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So last Tuesday we got up bright and early to head down to Iowa for our consultation with the new clinic. We were really early, so we had some lunch and then went to the mall for a bit before heading over to the clinic. We registered with the receptionist and were taken back within a few minutes. The nurse that took us back took my weight and blood pressure and then we met with Dr. C. As usual, he started with the whole medical history bit, and went through my records and entered all of my test results into his system. After that, he went through all of the basic causes of infertility and crossed them off one by one and ultimately came up with the conclusion that we have unexplained infertility (duh). The only possible explanation that he gave us for our difficulties in conceiving was that that it is possible that Mark may have developed antisperm antibodies as a result of a hernia repair surgery that he had last year. If that were the case, it would lead to fertilization problems, which could explain why we’re not pregnant yet.
Once he officially gave us his diagnosis, he said that he guessed that we were ready to move on to IVF since most people wouldn’t travel 4+ hours for clomid and IUI’s. BINGO! At his clinic, they do ICSI for 90% to 95% of their IVF cycles, and he would recommend that for us too because of the possibility of antisperm antibodies and ICSI would bypass the entire fertilization issue.
Dr. C seems to think that IVF will do the trick for us, and of course we are hoping that he’s right. He said that I have responded well to the oral meds in the past and that bodes well for how I will respond to the injectables. He also thought that we should be able to participate in the shared risk program which will allow us to do three fresh IVF cycles along with any associated frozen cycles for one fixed cost. The nice part about this particular program is that meds are included in the package price which is a HUGE cost savings. Comparing my previous clinic’s shared risk program to this new one, we will save somewhere between $6,500 and $17,500 depending on how many tries it takes us to get pregnant.
So before we can move on, Dr. C said that I would l need to have another sonohysterogram/mock transfer. This will be done so that he can determine the curvature of my cervix so that inserting the catheter for the embryo transfer is as easy as possible, and also to determine the shape of my uterus so that he can put the embryos in the “sweet spot” where they will have the best chance to implant. Mark and I also both had to have blood tests for HIV, Hepatitis, etc, which we did on Thursday.
All that’s left now is to have a phone meeting with the financial advisor Monica and then take the IVF patient education class. And unfortunately, that seems to be where we’ve hit some stumbling blocks. Dr. C said that he would have Monica (who also seems to be the person who determines if we can participate in the shared risk program) call us last Wednesday to go over everything. Well, today is Monday, and we still have not heard from her. I left her a voicemail and also sent her an e-mail, and still no response. My mock transfer is scheduled for Thursday and I need to know if we are accepted into the shared risk program before then. If for some reason we cannot be a part of the shared risk program, then we will likely not go forward with this particular clinic due to the distance. There is no sense in heading down there for a mock transfer if we won’t be pursuing treatment with them. So at this point I am beyond frustrated with the lack of communication.
Additionally, we need to attend a patient education class before we can start IVF. It just so happened that they were doing one of these classes on the very same day that we were there for our consult. We actually asked if we could stay and do it then since it would save us a trip, but the receptionist insisted that we must have all of our pre-testing and financial appointment completed before we can take the class. We had asked Dr. C if there was any way that we could do both the SHG/mock transfer and the class on the same day, and he said that it would probably be doable. Well when I called to make my SHG appointment, the receptionist told me that the next class wasn’t until late, late August. What?!? Do they only do these classes once a month? If we had to wait until late August before we could take the class, we would miss a whole other cycle, which is certainly not what we want at this point.
So I called on Friday afternoon to see if there was any way that we could pay extra to have a special class just for us. If not, could we start the birth control pills BEFORE we took the class since you don’t really need a whole lot of education to pop a BCP. Either of those two options would work out just fine for us (of course we’re hoping that somehow we can arrange a special class just for us on Thursday, which would save us another trip down there), but we still have not heard anything back yet.
I’m frustrated because when I initially contacted this clinic, I had asked about doing treatment from out of state. Monica had responded that they just had a client from Wisconsin get pregnant from treatment there the previous week, which made it seem like they were experienced in dealing with patients from out of state and that perhaps they were accommodating to their needs. So far I have not noticed that to be true, and my frustration with their lack of response is certainly growing with each passing hour with no return phone call.
In my heart, I feel like this is the clinic that we need to be at and we will get pregnant from this. But at this moment, I am so upset and frustrated, I just don’t even know what to do with myself. I know that frustration is the last thing that I need when we’re going to be starting IVF, so I really hope that the communication improves from here on out. I have no idea what we will do if it doesn’t.
In more positive news, a woman in my real life support group who has been undergoing IUI’s for over a year (her husband is sterile due to cancer treatments) finally got her BFP. It was so thrilling to hear that it finally worked for her. I cannot imagine taking 12.5 mg of Femara and doing two IUI’s every month for 15 months. The stress and emotion of 5 IUI’s was nearly too much for me.
Additionally, two women from my online buddy group are also pregnant, one of which was just about to start IVF for severe male factor infertility. She thought that the only way they could get pregnant was IVF with ICSI and somehow they got a miracle BFP. It is exciting to know that it is happening for other women. On one hand it makes me think that if it can happen for them, then it can happen for me. On the other hand, of course, it makes me wonder how come they can get pregnant with presumably such major issue, but we can’t with presumably minor or non-existent issues. It’s a frustrating mixed bag of emotions. But I am very truly happy for all of them. I’m just wishing that our time comes soon too.
At the dog park just about a year ago, an acquaintance told me that she just found out that she was pregnant. She went on to say that they had been trying for 11 months before they finally got pregnant. Without thinking about what I was doing, I blabbed that we had been trying for a while too, I guess mostly because I felt like she could relate to the difficulties we were having. I was shocked that I just opened my mouth and told her this, especially when I hadn’t even really told any of my close friends about what was going on. But it was too late and I couldn’t take it back, so I just kept questioning what they had been through and how they got it figured out.
When I finally got all of the details, it turned out that they were just mistiming things each month. Her cycles were very irregular coming off of birth control and so it was hard for them to cover their bases every month. She went to her OB/GYN and asked for help and was told to just keep trying. A few more months went by and she went back to the OB/GYN, but happened to see a different doctor on that day. The OB/GYN suggested that they try using OPK’s to help maximize their chances. They did, and what do you know? She was pregnant the next month. No blood work was ever run, no clomid was ingested, no artificial inseminations took place, all it took was good old fashioned well timed sex.
