, or it didn't. There's no middle ground. It's not just hanging out in my uterus doing its own thing anymore. It's either merged with the capillary beds in my uterus, and started developing further, or it's stopped dividing and is gone. And there is no way to know for another several days. It's so frustrating to have to continue with those daily injections and talking about the "what ifs" when there is an actual truth going on in my body and I cannot know what it is. How unfair is that?

So rather than a sleepless night because of an uncomfortable pregnancy, a colicky baby, or a sick toddler, I'm dealing with an anxiety over this goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. This 2ww is just too much. I need to sleep!

Waiting for two weeks sucks!

2009-04-15T17:10:00.000-04:00

Holy cramping in my belly batman!

It's so hard to ignore all these little feelings, tinges, pinches, cramps...

I hope hope hope it's a good thing but I've had cramps in the past and they didn't mean anything so ...

I wish i could disconnect from my body for the next week.

Memorabilia

2009-04-15T16:35:00.004-04:00

There's a photo of the "hospital" bracelet IM wore during the transfer. So, we made it! We ended up with a handful of 5-day blastocysts. That's a first for us! We've never gotten that far with embryos. Usually, they start to look not so hot as day-3 rolls around and we end up transferring some day-3 embies. 5-day blast is a good sign for sure. We couldn't have hoped for a better cycle...other than the fact that the donor slightly overstimmed although we think she is doing much better now. We decided to transfer only 1 blast and we were able to freeze 3 more....siblings perhaps :)

I took the blastocyst pic from here.

The reason for only transfering one is that the pregnancy rate from transferring 1 compared to 2 goes from about 60% to 70% but the rate of twins goes from 1.5% to 52%! Twins are certainly doable but not ideal. Hence, we played it very slightly conservatively but hopefully things will work out. Why not us, right? Why not? It can work for us! This donor cycle is a new game and we haven't failed at it yet...so we could be successful here! Is that optimism I smell? Not quite I suppose but it's about as close as we can get these days.

Anyway, the bracelet is memorabilia and will go in a baby-book IF there is a baby to warrant a book. We've ended up throwing these things away in the past. That's the thing about memorabilia. You only keep memorabilia if you want to remember something. We want to want to remember this!

By the way, we had Chinese take out at the best Chinese place in the world and around these parts that's saying something...Jasmine Garden. They, of course, give you a fortune cookie. Mine said something asinine, but IM's was off-the-hook in the weird department. It said "Cultures and customs of China attract you." Huh?

Big decisions, full bladder

2009-04-12T17:52:00.002-04:00

We did the transfer and decided to transfer only one embryo.

We got to the clinic for the transfer and realized the risk of twins was 52% (we thought it was closer to 30%!!)--they have a little handy chart pegged to the wall with a thumbtack! Then, we had a doctor who really really really really pushed for one embryo transfer.

I totally emotionally broke down right there on the table while we were deciding. Totally weeping. I couldn't control myself. It just felt so damn frustrating to have to decide this. I still wanted to put back two, even though I knew it might not be a good decision. The doctor was pulling all the fear factor stories; you have a small frame, birth defects, mortality rates, blah blah blah. ID wanted to transfer one as soon as he saw the rates for twins. So I gave in. I am remorseful but I also know twins would be tough...and maybe dangerous for mother and children! The statistics are not terrible, but complications do occur. (and that doctor today definitely kept reminding us of that...)

And the transfer itself-- with a full bladder. Well I was pretty unhappy. Let's just leave it at that.

I'm still hopeful, and I know it's better odds than anything we ever had on our own. We are even allowing ourselves to talk about having a baby around, something we haven't done in years--literally years.

We know for sure they froze 2 yesterday, and they said we may have a few more but they're waiting to see how they look...

So now the waiting begins... :)

Bizarre triangles

2009-04-07T12:11:00.003-04:00

So, today was the day. The donor cycle is running its course and IM and I headed up to the clinic for me to give my sample. Meanwhile, donor is having eggs removed....hopefully. It's a bizarre thing that we are doing on many levels and interesting how we normalize it. This is our best chance to have a baby and we are taking it.

