Dreams and False Alarms

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both

When I was in my early 20's, I married a man 10 years older than myself, and equally as lost. We married quickly, and within a year had moved all the way across the country from where we started. I began college and within weeks and knew that there were whole worlds of people and ideas and lives that I could be living.  The marriage dissolved by the beginning of the spring semester, and by the middle of May, I was off to start that new life I'd glimpsed only 9 months before.

The next fall, I was driving up the expressway, and as I drove past my old exit I had the strongest sense that I could take that exit, and drive up to our old apartment, and walk back into that old life, and that old self. I kept on driving, to the self I was getting to know, and the life I was choosing, but it was such a powerful feeling that it has stayed with me all these years.

--

The day after my mother found out she was pregnant with me, my next oldest brother died in a car crash. He and I lived intertwined, yet separate lives.  The first year of my life was the first year of their grief, and so on. He was always there, a shadow, a painfully shared memory, and every so often, someone would say "Joe would have loved having a little sister like you." And yet, until I was 15, I didn't know the full circumstances surrounding his death, and I had never seen or touched anything belonging to him. Aside from one solitary, final, school portrait that sat on my parents bureau, he was virtually erased from the family.  When my parents sold our childhood home, my mother began cleaning out closets , she brought out 3 boxes of his belongings, a jacket, and letters he'd written and received.  I went through these boxes and wept.  Both for his loss, and for my own.  I wrote him a letter and told him all about myself, and our brother and sister, and parents. For a month or so, I was deeply immersed in the fantasy of who I would have been had he lived, and how our relationship would had shaped me. It wasn't so much about what would my life have been like had it not been macerated in grief, but more about who we would have shaped each other to be.  At some point, maybe few years later even, I came to know in at a very deep level that the person I am, beyond my temperament, is utterly shaped by the cataclysm of my birth and his death, and it was impossible to untangle the threads and be a different self. 

--

When I imagine telling our children about their origins, I imagine that there will be years when it makes only passing sense to them, and then a period when it concretely makes more sense to them, and then finally when they have their own time in the wood, when they realize we have chosen the road for them, all of us, Husband, myself and the donors. We have all chosen that this is their path, and they will wrestle with it mightily.  I don't have any illusion that just because I carried them in my body that they will bypass the identity crisis that is the mark of any good adolescence.  What I do hope is that we can stand with them, and withstand their rage and their grief, and perhaps even periods of rejection, with grace, open hearts, open minds and when they are ready to rejoin us, open arms.  

--

When I contemplate the pain that our children may experience because of their origins, I find myself wishing that I didn't need to do all of this to have these children. It is an odd juxtaposition: these particular children couldn't have come together except through the choices of my husband and myself and the donors, and I only want these particular children, yet I want to shield them from the any pain that will follow, so I wish it wasn't true. It is different that wishing that I didn't have to use donor gametes, but it has the same flavor--wishing that this joyous experience of carrying and loving these two babies never had to be interrupted by anything hard.  

So as I drove down another road yesterday, one with no exits that offered a glimpse into the past, I found little tendrils of sadness creeping in, and I stopped myself and said "This is the motherhood I can have. The other motherhoods are gone, lost to time, lost to money and lost to the mystery of why some things work and some things don't."  I felt a tremendous surge of certainty that these are my children, the only children for me. We will have tremendous joy, and deep love, and silly family stories and adventures, and yes we will have this piece to live in all it's various iterations, but my job, our job is to love each other fiercely and to be present; to be parents.

--
When I awoke this morning this poem was in my mind. Only the first line was there, but as I read through, the last line really hit me : I took the  road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Yes it has babies, yes it has. Without taking the road less traveled, there would be no "you". Thank you for making a home in my body. We will do our best to make you a magnificent home in the world.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth,

Then took the other just as fair, 

And perhaps having the better claim, 

Because it was grassy and wanted wear, 

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black,

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads onto way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence,

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by, 

And it has made all the difference.

--Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, 1920.

The Murky Middle

Here we are, 6 days from the beta, and I'm just sort of stuck in the murky middle. I alternate between thinking the cycle worked, and thinking it didn't.