Now I felt like even more of an idiot for opening my mouth about our difficulties. I didn’t have any of the same issues that she did. I had great fertility signals and knew when my most fertile time was each month which was corroborated by the charts that I kept. Timing was certainly not an issue for us. As far as I knew at the time, my biggest problem was chronic spotting and had actually just had my blood drawn that day for a 7DPO progesterone level. She hadn’t even heard of having your progesterone checked and so was no help with that issue. In fact, she seemed to know virtually nothing about infertility at all. Up until the month prior, she didn’t even know about OPK’s. I just couldn’t believe that in 11 months, she had never typed the words “infertility” or even just “how to increase chances of getting pregnant” into Google.
When she had initially told me that they had been trying for a while, I felt hope because if it could work for them after so long, then there was a good chance that it would work for us as well. My hope faded a bit when she said that their problem was just a matter of timing because we had already gone though six very well timed cycles.
Of course I didn’t let it get me too down. In fact, I fantasized about getting pregnant soon and being able to go through pregnancy together with her, albeit a few months behind her. How great it would be to have someone in real life to discuss all of the weird changes that pregnancy brings? And how wonderful for us to have kids approximately the same age?
But as we all know now, the months slipped by as I continued to remain not pregnant and her little boy is four months old now. So at the dog park last week, I asked her what she and her son did that day. She told me how they went to Target to try out convertible car seats since he’s almost outgrown his infant carrying seat. She was explaining how she was doing research and looked up reviews on different seats, but still wasn’t sure what to get. I felt somewhat helpless to provide any advice since I know absolutely nothing about buying anything baby related, but then it crossed my mind that many, many months ago (when I naively believed I would get pregnant within a matter of months), I purchased a book called Baby Bargains. While the title implies that the book is about thrifty tips for buying baby gear, but it’s actually more like a consumer’s guide to all things baby related. They review nearly every model of every baby related item that you could think of and provide info on costs and manufacturer reputation. So it’s rumored to be a fantastic resource for anyone who needs to buy baby stuff.
I never envisioned that this book would sit, alongside of 5 or 6 other pregnancy/birthing books, on my bookshelf for over a year. So I offered it to her. Much better for her to get some use out of it than for it to sit on my bookshelf unopened and unused. While I was glad to have someone get some use out of it, it was just another reminder of what I don’t have. At this moment, we’re not pregnant, and to admit that it may not happen for us any time soon was somewhat of a relief. I do think that in some ways I’ve put way too much pressure on myself in regards to getting pregnant. I always feel like “What if it doesn’t happen this month? What will we ever do with ourselves?” I’ve made getting pregnant into the only thing that I really strive for anymore and that’s not fair to me. In some ways, passing that one book on has helped me to realize that I’ve been unfair to myself in creating possibly unrealistic expectations for us. It helped me to release some of that pressure that I’ve built up for myself and allowed me to let things go just a little bit. It was like coming to terms with where we are now and letting go of that constant fear of what might happen if it doesn’t happen. It was an unexpected, yet very much appreciated side effect of doing nice for someone else.
There is one thing that has become increasingly clear as I’ve struggled with our fertility issues; I am spoiled. Spoiled rotten. I’m used to getting what I want, and usually when I want it.
Everyone says that youngest kids are spoiled and always get what they want and I guess from my experience, I can’t really disagree. While I was most certainly not a spoiled brat demanding things from my parents, they did tend to give me most everything I wanted.
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My parents sent me to a private driving school the summer before I turned 16 because I had just missed the cutoff to get into the class at school (though this was probably a little selfish on their behalf as well because then they wouldn’t have to drive me around anymore).
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My parents paid for half of three week long field trip to Europe when I was a junior in high school.
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My parents paid my tuition, room and board while I was in college. They even paid for me to spend a semester studying in France.
Beyond all of the financial support they have given me throughout the years, my parents have always been there for me emotionally. Sure, we’ve had our disagreements, but I honestly could not ask for more compassionate, kind and caring parents. They have always been willing to stop whatever they’re doing at the drop of a hat in order to help me out with whatever was going on with me. I can’t imagine how different my life would be without their constant support.
Even as an adult, without the assistance of my parents, I’ve been pretty spoiled.
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I got every job that I’ve ever interviewed for
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I got every house that I’ve ever wanted
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I got the man that I wanted
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We make enough money that nearly anything we want, we can just go out and buy or do
On the whole, I’ve been exceptionally fortunate. And spoiled.
Except for this one thing. We can’t manage to have a baby on our own.
The frustration of wanting something so bad, but not being able to get it is beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced before. And it’s different from everything else that I’ve ever wanted in that there’s no guarantee that I can get it, no matter how much time, money and effort I throw at it. This is something that I have, quite literally, no control over. And I’m still struggling to try to figure how to handle it.
Great news! I had my blood drawn yesterday for the first of my clomid challenge test FSH levels. Last time I had my FSH measured, it was 12.9, which translates to “diminished reserve.” Of course an FSH of 12.9 will effectively eliminate me from participating in any sort of shared risk IVF program, which is what we ultimately want to do, so yesterday’s draw was really important to me. I was hoping that the months of acupuncture, reiki, meditation and various supplements that I’ve been taking would have had some effect on my FSH.
It seems that all of my hard work has paid off since my FSH was NINE this time around! And I know that FSH does have some variation between months, but holy crap! It dropped 4 points! So this bodes well for us getting into the IVF program that we are most interested in.
Since women who have elevated FSH usually fail the clomid challenge test, I’m not actually going to take Clomid. Dishonest? Yes. Will it (hopefully) help me to get what I want in the end? Yes. Do I feel bad about lying? No. Everyone says that age trumps FSH, and since I’m 29, I have to believe that we’ll still be able to conceive within a few tries at IVF. If fact, I have a feeling that the clinic will be making money off of us since I’m fairly confident that we’ll get pregnant on the first try. So I don’t feel bad about being dishonest.
So now we need to begin the process of requesting that our medical records be sent to me so that I can filter though them and keep the one test sheet that shows my 12.9 FSH to myself. We will be making a consultation appointment this week so we’ll be getting going with everything really soon, hopefully!
So that’s what’s going on! Hopes are high and we’re feeling good!
1. Since it’s a special night for your and your husband, make sure that you take a test before you go out. If it’s somehow miraculously positive, you want to be able to celebrate, right?
2. When that second pink line miraculously shows up, faint, but definitely there, prepare a special way to tell your husband that after 18 months and 5 IUI’s, you’ve finally done it!
3. When your husband comes home from work, tell him in that special way and share a brief moment of sheer happiness.
4. When your husband asks how you know, you pull that test out of your pocket to show him those two beautiful pink lines, only to realize that the 2nd pink line has faded away to nearly nothing.
5. Assure husband that you know way more about pregnancy tests than he does, and a line is a line, therefore you’re pregnant! Besides, the pee you used to test with was REALLY diluted and most women get darker lines in the morning. Tomorrow morning’s test will undoubtedly be very obviously positive.