People in IF situations wonder when you are finally ready to go to donor eggs. Well, like everything else it isn't always clear but, in a way, I feel that it was inevitable. We have gone through multiple IUIs, IVFs (both fresh and frozen), and here we are. We haven't had really any luck. IM got pregnant naturally (and miscarried very early--seems like a lifetime ago) but that is the only "luck" we've had. At any rate, both IM and I felt after the last IVF (where we put back 3 embyros) that we would essentially NEVER be successful with normal IVF. So, why try again? Why go to some specialist? Which specialist? IM's infertility is "unexplained" but leans towards poor egg quality...which would mean donor eggs are the way to go. It just seems/seemed so daughting and pointless to go the "seek a specialist" route. I suppose the proof is in the pudding whether our decision to go donor was a good one (keep your fingers crossed universe!).

Anyhoo...the title of the post references the famous New Order song Bizarre Love Triangle and I'm not suggesting that using donor eggs is a "love" triangle but it is a triangle and it is bizarre. We both realize that. It really is a fascinating thing that we humans have figured out how to do. How one person can help another in this way. Amazing. I think the nicest way to think about this situation is in the "helping others" department. We have a problem. The donor is helping us solve it. That's it. There's nothing more weird or unnatural or other icky descriptor you want to put there. When you need help...you ask for it. Hopefully, some fellow human being can help you.

Incidently, I think the New Order song is about a man-woman-man triangle where one man is gay and in love with the other man....just an opinion :) Some say it's about drugs...sigh...New Order has songs about drugs but I don't think this is one!

Embryonic Stems

2009-03-11T09:56:00.006-04:00

President Obama lifted the Bush imposed ban on embryonic stem cell research. Read about it all here. I don't care to get into the details of the science involved.

What I am interested in, however, is what many Rightwing pundits/commentators/politicians are saying about it (they said the same things years ago when Bush first put the ban in place). For example,

- in my trusty Washington Post yesterday: Yuval Levin (who?) writes here that "If (as modern biology informs us) conception initiates a human life, and if (as the Declaration of Independence asserts) every human life is equally deserving of some minimal protections,..." blah blah blah. Yuval further writes "But if you think an embryo is not quite a person, or that its immaturity or inability to suffer pain or its other qualities mean that destroying an embryo does not amount to taking a life, the promise of stem cell..." blah blah blah.

Hmm. So, "modern biology informs us" that conception initiates a "human life". Really? Do I think that an embryo is "not quite a person" or that its "immaturity or inability to suffer pain" is the issue. Well....conflating "immaturity" with "inability to suffer pain" is completely asinine.

- or (from the WaPo article above) "Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House Republican whip, said in a statement that "today's action is about forcing taxpayers to fund ethically troublesome -- and unproven -- research that destroys life.""

Life?

- I also read (I can't remember where--major faux pas) somebody refer to the embryos being "left over" or "discarded" or whatever and he used nefarious quotes...presumably to make us readers think something fishy is going on.

Well, I have no intention of really getting into a takedown of these commentators or writers. I don't really care. I just think it's interesting how much a person learns by going through infertility treatments. The idea that an embryo is a human life and life begins at conception (LBAC) is laughable to me...tragically laughable, i.e., it's not funny. The IM and I, if life begins at conception, have had about 2 dozen children. Of course, none of them lived for more than about 30-40 hours or so but, well, whatever. The whole LBAC thing is absurd. I, perhaps, could be persuaded that LBA-implantation? Maybe at implantation...maybe...because before that happens these embryos don't have a chance. In the past, people called IVF babies "test tube" babies but they weren't actually grown in a fricken test tube. The mother is CRUCIAL.

Oh, and "discarded" embyros. We haven't been so lucky to have "leftovers". We've used them all and they all didn't amount to jack shit. But, I certainly know of instances where there where "leftovers". Pretty much every person who completes a successful IVF cycle has leftovers. Then they try to use those (which are frozen) for another cycle later on. After their child having days are over these leftovers are discarded. The reason they are discarded instead of donated is because in almost all instances, especially in CA, one has to retain a lawyer and jump through all kinds of hoops to donate. It's easier to throw them away. We would donate if we could.