Last night around 3:30am, I got awakened, and thought "I haven't had to get up to pee! That must mean I'm not pregnant." I was awake thinking about it, but also, my sacrum and SI joints are a mess, and was uncomfortable and freaking out a bit about having such a bad back at the moment and if I am pregnant, how screwed I'll be. But I was observing how much less freaked out I am this cycle/2ww. Not detached or disconnected, but not as nearly psychotic as I've been before. I know that part of that was the fear of this: DE being our only option. And if you've been around this blog for a while, you know I've been wrestling that beast like a mofo. If this cycle doesn't work, we have two day 5  embryos and one day 6 embryo, so not all hope is lost, but also, not a lot of room remains in that plan.  

I know if I'm not pregnant I will be devastated, sad, angry, scared and more. But I'm not having all those feelings right now, and that is a victory of sorts for me.

I have an insane work day ahead--that ought to keep me out of the weeds!

It pays to be 23

First update on the donor:

After 5 days of stimming, they measured 19 follicles.

As an IVF vet, I know that the first number doesn't translate to your retrieved number, but starting out with a nice high number like 19, is VERY reassuring.

Fhew.

The news on my progress is a little less reassuring, but not bad. On Monday my E2 level was 476. They like to see it nearer to 600, so they bumped up my estrogen injection dose--I hope it does the trick. My vow to myself is to not push it. If the E2 number doesn't climb, and the lining isn't good, we aren't going to go forward with the transfer. Unlike in other cycles, I am not going to play any mind games with myself. I'm just going to deal with what is. Hopefully, I'll respond to the increased estrogen, if not, we'll deal with that.

This is what my doctor sarcastically calls my 'positive mindset'. Holy crap. If only she knew how bitter and pessimistic I could really be, she'd think that was me being Polly Positivity! 

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

I'm sorry I haven't been updating. I'm in a weird place. In someways I feel so worn out from all of this (4 years of trying to get pregnant), that I don't feel like I've got a pithy thing left in me.  I suppose also, that after this many cycles, and this many disappointments, I don't have a lot of pep and vim left in me. I am feeling my Missouri roots: show me (the good lining, the good estrogen, the good fert rate, the good blast, the positive test, and on and on), and then i'll get excited.

One thing I have to come to realize about myself recently is that I am a far more closed and cautious person than would appear. I want to be excited, and hopeful and well, just not so damned cautious, but somehow, that last miscarriage took the starch right out of me. Too good to be true, was too good to be true.

What's worse is that I seem to have really lost the capacity to reach out to people, even you all, the most sympathetic group imaginable. I just feel so fucking traumatized.  Of course, it makes sense. When you are getting to the end of a journey is when you start to feel the pain of blisters and the broken shoes and the unrelenting grit on your skin.  I have this image of myself, 4 years ago, by no means innocent, scared, but so hopeful. Now I am a battle scarred warrior, wearing a mismatched uniform, wondering who the heck to take my orders from, and what the hell I'm fighting for. I have a dim memory of a flag, or shall I say a baby blanket, but it's pretty ripped up too.

I think I'll probably slog through, numb and cautious, hopefully with a huge wave of jubilation washing over me at some point. Pretty please?

Stay tuned. Donor girl and I have our next check on Friday. Here's hoping she's cooking at least 15 good ones!

Someday's I just feel sappy all day long

My friend, the amazing Eva is a Mother! Her baby boy Jay is home, and I've seen a picture of her holding him, and you can just see the light shining right out of her. Lucky mama, lucky baby.

In other news, my donor passed her baseline, and that means I start my baby aspirin, 4mg of Folic Acid and Estrogen shot tonight. Our coordinator said it is thicker than PIO, so I'm a bit apprehensive, but hell, I'll taken a lot of shots in the old hips over the years!

It feels so good to be happy--that is why these friendships are so important, they remind us that even through all the pain that we can still be touched, and that other's happiness increases, not diminishes, our own.

Now if I could only get my hands on that baby! He looks so delicious!