6. Be sure to chat about how great it is that you finally got pregnant the cycle before you were going to move on to IVF and discuss all of the ways that you can spend the money you were planning to put towards IVF.
7. Continue to celebrate and discuss all of the fun things that you happily won’t get to do now that you’re pregnant, like take cruises, go to amusement parks, etc.
8. If your husband is still a bit hesitant to let himself get excited about this pregnancy because of the “barely there” second line, just remind him that no matter what happens, for this moment, you are pregnant.
9. The next morning take a test using some super concentrated pee. When the line shows up even fainter than yesterday’s (or maybe it’s not there at all, you’ve just convinced yourself that it has to be there since you ARE pregnant, after all), chalk it up to the fact that some women get better results in the afternoons instead of the mornings.
10. Run to the store at lunch to get more tests so that you can see those two beautiful lines when you test again after work.
11. When only one line shows up after work, find someway to tell your husband that you must have been wrong somehow.
12. Realize how absolutely foolish you were to jump the gun and the pain that you have caused your husband and yourself. Promise yourself that you will never, ever get so caught up in two faint lines again.
So that’s my Monday evening and Tuesday in a nutshell. Why the second pink line? I have no idea. It’s definitely not an evap because the line came up within a minute or two and it’s definitely pink, just faded very much from how it originally looked. It could be a chemical, I suppose. If not a chemical, then I have no explanation.
I feel absolutely horrible for getting Mark all worked up only to have it taken away today. When I saw that second pink line come up yesterday, the feeling was unbelievable and I couldn’t believe how narrowly we’d escaped having to do IVF. But more than anything, I was looking forward to sharing my excitement with my husband. He was so excited and happy for us, despite the fact that he wasn’t completely sure if it was real or not. What hurts me the most is knowing the hurt I created for him. I cried today. Not for myself, but for the confusion, disappointment, and pain I created for him. I’ve learned my lesson and will not say anything in the future unless the test is blaringly positive or if a digital test says pregnant.
So I’m back into research mode since we will be moving on to IVF next. There are lots of small things that we need answers to in order to select where we will be doing our IVF cycles and it seems that answers are difficult to come by sometimes. But we will keep plugging away and know that someday we’ll get ours too.
The spotting started at two days past ovulation this time around and has not let up at all. I’m puzzled as to why I’m spotting because I took the HCG trigger, which in the past has kept the spotting away until much later in my cycle, and also because I’m taking progesterone. Those two things in combination have kept the spotting away for the last two cycles, so this cycle is a mystery to me. Part of me wonders if it could be due to a ruptured cyst? Either way, I’m frustrated and losing hope again.
So I went in yesterday morning for my CD11 ultrasound to check and see how many follicles I was growing and how big they were. I couldn’t see the monitor too well and Dr. O wasn’t telling me the sizes, so I really had no idea how they were measuring. I could tell that they were getting pretty big, but he shocked the hell out of me when he removed the wand and said “Well, they’re ready to pop so you’ll trigger tonight and IUI Wednesday morning.” What?!? The last two cycles I’ve ovulated on CD16 (with trigger on CD14), so I was really expecting the same thing this time. In fact, I was so confident that I wouldn’t be doing the trigger until Wednesday or Thursday that I told my mail order pharmacy to deliver the trigger to me today, on Tuesday.
I should preface this with a little history on how my day started yesterday. I arrived at 7:30, right on time for my appointment and I was the first person in the waiting room for my ultrasound yesterday. Within five minutes there were a couple of other women waiting as well and one couple was taken back after about 10 minutes. At that point I started to get pissed off because I had the very first appointment on a Monday morning. Really, what could they possibly be doing that was keeping them from calling me back? At 7:50, 20 minutes after my appointment time, I was finally taken back. I quickly stripped off my pants assuming that the doctor would walk in at any second since they were so far behind. But no. There I sat, watching the minutes tick away on the clock. Every minute that passed I was getting more and more pissed off. I could hear the doctor leaving the room next to me where the couple that was taken back before me was, so I knew that someone would come for me soon. But no.
Finally there was a quiet knock on the door and in walks the nurse practitioner. She said that Dr. P wanted her to come and check to see how my bladder was doing. I looked at her weird and told her that I was just there for an ultrasound, so I didn’t have a full bladder. She said that’s what she thought and that Dr. P was probably talking about someone else. She said she would send one of the doctors in to see me right away, but still the minutes ticked by. At this point I was struggling to stay calm. A good five minutes later Dr. O FINALLY shows up to do the u/s. There were no apologies or explanations for delay, which made me even more frustrated. At this point I had been waiting for 40 minutes for a 10 minute u/s. I usually try to cut doctors some slack when they are late for my appointments because I know that they have other patients who they have to see and they can’t control how long their patients want to talk, etc. But in this case I was the very first appointment of the day, which means that they were delaying my appointment strictly for themselves and not for any other reason, which really ticked me off. I was furious and fighting back tears of frustration.
So add to my very (self inflicted) fragile state the added pressure of having to trigger a full three days before I was expecting it when I didn’t even have the darn trigger in my possession yet, and I was about to lose it. I was also stressed because the follicles were so big already (21.3mm, 20.7mm and 18.8mm) that I was concerned that might be ready to come out on their own without the trigger shot, but since I hadn’t been using OPK’s yet there was a very distinct possibility that I could have missed my surge.
When I FINALLY got back to work, I peed on an OPK and it was very negative, so that alleviated my fear of having missed my surge and I called the mail order pharmacy and they were able to cancel my order so that I didn’t end up with two trigger shots. Mark was able to pick up my trigger shot at the local pharmacy for me over lunch which really helped me out. After work I had an acupuncture appointment and that always helps to relax me, so what started as a very stressful morning actually ended up being a pretty decent day in the end.
Despite the crazy day yesterday, I’m feeling good and optimistic about the IUI tomorrow. And I’ve resolved that no matter how Mark’s sample turns out, I will stay positive about this cycle.
Yesterday I fell in love. Not with another man, but with Reiki and Divine Coding. This is funny and strange to me because Reiki is not something that I really even believe in or understand. Just telling Mark about my session makes me feel embarrassed and silly because it sounds so hokey and ridiculous, but it really does work wonders for me.
While my Reiki lady Lisa is doing the Reiki, she uses her Devine Coding skills (which I’m even more skeptical about than the Reiki itself) to intuit how I’m feeling and what’s going on with me. It’s absolutely amazing what she is able to glean from placing her hands on my face for just a few moments. She uses whatever vibes she’s getting from me to guide our session and to talk through things.