...I'm off track. My final point is that these commentators have no idea what they are talking about. Life does NOT begin at conception. Just like pretty much everything in science or life or art or music or whatever it is impossible to pinpoint a moment to say "ah ha! life just began right then". It's a bit more complicated and delicate than that.

IF News

2009-02-19T15:53:00.009-05:00

Is a fertilized egg a human? Well, a new North Dakota state House measure says it is.

Maybe it's because tax time is looming but I say this is a GREAT idea! That way I could get tax breaks for all of my dependents. In fact, we could do a non-transfer cycle--just create as many fertilized eggs as we can and keep them frozen forever. That way I can claim a couple dozen dependents on my taxes every year . That's easily worth the few hundred bones needed to keep the embryos frozen. Not to mention, when the embryos get past 65 years old they should be able to start collecting their social security benefits. That's sure to come in handy down the line. So far, every time we've transfer an embryo it died and is of no use to anybody and certainly not a financial goldmine!

In other news, Nadya Suleman, evidently, had 6 embryos put back. (Oh yeah, that link is the Suleman octuplet wikipedia page!) Six! She's 33 AND she has a uterus. How is that responsible.

IF In The News

2009-02-13T15:01:00.000-05:00

Slate.com has an article about infertility treatments and their lack of insurance coverage. Try to look past the stupid Slate title..."Pregnant Pause". Oh, they're just sooooo clever. (I have a MAJOR pet peeve with Slate's too-cool-for-school titles!) We have Nadya Suleman to thank for this article btw. (Incidentally, IM has informed me that the success "rates" in the Slate article are quite inflated and the best place to get numbers is from individual clinics and the Center for Disease Control ART numbers.)

Anyway, the main point is that full IVF insurance coverage is a GOOD idea! No shit. And once again, the damn Swedes have taken the lead! Yeah, Sweden! This brings me to the point where I encourage everybody going through any form of IF to become a member of RESOLVE. They are the National Infertility Association (why not NIA?...I like RESOLVE better anyway) and serve as our lobbyists and we NEED their help. They also have a relatively nice newsletter, organize conferences, help coordinate support groups, and organize lobbying efforts up on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. IM and I have participated in ALL of those god-damned activities since we've been doing this for so long....it was all worth it btw :)

I also put RESOLVE up on the "big board" on the left under the IF Links!

edit: btw, do NOT read the comments to the Slate.com article unless you are prepared. People are (1) insensitive, (2) unempathetic, (3) plain stupid, (4) fucking assholes,...you get the idea. I hate people and their effing opinions :) Oh, sweet irony.

Finally some good news...

2009-02-13T11:26:00.001-05:00

Our donor just passed her screening! That's hugs news. Egg donors are put through a gammet of tests including a lot of bloodwork, several interviews, physical examination, and a psychiatric evaluation. This is our third donor. The first one failed her pre-screening examination which means at the young age of 21, she may have IF issues herself. (ouch). At the time we selected her, she was probably not an ideal choice because she had some physical characteristics that I had questioned but eventually felt comfortable with. Making the decision to use a donor was difficult, and I would say making the decision to use her as a donor was the most difficult of all-- because she was the first. That was the first big leap into the world of donors. We lost $500 bucks with her failing her tests because the agency wouldn't refund our money, and didn't have any other donors to choose from. We are using a donor agency because our clinic doesn't have many options for what we are looking for ethnically.

We moved onto a different agency and selected a second donor. The second donor looked more like me. Not identical, but good enough. But we had no information about her "intellect". No college admission scores, etc. But she had proven fertility which was a plus. Well, she didn't pass the silly FDA interview so that was the end of that option.

