Be Gentle

I have struggled with how to write this. How do I say this without sounding bitter, or desperate or angry. I'm feeling just fragile enough to write this and just brave enough to say it.

What is it like living with infertility???


What can I say? It's seeing your life on hold, while you watch everyone's flying by. It's wanting something so precious, but increasingly elusive. It's wanting to hold a baby in your arms. Not someone else's baby, but your baby.

It's wanting to be pregnant. To be sick. To have swollen ankles. To stay up all night, rocking a screaming newborn.

And trying to conceive, at first casually, then slightly worried, frantically, desperately, and devastatingly, numbingly.

It's trying everything, absolutely everything. It's being on prenatals, just in case. It's thinking about what you will be doing next year for Christmas, you know, when you have a baby. And then next year. And then the year after that.

It's planning how you will announce the news. For Easter we will put the good news in an Easter Egg, around Mother's Day we will give a rattle as a gift, for Halloween we will dress up as a Bun in the Oven.

It was maybe silly, but you spent hours thinking about it. And hours thinking about names. Writing them down. Trying different spellings. Then realizing that the name you picked had an unfortunate acronym anyway.

It's mourning the life you dreamed. It's trying to adjust to the might nots. It's protecting your increasingly delicate heart. It's sobbing every month, because you were a little late, you thought maybe this time. Month, after month, after month. 134 months of trying, 4,380 days of hoping.

It's being poked and prodded, and giving up blood, and urine. Tests that hurt, tests that are embarrassing, tests that are scary.

It's bolstering your heart, preparing for the worst, and hoping, in the tiniest place in your heart, for the best. Because if you don't, and a babe in arms isn't waiting, you know you could lose yourself.

It's being desperate to give all your love to a child. Children. It's imagining picnics, soccer games, vacations.

It's wanting to comb curly hair, or wash freckly skin. And sing songs about boogie monsters, and smell fresh washed hair, falling asleep with a warm body next too you.

It's being afraid to say things out loud, because you might make them true.

It's uncertainty. Deafening uncertainty. Overwhelming fear, that you put into a box. And try not to look in to.

It's lonely.

It's rejoicing in other mothers, other babies, other lives. But still not wanting to hear about the ease of others conceptions.

It's constant guilt. Guilt for those 5 years you waited. Guilt that you went to school first. Oh, how naive you were, that you thought you could control this. That you had your life planned out. You're guilty for your age, for the time you have waited. If only you did this last year, you would have had a baby now. Your eggs would have been one year younger. One year more awesome. It's the fact that you even talk about eggs. That's weird.

It's staying quiet when told, "Adopt, then you will get pregnant. Think positive, then you will get pregnant. Try acupuncture, then you will get pregnant.

It's being positive for others, because they want you to be happy, but you really just want to say,"I'm devastated. I'm heartbroken."

It's shots, after shots, after shots, after shots. It's bruises, in various places, your heart being one of them. It's money that you don't have, but don't regret spending, but still don't have.

It's recognizing that nobody really understands that your dreams, although not quite dead, are at breaking stage. It's a limbo between joy and sadness, happiness and pain.

It's realizing that the treatments you are now doing, are the end of the line for pregnancy. And here you are 11 years older than when you first started this, when you thought you would be done, but really you are just beginning.

It's knowing that you can put everything you have left, into this last ditch effort, all your money, all your emotions, all your walls, and recognize that you can give it everything, but that doesn't guarantee anything. Only 40%.

It's putting your faith in God. Completely. You have no other choice. You have been completely
humbled. But you recognize your way isn't God's way. And Faith is a hard road sometimes.

Be gentle. Infertility is a lonely valley, traveled by two people, clinging to each other with all their might.

It just plain sucks.......

Infertility sucks.

I could end the blog post here and most of you would understand. Those two words encompass everything there is to say…

About the inability to get pregnant—or, like me, stay pregnant longer than three months—and give birth.

About the tears you shed every month along with your useless uterine lining.

About the cramping in your heart you feel when see that woman at church with five kids waddling along, full with another child. Couldn’t God spare just one for you?

About the twinge you feel in your uterus when you hold your neighbor’s newborn, and how for a brief moment, you imagine escaping across the northern border with this precious bundle to finally realize your dream.

About the way friends withdraw and stop including you in plans because they don’t know if you’re going to be sad or mad or if they will say something to offend you.

About the cousins who continually invite you to their baby showers and first birthday parties, and the obligation you feel to attend even while your heart breaks with every coo and waah.

About the blood tests and sonograms and that painful dye test they do to see if your tubes are open, the one where the technician says, “This will cause a little cramping.” Yeah, the same way my foot in your balls will cause YOU a little cramping.

About the hormone injections that turn you into a weeping, raging bitch on wheels for an extra week a month.

About the daily heparin injections that really don’t help you get over your fear of needles. And now you have more track marks up and down your thighs than a junkie on a bender.

About the way your sex life becomes a series of business meetings, scheduled based on your ovaries most convenient time to release eggs.

About the bargaining and praying you do constantly: “I’ll pray”, “I’ll pray more”, “I’ll be more religious”, “I’ll be a better person”, “I’ll give more to charity”, “I’ll call my mother more”, just “pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease make me a mother!”

About the tens, hundreds, thousands of extra dollars you spend on specialist appointments, services not covered, home pregnancy tests, and booze after the HPTs (all six of them) show a Big Fat Negative.

About the excitement you feel when you finally get the Big Fat Positive, only to have it dashed moments later when you realize you tested too soon, and really it’s just the test’s reaction to that HcG shot you received ten days ago.

About getting a genuine BFP, only to spend the next several weeks panicking whenever you use the bathroom, afraid you’ll see that smear of red on the toilet tissue that signals the end of the dream.

About hearing the heartbeat for the first time and then being told at your next appointment that they can’t find it.

About dodging questions from strangers and casual acquaintances regarding your parenthood status. As if it’s their business anyway!

About suffering through another story from your well-meaning mom/grandma/aunt/friend/co-worker about someone they know who tried this, that, or the other thing and now has ten kids. Or worse—that they decided to give up and then it happened for them; all they needed to do was relax.