This second session was very different from our first session. At our first session, after she determined that I was “all inside my head” and told me that I needed to find a creative outlet, the rest of the session was just Reiki and quiet time, no more talking.
Yesterday’s session was much more like a mini therapy session. We did so much more talking than we did last time and tried to come up with ways to cope. The first thing that we worked on was the fact that I need to not be mad or upset with my body, regardless of how betrayed or upset I am by it. She made an analogy about how if I were to go to my place of work and I knew that everyone there didn’t like me and thought I was doing a crappy job, would I want to go to work and do a good job? The answer is no, of course not. That’s how I need to view my ovaries and reproductive system. If I’m feeling negative towards my body and my ovaries, of course they won’t respond in the way I want them to. Instead of projecting animosity towards them, I need to give them love.
So she had me imagine sifts or screens beginning at my feet and sifting all the way up through my body and up to the top of my head that would filter out any negative feelings towards my body. Then she had me imagine tossing those screens full of negative gunk into a bonfire so that all of the negative energy burned up and then she had me replace the empty spaces where the negativity was with love. I felt so much lighter after the screens had sifted all of the negative energy away and then when I replaced those empty spaces with love I felt a tingling swirling sensation, which was really cool. Again, it sounds silly, I know, but it really works for me.
The second thing that we worked on is that I need to focus on the here and now. Instead of getting myself all worked up about IVF right now, I need to focus on this cycle. There is a potential that we may not even need IVF and I really need to focus my energy on this cycle right now, and send good positive thoughts towards what we’re dealing with at this moment. This struck a chord with me because I mentioned in my last post that I’m pretty much dismissing this cycle and already looking towards IVF. So I will renew my focus and try to work as hard as I can to stay positive about this cycle and where we are now and not stress about the possibilities of what might happen in the future.
Throughout all of this, I found it very interesting that while I was laying there, my mind kept wandering back to two specific trips that I taken when I was younger. One was a trip to DC in the summer after 8th grade and the second one was a three week trip to Europe in the summer after my sophomore year. While I thoroughly enjoyed both of these trips, I don’t often think about them, so I wondered if there was some significance. I mentioned these images to Lisa and she kind of helped me to discern what importance they might have for me and why I would keep conjuring them up.
Ultimately, I think that these images were coming to me because these were journeys that I went on that I really had no part in planning. I’ve been on lots of trips since those two trips, but I’ve been the coordinator and planner extraordinaire for said trips. These two particular trips were different in that I paid my money, went on the trip and enjoyed myself. Someone else did all of the planning, research, and coordinating for me…all I had to do was show up. I’m sure that this is some way of my subconscious telling me that I need to just go with the flow a bit more and trust in my care providers so that I can enjoy my life as it is now without all of the worry of this other, very different, journey that I’m on.
Anyway, that’s the recap of my Reiki session for this month…definitely worth the money and time investment. I took my last 5 Femara pills last night, and I’m sending lots of love and appreciation to those ovaries of mine so we’ll see what it all adds up to on Monday when I go for my ultrasound.
Have you ever been in a difficult situation and expected a friend to be there for you? And how disappointing is it when that friend not only doesn’t step up to support you, but completely ignores you? It’s hard to deal with when you’ve been supportive to that friend through her tough times, but when the shoe is on the other foot, communication practically ceases. It’s an added stress that is definitely not appreciated when already dealing with the stress and emotions of infertility. How disappointing.
I decided to test today so that if the test was negative, I could try to get a head start on plans for next cycle before my cycle actually began. If I’m not pregnant this cycle, then I want to call both my acupuncturist and my RE and discuss what they think I should do next.
I wanted to ask the acupuncturist if she thinks that my body CAN get pregnant right now, or if we have so much work to do that I should stop the IUI’s for now until my body is ready to accept a pregnancy.
I wanted to ask my RE if it makes sense to keep doing IUI’s with Femara, or if we should move to injectibles, or if we need to consider donor egg, donor embryo or adoption.
It looks like I’ll be making those calls today. Not only was the test negative, but it appears that I’ve started to bleed a full two days early on top of it. I’m completely numb.
No, not really. Here I sit at 12DPO and I have managed to not test at all yet, not even an OPK to see what the trigger was doing…nothing. I’m pretty darn proud of myself, but honestly, I haven’t had the urge to test like I have in the past. Of course my lack of symptoms is probably a good reason for my lack of desire to pee on something. So far the only things I can report as symptoms are somewhat sore boobs (but only to the touch) and being tired lately. Of course I can chalk up the sore boobs to the progesterone suppositories and I can explain away the tiredness with an active weekend, so really I have nothing.
I think that my entire mindset regarding TTC and HPT’s is changing too though. I used to test like a mad woman, usually once a day starting at 10DPO, sometimes twice a day even. I was OK with seeing the negatives because I would tell myself that it was just too early to get a positive, so the negatives were never very difficult to take. Now I’m actually kind of scared to test. A negative at this stage in the game is so much more difficult to handle. The amount of time, energy, money and mental involvement that we devote to each cycle coupled with the sheer length of time that we’ve been trying brings such a huge sense of defeat when that second line doesn’t appear.
I can’t bear the thought of seeing only one line on another test, especially when everything went so well this cycle. Mark provided such an awesome sample, I should have had at least three follicles (maybe four), my HSG should have cleared out any debris that might have been clogging up my tubes, and the IUI was timed perfectly. If this month is a bust, it will be difficult to continue on knowing that even in the most perfect circumstances, we were unable to make a baby.
Anyway, all this is to say that I don’t know when, or if I will test.
So I have immensely enjoyed riding my bike to work the past few days (it’s National Bike to Work Week, for those who are unaware). All of the trees are spouting leaves and the crabapples and magnolias are in bloom. It’s gorgeous.
But even more wonderful than the physical beauty, is the smell. The smell of lilac and magnolias is just intoxicating. The smell of a freshly cut lawn… These are the smells that take me back to my childhood, a time when things were simpler and I had no cares in the world. All of the neighborhood kids would stay outside playing games until the sun went down and our parents called us in to get ready for bed. It’s a nice reprieve from the reality of being an adult and all of the responsibilities that come along with it.
As for the source of my confusion, I’m fairly certain that I’ve already ovulated. This doesn’t make any sense at all though, since I’ve been testing twice a day since Saturday and never got a surge. I took my Ovidrel trigger shot last night at 8pm, and according to Dr. O, most women ovulate right around 38 hours after taking the trigger. If that’s true, then I shouldn’t ovulate until 10 am tomorrow.
So what gives? Are my surges just so short that testing twice a day isn’t catching it? Or does my body react weirdly to the HCG shot and ovulate early? I don’t know. I will definitely be asking Dr. O tomorrow.