So this donor is our third selection but a really great choice. She lives locally which is phenomenal. We're both happy she appeared in the database. She showed up right as we were looking for donor #3. So we got first dibs at her. Features-wise I have learned I won't find the perfect donor. Something a therapist told us once left a lasting impression and changed my perspective: "No donor will be perfect because I won't be in the list". I am my own perfect donor. And I have already accepted that I probably can't make this happen on my own. So the best I can do is find somebody that has acceptable qualities, prioritize what's most important, and make a selection. Through the process of selecting a donor I have gotten to know my face better than I ever have. Which sound silly but it's true. We started looking at facial structure. Hair type...Cheeks.... Eyes-- too close together? too far apart? I could go into this in detail but maybe another day...
Anyway, we also had to prioritize how we saw different aspects:
Looks?
Intellect?
Proven fertility?
Age?
Personal medical history?
Family medical history?
Cost?
Characteristics/personality of donor?
It's just so absurd to have to make this kind of a decision about your future child's genes!!! When you really stop to think about it, it's so damn twisted.
I know some people who really believe the donor's personality matters. What her favorite color is. What her favorite food is... I don't know. This was an aspect that ID and I couldn't get on board with. The question of nature vs. nurture. We are both believers that both are important and cannot be ignored, but it turns out we both lean more heavily toward attributing personality traits to nurture. Or I believe if it is nature, I don't think it's always the nature of the genes of the donor per say. It could be the nature of the donor's brother! Or parent! I believe that assuming the personality of the donor will carry over to the personality of the child is not a given...
We probably initially screened depending upon the general "look" of the donor, and then prioritized medical history (something that has a serious nature component and is therefore not in our control...) followed by "intellect" (also has a partial nature component...). Seems so shallow to think about it. What is the best way to prioritize these?

A lot more could be written by me and ID about this topic. We philosophized about it for months! Especially because we had to keep re-evaluating things every time we selected another donor!

Well, for now we've got a donor and I'm so relieved about that. If all goes well we're looking at an early April retrieval. wow this is a long process...

A year of hell

2009-02-11T18:43:00.000-05:00

Well, I was waiting to sit down and document what the last 6 years have been like leading up to this experience with donor eggs, but recent events force me to document my current feelings instead. Which is amazing because I have a neurotic compulsion toward chronology... so the fact that I am writing out of turn should be an indication of how yucky I am feeling right now.

My husband (aka Intended Daddy or "ID") already mentioned that the infertility gods have been moderately fair to us over all these years. I watched infertile friends talk about how their close friends were all getting pregnant around them... This was devastating for them, absolutely crushing to see. (It's so hard to feel left behind...). This would come up in support groups, and I would think to myself: "If we don't have kids by the time our close friends start having kids I don't know what I'll do!!" Although I still knew a lot of people that were having children around us, we were ahead of our close friends in wanting to have kids-- most of them weren't married yet, let alone trying to conceive (ttc). So for those around me who were having kis, for the most part, I came to terms with this. I came to terms with not attending baby showers. Sending gifts is adequate. I came to terms with not always having to go see a new baby, or making convenient excuses at work when some glowing new mother brought in her new bundle of joy for all to see...

But our core friends who have been with us the longest have been --for the most part--childless. Until recently.

Well we are entering an era I am not sure I am prepared for. Many of my close childhood friends are all announcing pregnancies. The first friend was several months ago, and somehow I felt it was more comical than anything else because she is so not the mothering type. But now we have learned of two more first-time pregnancies. And another friend is expecting her third. My only grace is that I don't live near any of them.

But my good friend sent out an announcement -- one of those "I have loved you (fetus) since you were only a thought and now you'll be delivered to us" kinds of announcements. What the hell do I do with this? These friends know of our IF story, and have been so very loving and caring about it. This is their special time and I wish I had it in me to be ecstatic for this little miracle.. And gush and tell them how completely elated I am for them. And it's so difficult to do that.

I would never, ever, ever wish what ID and I have been through over these years onto ANYBODY. But how can I express to them that it's hard to be happy for this joy that I will never ever experience?