About enduring endless assurances that this is all God’s plan. That may be true, but why can’t people understand that you don’t yet have the distance and perspective to wax philosophical? All you want is a damn baby, and considering the crack whores and teenagers that are able to pop them out like Pez dispensers, if this is all “God’s Plan”, he has a seriously warped sense of humor.

About how your mate wonders where the vivacious, confident, SANE, person they married went and can she please come back because this obsessive, depressive, broken shell of a woman is scaring the crap out of him. Not to mention, he is less than enthusiastic about doing his business into a cup yet again and no, he will not cash out his 401K to pay for IVF.

About the endless cycles of optimism, hope, dread, and despair you go through every month.

About the fear, then the pain, then the depression, and finally, grudging acceptance that this just may never happen, and how all that leaves you so hollow, so fragile that just the wrong look could make you fall apart.

About being part of this exclusive club that no one wants to be a member of, but for which you are at least a little grateful, because it means you aren’t alone in the dark.

Why Infertility Sucks: Reason Three

Reason Three Why Infertility Sucks: Mind Games.

Oh come on, you know you've thought it too.

Maybe the reason we aren't able to have kids is because we aren't supposed to.
It's insidious. You can't help it, especially when you get a diagnosis that everything is your partner's fault or even worse, when they can't find any good reason for your uterus to still have a "for rent" sign on it.

"Dunno, perfectly good wiring and piping, entryway's to code, nice fresh coat of paint, good neighbourhood, price is right. No idea why nobody wants to move in." If you ask prospective tenants, they say "I'm not sure what was wrong with it.. the vibe just seemed off."

The vibe is off indeed. On a bad day, that's the only reason my brain can muster for a diagnosis of "unexplained infertility". His Ys aren't feelin my Xs. We have a basic chemical conflict. Our genes don't match. I married the wrong man.

It's all crap, of course. Our marriage is good. We love each other, and what's more, we usually even like each other. Moreover there is no scientific reason to believe that he'd be any more successful at procreation with anyone else, nor would I.

Except you can't help but think it.

There's the practical, scientific brain: "Maybe there's just some little thing wrong with me, and combined with some little thing that he must have wrong, it means that we can never have kids, but if either one of us was with someone else, we'd both be OK and be parents by now, except we'd have to be sleeping with each other on the side because I couldn't live without him, OMG I'm a whore."

OK, maybe not so scientific.

There's the irrational, selfish brain: "IT'S HIM and this is all his fault.

There's the irrational, self-loathing brain: "IT'S ME and this is all my fault."

And then there's the irrational, completely psychotic brain: "OMG, it's the universe saying that our progeny would be the antichrist and we never should have gotten married and I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE HIS CHILD. But that means my supposed to be husband is off having kids with someone else! But whose child should I have had by now? Brad Pitt's? OMG."

It's hard enough to be married. I'm a realist. There's enough difficulty in sharing a home, a dog, a life with someone without having to deal with infertility. And as if the struggle of infertility itself wasn't enough, it brings with it an innate insecurity about our choice of life partner, even a little teeny subliminal bit, a little piece of you that says This Isn't Supposed To Be Like This, and Did I Make The Wrong Choice? It doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't mean you're *right* when you briefly think "if I was but married to someone else everything would be fine", because of course it wouldn't be. In that case, you'd be married to the wrong partner and even if you were having kids, you'd be having kids with the wrong man. Your husband is the right man to be married to, rest assured.

But it sucks that this infertility business makes you question that, too.

Why Infertility Sucks: Reason # 2

Reason #2 Why Infertility Sucks: Pregnant Women

There are things that everyone wants in their lives that they can't get.

You want to buy a house, but you can't afford it.

You want more than anything to be a doctor, to get in to Medical school.

You want to travel to Italy, to see that beautiful country.

You want to have a baby.

A dream is a dream. None are more worthwhile, more beautiful, than any other. Dreams are the precious heart's desires of someone, of anyone. My sympathy, it is boundless for those who want something, want to move on with their lives and reach a goal, live a dream, and who cannot for some reason.

With each kind of suffering, there is a certain uniqueness, a certain kind of pain that no other suffering faces. It's not a "worse" pain, it's not a more "noble" pain, and by the way that's a great way to alienate people, to tell them how much worse your suffering is than theirs. Because the thing is, no suffering is "worse" than any other. It's not a contest. Each miserable person is miserable in their own way.

The uniqueness, then, of the infertility suffering, is the constant bombardment on all sides of people who are having babies, who are getting the thing that you want, the thing that consumes you, that is always in the back of your mind, but that you can't have. Our pain is going into a bakery on a random Thursday afternoon and bumping into yet another friend giving you the news that they're pregnant, that the thing you want is the thing that they are getting. It's turning on the TV or open the latest gossip rag to see yet another flaky celebrity pregnancy rumor.

And you know, you don't begrudge them, you know that there's not a limited amount of fertility in the world. You know that someone else getting pregnant has no impact on whether you will get pregnant, but you still feel kicked in the gut that it was so easy for them, that it should be so easy for everyone, and yet another cycle, another month, another year is passing you by, and everyone else is doing what you wish so dearly you were doing but that you cannot do.

And the real kicker here is that you is not just hearing the stories of pregnancies, but the stories of unwanted pregnancies, of people who get pregnant and who don't want to be pregnant, for whom pregnancy is a disaster. And you aren't angry at the person, you know that every life is different and babies aren't for everyone, but you're angry at the universe for just not fucking making sense.

And you sit there, and you know how much this sucks, and you don't want to alienate anyone who's facing their own demons by telling them how much better it is to be suffering the way they're suffering than the way you're suffering because that's bullshit anyway. Every kind of suffering, of want, is unique. And there are things about not achieving every other dream that us infertiles don't have to face.

But this, this constantly being surrounded by fucking pregnant people, this is the pain that is unique to us. And we've learned to adapt. We get the "I'm pregnant!" announcements and we'll smile and say "congratulations" while we silently absorb a kick in the gut and try to extract ourselves conversation as quickly as possible, not willing to break down in front of them and become a massive downer while they want to celebrate their happy news, not wanting to face the sympathy in their faces when they say "So, any news with you....?" And we know we're being rude, but the thing is we don't *want* to make the pregnant person feel guilty by crying in front of them so we run, run as fast as we can in the other direction in order to not lose our shit publicly. Or we quickly change the channel or slap the magazine closed, wanting to watch or read about something other than babies, because babies consume everything that we do and it is just nice to do something that doesn't have anything to do with babies, to go to the bakery or turn on the TV and not have the reminder that someone else is pregnant and you are not at every turn.

