Dreams and False Alarms

Are you ready? Yes I'm ready.

I'm sorry that I've turned into one of those bloggers who broods around with blog posts rattling around in her head, instead of setting them free to rattle around on the internet.  Brooding does seem to capture what I am doing with my thoughts, and my feelings, I mean brooding in the more "sitting on one's eggs" rather than in the sense of being sad and grumpy.

Have you been following Mo and Will's report on their 1 day work up in Colorado?  I've been peeking at it through my fingers. For a moment when Mo first described her work up I felt an upwelling of my own wish to have a one day at the temple of last chances and miracle babies.  I thought, only for a moment, maybe I too have a constricted blood flow that hasn't been seen. And then, I stopped. I just stopped myself from walking down that road, and reminded myself that more data would only make me feel crazier, and that I was done with being crazy.  For me, the data is in.  I don't get pregnant, maybe if we'd known about the translocation earlier we could have moved to donor sperm and we'd already be dandling our little baby on our knee. Or not. Maybe there is something that goes on with my eggs that is beyond age.  Whatever it is, it's not knowable at this time. The "why" of this situation is not going to be answered.

Not having an answer, oddly enough, has really helped me to feel that I'm ready to move on to DE. If it can't be known, it can't be known, and I will only lose more precious years of my life to answering, what has become, a not too important question.

Am I sad that I won't see my family and my husband's family expressed in our child? Of course, but it's sadness, a relatively easy burden to carry compared to the rage, terror, helplessness and sense of annihilation that I carried with me for most of the time I've been trying to conceive a child.

And you know what? I'm excited! Really excited, about this next step. It's not a guarantee, but it's a damn sight better than what I've been working with for many years now.

Although this baby will start out it's life in a lab, this child will be conceived out of our love and passion , and it's going to be wonderful.

So bring on the beta on Monday, and set me free from the endometrian, I'm ready.

Long time no see

I'm pretty sure if I looked in my archives, I'd find that I've got quite a few posts that say some variation on "long time no see".  Sorry about the silence. Since I didn't post my negative last week, some people were still writing to wish me luck. Sorry for the confusion!  I was actually very busy, then it was my birthday on Thursday, and I was exhausted from all the busyness earlier in the week. Also, I was just in a bad place before then and I didn't even want to hear myself talk, ya know? 

So! Well! Where to start?

I don't have breast cancer, so that's good. 

I went for my paranoid mammogram on Monday, got a call on Tuesday from my OB saying they wanted to do a diagnostic mammogram and an ultrasound because of a suspicious mass in my left breast, so I promptly mobilized, and used my PPO insurance to get myself an appointment the next day at a one of the best hospitals around, and had my answer ( a simple cyst), just under 24 hours from when my doctor first called.  I did a remarkably good job of holding it together--every once in a while I would stray into "well it's so early, it will be a good prognosis, but that means no pregnancy, and who will let a woman who has had breast cancer adopt etc etc.", but I managed to not go there. Thank god I got seen so quickly!

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We picked a donor.  We were looking at 5 donors, all vaguely resembling me, all proven, but 3 were from my clinic, which saved us about 5K, so the choice was clear in some ways. The donor is the same age as one of my nieces, taller than me, but the same coloring, and well, I guess she seems nice. At some point I had very high ideals about who and what and where and how she should be (also known as trying to replicate myself in another person...), and then I just got to a place where I realized that she needed to be a good person, and she needed to be willing to meet the child when they were 18.  I was quite worried that I would have to compromise on that, if I ever wanted to get this party started, but she is willing to be contacted.

We do one more IUI, sometime in the next 5 days (today is cycle day 8), with endo.metrian for the luteal phase, and then if the beta is negative, then we commence with the DE cycle. Luckily, our cycles are already somewhat synchronized (she'll get hers the same week I do in Nov), so we might even have a transfer before Dec 31!

I am still ambivalent about doing the IUI--still scared that even if I do get pregnant, and even if I don't miscarry, that my age puts me at so much risk for Downs and other genetic issues that it will be harder to feel excited than I would like. At this point I'd like a DE cycle for the price of an IUI. Shall I dream on?