As ID has said, even if /when this donor cycle works, it will never be the same. Years ago, I used to day dream about how I would tell ID the news that we were going to have a baby. It's too pathetic to even write down. But we've had such a long list of procedures, drugs, exams, and financial waste that it's just never going to be the same.

I describe it this way: This experience has wounded both of us and we will never be the same. On his bad days, ID believes he will never heal from those wounds, even when we have grown children. Because he feels irreparably harmed by the struggles of IF. On my good days (and even on my bad, I suppose) I try to believe that this wound will heal. And when we are parents and we are able to see our experience with the lens of parents, we will see the wound has healed over and left a scar. And I know that the scar will never disappear. As all scars do, it will be something I carry but it won't hurt so much anymore.

But in the mean time, how am I going to get through this next year of blissful pregnancies, new babies, and the concurrent possibility of our donor cycle failing us?

Great Odin's Raven!

2009-02-11T12:59:00.000-05:00

There is something VERY wrong here. Nadya Suleman has a website asking for donations. I don't think it's funny. Instead, I find myself filled with hatred. I suppose I should be preparing myself for her f**king "reality show". Title? How about "13 was Nadya enough!"

A quick thought...

2009-02-10T12:34:00.000-05:00

I was watching a movie the other day (in the interest of not being a spoiler I won't tell you what) and a character becomes pregnant. So what. The interesting thing for me is that I had a bit of a disconnect in relating to the character because she was taking it as a matter of absolute fact that eventually she would give birth to a healthy baby. That makes sense...she had two others previously. The reason I had a disconnect though is because it was hard for me to take that aspect for granted. Does that make sense? We've struggled so long with so little success that on the off chance that we are actually successful and IM gets knocked up I'm going to be a total wreck....especially for the first trimester. Until I see what looks like a human baby on an ultrasound I'm afraid that it won't feel real and I (we) will be waiting for "the other shoe to drop"--so to speak. Sometimes I can become so angry at infertility for doing this to us. For damaging our ability to hope and for ruining our ability to take certain things for granted.

Edit: This is an addition from IM...I've edited it slightly :)
I'd like to add to that: even AFTER we see a fetus, it's not like the stress would be any better. But on the other hand, I believe we would do our best to try to enjoy every little aspect of it because who knows when it would potentially be taken away. Last pregnancy, ID was painting the kitchen and I went to Barnes & Noble and came home with What to Expect When You Are Expecting? (yes i later tore it to shreds but that belongs in a different post...) At the time, I actually was full of anxiety wondering if it really was a good idea to have a kid. But I was mostly numb --not from waiting so long for it and finally getting it-- but because it just didn't seem real. 9 months is a long time. I want to appreciate every moment.

And now for something less emotional...

2009-02-09T08:13:00.001-05:00

This is what I'm talking about! It was in my Washington Post this morning. I've always felt, as a scientist myself, that IVF and ART, in general, offer many research opportunities. Well, evidently, scientists in England have used IVF conceived babies (both natural and donor) to try answer the question of whether children of smoking mothers were more likely to develop behavioral problems. They looked at smoking mothers doing regular IVF and donor IVF and found that regular IVF babies (where the baby is genetically connected to the smoking mother) where more likely than donor IVF babies (where the baby is not genetically related to the mother) to manifest antisocial behavior. Both IVF and donor IVF babies, where, however, born with low birthweight...as expected. So, at the end of the day they concluded that "antisocial behavior was more common only in children who were genetically related to mothers who smoked, indicating that a genetic influence was at work."

This actually brings up an interesting concept that I might write about later on. An "upshot" of donor IVF is that many mothers feel that this is there chance to leave some perhaps unwanted genetic characteristics behind. Infertility provides the, usually unwanted, chance to think a lot about a lot of stuff. For example, do you really want to pass on your genetic predisposition to depression or heart disease or cancer to you child? Well, with donor IVF you don't have to! Silver linings!

Irony of non-ideality

2009-02-07T12:10:00.001-05:00

In some ways IM and I have been sort of lucky.