So that's why infertility sucks: because the bottom line is, it fucks with our ability to be happy for anyone else. It's totally perverse.

Why Infertility Sucks: Reason # 1

Why Infertility Sucks: Friends Without Benefits


Here is the first reason infertility sucks.

Everyone has friends. At least, I hope you do. Or at least I hope that if you don't have any, you like it that way. At any rate, let's go with the assumption that people have friends. Lovely friends. Friends in their peer group - people they met through school, through work, through other friends. People who are generally in the same age bracket with some of the same interests, although not everything because that would make it all pretty dull to hang out with a bunch of people exactly like you, because as much as you rock, 30 of you would be kind of mundane.

And the thing is, they are really not exactly like you anyway, because through some miracle, all of these friends are somehow able to have children. And even though they don't mean to, even though they swear they won't, eventually, you see your friends less and less. You simply don't fit in to their lives anymore. And soon, sooner than you think, you find yourself pretty much friendless.

It's natural. Life changes, when you have a kid. And when your friends start making all their changes with their children, you simply get left behind.

The family eats earlier, because the kid needs to eat by 6 pm to be able to go to bed by 7:30. Non-parents don't eat til later, because good lord, why wouldn't you? Dinner plans between parents and non-parents are logistically impossible.

Non-parents can go out after work for a drink, socializing with their friends. Parents have to go pick up kids at daycare. Socializing is impossible.

Non-parents don't get invited to events where kids are present, things like birthday parties or playdates (and let's be fair, playdates are just as much for the Mom/Dad as they are for the kid) because what's the point? They don't have kids, they won't want to spend their afternoon surrounded by them. Won't it just remind them of the fact that they don't have children? No, best not to invite them to the cottage/birthday party/whatever other event you're spending with other Grownups With Kids.

And besides, you're not an ideal companion anymore anyway. You're missing a "part". You don't have a kid for their kid to play with, so that automatically makes you less fun, less desirable as a weekend companion.

I could go on, but you get the point. I am also not crazy about the idea of listing the many ways in which we've been neglected, because despite the fact that this is my blog, I don't want to spend the entire time whining. I don't begrudge parents their children; I do understand why they've made the changes in their lives that are resulting in me seeing my friends less and less and less.

I'm just trying to tell you something here, that when you're trying to understand what it's like for people who want kids and can't have them, the pain isn't just the empty spare room. It isn't just having to duck your head and scurry by the cute kid's clothes that you'd love to be buying when you're out shopping. It's the fact that everyone around you is moving on to the next phase of their lives, the parent phase, and you are unintentionally but inexorably left behind. You've been with your friends for years, through the thick and the thin, through the school and the job and the bad boyfriends and the good boyfriend and the wedding and the crazy parents. And this is the first time your friends are doing something that you are not, that you want to do but you cannot. You are solely and uniquely left behind.

And it sucks

10 things I hate about infertility

1. Feeling broken (the not-quite-half-a-woman style of broken).
2. Fertility medications that make you a raving lunatic, burying the real you under layers of artificial hormones, crying jags, tantrums, paranoia and black moods.
3. The fact that trying to conceive is no longer something between you and your spouse. The fact that your uterus becomes public property that everyone seems to have a stake in. The longer your innards sit empty, the more people wonder, the more people ask, and the more they think they have a right to know every single little thing that's going on. Even when it's no one's business but you and your Beloved's.
4. Telephone calls from the clinic telling you to have sex.
5. Repeated poking and prodding in areas that, ideally, shouldn't be subjected to poking and prodding more than once a year for 39 seconds at your annual physical.
6. Did I mention the drugs?
7. The devastation of each failed cycle.
8. The ticking of the clock.
9. The hopeful looks and the pitying looks (particularly when under the influence of #2)
10. The guilt, the jealousy, the uncertainty, the sorrow, the anger, the confusion, the frustration and the mental gymnastics necessary to muster up the strength to carry on after each failed cycle.

This self-indulgent little whine-fest, albeit admittedly gross and unpleasant, is a necessary evil. It just is. Sometimes you just have to let it out lest it consume you from the inside out.

For the most part I quietly deal with the intense displeasure I have for this whole process because it's just what needs to be done and whining about it won't change a thing, but for the record I hate this with an all-consuming passion. I hate the intrusion into our lives, I hate the way it all makes me feel, I hate the way I act and react when I'm in the throws of drug-inducted hell and I hate the lost innocence.

Oh I hate that so much.

I miss the days when I didn't have to discuss the intricacies of every cycle with nurses, doctors, ultrasound techs and phlebotomists. I miss the days when that was the farthest thing from my reality.

I miss when it was just my husband and I who knew what was going on. I miss being able to have the intimacy of that shared secret. I miss waiting and wondering and having only HIM know why.

I realize if I'd stop talking about it here I could probably get back some of that privacy, but it just feels too late for some reason. Even if I shut up right now there would still be questioning looks and prying questions from people I know mean well.

And you know what? There would be questions even if I'd never talked about it at all here. After two years, there would be a LOT of questions, curious looks, whispers and speculation.

I. Just. Want. A. Baby. For God's SAKE, why is this so hard???

Facebook

I've been wanting to write about this very thing for a while; about how hard Facebook has the potential to be if you are on the outside looking in. The ultrasounds and baby photos subbing as profile pictures, the "offers" to sell naughty children, cute birthday/Halloween/Christmas/Thanksgiving stories, announcements about potty training successes, first teeth, and new pregnancies...

Facebook is rife with childcentric information.

And there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be. None whatsoever.

But because it is, it can be a dangerous place for someone trying to navigate the bloody waters of infertility and loss. And it can be torture for someone for whom all those lovely baby things will never be a reality.

The interesting thing is that we generally stay very quiet about all this. So much so that it likely never occurs to anyone but us that it might be painful. The landmines are invisible unless you see them as such. We are blown to smithereens every day by things others look at with wonder and joy.

That's just the way it is.