Other than this morning, I haven’t been temping at all this cycle so I have no idea where my coverline should be, but tomorrow’s temp should tell the tale. If it’s high, as I expect that it will be, we’re skipping the IUI. I’m definitely bummed about this, especially since we didn’t get any old fashioned baby making in lately because we were abstaining for the IUI. It basically translates into a wasted cycle, which makes me sad. I was having a really good feeling about this cycle and to have it end as a bust is disappointing.
I can’t continue to do this anymore. It’s not even an emotional thing for me anymore. Honestly speaking, things have gotten a lot easier for me emotionally the last few months. I could continue to speculate as to why things are easier, as I have done in previous posts, but I guess it doesn’t really matter to me why things are easier; just that they are.
It’s not the physical toll that is bothering me, not that the physical aspects have ever been that overwhelming. However, 12.5mg of Femara did a lot more to my body than 5mg ever did. My left shoulder was intensely sore and tight for about a week because of the hormones. Acupuncture helped, but it was still pretty miserable.
What’s bothering me the most lately is the unknown.
I want to know if we will ever be able to have our own biological children. I want to know if my eggs are of a good enough quality that I will be able to be a part of the genetic make up of our baby. If I knew, for certain, that on May 29, 2011, for example, I would give birth to a baby that was half of me and half of Mark, then I could wait for that. I can have all of the patience in the world to wait for our biological children if I only know that things would happen for us eventually.
On the other hand, if my eggs are not good enough for us to conceive a baby, then I want to know that now, so that I can move on to other options. Being pregnant is one of the only dreams that I have for myself as an adult. I want to be able to experience everything that comes along with being pregnant. If donor eggs will allow me to be pregnant and carry our children and experience labor and birth, then I am 100% on board with pursuing that avenue. A few months ago I fretted about using an egg donor because our children would not have any genes of mine. Now I realize that it doesn’t matter to me that our children would not genetically be a part of me because families are made up of people who love each other. Where they came from or whose genes they have is irrelevant.
But even more than being pregnant, my biggest adult dream is being a mom. It is because of this realization, that I am completely willing and excited to adopt, if it is determined that I am unable to carry children or if the toll of trying to conceive gets to be too much.
I am 100% open to any of these options and would be happy if any of them brought children into our lives. The problem is that I don’t know which path will bring us children in the end.
How long do you spend doing one thing before you turn to another? How long do you fight before you give up on a dream in one form to meet it in another form? When does the entirety of the battle and the emotional, physical and logical toll that comes along with it outweigh the ultimate goal?
And what if I’m losing sight of my goal? What if throughout all of this I’ve become so disillusioned to the whole thing that now I’m just more interested in “succeeding” rather than having children? Have I become so completely impassioned in trying to get to the ultimate goal that I’ve forgotten what it is that I’m even fighting for?
The other day I found that someone posted a quiz to the wiki that my support group maintains. Since I missed the last support meeting, I’m not quite sure what the quiz is about, but it seemed to be a quiz that is trying to get to the heart of whether or not the quiz taker really wants or needs to have children. This is something that I’ve been turning around in my head for a couple of months, so finding this quiz and reading the questions really caused me to think even deeper about it.
The bottom line is that I do think that I could live a happy and fulfilled life without a child. It’s certainly not what I would choose, but I do think that it’s something that I could live with.
Coming to that realization makes me question everything that we’ve been through the past 17 months and what I am willing to do going forward. I’m not sure how much more of myself I can give up to this endeavor at this time. I feel drained. I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. I have told Mark that I’m willing to do one more IUI with Femara cycle, and then we will need to take a break and re-evaluate our situation. I’m at the breaking point and something’s gotta give.
Originally posted March 27th, 2008
There are very few people who know about our fertility struggle, in fact I have only told two of my friends what’s been going on. The fact that other people now know (5 women plus whomever they told), was not my choice, nor of my control. One of those 5 women knew that we wanted kids right away after we got married and said “Don’t you know they’ve been trying since they got married?” when someone asked me about it at dinner four months after we’d started trying. Since I am a terrible, horrible liar, I could do nothing but admit to it.
One of the women there tried to console me by saying “At least your husband is ready to have kids. Mine isn’t even ready yet.” As luck would have it, she must have gone home and conceived that very night because three months later she announced that they were 17 weeks pregnant. My husband and I were on vacation when she and her husband announced it at our work, so they told my husband when we came back because we had missed the news. My husband, God love him, for some reason thought it would be a great idea to send them over to my very-not-private cube to announce it to me. What was he thinking?!?
Her husband came up behind me an announced “We’re preggers!” What?!? I’m sure my face must have been priceless. Here in my little convoluted dream world I was thinking about how I was going to get pregnant any moment now and then I could pass my copy of “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” on to them to aid them in their journey. NOPE. No, as it was explained to me, she had just gone off of her birth control two weeks before our fateful dinner conversation and they weren’t even trying. She didn’t think that her body would be ready to get back to normal that soon off of birth control, so she used the “my husband’s not ready for kids” excuse to cover up for the fact that they were going to start trying soon. Sigh.
I swallowed the painful lump that was quickly rising in my throat and fought back the tears. How embarrassing to me for her to feel like she had to explain her pregnancy to me, and within ear shot of 10 different co-workers, nonetheless. After she and her husband left, I took 5 minutes of sitting at my desk so as not to appear devastated to anyone around me who might know how this would affect me. Then I took off for the bathroom and had a good cry.
I was amazingly embarrassed by the whole situation. Embarrassed by how easy it was for them and how difficult it continued to be for us. Embarrassed that she (and presumably he) knew that we were struggling and frustrated. Embarrassed that now 10 additional people may have figured out that we were trying from the way she explained it all.
I felt shamed.
And really, infertility is nothing to be ashamed of. It really isn’t. It isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s not a reflection of what kind of person you are. It’s not a reflection of the parent you hope to become. It’s not a reflection of your monetary or social status. It just is what it is.
But my fertility struggle does make me feel ashamed of myself. It makes me feel like I’m not good enough; that I don’t deserve what everyone else gets so easily. I can’t make my body do the one thing that it is supposed to just naturally do. And that makes me self-conscious.
Every time the subject of babies and kids comes up it’s as though there is a big, flashing neon arrow above my head pointing right at me saying “She’s infertile! She wants nothing more than to have kids but she can’t make her body cooperate!” When co-workers bring their babies in to work, I watch them from a safe distance and wish that I could have that, all the while hoping that no one notices that pesky arrow flashing above me telling all of the world that I can’t have the one thing I want most.