******************

On Wed my mom called me to let me know that one of her dear friends had died in her sleep. For those of your just joining in the story now, my mom and her contemporaries are in their 80's, and so these losses may be piling up. 

Her name was Joan. She was at the hospital when I was born, and there for every significant milestone in my life until I was in my mid 20's when she and her husband moved about 4 hours away.  She was my buddy. She was a terrible cook, but ambitious--she introduced me to crème fraîche and many other delights. She was a snappy dresser, and always let me rummage around in her closet. I was allowed to try on her clothes, and model them--often combining things in new and different ways, which she always gave me credit for when she wore the outfit. In sixth grade I was going through a very awkward phase and took the worst school picture of my entire life (I am rather photogenic,and enjoy having my picture taken--drivers license pictures included).  She worked for a photographer, and that year had portraits taken of me, which she paid for. My Senior pictures, my wedding pictures, all of them paid for by her. 

She made me beautiful SARAH pillows when I was about 10, velvet, satin, corduroy.  I finally gave them to another little girl named Sarah, but right at this moment, I wish I had them back. She also took some of the most lovely baby pictures of me, did quite a lot of photography, and batik. She had a practical elegance that I can see so clearly in my own fashion choices--any type of herringbone, or nubby wool trouser strikes me as a Joan outfit. She was, I think, an artist stuck in a 50's housewifes life, and although she broke out and did do art in middle age, I wonder what her life would have been like had she known from the beginning that that was who she was.   But what I want to hold onto is that she didn't let it stop her, she did those things. Maybe I can too--maybe I can start holding my own art in a little higher esteem.

She was an early proponent of seat belts--I never wore one unless I was with her. She worked in the library, and I thought for a long time that being a library assistant was a glamorous job. Not because it looked glamorous, not because she always seemed so important--But because she had an air about her and she could find my favorite children's book, or let me know when it would come back. Very important to a girl obsessed with Mushy Eggs (out of print, but on it's way to me).

She would often start out a sentence with "Well Sar.." and then go on to tell me about something she was thinking about, something she'd seen or respond seriously to my thoughts or feelings.  She had lovely looping handwriting--somewhat like my own if I concentrate.  I recently unearthed a postcard she sent, which she made out of a picture she took of me, wishing me luck in my 'new adventure' (changing high schools), and teasing me about a teacher I'd clashed with who'd resigned.

The picture below is of the two of us, me probably wearing her kerchief--I recall being fascinated by them as a small child, and always asking for one.  She was probably asking for my opinion, and taking it seriously.

I love you Joan--thank you for ever little piece of you I carry inside of myself.  You live on in my heart, in my wardrobe, and in that special place where I know that I was loved, and adored and enjoyed from the moment you knew I was on the way. Rest in Peace, rest in peace.

 

 

 

A shot in the dark

We did an IUI this morning.  No ultrasound to check out the dimensions of my lining or my follicles, no trigger shots to give us the sense of 'perfect' timing, and no progesterone supplementation to screw with my mind and give me gas and sore boobs.

Like sex with one's husband, but so not.

I feel sort of...hopeful enough to go through with it, but not hopeful enough to worry about how the due date will inconvenience my hectic (hardly!) schedule in 9 months.

We're starting to seriously talk about DE, and when to do it. I want to do it sooner, Husband want's to do it later (me: start with cycle mid oct, him: start with cycle in Nov).  We'll probably do the latter--husband needs his time to get used to the idea, and of course, all this is dependent on the donor being available and agreeable to both of us. 

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Do you ever go through those phases that are just annoying? The kind where you feel it all freshly again; feelings you thought you'd mastered rear up again?  I think overall I'm doing better, but there are times when I look at Fa.ceboo.k and it feels like one more place where happy people show pictures of their children and talk about cheerfulness (not kidding on the last one, former cheerleader and cheerleading coach posted something about cheerfulness being infectious etc). I'm sure it is, but all I could think was "nice you can be so fucking happy all the time."  For a person who's been eating a lot of shit sandwiches for the last 3 years, I'm pretty happy, but ugh. Geeze. Yeesh.