It's the way it has to be, in fact, because the world can't (and shouldn't) stop merely because we are sad. There is no reason our sorrow should trump another's joy.

We, as a group, generally concentrate our efforts on making sure other people don't feel uncomfortable. The last thing we tend to do is point out our own discomfort. We might be broken, humiliated, and desperate - but we are usually silent.

And I'm not sure what I think about this phenomenon anymore, this strange code of silence.

I don't want to be the person who rains on everyone's parade, reminding people with my sad looks and pitiful sighs that I envy what they have. I don't want to be the needy girl from whom people flee in horror. And I certainly don't want to end up being a one-trick pony who can't talk about anything but the life she wishes she'd been able to have.

But sometimes I do crave a certain level of acknowledgment - a little something that lets me know you would smother my pain with a pillow if you had one big enough, or strangle cruel fate with your bare hands for denying me my joy. I am desperately struggling to co-exist in this fertile world, and that pain I feel is real. This life is hard - harder than I ever dreamed - and I'm not always okay. I probably look it most of the time - maybe all the time - but I am stuck together with tape, staples and prayers. And chocolate and wine.

I'm not looking for pity. I can't stress that enough. I think what we all want so much is simply for people to remember that we're here too.

Infertility in the media

I just found an online article in the New York Times titled, "The Gift of Life and it's Price". It's discussing IVF and the costs, risks, etc associated. The media does a fantastic  job at casting a terrible light on infertility and the treatments of it. We rarely see the struggle a couple actually went through to become a family, or the medical condition causing the problem. You hear about the costs, the babies who have problems, the octo-mom, overzealous doctors... 

You miss the part about the couple who is completely financially and emotionally prepared to welcome a child and finds out that they can't without help and maybe not even with. These aren't single, teenage moms who are on welfare. These are your friends, neighbors, and co-workers who would love a child with all their heart and have the resources to care for them.

Some of the ignorant comments from readers following the article:

• "People want miracles, and they want someone else (you and I) to pay for them."
• "Society as a whole CAN NOT AFFORD to indulge these people. If they can’t have children, get over it or adopt."
• "These people are very selfish just because they want a child genetically related to themselves."
• "Do we really think it's a good idea to use technology to allow people to *perpetuate* these substandard genes?"

I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with the fact that no one else is paying for what we're going through. We've paid about $18,000 out of pocket this year alone. My insurance covers VERY little. And yet as a society, we pay for extraordinary costs associated with diabetes complications, obesity and smoking. I have always taken great care of myself, eat healthy, exercise, etc. and was unfortunately born with a disease that I could not prevent and which causes my infertility. So, don't worry about paying my bills.... you aren't.

Until you walk in my shoes, don't you dare tell me what you think I should do or how we should build our family. When you are fortunate enough to bear children without any effort, it is probably pretty easy to say, "just adopt". I have always planned to at some point. But that doesn't take away my yearning to feel a baby grow inside of me and to have a baby that we created. Furthermore, don't act like adoption is a "cheap" alternative. It is NOT!!! It is an incredibly lengthy and emotional process and it costs more than IVF in many cases.

We have enough hurt, sadness and anger without people judging us. The day that someone tells you that you may never have children and you walk away knowing that it "just wasn't meant to be", then you can judge me. Until then, try to remember that we are just people who want our own family too. And we're going through hell and back to get there.

To my Momma,

This February 11th makes four years since we lost you to kidney cancer, and not a day goes by that I don't think about the last time I saw you. You had just come home from your first week of treatment at Baptist and we were in North Carolina for the funeral of Jamie's cousin. I remember you hurting so bad because of the tumors that I couldn't even really hug you. I remember standing in your kitchen with Courtney trying to find something that you could eat. I remember thinking as I hugged you goodbye that this would probably be the last time I would see you. I didn't want to leave you.  If I had the chance I would have turned the car around and stayed forever, told you things that I should have before it was too late.  I hope you knew how much I loved you then and still love you now. I never told you what a great impact you had on my life, but I didn’t fully come to this realization until after you were gone. I hope somehow you know how you are helping me to become the person I want to be. You were my hero, and you meant the world to me, you still do..

I would give anything to physically have you back, even though I know you are with me everyday, I still miss you. I miss our daily talks. I miss hearing the sound of your voice. I miss sharing my life with you. But I'm not the only one that misses you, we all do. Jacob is quick to tell his story about his Grammy Trish and playing in the snow at your house. We look at your pictures and Greyson will say that's my Grammy Trish in Heaven.  Leanna and Courben never got the chance to know you, but they will through us. 

If I had the chance to tell you I would say Thank You;
Thank you for always loving me in spite of myself. No mistake was ever so bad that you did not absorb it under the umbrella of a Mother's love. Thank you for all the years of laughter, and fun. Life was not always easy for you, but you made it the best you could for us kids. Thank you for the numerous sacrifices you made. We never did without a need, and that was a testament to your drive. Thank you for bringing me into this world and protecting me both from the world and myself. Thank you for my generous spirit. I learned that from you. Thank you for putting your kids first above all others. Thank you for my belief in God, and knowing Jesus as the salvation of my life.Thank you for accepting me as a flawed human being, and loving me anyway.
Most of all, I thank you for the role model you were for me. I hope to be half the person you were in your lifetime.
Your time as my mother, as a sister, as a daughter, and as a friend will never be forgotten. And although I am not ready to leave this Earth, I am looking forward to being reunited with you again one day.
I will love you always.
Manda

Complaining Parents

I don't know if it's spring fever (not that it's ever really winter in Florida) or what is going on but all I have heard from people lately are complaints about their kids. It makes me so upset!!! Do you know how lucky you are to have a child or children to complain about???? Do you know how I lay awake at night longing to be woken up by the sound of a crying baby?? Do you know how much it would make me smile to see crayon all over my perfect walls?? Do you know how bad I want to Windex off little finger prints from my windows?? So why all you parents out there complain about each crazy thing your child does..... Remember me the one that aches to have those tasks that you all get to do each and every day. Remember how lucky you are to have a child to hold in your arms. Remember when your child acts up and is complaining about what to wear, what to eat, and when they have to go to bed that I would trade you places in a heart beat.