It’s hurtful, embarrassing, shameful and frustrating. As I walk the halls at work, I wonder who can see that arrow flashing away above my head. I wonder who feels pity for us and what we’re going through. I like to think that those 7 women who know that we’ve been trying for 16 months now have kept my business, that most of them weren’t even supposed to know in the first place, to themselves. I know that there’s a good chance that they may have told others, but I have to tell myself that they haven’t.
And in order to stay sane, I have to constantly remind myself that the arrow doesn’t exist outside my head.
Originally posted March 20, 2008
Holy buckets, it has been a long time since I updated this! Part of the reason is that I was away on vacation in Arizona for a week being completely distracted from TTC. Another part of the reason is that I don’t feel like I need to blog as an outlet as much as I did before. I’m not sure what’s changing, but something’s different. In fact, not a single tear was shed when I realized that last cycle was a bust. That says a lot about me.
Perhaps it’s the new support group that I’m a part of. We’re just a group or women who are struggling with infertility who get together every couple of weeks to talk. It is very unstructured, and we just discuss whatever is on our minds. Most of the women there have been at this a lot longer than I have (2 to 3 years), but there is one woman who was at the same time period of trying to conceive as me. Happily for her, she is now 10 weeks pregnant, so she gives me hope that it will happen for me too.
Our last meeting was largely focused on adoption, since it seems a few of the women are turning towards that now. A special guest was invited to share her experience with her adoption process so far. It is amazing to hear all of the details and heartaches of adopting. For certain it is no easier than struggling with trying to conceive, in fact in many ways it seems so much more frustrating.
While I am certainly open to adoption, I don’t think that Mark is at this point, and quite honestly, it’s something that scares me to death. It’s not the fact that I would be giving up on the dream of having my own biological children; I think I can accept that. As one woman in my support group said “It doesn’t matter where your children come from. What matters is that you’re a family.” And that I can handle. What I can’t handle is the uncertainty of it all. The paperwork, the red tape, the waiting, the hoping, the disappointment, the not knowing when your dream might come true. Many of those same feelings are true to trying to conceive, but at least you are somewhat in control of what happens. Trying to conceive is all up to my husband and I, and if things don’t work out, it’s easy to just blame our bodies. In adoption, things that go wrong are all controlled by someone or something. I myself would have no control whatsoever of the process and that would leave me feeling helpless.
So while we as a couple are not even ready to seriously think about adoption, it was still so great to hear from someone who’s been there, in case it’s something that we need to consider in the future. And it helped me to think of things a little differently, from a new perspective.
Perhaps the change is because deep down inside I really feel like we’re going to be able to conceive our own biological child. Again, I can’t say why I feel this way, or what happened to make me feel this way, but as I was sitting at the support group meeting last week, I realized that I do, in fact, believe that it will happen for us. I’m baffled as to why I’m so convinced that it will happen, especially considering that I’m less than 7 weeks removed from finding out that I have a diminished ovarian reserve. But I won’t question this feeling. It’s a good feeling to have, so I’m going to cling to it until I have a very good reason to stop believing it. I believe that positive thoughts are paramount in dealing with this, and at this point my thoughts are all that I can control, so that’s what I’m going to do.
Originally posted Feburary 28th
I know. It’s totally clichéd. Infertility is often referred to as a rollercoaster of emotions. Disappointment, sadness and anger at the beginning of the cycle, followed by resignation that you do, in fact, have to continue on with this insanity for another month. After that comes the pressure of trying to make sure that you’ve got your timing right and have all of your bases covered. Then for about a week, there’s nothing. You’ve done everything that you can, and all you can do at this point is wait and hope for time to pass by quickly. As time goes on and the “symptoms” crop up, there’s excitement and hope that maybe, just maybe, this time it worked. Of course all of that excitement and hope is dashed by something that tells you that this time it DIDN’T work, and you spirits come crashing down and you’re right back at the start of the rollercoaster again.
I know that I’ve been on this rollercoaster for a while now, and while you’d think that I would get used to it and know what’s coming up and how to deal with it, I’m not, and I don’t.
This cycle has been decidedly different than other cycles, and I thought that maybe I would be less susceptible to the rollercoaster of emotions because of it. Since this was an IUI cycle, there wasn’t really a whole lot that was up to me to control. I was told what dates to come in for blood work and ultrasounds. I was told what day to start doing ovulation predictor tests and specifically what times to take them. I even told my body when to ovulate by giving myself the trigger shot. Not a lot was left up to me to control, which was nice. It was like someone else was taking the reigns as all I had to do was enjoy the ride.
And that all worked out fine until Monday. I met with my acupuncturist on Monday and when she felt my pulses, she said that they were “REALLY good actually. Slippery and balanced.” Having read The Infertility Cure, I knew immediately that a slippery pulse is a sign of pregnancy. Of course I’m sure that pregnancy is not the only thing that generates a slippery pulse, but mine have been wiry and unbalanced the previous two times I had been in, so it certainly wasn’t normal for me. Of course the first thing that runs through my head is that I’m actually, finally pregnant. I tried to tell my mind to be quiet. I tried to not let it get the best of me. I tried.
But it didn’t work. After my acu was over, the first thing I did was to go to the Dollar Tree and get some cheapo tests. I was thinking that the trigger could still be in my system and I wanted to finally be able to see those two lines on the test, even though they wouldn’t be real. So I did the test, and there was a faint “something” there. I wasn’t sure what it was. That in and of itself got me excited, even though it still could have been just the trigger.
To add to my growing excitement, I realized that I hadn’t been spotting at all this month after ovulation. This was H-U-G-E for me as I’ve been known to spot as early as 10 days before my period before. I asked my acu if this could be from the acu treatment already, or maybe it was from the Femara which just gave me a stronger ovulation which in turn prevented the spotting? She said that it could be from either really. Or, she said, it could be because I’m pregnant.
Roll up the slippery pulse, the “something” pregnancy test, the lack of spotting, along with some sore boobs, and of course I’m convinced that I’m pregnant. It’s so easy to get caught up in it.
Of course today it all comes crashing down on me. Today there was bright red blood when I went to the bathroom, which is a sure sign to me that I’m out this month. I made a mistake in letting everything control how I felt, and now I have to pay the price for it.
I wish I could figure out a way to better control my emotions. How do I prevent myself from feeling hopeful and excited every month? If I can contain those emotions, then maybe the disappointment and sadness would be proportionately smaller and therefore easier to deal with.
Originally posted February 18, 2008
Last week I was feeling really good about everything. As mentioned before, the diagnosis of high FSH at least gives me some reason as to why things aren’t going our way so far. It also gave me something to focus on. The wonderful gals over at the High FSH Forum mentioned that my TSH is high for TTC and that if I can get my TSH lower, that my FSH may just follow suit. GREAT! If only it should be so easy!