And on the other hand, I want to have an easier, happier life, like other people do (cheerfulness weirdo not withstanding), and today I can't feel like I'm a part of that life; not to say they (amorphous they don't wnt me, they do!) but it just feel as if it hurts too much to know how easy (some)things are for others.

I think that resemblance talk just kills me.  I love it for a moment, and it's so true in many cases, but it just hurts to know our children will resemble us in many ways, but not physically, and as little as that will matter in the long run, it is a loss. 

One odd thing is that I can't seem to find an egg donor who resembles me. In many ways that's fine, it is less important to me than it was before, but it's just odd.  I sort of look like Ellen DeGeneres (big smile), Cate Blanchette (long face, sharp nose), Kate Winslet (Similar eyes, and holy crap we have the same boobs) and a little Princess Diana thrown in. Where the heck are all the egg donors who look a little bit like any of those people? All the women seem to have round faces and little eyes. Ok, that is an exaggeration, but really, what is up with DE and round faces around here?

Clearly, I'm all over the place, taking shots in the dark in many ways.  To sum up: IUI, feeling jealous, wanting to know why egg donors are roundy faced.

Meeting with Dr Calm tomorrow to discuss Donor Egg process. Oy.

In which I compare failing at IVF to The Chicken Ranch

Hi.

Sorry about just dropping out like that. I'm not sure of what to say, of how much I even want to know about what I'm feeling and thinking at this point. This could turn out to be a long post, or a short post...

I am crushed.  Yes, partially by the negative--even though I was ambivalent and scared of a positive, it would have also have been wonderful. I literally feel crushed.  I think that the weight of what I've been doing for the last three years, and in the case of IVF, for the last year and half, finally came down on me.  I think that my way of coping was to repress how hard it was (not completely, but enough), and to keep my eyes on the prize.  As negative and as anxious as I was, I really believed that IVF could help us, and my faith was renewed when we found out about the translocation--maybe I really did have the same chance as a lot of other nearly 39 year olds.  This last cycle seems to indicate that my eggs are kaput.  Whatever it is that they need to have produce a healthy embryo/baby is just not there. Maybe in 20 years they'll know what that is, but for right now, it's unknowable.  In some ways that is a relief--to have a knowable problem, and to not be able to solve it would be a different kind of hard.

Another way that this has all crashed down on me is financially.  At the beginning of the cycle I kept having the idea that infertility treatment is like the Chicken Ranch, a movie that those of you who took Women's Studies classes in the '90's can probably remember. The scene that has always stuck with me was the girl Mandy who at one point in the movie, after a particularly lucrative session, is talking about how great it is to be a prostitute, and then later when she's pissed off the madam or the owner is forced to the an 'around the world' for the cost of a lesser act.  She is crying, she is raging, she is humiliated, she is ultimately fired for her outburst.  I think that scene has stuck with me all these years because it so clearly illustrated how when you are doing something hard, with the idea that you will get something good at the end (money in her case, a baby in mine), the humiliation, the hardships, the endurance that it takes to just get through the damn thing is tied to the end result. When you don't get it, the reality of what you've just put yourself though comes crashing down on you like a ton of bricks. In the past there was always the next cycle, the next idea, the next last thing. And now it is over, and it is sad, a relief, a huge loss, and more than I can even articulate.

I am exhausted. I am heartbroken.  If the DE/DS cycle doesn't work, we will be broke and still without a child.  I realize that may sound like catastrophizing, but just because we came out on the wrong side of the odds this time, doesn't guarantee we won't again.  Someone has to make up that 40% who don't get a baby with DE--I really fucking hope that isn't us for once.

It is getting pretty hard to keep taking money out of the savings account and telling ourselves that it is going to get us anything--pretty soon there won't be anything to take out...ugh.

***********************

While I am grateful for what we do have (each other, our kitties, some version of healthy, a good job (husband) and a job that I love, I can't help but feel all that we don't have at the moment, and the dwindling resources we have to get a child. If we were to stop all this pregnancy stuff, and move to adoption, the cost would be about the same as a DE cycle, and the wait would be 2 to 3 years.  I know that county adoptions move faster, but not always as fast as people think.  It could still be 2 to 3 years.