Know that your children are blessings from God and that you are the blessed ones to have them in your life. Because I know you wouldn't want to trade all those little annoyances for my empty arms. So enjoy each day. Enjoy each mess. Enjoy those beautiful children that I so desperately want.

Infertility is so much more than.....

Infertility is so much more than not having a baby in your arms.

That’s why you can’t hand your crying baby to the infertile woman and say things like, “Here, this will make you feel better. Aren’t you glad you don’t have to put up with this?”

The woman experiencing infertility doesn’t want your baby. Certainly, your baby is squishy and lovely (even when crying) and smells so nice, but that’s not it. That’s not even a consolation.

Nor is saying to your infertile neighbor, “You should just adopt. If you adopt I swear you’d get pregnant. It’s happened to like, three of my friends/relatives/coworkers.”

Because, that’s not it either. It’s not about achieving some ends to a means. It’s not about belittling adoption so you can achieve a pregnancy.

And adoption is not a scientific cure for infertility—and it’s not an emotional cure either.

Infertility is an all encompassing state of being. It has the force to completely take over the core of a woman’s belief about who she is and what she is capable of. It’s not about having a biological baby or an adopted baby or a foster baby, it’s about feeling whole even if no baby ever comes at all.

It’s about overcoming those days when you are called to repentance (by well-meaning family members) for “lacking the faith to conceive” or for being selfish because “what is taking you so long to have a baby?”

It’s being able to love your body even though it’s not functioning in a fertile way. It’s about ignoring the statements like, “just get drunk and you’ll get pregnant,” or “just stop trying and it will happen” or “maybe you should take a vacation”

My own battle with infertility has ripped me apart. In these heavy years I have felt every emotion given to mankind to feel. Jealously like a furious ocean. Anger, rage and self-directed disappointment. It isn’t just the inability to conceive, it is the inability to believe in myself.

There is a lot of misunderstanding everywhere I go.

My weakness is not seeing who I really am, with or without a baby. I can only see myself as a person who wants to be a mother. I am incomplete.

I feel when or if we ever do conceive to full term, I will never get over the entire experience completely. But I remember saying to myself during those extremely lonely days, “I want hope more than I want a baby.” I didn’t mean hope that someday we’ll conceive, I meant hope that someday it wouldn’t be so painful to be me.

The light at the end of the tunnel comes when the light inside of yourself illuminates who you really are, and what you’re really capable of.

That’s when infertility becomes less about having a baby in your arms and more about gratitude for having experienced it.

Friendship Tips.... At least in my own warped mind....

99% of my friends who read this blog are "normal" (i.e. not infertile... since I'm not discussing mental issues in this blog!!). AND I'll try to keep this post tame since I'm pretty sure that alot of my family.. and possibly my boss(Hi David!) read this blog..  Imagine how confusing most of the lingo must be for them. Anyhow. Back to the point of this post. One of those friends(who are "normal") said to me “I wish you would write about how to be a good friend to an infertile person”. Which is really sweet of her and shows she has already passed one of the requirements. So I started thinking about writing a post on this and realized what a hard task this is. How do you become a Good Friend to an Infertile?


