What to say, what to say?

Forgive me blogosphere, it has been 4 days since my last post.

I, uh, well...hmm. There is so much going through my head and through my heart, it is a little tough to decide where to start.

Let's start where I left off last week:

To recap: on Wednesday I picked up the cryo tank of sperm from the sperm bank.  I had imagined them giving me the tank, but it was actually sealed with double tape into a big box, so my whimsical ideas for photographing it with a baby bonnet on it's cap were quashed. Also, it turned out I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. Husband and I had all sorts of conversations about what kind of apparatus to secure it with in the car--one doesn't want to let liquid nitrogen just bounce around.  In the end, the box fit behind my passenger seat, and I wedged a towel between the box and seat to keep the box perfectly upright and snug.  It had a 5 day charge, but I dreamed that it had defrosted overnight, and I went out to find the tank beaded with condensation.  So I hopped in my car at 8 in the morning to shuttle it out the clinic (about 30 minutes away through rush hour traffic!). I had no idea where the lab was in the clinic, only husband has been there to drop off his specimens. It was all very efficient and business like. When they took the vials out to show me I was surprised at how small they were, and then a huge wave of sadness broke over me. I was so focused on the logistics and not screwing up that the reality of what I had been carrying around in my car for 18 hours hadn't really sunk in. But when I looked at those little vials I felt another level of loss rise up and it surprised me. When I told Husband, he got it, and gave me a hug. What a man.

One of the most complicated things about this process of using donor sperm, is that there is a part of me that feels wildly hopeful, probably for the first time in 3 years (yes, I managed to get so freaked out during the early TTC, that I practically ruined the fun), and another part of me that feels resigned to it not working, and yet another part of me that feels guilty for having this chance. I suppose it is survivors guilt setting in. 

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I bought a new fertility monitor on Amazon, only $125! My old one lost the ability to detect the estrogen surge--and it wasn't a personal problem, my friend who is now 33 weeks pregnant with identical twins never got an LH surge with it--clearly the machine was wrong!  I get up every morning and remind myself "Second uri.ne of the day", since that is what they told me to do. Today is day 8,and I'm still in the low fertility sector. Hopefully the DHEA will deliver a nice day 13 or day 14 ovulation of a nice juicy egg.  I'm really curious to see what my lining is like with DHEA, but without all the stimming drugs. My feeling is that if I can't make a good egg on my own, and my lining is still slim, we really need to focus our energy on IVF and not dink around with IUI's. See! I almost have a decision tree forming!

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My friend who is 33 weeks pregnant with identical twins (just sex, not sub q shots involved) is in the hospital being monitored for pre-eclampsia. When she went for her OB appointment on Wed her blood pressure was high and she has some really impressive edema in her legs and feet. They gave her the blood pressure medicine which totally worked (WHEW!) but the steroid shots they gave for the twins lung development made her pancreas a little wonky (totally normal side effect), so she had to stay in the hospital for the weekend. They she was looking good on a lot of fronts, but that she had too many combined risk factors.  We spent the evening with her and husband last night, eating Korean take out, talking about politics, goofing around and having a pretty damn good time for hanging out in a cramped hospital room.

I must say that the crazed ideas I had about wanting twins are completely put to rest. One please. She works from home, has been monitored really closely, has a great diet (to deal with the gestational diabetes), and is still stuck in the hospital hoping her babies will cook for a minimum of another two weeks. It's just really sobering to realize how risky a twin pregnancy is. In her case, there was no avoiding it, the egg just went crazy dividing, but in my case, especially if we use donor eggs, I can avoid it. I know, and have spouted, all the reasons to go for twin pregnancy when you have limited time, limited resources, and have been trying to get pregnant for YEARS! However, it is damn scary. She and her husband are resourceful, and have each other, but it is just such a scary scary time for the 2 (4) of them. 

In good news, they are being monitored closely, the twins are close to 5lbs each, and she is responding well to all the treatments, so indications are that they will get to stay in the best incubator possible for a good long time (like until June 8, pretty please!)