I feel very isolated--not because people don't care, but because it feels so impossible to explain how profoundly and utterly lost I feel at the moment. And I don't want to hear that it isn't the cards I'm dealt, but how I play them. I want to hear "This hand sucks, and that's all there is to say."  It isn't that I don't want to feel hopeful at some point, but right now this is just fucking awful, and there isn't a silver lining.

I know that eventually I will feel better, but I think at this point I am really feeling the damage this has done to me. And I think that is reasonable. It has kicked my ass, and no amount of endurance has changed the fact that no matter how much we spent, or how hard I tried, or how good I was, or how stoic I was in the face of failure after failure, this didn't work, and it's not going to work, and it was harder than most people can ever imagine. I have been through some very very hard times in my life, but the difference was that I could do something to change them. I could leave my ex-husband, I could go to college, I could go to therapy, I could find a better man. I can't do anything about this. This is what it is. It is just over, broken, fucked, unfixable.  No child, no matter how they come to us, will change the facts of the last 3 years.  They may soften the blow, fill us with more joy than we can imagine, but this is immutable.

This is the end of an era. This is the end of IVF. This is the end of the idea that I can be helped. This is the end of feeling like every penny is worth spending if it gets us our child.

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Compared to most people, I don't have a lot of pregnant friends and baby showers to contend with.  But a friend and his wife are having a baby in November, and their shower is in a month.  I looked at their registry and thought "You two are missing so many really important things, and have way too many of the 'hyped but useless' stuff on here."  I felt so...annoyed. Here I am, having collected and observed, and thought through all this stuff for YEARS, and I'm still on the fucking sidelines.  In the end I bought them two things that I know have been lifesavers for my friend with twins, and left it at that. They'll figure it out, and I don't have to do a thing.  But ya know, it just killed me to do it again, to buy a gift I'd like to have for myself, to have for my child. And here I am again on the sidelines.  In this case, it was pretty painful, probably because of where I am (duh), but also because I feel so invisible. With my friend who has twins I don't feel invisible, and that makes it so much easier to really get in and enjoy the babies. With most people though, I'm just invisible. Of course I don't have to be but, what do you say? "I'm so happy for you, but I just got a negative pregnancy test for a cycle that cost 12K and buying you a baby gift is pretty much going to rip a little more of my heart up." No, I don't say that. I buy the gift, Husband and I lean on each other for support, and leave as early as possible.

Argh, I'm rambling.

We went to a bbq on labor day, all of the people there have kids. We didn't know 2 of the couples at all. The host and another couple were more of known quantity.  Somehow the subject of 'snowflake babies' came up, and embryology, IVF and all sorts of other things were just being mangled. Husband and I both just sat there dumbstruck. I knew that If I said something it would come out somewhere between a strangled cry and bitchy, and I just couldn't do it. The host is a dear, and she has been nothing but a true friend through this whole awful ordeal, but it struck me just how hard it is to be in 'mixed company'--I have limited myself so much to people who are in the know, that I've forgotten how hard it is to be with regular people who don't have to know the intricacies of embryology, or cryopreservation or the difference between IVF and insemination. 

When the hell with this stuff just be a bad memory?  I'm exhausted.

Layers

I've posted this before, but it seems just right for this day.

Layers

Stanly Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

IVF: It's all fun and games until someone spends their life savings and doesn't get a baby

I had a few days of hope that maybe this cycle had worked, but on Tuesday, that started to shift.

To recap the reasons I had hope:

A compacting embryo on day three

Pink spotting on day 5 and 6

Tender breasts that couldn't tolerate an underwire

Zinging cramps that I remembered from my pregnancy with Sparky

On Tuesday I had the distinct feeling that things were shifting and not in a positive way. My breasts felt less tender, and seemed to be deflating. I told myself that it was probably my imagination. But on Wednesday, I had the distinct dropping progesterone feeling of feeling weepy about everything, and the breasts were clearly smaller and not sore. Last night I didn't even need to wear my sleep bra.  I'm going commando right now, and not a tender spot in sight.