Firstly, I have to say that this being a Good Friend to an Infertile is not an easy job at all. It is a job with fluid parameters, a thankless job sometimes and one where it might appear that no matter how hard you try, you never seem to get it right. There are times when you will be extremely busy and the job is very demanding. There are other times where you will benched, forced to sit on the outside looking in. There is not often any logic in this change of demand. Be aware of the volatility of work pressure when applying for this job. It is not a decision to be taken lightly.
Secondly, there is not a universal job description, and worst of all, your job duties will change over time. There is not a universal job description because Infertiles come in different flavors. True, one can categorize these flavors to some extent, but variations will always exist. Your eternal optimist / newbie / completely uninvolved infertile doesn’t need too much in the way of special friendship; they believe the problem is temporary and will get resolved soon. They don’t feel broken, different or an outcast. Your longer term / highly involved infertile is a very tricky beast, and is one to be handled with great caution and protective gloves (for you, not her). This person feels alienated from society and carries great pain and angst in their souls. They might not show it all the time, but there is a very sensitive, raw spot in their souls that is easily bruised. Then you get the older timers, who’ve been doing this so long it just becomes part of who they are. These infertiles have gone through the great angst and intense pain of the ‘dark years’ and have come out realizing that while infertility is shit, it is not all consuming. And instead of crying, they laugh. Because infertility is actually a comedy of errors, sometimes.
Infertiles tend to move through these stages at different pace. Which makes it very hard being a Good Friend to an Infertile, because the type of friendship involved is so different at each stage. It is very very hard being a Good Friend to someone stuck in the dark stage of infertility. It is a very painful place for an infertile to be. There is no hope, just a great deep dark sense of despair. You feel totally alienated from the rest of the world and you are consumed by your situation. Every thing hurts, and every thing has the power to hurt you. Your world shrinks to the world of infertility and you fight tooth and nail to protect the fragile hold you have on sanity. The best advice I can give to a Good Friend at this stage is to offer friendship and support, from a distance. Say things like “I am here for you if you want to talk, or not talk, or drink, or swear, or shop. But if you don’t want to that’s perfectly ok. I’ll be here waiting for you when YOU are ready to come out the cave”. If you can bare it, hang in there, your friendship should return to some semblance of its previous form once your Infertile has worked her way through her dark despair. It has nothing to do with you or you ability to friend, it has every thing to do with her coping with the horrible reality of her situation.
Being a Good Friend to the eternal optimist or the good-humored veteran is a lot easier, with these few survival tips.
1. Good Friends never judge. Remember that unless you’ve walked in the person’s shoes, you can’t say “well I would never….do IVF/terminate a pg/spend so much money on ART etc” To be honest, who likes judgmental people any way.
2. Good Friends will educate themselves about what their Infertile is going through. HUGE proviso: see point 3 before putting any thing into action. Read up about infertility so that you get a high-level understanding of the intricacies involved. Know little things like eggs are retrieved, then fertilized and they become embryos. Then the embryos are put back. Just small things so that when your infertile does share some of her world with you, you will understand. I think this shows commitment to the friendship.
3. However. Do not willy nilly offer advice, or hot off the press latest research about a fantastic new procedure that is sure to work. Remember the stuff they write about in your local woman’s magazine is stuff that your Infertile did in Infertility 101. Been there, failed that. ICSI is not a new procedure, I promise. And yes, we have heard of taking cough syrup to increase cervical mucous. Oh, and for my Aunt, yes I have heard of lying with my legs in the air after having sex. Unfortunately, I have PCO and don’t ovulate so I could be lying with my legs in the air doing bicycle movements till the cows come home and all the sperm are going to do is mill around confused asking where the fuck the egg is, bemoaning the fact that this has been a useless trip out and they might as well have had a wank. Which goes back to Point 2. Educate yourself about your friend’s diagnosis so that you can avoid offering pointless advice. And please, what ever you do, never, ever be so stupid as to say “just relax”. Would you say to a cancer patient “just relax”? Would you say to someone who can’t see “just relax”? Of course you wouldn’t. Plus you have to know that “just relaxing” will not change the medical diagnosis that is causing your friends infertility. Because of course you’ve done enough reading to carry on an intelligent conversation, if your Infertile decides to engage you in one.
4. Platitudes. Never ever offer platitudes. This is a totally selfish act any way because all platitudes do is make you feel better and the Infertile feel worse. Saying “maybe you are not meant to have children” is an incredibly stupid thing to say. You wouldn’t say to a diabetic “maybe you weren’t meant to have insulin etc”. Infertility is a medical condition. Not some factor in the universe’s bigger plan for the Infertile. Similar to “its God will”. How the fuck do you know? You have a direct connection or what? How about “are you sure you want kids?” lovingly looking at your own screaming kids. No dear, I am spending thousands and enduring physical, emotional and mental anguish just because I am obscenely stupid. Or “you can have mine”. Now that’s an incredibly stupid thing to say. What kind of mother are you to give her kids away? Oh you were only joking? What was the funny part? That I don’t have my own kids? Sorry, but I am not getting the joke? Call me stupid. In addition, please don’t tell me about your friend/cousin/co-worker who got pg naturally after 8 years of trying. It doesn’t make me feel better, it depresses me. Good for her. It’s got nothing to do with my situation.
5. The tricky one. Announcing pregnancies / baby showers / births and other kid things. The best advice I can give here is trust the Infertile to know what she can or can’t handle. Don’t hide things from her, but respect it when she says to you “I don’t think I am going to be able to handle that”. Your Infertile knows when her good days and bad days are, and what she can or can’t handle. But do invite her, give her the choice of saying no. And then respect her to know that sometimes she needs to protect her own fragile soul more than she needs to fulfill social obligations.
6. The level of involvement. Infertiles differ in the level of involvement they engage their Good Friends in. Some, like me, are pretty open about the whole thing. Every Friend and their Mother knows when I am going in for ER, ET or whatever. Other people prefer to keep their infertility private. Find out what your Infertile prefers and operate at the level she feels comfortable with.
7. Which brings to me to my final point. If you don’t know how to act, ask. I love that my friends ask me how I want them to act around me. They also know that if they ask the question “how is it going with your treatment” I will either tell them or I will say “irritating, I don’t want to talk about it now”. They totally respect that and don’t push. I have great friends.
There have been many articles written on the web about what to say and not to say to an Infertile, how the family should act etc. I wont go into those. If you are a Good Friend you will have done a little surfing and read those things anyway. Besides, this post is already way too long.


To end off, if you decide to accept the job of Good Friend to an Infertile, I applaud you. Because it is not an easy job. It really isn’t. As I have said, it’s a pretty thankless job and one in which your job description is so fluid that what is required today is wrong tomorrow. I thank those of my Good Friends who have stuck around so long with me. I know it hasn’t been easy. I appreciate your friendship, I really do.

Blowing off some steam...

I read quite a few blogs and lot of the bloggers that I follow are mothers. I love hearing about the silly things their kids are doing and saying and seeing their adorable faces.


While I read blogs that have to do with infertility, too, I don't read as many of those. I sort of steer away from them. I think maybe it's because I've got my own infertility issues that I'm dealing with and I just want to forget about them for a little while, reading blogs about infertility just makes me more mad.


 It's not fair that we all have to go through this stupid thing called infertility. Reading blogs about infertility just makes it more "in your face", to me. At the same time, I want to be there to support my friends that are going through it, too, so I try to visit the blogs that I do follow fairly often.


Infertility is not fair.


I'm tired of having to be strong.


I'm tired of Letting Go and Letting God.


I'm tired of having Faith that everything is in His hands and maybe some day I'll have a child.


I'm tired of waiting.


I'm tired of researching.


I'm tired of just relaxing.


I'm tired of changing my diet to have a more fertile body.


I'm frickin sick and tired of dealing with stupid frickin infertility!


I don't want to Learn a Lesson from all of this.


I just want a family.


I want a mini-me and a mini-Jamie.


You know what? Those teenage girls that got pregnant didn't have to have Faith that they could get pregnant. They just did in a moment of hot and heavy.


Those druggie's didn't have to Let Go and Let God. They just had sex, with drugs in their system, and got pregnant.


And add to that, there's those that get pregnant and decide they don't want "the fetus" and abort it without giving that child a chance to be born and grow up to be someone, whether they kept it or gave it up for adoption. {and I'm sure I just pissed a bunch of people off. sorry.}


There's also those like The Duggar's that just keep on frickin multiplying. I mean. Seriously. SHARE THE WATER! I'd gladly take a sip if I could just have a fraction of the amount of kids they have!


So why is it that I can't just hop into bed with my husband and get up pregnant?


Some of these infertile bloggers that I read have SO MUCH FAITH that they're eventually going to get pregnant and I feel like I've got zip, ziltch, nada. And I don't WANT to HAVE to have Faith. Period.


I don't want a growing experience any longer!


I think 10 years is long enough!


And then I also have an internal fight going on with myself over jealousy.


I'm jealous of those that have children.


I'm jealous of those infertile's that do get pregnant.


I'm jealous of those that have all that Faith.


I'm jealous of those that are actually getting somewhere in their fight against infertility.


I'm jealous of those that have the money to do everything under the sun to have a baby, whether it's treatments or adoption.


I'm jealous of those that have husbands that are totally on board with everything that goes with infertility.