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How many of you know of Ayelet Waldman?  She was quite a phenomenon a few years ago when her essay about loving her husband more than her children was published in the New York Times.  I remember reacting quite viscerally to it, but more as a child than as a mother. I think I was reacting out of my own sense of pain in terms of my wish to feel secure in my mother's love. However, that issue had nothing to do with my parent's devotion to one another, but rather with my mother's depression, which if you lost your youngest child at age 14 and had a baby on the way, I challenge you to not jump off a bridge. I'm just saying.  I'll take insecurity over dead mother any day. Anyhow, back to AW.  So over the years, like the 3 I've been battling infertility, I've often returned to the ideas she raises in that essay. I suppose you could say that because I don't have children, I'm not qualified to comment on this, but whatever. I pay my $8 a month so I can say whatever I want to say. Where was I?

I know that there is a malignant kind of loving between parents that excludes children, and that is not what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about my love for my husband, and how it is so different, and so much richer than it was 3 years ago. I can say with a lot a certainty that if you'd asked me 3 years ago I would have thought that we were lucky to love each other so deeply. But now, and in someway I am not sure where we will put this little human we make. I love him so fiercely, so completely that it surprises me. And yet, I know that we will love our child(ren), and that the experience of that love will open parts of my heart that I don't even know exist. But his man, this man who is my soul mate, the one person who loves me, get's me and enjoys me in my multitude of flaws and faults won't be unseated by a child.  I think that 3 years ago, it may have been more of a struggle. I so needed a baby to heal my own wounds. I might have pushed him out of the way (although he would have fought me tooth and nail!), and now I'm confident I won't.

I think I'm going to be a 'bad' mother, but in the best sense of the word.

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Babies!

Last night as we left our friends hospital room two newborns were at the nurses station while their mother showered or something. My husband and I screeched to stop in front of their isoletes  They were so tiny and so perfect. Their little ears were a marvel.  I could have scooped one up and walked out with it and been ecstatic to have a baby. Don't worry, I 'm not contemplating baby stealing, but rather that I worry so much about "his/mine/ours", and I would have gladly scooped up a Vietnamese baby and walked out a the hospital a happy woman.

I thought to myself "If something works with this donors sperm, how could I not be completely taken with that baby?" Clearly, there are moments when I can stop thinking, start feeling, and imagine good things.

Comments

[mo]

wow. so many thoughts. good to read them all. sounds like you're processing it all on a number of levels, which is good - the best you can hope for. glad the sperm got dropped off to the right place. am sending you guys all the best.

mo

[meinsideout]

So glad the sperm made it safely to the clinic's freezer. I too have moments of deep loss - like yesterday, we went to see a movie and I looked over at my husband and was profoundly sad that the child will never have his eyes or his lips...I get scared thinking of people constantly saying - "oh, the baby has Mr. M's ears" or nose or whatever and that we will suffer silently through such comments. All of this is assuming I will be able to get and stay pregnant.

Great buy on the fertility monitor. FYI, my surges have been on day 15. I was going crazy thinking it should be earlier. The only monitoring they did was on the first IUI and on the day I got a smiley face, my lh was 12.5 and I had a 28mm follicle on the right. It worked - I got a bfp - but as you know, it was short lived. They did not monitor me this time - they just did the first time to confirm my surge.

[Kami]

Isn't a crazy ride? I remember how sad I was when we tried 1/2 DS on our third IVF. Of course, I thought it would work although I wasn't sure it would be the DS that would make the difference. Brad acted like it wasn't THAT big of a deal for him so how could I justify how I was feeling? I remember thinking it would be sad that even if our child had brown eyes, they wouldn't be HIS brown eyes.

Brad and I have promised each other that we would always be each other's #1. Our kids would be #2 - a close #2, but #2 nonetheless. Now I realize how easy it is to get wrapped up in baby and not make time for each other. Soon, LB will be needing less and less care and it will be easier, I am sure.

[Michele]

Sending good vibes and hopeful that this cycle is THE one!

[Eva]

Four days isn't that long! And you certainly made up for it. You gave me a lot to think about, as you usually do.I'll probably comment more later when I've had to digest more than four days worth of thoughts. When is your next IUI?

[Calliope]

catching up with you and wanted to let you know that I am thinking of you. Lots going on. as for emotions regarding donor sperm- well I know our situations aren't exactly the same, but I am really hopeful and excited for you.
xo

[Ellen K.]

I'm planning to read Ayelet Waldman's book too. I think I'm a bad mom, in the best possible way.

Yeah, twins are tough. When things are running smoothly (and most twin moms stick to a tight schedule, it seems), it's lovely, but disruptions that would be manageable with one child can seem insurmountable with twins. It's also hard to get adequate help. However, I also observe that my husband is way, way more involved and satisfied with two babies at a time. He loves it.