Of course there is nothing to do but wait until Sunday, take the pills, do the shots, but in my body, it feels like it is over. Please don't encourage me. I just don't want any encouragement.  This is the pattern my 3 early pregnancies had the first year we were trying. If I wasn't on the progesterone, I'd probably be bleeding by now.

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I am ambivalent about this. On the one hand I am extremely sad, and exhausted by this whole process, and on another, I'm sort of well, not exactly relieved, but something like relieved. When I did think I was pregnant I found myself feeling ambivalent about how I would feel about a positive result. In one way it would be wonderful, but in another, it would be excruciating.  I have lost faith in my eggs, and their performance with the donor sperm was the final nail in that coffin.  Using my eggs feels like putting broken embryos into my body to die--not to live. To be pregnant this cycle, with my day three embryo (since only one of 5 was of any quality) would be terrifying. If I were to make it all the way to the second trimester, I would feel that I had to get an amnio because until I got those results I wouldn't be able to feel confident that the baby was healthy. 

For the last 3 years it mattered to me that my eggs could be proven to be strong, healthy, and good. They felt like an extension of my own strength, health and goodness. For most of my life I've been consumed by my own fears and feelings of defectiveness, but at this point I feel that I am strong, healthy and good, but my eggs aren't. I am ready to let go of my eggs, and ready to let go of this phase of my life.

And this is where the title comes in: If money were no object, I'd be doing DE/DS cycle by November at the latest. But financially, it makes more sense to do 3 IUI's with my eggs and donor sperm and to see if one of them works. Why? We've never tried that--all our data comes from translocated sperm and IVF, and maybe I'm one of those people who's eggs don't develop well with extra gondrapins.  Also, a monitored IUI costs 1K, a donor egg cycle costs 25K. If we get lucky, and one of my eggs decides to be a superstar, we'll have saved 25K. 

The worst part of this is that I don't want to do it. I just don't want to do it at all, but I will.  I will be vigilant, and responsible. I'll go to acupuncture, and pee on sticks every morning, and I'll refrain from taking all my favorite meds for 2 weeks (flex.eril, amb.ian, suda.fed).  In the long run I know it would be easier for our child if they had at least one genetic link, but really, I just don't want to do it. I don't want to use my old tired eggs. I don't want to go through this any more. AT ALL.  I will do this, but don't ask me to be hopeful, or to like it, or to believe in it.

I feel grumpy and cornered. I am cornered by logic and reason, and good sense, but in terms of what I want, I don't want this. It has gotten to the point that I don't want a child who shares a genetic link with me--I want this to be over.  Yet, money doesn't grow on trees, and there isn't more money coming from where the last chunk came from, so we can't just do what feels right, we have to do what is right all around. ARGH.

"Tap-Tap-Tap Announcment. Quiet Please"

This is not all about me.

Shocking, I know.

Now, some of you who have been following the bouncing ball of my infertility experience might be kind of confused about this revelation, of course it's about me, but it has finally started to sink in that it isn't 'all' about me anymore.

Kind of embarrassing actually. Ugh.

For the last 5 years (because I was freaked out about being infertile for at least 2 years before we actually started TTC!) Husband has been my rock. He had held onto the "yes we can" flag, picked me up off of the floor, given me pep talks galore, held me, dried my tears, made me laugh, encouraged me to dream of the future, and put his big longs arms around our dreams for our family. 

Well now, the tables have turned. And yes, my grief process is as valid as his, but in a way different. I am mourning the lost potential, the years spent beating myself up, living on the knife's edge of infertility, and losing Sparky.  But I am no longer, absolutely, mourning the loss of my fertility potential. By that I mean, one of the things I found the most painful, and hard to manage on a material and symbolic level, was the feeling that my body had never been fertile.  Now I am in the position of not knowing, and compared to knowing for sure, there is a certain freedom in that. That isn't to say that if we move onto donor eggs and donor sper.m I won't need to work through that loss, but I am in a different place than before.

But Husband is where I was in December through March--but (in my description, not his) he has crash landed into this world where his fertility, though assumed, was not there. And he is dealing with it in his own way, and because of the time limits, he has to move towards this new reality at a faster pace than is optimal.