I'm jealous of those that have husbands that actually express their feelings about the infertility.


I hate jealousy.


I hate the feeling of being jealous all the time.


Infertility just frickin SUCKS!

Sometimes I feel as empty as my womb........

This is the first and only picture I have from my last pregnancy.

August 29, 2010... I was 10 weeks pregnant. I found this picture last night while organizing photos on my laptop and I began to cry. I look at this picture and just wonder what he would have looked like. He would be almost 8 months old, my due date was Ferbuary 28, 2011. Another date in my memory I will never forget. A birthday that I was supposed to celebrate with my child until the day I died, but now it's just a day to remind me of what I lost.

It's been over a year since he was given to us and taken from us. It just seems so unfair to have tried for 10 years to only have miscarriage after miscarriage. Now 10 years later I still don't have a baby in my womb or in my arms.
So many have such an easy time getting what I want so much. I am trying so hard: I watch what I eat, I exercise, I have to take medications. I have to go to the doctor on certain days of the month. I have to spend lots of money on just a slim chance of getting a positive. I  cry every month when I get not one, but multiple negatives. I cry when I hear of someone getting pregnant. I have to hide so I don't take away their joy or ruin the moments. It's hard to be around kids or watch grandparents having such a good time with the kids and not one of them belonging to us. I feel like a failure to my family. At least my Dad has grandchildren, and my Mom got to meet and know most of them before she passed away. I feel it doesn't bother them that we may never have kids because they already have 4 grandkids.
What if I don't ever get another chance? Will I stop crying because I don't have a baby? Will my heart still ache as much as it does today?
The loss of the child I barely had a chance to know and the child I may never have gives me so much sorrow, it's almost unbearable.
Sometimes I wonder how I get through this. If it's hard today, how will it be 10 years from now? As I cried last night, I thought about how it hurts so much today at almost 31 years old, how many years will I have to go through this pain... and what will this pain plus 10 years of more disappointments and heartaches feel like?... It scares me so much.
In my real world (not my blog world), I feel so alone. I feel I am expected to be a perfect, happy, strong, supportive person. The truth is I am not perfect and I don't know one person that is (although some may think it). I may look happy on the outside, but inside I am a mess. I believe I am not strong because I can't handle things as well as others. And support, it's hard to give when I need so much of it myself and get so little in return sometimes.
There's not a day that goes by I don't think about my children and what might have been.
Not a day goes by I don't think about being infertile, but there are days when I am stronger than others and I am hoping tomorrow is one of them.
Infertility and having a miscarriage is robbing me from life.. Almost everyday I feel as empty as my womb.

The Road to Uncertainty

Once you start ttc and bring children into your life, you end up giving up an element of control. There are so many things that could go wrong. Before finding myself deep in infertility treatments, when I was first started to seriously think about having children, I imagined all of the changes in my life. How would J and I be able to afford children? How would I manage work and family? How would relationships with family and friends be changed? What would our children be like? Would we be good parents? I didn't really think that much about act of getting pregnant, and was kind of scared of pregnancy--particularly childbirth. When I was pregnant for the first time, I spent some time reading a Lamaze pregnancy book, which included a section on the whole birth experience, including some troublesome cases. It freaked me out so much, that I thought at time, "Man, How am I ever going to do that!" I guess by 30, I've changed my mind, but scary pregnancies haven't gone away. I'm just more willing to risk them.
My above worries are now much farther down the list, supplanted by worries of treatment and managing to have a healthy pregnancy. For people who don't battle infertility, I suppose they might never have any other types of worries. However, I think that I was probably also naive about all of the uncertainties that come with pregnancy. When I first started with treatments, I thought a positive test would solve all of my problems and everything would go smoothly. The advertisement for HPTs make it sound that way: "Look, honey, two pink lines!" {Hugs and kisses all around} I have come to realize now, after suffering four heartbreaking miscarriages, that the first positive beta is but one of many hurdles to jump over in the quest for a healthy child. As IFers, we just get a head start on the road to uncertainty.


I have recently again had the elusive positive beta, but it was low. I helplessly watched it rise, then fall. Although about a week after my last beta indicated an HCG level less than 5, I got a postcard from my clinic with a congratulatory note and instructions for next steps. Hello! As if I'm not already feeling bad enough, can't the office get it's communications straight! But even if I had experienced three positive beta tests with good doubling numbers that's a must before they consider you pregnant (at this clinic), the uncertainty wouldn't end. There's the first ultrasound. Will there be a heartbeat? Follow-up and tests. Will things continue to progress normally? Oh yeah, and if you make it that far, you still have to go through child birth. I cry every time I read about another blogger who loses a pregnancy.


If you do make it to the point where your child is born, all of those initial concerns of mine are still valid. J and I could strive to be good parents, but our children could turn out to sick, we could make bad decisions adversely impact their life, or they could make bad decisions, despite our best efforts. I feel like I had loving parents who did what they could to place my life and my siblings lives on the right track, but things still did not always turn out as planned. It's an awesome responsibility to be parent, to try to raise your children to be ready to go out into the world, and things may not work out as planned, despite your best intentions.


Thinking about the next step in our IF journey: the IVF cycle, makes me scared of all that uncertainty all of those things that could go wrong, just in the process of trying to bring my potential children into the world. J says that he is trying to not think about the uncertainty, about the weight of potential problems, and just go where the cycle takes us. I wish I could do that.

To my future child.....

This morning, I woke up & walked into what would be your room,
I thought of how I’d rock you, feed you, dress you, and
how we’d watch the spring flowers bloom.
None of this is possible, because God has not chosen me, yet
He hasn’t given me an opportunity to be a mommy.
Every night, I lay in bed
Thoughts of you ponder in my head.
I hold closely the man I love,
This man deserves the chance to be a daddy.
I picture him holding you close & the three of us so happy.
Although you are not here,
I already love you so dear.
Everyday I dream of what it would be like
to hold a baby of my own,
Every tear that runs down my face is another day gone wrong.
I walk in town to see women with their beautiful bellies,
My friends announce they’re pregnant now,
And, I smile – I am happy for them
But truthfully I am burning inside.
The hurt, the pain, I try to hide –
But still I can’t understand why?!?
Every night, I dream, I dream of daddy, mommy, and you
I dream of vacations, weekends, and trips to the zoo,
I dream of your hands, your feet, your fingers, and toes,
I picture your lips, your eyes, your nose,
I think of what your first day at school will be like,
I think of teaching you to ride your first bike.
I dream of reading your favorite stories at night,
I dream of holding you in my arms so tight.
I imagine all of these things but, the I wake realize it isn’t real,
That is when it is heartache and pain that I feel.
If only God would bless me,
I would surely love to hold our first baby.