I made an appointment with my primary care physician to see if she would hook me up with some thyroid medication and met with her on Friday. I told her that I was concerned about my TSH level and she kind of smirked and said “Why, because it’s right in the middle of normal?” Oh boy. This means that she’s not even aware that in 2003 the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) suggested that doctors “consider treatment for patients who test outside the boundaries of a narrower margin based on a target TSH level of 0.3 to 3.0. AACE believes the new range will result in proper diagnosis for millions of Americans who suffer from a mild thyroid disorder, but have gone untreated until now.”
But even if she were aware of the newly suggested “normal” range, my level still isn’t even outside that range. I figured that this might be the case, so I showed up armed a couple of articles that I had found that stated that ideal ranges should be closer to 1 and showed them to her. One of them she refuted because it was from a Naturopath (Bruce Rind), not a regular MD, and the other she refuted because it was for people who had already been diagnosed with hypothyroidism.
The part that I don’t understand is that patients who are diagnosed with hypothyroidism are generally thought to feel best when their TSH levels are maintained around 1. Why shouldn’t that standard hold true for ALL people regardless of official diagnosis of hypothyroidism or not? Why should 2.5 be not a problem for me, but would be for someone with an actual diagnosis of hypothyroidism?
I was gratified today when I found a research article that pretty much echoes my sentiments exactly.
“We are also befuddled by the practice of supporters of the recommendations of the consensus panel (the panel that recommended that the reference range not be changed) who promote a target TSH range of 1.0-1.5 mU/liter in patients already receiving T4 therapy, whereas they refuse to accept TSH levels of 3-10 mU/liter as abnormal in patients not receiving T4 therapy.”
Even with my list of thyroid disease symptoms that I provided her, I could tell I was not going to get anywhere with her. She did do some brief research (to humor me more than anything, I think) and found a study that showed pregnancy outcomes for women with TSH lower than 2.5 were MUCH better than those whose had a TSH higher than 2.5. To me, that means that when I DO eventually become pregnant, I will need to start treatment then anyway, so why wait? This still wasn’t enough to convince her that there’s a potential problem, so she sent me off with a lab slip to check for anti-thryroid antibodies and a recheck of my TSH and T4. She told me that she admittedly wasn’t an expert in Thyroid issues and suggested that I talk with my RE about it. I took that to mean that unless my ATA’s come back elevated that she’s done with me.
So this weekend I was scouring the internet trying to find worthy studies that I could use to push my case for starting treatment. I haven’t found a whole lot, so I posted on the FSH forum to see if anyone there has any good info that I can use.
In any event, this was the first disappointing part of the weekend.
The second, and definitely larger disappointment is that I think my IUI was mistimed. I went in on Valentine’s day for my CD14 u/s. My left ovary showed a 23mm follicle, which I was told was a great response to the Femara. The right side showed a 14mm follicle which probably wouldn’t mature in time to release an egg. So Dr. S looks at me smiling a big smile and says “So you’ll do this injection this morning then, right?” Whoa…back it up there missy. In none of our appointments did we EVER discuss a trigger shot. She said that when the follicle is that big, they want it to rupture and release the egg, because the longer the follicle sits there, the older it gets and the quality of the egg it releases will go down. If the patient is given an HCG shot, the follicle is, in essence, forced to rupture and the egg should be released 24 to 36 hours later. Great. Given all the time, money and effort that I’ve spent on this IUI cycle, I don’t want this mammoth follicle to lose quality while it sits around waiting to rupture, so I agree to the shot.
I should have prefaced this by saying that I don’t mind getting blood drawn or getting injections, but I can’t watch it at all. The thought of it makes me want to throw up. Now I’m being told that I have to have an injection, but the kicker is that it is to be self-administered. Holy buckets. I was sweating bullets just thinking about it. Additionally, since this is the first time that I’ve even considered this trigger shot, I have no idea how much it costs, how it works, any risks or dangers that are associated with it. I know virtually nothing about this. Since I was totally unaware of the possibility of having to give myself a shot and therefore had no training in how to give myself a shot, the nurse has to show me how it works. I’ll admit, it didn’t seem all that bad. The needle was really thin and the task didn’t seem TOO daunting. As I’m reading the instruction sheet she gave me, I notice a part that says that the ENTIRE needle needs to go into your skin. WHAT?!? I’m thinking that it will pretty much take everything that I’ve got just to get it to piece the skin, much less bury the whole thing in there. Oh my god, I have no idea how in the world I will be able to do this. Mark is going to be of no help, he’s probably more squeamish about things like this than I am. A hard lump starts to form at the back of my throat and I’m getting really close to tears.
I think the nurse can sense my nervousness with this and mentions that I could take another OPK and see if it’s surging yet and if it is I can forego the shot and save myself some money. That phrase sent me into a panic. I wondering to myself just exactly how much this shot is. I’m figuring that it’s going to be somewhere between $150 and $200. Yikes. Add that to the $1,000 we’ve already spent on this cycle and it’s not chump change, not to mention the fact that NONE of it will be covered by insurance. There’s no way to pass off an HCG injection as anything other than infertility treatment. So now I’m in a panic about not only giving myself the freaking shot, but also wondering how much the stupid thing is going to cost me.
The nurse calls a couple of pharmacies in the area to see if they have it so that I can save myself a few bucks vs going to the overpriced pharmacy in the hospital. I stupidly didn’t have her ask how much the darn thing would be. She finds one near my work that has the injection available and I’m off. I immediately call Mark to give him the update. I’m livid and wondering how all of this can be happening. I always thought the bigger the follicle, the better, so to the slammed with this is just throwing me off kilter. I had Mark get me the phone number of the pharmacy so I could double check to make sure they had the medication and to find out the cost. Turns out that the shot is $75, must less than I had thought that it would be, so there was a sense of relief there.
I was about a ¼ mile away from the pharmacy when all of the sudden there is a loud rattle coming from my car. As first I was afraid that something when wrong with the engine somehow, but it made noise whether I was accelerating or just coasting and it got so much worse as I slowed down. I pull into the parking lot of the pharmacy and sure enough, there’s a nice piece of sheet metal dragging under my car. Wonderful. It’s the middle of winter and there’s no way for me to get under there to pull it off.
With no other option, I head inside and give the pharmacist my prescription. She said it would be ready in about 10 minutes. I pace around the store looking at everything, browsing through the Valentines candy and merchandise, just waiting for them to call my name. Finally I head up to the register and grab a tabloid magazine to read. At least it will keep my mind busy while I wait. It’s getting to be lunch time and all of the sudden the store is full of people. Everyone was looking for last minute Valentine’s presents and bumping into me along the way. All of the sudden I felt panicked. There were too many people around me, and they were making me nervous and claustrophobic and angry all at once.