Frankly, he needs me to step up and be there for us. Not to be whining and sniveling about how freaked out I am about this or that thing. I do need to feel those feelings, and deal with them, but I've always been sort of the helpee in this dynamic, and now I need to be the helper.

I did a couple of things last week that really seemed to help:

One is that I talked to a friend who is the mother of two (4 and 18 months), and just poured out all sort of worries and fears, and she shared that she had a lot of the same fears and worries when she was pregnant, all the while being clear that my situation was a bit different, but also, normalizing a lot of what I just felt terribly guilty for worrying about.  The best piece of advice she gave me was that no matter where the father's genetic material comes from, you have to make him the father. It is so easy to exclude the father.  I saw that with a former roommate. She had two children by different fathers, and her partner at the time did not want to have a child with her because he know that would mean he would be on the outs.

The other was that I finally figured out, and expressed, that I was angry about only having two chances to get pregnant with my eggs, and that it was putting enormous pressure on the experience of the home insemination (upcoming in early August), and the IVF (the following cycle, if possible).  It felt so guilty, knowing Husband never get's another chance, and selfish for wanting this for myself.  It was hard to talk about, but we were able to come up with the plan to do the IVF, and inseminations (most likely IUI's) afterward.  I felt like the sky opened up.

I know there needs to be an end to this process, and I will need to figure out when 'enough is enough', but one home insemination and one IVF is just not enough, at least not right now.

So I am limbering up my arms, stretching them out, and encircling our family, just like Husband has done for us all these years. And yes, we'll do it together, but right now, I need to step up.

Wound around the axel (lather/rinse/repeat)

The day I wrote that last post, we found out that our other older cat (Zoe's brother), has, in addition to his heart condition, cancer of the iris. Yeesh. Husband and I were both just flattened. We had finally started to feel like things were, if not looking up, at least not looking down. And then we got this news, and there went Hawaii.  Pfffffffffffftttttttt.

He was angry, and I just sat and read blogs and wept. It was a real live pity party. We ordered pizza, drank expensive tequila, and fell asleep on the couch.

And since then, it's been...kind of the same, but without the pity party and the tequila.

We have figured out a local cheapish vacation we can do, but it will not the be same as Hawaii. 

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In reproductive news I got my FSH and E2 results back: FSH 6.5 and E2 38. And then I proceeded to ovulate on day 11. Geeze. That got me all wound around the axel again.  I finagled an ultrasound (diagnostic, so the insurance will pay for it!) and I had a 19 m follicle on the left and a 6.0 lining. Not bad for me, lining wise, but it makes me wonder if a home insemination has a chance to work...ugh. the endless swirling leaves me wrapped around the axel.

I was only tracking so that I could have a sense of how well the fertility monitor was working with the DHEA, and so we could plan our home insemination (not an IUI! Just putting the goods in the vag and laying around for a while), which in turn screwed up our vacation timing. We have to come home earlier so we can get the sperm from the sperm bank before they close for the weekend. Oy.

Yesterday at therapy I was just wallowing in how fucked up I am about all of this; exhausted by being a good soldier and trying hard and all that crap. I think my therapist is even tired of me.

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One thing I find really difficult is confiding in my friends. Its as if I want to be 'all better' and then talk to them, but that is along damn way off, and they are often quite helpful! Today I talked with a friend who has 18 month old and a 4 year old, and it was so good to let all sorts of things tumble out, and to find out that in many ways what I'm worried about is normal, but amplified, but normal nonetheless.

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I do want to figure out how to be more positive--sometimes I wonder if the negativity is a crutch or a...habit? Not sure, but in someway I feel helpless to manage it, and that leaves me feeling hopeless.

BUT! Today I accepted and invitation to do something really good for my career in October, and I paid all the bills in my inbox and worked on the 'lowest hanging fruit' in terms of a part of my job I've been letting slide. Progress! One of my best friends since college is coming to town tomorrow, and we have plans for a seriously deep, girl talk extravaganza. And girl do I need it. And in one month we'll do our at-home-insemination, and that is pretty cool too.

Wedged between a rock and hard place

It has been sort of rough around here for a few days.  I am fully aware that it is an anniversary reaction, but that doesn't mean I'm any less impacted.