I feel.....

Seems like lately it always feels like we are the only couple on earth suffering from infertility. You hear and read that millions of people are going through infertility treatments but yet where are they? Your cousin got pregnant after (oops!) drinking too much one night; your co-worker tried for an agonizing three months before it finally happened to her; and all your friends are either pregnant or having baby number two, three or four. If there are millions and millions who suffer from infertility, it certainly feels like they are living somewhere else.

I feel jealous.

I feel bitter and envious.

I feel like everyone is pregnant but me (including your dog, goats, heck even the chickens have great eggs but nope not me).

I feel angry, disappointed and frustrated.

I feel hopeless, then hopeful, then hopeless again.

I feel heartbroken, emotionally-drained and desperate.

I feel discouraged, and exhausted.

I feel like I can’t look at that toilet paper even one more time.

I feel like I'm getting high on Folic Acid.

I feel like I see the transvaginal wand more than my husband.

I feel like I will go crazy if my fertility clinic doesn’t call me back by 3pm.

I feel like I know more about cervical mucus than a fertility specialist.

I feel like (’ve had more unprotected sex than an immature teenager.

But I also feel calm and strong and determined.

And although I might feel lonely going through this infertility adventure, I know that I am definitely not alone. 

My view of infertility: Suffering in Silence

"So what happened last week?" my co-worker asked, wondering why I'd disappeared for several days in the middle of the week. "Did you have the flu?"  “It was..." I trailed off, trying to decide how much I wanted to share with someone who was really more of a professional contact than a friend. "It was...woman stuff."


Just like that, I slapped a vague label on the most excruciating loss of my life.


Mere days before this conversation took place, I was chipper and dreamy and carrying a baby. Then, in the course of one horrid day, it all unraveled. Now, I found myself sitting back in my office chair, stunned, grieving, and facing an urgent mountain of work.


I pawed my pile listlessly, wondering how the world could go on when mine had surely ended. All around me, keyboards chattered and telephones rang. Coworkers eyed me suspiciously, clearly not buying my excuse that I was just under the weather. I'd just lost a baby. And it had dropped me into a hell of despair so deep that it hurt just to breathe.


So, why was I keeping it a secret?


Miscarriage is death. It brings with it all the agonizing grief that comes with losing a loved one. But miscarriage is also a taboo topic. It's the very reason that we hide our pregnancies during those first dicey months, fretfully waiting for the danger to abate before making any announcements.


When bad news comes, couples that lose a pregnancy tend to mourn in secret, telling only close friends and family about their loss. There are no funerals. No memorials. You don't get sympathy cards and bereavement time. Instead, routines go on, and you take sick days.


In fact, the only tradition our society does have regarding miscarriage is that you're not supposed to talk about it. We expect grieving couples to buck up and pretend that the little life lost never existed in the first place.


We reduce a miracle to a topic not fit for polite conversation.


An estimated one in seven pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Each year in the U.S. alone, over 700,000 babies don't survive to be born. Millions of people must be mourning them. So, where are they? “The only tradition our society does have regarding miscarriage is that you're not supposed to talk about it.”


As a society, we let ourselves believe the lie that miscarriage is a minor event in a woman's life. "It happens all the time," people tell you, as if knowledge of its frequency will put the loss in perspective. (Imagine giving that same line to someone who just lost a grandparent.) "It really wasn't a baby yet" is another line people glibly offer. Or, "You hardly even knew you were pregnant."


I have had four miscarriages, one at 19 weeks, one at 13 weeks, and two at about 10 weeks. Every time, I knew I was pregnant right away. That's a lot of mornings to wake up enchanted that there's a child growing inside you. It's many long afternoons of fatigue, strange cravings, and nausea. It's countless cups of decaf coffee and glasses of wine declined. It's hundreds  prenatal vitamins.


I don't blame society for being so callous about pregnancy loss. If nobody ever tells people how much it hurts, how are they to know that miscarriage is such a big deal? Why shouldn't they think that it is no worse than blowing a job interview or having your team lose the big game?


As with so many taboo topics, perhaps the answer is simply for people to be more open: To stop pretending that if we ignore a miscarriage, it won't hurt.


I still think about that miserable afternoon at work and how much easier it would have been if I'd just exhaled the truth. If I could have let people say, "I'm so sorry." If I hadn't had to pretend that it was a normal day even as I was in the grips of soul-swallowing grief.


Because the only thing worse than losing something that meant the world to you is pretending that you lost nothing.

September is PCOS Awareness Month

For those of you that don't know what PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) is:
Polycystic ovary syndrome is a problem in which a woman's hormones are out of balance. It can cause problems with your periods and make it difficult to get pregnant. PCOS may also cause unwanted changes in the way you look. If it is not treated, over time it can lead to serious health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease. Polycystic ovary syndrome (or PCOS) is common, affecting as many as 1 out of 15 women. Often the symptoms begin in the teen years. Treatment can help control the symptoms and prevent long-term problems.-Wikipedia


I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 18 years old, after having been told for quite a few years that nothing was wrong with me. My first GYN appointment the Dr told me "your young and active, it's normal for your body to be like this" NOT!! This really didn't bother me until after I was married and we decided to have children.


Another blogger friend challenged me to write a blog that in short told the story of my struggle with infertility. This short essay is going to be posted following this one as it's a bit longer but I've written about something that's affected me more than anything! Feedback is always appreciated!!

Not sure where to start.....

So I've had this blog for a while, but I haven't really been sure where to start. Heck, I'm not even sure if anyone will ever read this! I've always kept sort of a journal but never shared it with anyone and I think it's time to upgrade to the next level.
I'm sure there will be lots of rambling and even a few private posts, but the good thing here is if you don't like what your reading you can always leave!


Having said that I welcome you to my blog!