While IM's sister has two kids over 8 and my brother has two kids under 5 most of our friends have not really started to have kids yet. Being in our early 30s, this is kind of abnormal although not as much these days as people are waiting longer and longer to have children. Speaking of times changing....our times are changing. This is because we now have many friends all having or having had kids over the last year or so. 4 of my co-workers have had kids in the past year and another one is expecting in a few months. Three of IM's friends are currently expecting and another has a 6 month old. These situations are always very hard for people in our situation and it's always difficult for IM to say she will NOT be attending the baby showers.

It is difficult to see other people successfully attaining our goal with such seeming ease. Not to mention, doing a donor cycle has that inherent "sting" to it, i.e., even if it works it is not ideal. I don't want that to sound too harsh but it's true and I think admitting that truth to oneself is important and liberating. This whole situation is not ideal. Ideally, IM and I would have maybe 2 kids by now and contemplating a third. That was our plan and for 90% (at least) of couples their plans are easily attained and often the plans aren't plans and children come as little surprises. It's all really tricky emotionally because having a baby through IVF or donor IVF would be a dream come true and referring to its success as not "ideal" seems a bit unfair to the child! But, you can't lie to yourself because it will always come back to you worse the second time around. Ultimately, becoming a parent is our goal. The thing is...we have had to consider, contemplate, come to terms with, grieve, ect., a whole mess of issues that a typical parent never has to think about. Consider how it feels to NOT pass our your genes. Consider having a child that is your genes but not your partner's. Consider a child that may or may not have any of your features and if they do it's a lucky coincidence. Consider answering the well meaning questions of friends--"where did her curly hair come from anyway?" It's all very interesting because one would think that IVF (especially non-donor egg IVF) "cures" infertility and I suppose in some sort of clinical sense it does. However, that is not how infertile couples feel. Even if our dreams come true and we end up as parents through donor IVF we are still an infertile couple. Our situation is not ideal and far from perfect. Imagine all the compromises and intrusions along the way. What if we want a second child (like most families)? Another trip to the Dr along with a $25,000 check and another trip to the donor agency with another $10,000 check. Anyway, what the hell was my point?....

Oh yeah. The point is that we have a good chance at a successful donor IVF. If we are successful IM would be due about a year from now and we and a few of our close friends would all have children within a year in age of each other. I have two cousins that are within a year of me and while we are not super close (due to geographical decisions made by--essentially my--parents) we have a certain "bond". THAT is the silver lining here--as pathetic as it may be--the irony of non-ideality. Most of the time people struggling with infertility end up finally having success at a later age, i.e., late 30s early 40s. And often their friends started their families in their late 20s as is typical. So, many infertile couples find that they are starting their families very "late" and find themselves the oldest mom and dad in the neighborhood or at parent-teacher conferences. Not that that makes any discernible difference in the grand scheme but it's just another non-ideal situation created by infertility. We, ironically, could end up dodging this particularly non-ideal "bullet". All because our friends were very slow to get married and have children and we were so slow having children! Funny.

This all depends, of course, on us having good luck. One quickly learns not to count your chickens before they hatch and with a donor cycle that is even more important of a mantra. MANY MANY things can still derail this whole thing. And, of course, the chance of great success comes with the chance of great failure. The prospect of this NOT working is something that scares the hell out of IM and me. Where the hell do we go from there? Adoption? Another $50,000? Certainly another compromise!

2009-02-05T14:48:00.000-05:00

Just for the sake of completeness, IM=Intended Mommy and ID=Intended Daddy. Those are the terms in which WE are referred in all legal documentation in this god-forsaken process...well...not really mommy and daddy but intended mother, intended father, intended parents (ugh1 ugh2...) IPs, in other words. I'm wondering why the lawyers landed on "intended parents"? Is it because it's such a natural term that people use in their everyday life!?! Anyhoo....

Ok. It's been a long time since this blog was started and I have yet to write anything. I suppose one has to get in the "habit" of writing. To help myself get started I figured I would just write not-particularly-well-thought-out-stuff from time to time.