One year ago, our little Sparky was already gone, but we didn't know it. On July 3rd we went for our 8 week ultrasound, and his heart had stopped beating.  The silence was the loudest sound I've ever heard.

This morning I dreamed that a mother called her doctor and said "I think my baby is dead".  I thought, in the dream, "A mother knows when her baby is dead. I didn't know Sparky was dead." In dream logic, I managed to demote myself on the basis of something completely ridiculous. When I woke up my husband said "Are we going to light a candle for Sparky today?' and I lost it, and just cried and cried. I think I've been trying not to cry, or trying to find the right time to cry since Sunday. Silly huh--all this stored up sadness.

I really thought  we would have a baby by now. I know that now we know why, the translocation, but argh. It doesn't change that yet another year has passed with no progress on the real live baby front, and I'm getting just exhausted from pushing the boulder uphill. That isn't to say that we don't need this time to sort through the donor sperm stuff, but still.

This August will mark 3 years since we started TTC.

On Saturday it occurred to me that I've lost all the weight I gained since the miscarriage, but I'm still lugging around the weight I gained between when we started TTC and the miscarriage. It isn't a huge amount (5 to 8 pounds), but somehow it just feels like more than I can deal with to get it off, but alas, it needs to come off. I know that I don't need to be hard on myself, but it just feels like one more thing I can't get myself together to do.

I'm really behind in one aspect of my job, and it makes me feel really stressed to not do it, and really stressed to do it. Ugh.

Also, tomorrow is one month from when my Sweet Zoe died.  Maybe the dream was about her too--maybe I'm still beating myself up for not knowing she was dying, not checking on her more (during the whole 4 hours I slept that night...)

A very close friend is angry with me, but she won't return my calls or emails, so I can't even work it out with her. So I miss her, and I need her, but I can't get to her. 

I went for a day three blood draw (FSH and E2) yesterday--that was nerve-wracking too. I'm hoping that the DHEA is holding down the FSH, but if it isn't , we need to move on to IVF/DS but quick. Ugh. 

What is going well:

My husband is awesome

We are probably going to Hawaii for 10 days or two weeks at the end of July/beginning of August

Spogblogger has a sky high second Beta

Kami's frozen embryo made it transfer

We have 4 vials of frozen sperm

My remaining kitties are healthy and pesky

My friends twin babies are healthy and gaining weight, and I get to be "Auntie Sarah"

I ordered 2 sundresses from Kohl's that I'm excited about

Because of the Pilates work I've been doing, the chubb rubb between my thighs is diminished

I got my haircut yesterday

Dinner is in fridge

I'm going to the dentist tomorrow for my cleaning, and because of my excellent dental hygiene (Floss!) I will get positive feedback on my gums

I'm going to buy myself yet another beautiful variety of Peony

Excellent tomatoes from the produce market

Practically a day of grace entry there at the end!

"How is your mother?" "She has a bladder infection!"

Hi. I just, well, I just have had hard time figuring out what to say, but the lovely Kami opened up a neat little can of worms, and I feel like I can blog about this subject without wandering too far over in to my husbands emotional territory.

As many of you know, Kami used a known egg donor for her cycle with her daughter LB.  The donor lives nearby, and Kami has been trying to work out what kind of relationship makes sense between LB and the Donor.  Now, if the sperm donation works out, we won't have that exact issue (willing to be known to the child at age 18, but unknown to us), but the issue we do have is where does the donor fit in?  How do we make him an accessible fantasy (i.e. allows the child space enough to think about him), without inserting him into our family in a way that diminishes my husband, who will be the 'real' father in every sense of the word. 

Ultimately, I am the biggest problem in all of this. The donor, he's off living his life, at most wondering what it's going to be like if any of those kids actually contact him, our child/children will be pretty involved with us and hopefully able to integrate the reality of their genetic and social father's, and my husband, well I just have a lot of faith in him, lets leave it at that.  But me, I'm a blabber mouth.  If someone says "Where does she/he get those gorgeous eyes/eyelashes/curls/basketball skills" (sports prowess is something husband and I totally can't claim) I fear I'll say something like "Well, we don't' know what the donor looks like, but ..."  I have a tendency to always tell the truth. Like in the title of the post, this is what I actually said to some random acquaintance of my mothers. That was the actual truth, my mother had a bladder infection, that's how she was. Now I can dissemble appropriately as an adult but I am afraid that I'll insert the donor in at times where he really doesn't fit, or it doesn't make sense, and I'll hurt my husband and my child/ren.