I had to go to the back of the store and sit at the pickup counter to try to calm down. Only that didn’t work. I watched a woman search in desperation through her purse for her drivers license so that she could pick up her prescription. She couldn’t find it an her young daughter was rubbing her chin back and forth across the counter as the woman rummaged through her bag. They finally came and sat down next to me so that the next person in line could be helped.
The next man was looking for a cough syrup for his wife and wanted assistance from the pharmacist. It calmed me a little bit to think of this man out buying medication for his sick wife at home. Next to him, the other pharmacist was helping a woman with a really large bottle of blue and white capsules. She had so many questions and when she went to pay for her drugs, she handed the pharmacist a bill, but was told that the prescription was actually $25, which lead to an entirely different slew or questions regarding whether there was a generic available or not.
All this time I’m thinking about that little box sitting in the refrigerator. Inside of it is one little syringe. Why can’t someone just go to the refrigerator and pull that little box out, slap a label on it and give it to me? Why does it all have to be so agonizingly slow?
Finally, mercifully, I hear my name called. I was asked if I knew how to use the medication and I responded that I did, and I was on my way. I arrived back at the office and told a friend that I had to give myself an injection and that I wasn’t happy about it. She offered to do it for me and I immediately took her up on it. “Let’s go!” I told her. But she was late for a lunch date and I needed to give myself the injection NOW. So off I went to brave the injection myself.
There are some things that are so scary that you just can’t comprehend ever having to deal with. Giving myself a shot is one of those things. But when it came down to it, I just had to take a deep breath and do it, because there was no other way that it was going to get done. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I had to. I didn’t enjoy doing it and I hope I don’t ever have to do it again, but if I do, I know that I’m capable.
Fast forward to Friday, IUI day. Mark went in at 7:30 to make his deposit and I followed at 11am. The doctor came in and showed me the vial that was marked 48.6, as in 48.6 million sperm. It was a great number. The procedure was quick and painless and after 15 minutes resting on the table, I headed out to my acupuncture appointment.
My new office is great, just great. I like everything about it. After a good session I felt very relaxed and actually kind of hopeful about this cycle. That is until Saturday.
On Saturday morning my temp had not risen which means that ovulation had not yet occured. I was expecting a temp rise since the HCG shot is supposed to make you ovulate between 24 and 48 hours after the shot. 48 hours would have been 11:30 am Saturday, but the part that had me most concerned was the fact that most RE’s say that washed sperm lives for a maximum of 24 hours, but most likely 6-12 hours. Knowing that I had my IUI at 11 am on Friday and that my temp hadn’t increased by 6 am on Saturday morning had me very worried. I was doubly worried when I found EWCM on Saturday evening. It stands to reason that if I was still making EWCM, that I still hadn’t ovulated.
So now I’m very worried that the IUI was too early. It seems that my body didn’t respond well to the HCG shot, or maybe I gave it to myself wrong. We did some natural baby making of our own on Friday night, but that hasn’t worked for 14 cycles, so I have no reason to believe that it will add anything to the mix this cycle either.
If the washed sperm only live for 12 hour realistically, and possibly 24 hours, then we comopletely missed our window assuming that I didn’t ovulate until Saturday evening. I’m filled with sadness and disappointment that this cycle is most likely a bust. I will continue on with the acupuncture and drinking my herbal tea, but I’m really not holding out much hope at all.
I hope that I’m wrong.
Originally posted January 23, 2008
Have you ever been so caught up in something that it’s all you can think about? You literally cannot stop yourself from thinking about it? Sometimes it’s in excitement or anticipation, sometimes it’s in fear and sometimes it’s in anguish. It’s something that you can’t let go of, no matter how hard you try…you just can’t turn your brain off and stop thinking about it. It creeps into every minute of every hour of every day. Innocent conversations about something completely unrelated somehow remind you of it. Images of people everywhere remind you of it. Possessions and habits serve as a constant reminder. There is not a moment that goes by that it doesn’t cross your mind. You can’t stop turning it over and over and over again in your mind, wondering about this, and hoping about that. You try to shove it aside, to ignore it, to not let it get the best of you. But it’s bigger than you and you’re no match for it.
This is how I feel about my infertility. It has consumed me. It has consumed my every thought and my every emotion. And I want my life, and myself, back.
Originally posted January 14, 2008
I’m not really sure how to start this. As the title implies, this will be the sad tale of my struggles with infertility. And when I say struggles, I mean struggles. Not like something that’s a slight inconvience, or something that kinda cramps your style. I mean something that flat out kicks your ass. Something that makes you feel worse than anything else that you’ve ever experienced.
Infertile.
It’s a title that we just recently acquired. And I say we because any infertilty literature that you read will tell you that fertility is a combination of both partners fertility. Our combined fertilities have earned us the highly sought after title of “infertile.” The definition of infertility is having unprotected sex for 12 months without any pregnancies. We’ve been trying for 13 months, and are in the middle of our 14th cycle. 13 tries, 13 failures.
Since this blog is brand new, you don’t know who I am. Who I am is a control freak. I love to be in control, I love to know what’s going on, I love to do all that I can to make any situation turn out exactly how I plan it to.
Infertility has crushed who I am. I have no control over this. I have done everything possible to aid us in conceiving, all to no avail. Month after month of disappointments have made me realize that I will NEVER have control over this. For months I would look for ways to improve our chances each month. It started with charting, then taking vitamins and supplements. Acupuncture and massages. Special lubricants designed for baby making. For every great new thing I found to try, the thing that will make this month THE month, there was more heartache and disappointment. And realization that I cannot control this process.
More importantly, infertility has taken away my spirit. I find myself to be a shell of who I once was. I don’t look forward to seeing friends or doing social activities. I have no drive to do anything anymore. I just want to mope around the internet and read infertility blogs not unlike this one, in hopes of finding someone who can relate and understand what I’m going through.
But reading everyone else’s struggles doesn’t make it any better, nor any easier.
It’s as though I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for, which is probably hindered by the fact that I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I guess all I want is some peace. Some peace inside my head so that I’m not thinking about my fertility or infertility every minute of the day. I want to go back to the days when I was blissfully unaware of what infertility was. When I didn’t monitor my fertility signs every time I got to the bathroom. When I didn’t research for hours on end ways to boost our chances on any given months. When I didn’t have to obsess about every twinge in my body and wondering if maybe, just maybe, this was our month.
I just want to let it all go.