We are starting a donor cycle right about now. We went in for a mock-embryo transfer a day or so ago and everything was fine. Good news. Even though everything is very likely to be fine it's nice to have the hurdle safely behind us. We also spoke to the Dr, signed forms, and thought about how much money this will eventually cost. Yikes! Even though I'm quite used to all of this it still feels like an intrusion and causes me to feel down in the dumps afterwards (usually). Hence the subtitle of the blog: goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. We've been at this for nearly 5-6 years (who's counting) and it's become so normalized that often I don't notice. However, from time to time things bubble to the surface and bite a bit. For example, we went to Benjamin Button (it's good) and a woman announces that she's pregnant (I won't be a spoiler). It has almost nothing to do with the movie and is NOT a major plot point or anything and I couldn't help my mind from wandering into that realm where I think "that will never happen to me". Pathetic, right? But, IM will never "surprise" me with the announcement that she is pregnant. We have left that part of life long ago. I'll never be surprised and she'll never get to surprise me. Instead, for the last 4 years or so, we have spent 4-5 hours, after IM gets her blood drawn for her pregnancy test after the dreaded two-week-wait, trying to stay busy so we don't think too much about the pregnancy test results. The habit has been to go to a movie and turn off IM's cell phone so that the clinic has to leave a message. Then we both listen to the message for, what feels like, the inevitable response saying "I'm sorry but your beta was negative and you are not pregnant....come in in a few days for a follow-up appointment...."....

The funny thing is that I almost, literally, cannot imagine a positive test result. I don't have any idea how I would react. This is particularly funny to me as I write this because I have actually experienced the experience above that I said I'd never experienced before. Did that make sense? Long ago when we first started down this road and after IM had some procedure...a D&C or something...she got pregnant and told me excitedly and showed me the positive home pregnancy test result! I spent the day in a hazy-fog wondering how to process it all. It was early on and I was not as prepared, ready, or impatient for a kid as I am today, but I was extremely excited. It also happened to be Father's day weekend. Nice touch, eh? My Dad and brother were there with my brother's 1 year old daughter. We were so excited b/c we had seen a fertility Dr already but hadn't been so beaten down by the process as we are now. We even told my parents and brother and sister-in-law...we were all together which is a slightly rare event. Anyway, IM got me a Father's day card and everything was so sweet and happy.

To cut to the chase, IM miscarried about 2.5 weeks later. (that's a whole other much more depressing post than this.) Lesson #1: you don't tell people you are expecting until you have seen the baby on an ultrasound, i.e., 2 months or so. Essentially, it was a chemical pregnancy. That's what it's called and it's not an entirely bad result but it's not super good either. Pathetically, we've held on to that minor result like the holy grail for the past 4 years. "Well, you've been pregnant before! That's a good sign. It can happen again, can't it?" Blah blah blah.

So, I guess I have experienced being told that I am going to be a father without a Dr or nurse or coordinator being involved, that is, the old fashioned way. Ironically, I've never been told by that cadre of experts that I'll be a father, because 4 years and IVFs later we have not had ANY luck to warrant such an announcement.

Introductions are in order...

2008-12-04T20:28:00.000-05:00

My husband and I have talked about starting a blog for a long time now. I have always been opposed to blogs because I don't see how anybody would be interested in knowing my thoughts. Lots of people have thoughts...

But I think one thing we can offer somebody going through infertility (IF) is the perspective of both partners. There are too many barriers to open communication when couples are dealing with IF. Emotions can get jumbled up and it's hard to understand my own thoughts, let alone express them to my husband. We have been lucky because we have managed to keep our marriage intact and the discussion (relatively) open through the years dealing with this crap. I do think my husband and I have progressed through the stages of treatment at different paces, been on different time lines. That's been an intriguing--and challenging-- part of understanding each other. When I can get my brain organized, I want to lay out our experience that got us to where we are now: preparing for a donor egg cycle.

Our choice of these names- Intended Mommy and Intended Daddy- is our attempt to get used to the world of donors. So forgive us if it seems silly.