For example, we were at our friends house, the ones who had the identical twin girls (who, by the way, are darling and currently learning that Auntie Sarah will run and jump to put your pacifier in the moment it falls out, whether or not it is strictly necessary!) and they were talking about some aspect of their daughters and how they resemble or don't resemble one or the other parents. I was enjoying it, but then out of my mouth pops some silly worry I have about the donor.  And my husband's face takes on that kind of hurt look that probably only I register, and then I feel like an ass.

In one book I read about donor gamete parenting it said that the most painful aspect of many parents experience was resemblance talk--hearing others freely engage in it, and knowing that they could, but only up to a point. I think that I must have been feeling invisible, or left out, my usual trigger for blurting out something inappropriate. That isn't to say they shouldn't do it in front of us--it is fun, and I enjoy playing "pin the nose on the parent" as much has the next gal, but I think that if I'm not aware of when it hits that "invisible" button within me, I'm going to bring the donor in at inappropriate times. Right now, the person that hurts most is my husband, but in the future, the person it's going to hurt and confuse the most is our child, and that is not a good thing, ya know?

I am afraid of my big fat mouth. I am not an out of control impulsive wreck (any more!), but whenever I feel that kernel of impulsivity starting to gain strength, I get good and freaked out. I just don't want to screw this up. And by this I mean my child, or my marriage.

Two things happened this weekend that have really had a huge impact on me and my thinking and feeling. One was a segment on This American Life featuring Lennard Davis who, after his father died was told that his father was not his genetic father. He goes though all sorts of stuff, and finally confirms that his father is not his genetic father. The two things that stood out for me was that he wished he could talk to his parents (both were dead), and that they had told him themselves, as well as feeling compassion for what his father must have went through.  When Ira Glass asked him how he imagines that would be he said something like "Well, we'd probably end up all fighting with each other, and then go eat some terrible food my mom made."  Even writing that, chokes me up, and here is why.  Here is a man who always felt on the outside, who couldn't make sense of how he was related to his father, and when given a 'pass' on having to claim him as his 'real' father, he feels gratitude, and compassion, and longs for the days when they could do their family thing of fighting with each other, and eating bad cooking. He doesn't go into the fantasy of another father, he goes into a fantasy about being with his father--with his family and the four of them doing their thing.

The other thing that had a big impact was reading on a parenting board the story of woman who was told by her mother right after her fathers death when she was 18 "Don't worry, he wasn't your real father". She said she wanted to scream "Of course he's my real father!" and then she went on to list all the ways he was her father in a way that no sperm donor could ever be. 

I feel such outrage for this woman. Her own mother tries to comfort her in her grief by saying "this man who loved and nurtured you is not worth grieving over because you don't share a genetic connection." How utterly ridiculous, and hurtful and on and on. 

So where does that leave me? On the corner of Walk and Don't Walk. In one way I am raring to go. Ready to get this damn show on the road, and on the other, I'm worried. I'm worried that I'm going to screw this up in some way.

Resemblance talk, identification with a parent, it's all a part of how one belongs in a family.  I know it can be overdone. It often solidified the alliance between my father and myself, and excluded my mother from the group.  Hmmm. Maybe that is what I'm worried about too. Must make a note to talk to therapist about that one! Anyway, back to my stream of consciousness: Ultimately my husband and children are going to share traits, interests, little habits of living that bear linking. Ferchissakes we make identifications with the body styles and personalities of our cats! So will it be ok? Can I say "Yeesh, little boy blue is just as grumpy when he wakes up as you are!" Or do I have to hold that back because it isn't technically 'where' he gets it? But human traits are shared across the species. That is why we end up with friends and partners!  We can identify with them in some way. Can we play with this resemblance talk even if it isn't technically completely accurate? I know that literally we can, but can we?