Verklempt is the only word for it, Mike Myers be dammed

Verklempt, though popularized by Mike Myers, is actually a GREAT word for how I'm feeling right now: all choked up with emotion.

I was off the grid, and didn't read my dear friend Eva's post yesterday; she might be meeting her son today!

She is definitely going to meet the birth mom, and I think the baby, but there's always a few more steps, and nothing is certain until it is, but it is SO EXCITING!  Anyhow, I got an email and a picture from her this morning and I just about lost it. The baby is so alert and gorgeous. He has that 'newborn-as-prizefighter' puff, but even in that, you can see what a handsome and smart little guy he is.  You know how babies eyes can be unfocused and sort of blurry looking? Not him. Chrystal clear and looking right at the camera.  

If you are the praying sort, pray that if this is a match, that it goes off with out a hitch. Eva dear needs a little 'easy'  for once!

***

In 2 hours I'm having my baseline sono.  I'm a wreck. I've been holding myself in check, doing my usual not-quite-chicken-little best to manage my anxiety about what today will hold, and after seeing that baby, self is no longer in check.  

I have no illusions left. This doesn't have to work. It should work. It may work. But there are no guarantees. 

Inasmuch as I am coming off as sounding negative, there is a huge part of me that can't imagine that this WON'T work. All of the donors other recipients have gotten pregnant, both of my losses were chromosomal, so my ute is likely to be good (provided it bounces back from the lupron suppression), and yet, it is a risk.

My therapist reminded me yesterday that this is the anniversary of the cycle where I got pregnant with Sparky.  And not much after that is the anniversary of when we lost him.  In addition, it's only 2 weeks until the anniversary of losing Zoe, our sweet kitty. So to say this time of year is a bit fraught, is an understatement.

I'll do my level best to be positive. I'll update as soon as humanly possible.

Something must be shifting

Yesterday my husband and I discussed the crib that is disassembled in our guest room closet.  Way back before IVF# 1, I was driving home, and there was a blond wood crib on the sidewalk in front of a neighbors house. It's sat mutely in our guest room closet, only slightly distending the extra coats and boxes we have stacked there.  My husband is the master decorator in our house--much more of an artist than I am, and willing to take risks, so he often is much more sure of what he wants. When I brought home the crib, lo those many years ago, there was talk to painting it a darker color and how he dislikes light colored wood.  Fast forward 2 years, and it turns out, he could care less what color it is.  The room itself is at the back of the house (good in summer, bad in winter), and could use whatever lightening effects we can muster. I poked around on Craigslist and found a multitude of serviceable changing tables and dressers in a similar finish.  If we play it right, we could have our nursery furniture for under $200 (and that is if we are picky).  We will be getting an organic mattress, so that will push things up a bit, but not as much as a new crib or changing table would cost.  

Then this morning I looked at a parents list-serve I'm on, and found that their marketplace section is even better than CL!  

It looks like I'm starting to feel hopeful, invested, believing in the future like a regular person.

Here's hoping it works!

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

My doctor called on Thursday to confirm that I have antithyroid antibodies, which means my thyroid gland is getting attacked by my autoimmune system. Whoo hoo. Yet another auto immune syndrome. I do feel lucky that this we caught so early, when I'm still within the range of normal (not optimal for a pregnant lady,but good otherwise). My mom had very severe thyroiditis (Hashimtotos and graves disease, with alternating hypo and hypothyroidism; yikes!) and it took 8 months for her to get diagnosed. I'm going to try to get in to see an endocrinologist, and get the scoop on iodine and the like, and make sure I'm doing everything I can to manage this.

Lupron--eesh ***updated

I've never done a cycle with Lupron. They were way to worried about over suppressing me, so I didn't even use birth control pills. I did use microdose Lupron for all of my IVF's (after the ill fated BCP cycle).  So last night was my first ever lupron injection. The injection itself wasn't a problem (just like riding a bike, eh), but about an hour and half after the shot, I felt dizzy, and then that passed and I thought "ok, that wasn't too bad", but then I got an odd full body flush. It wasn't really a hot flash. I didn't get hot, but I got very oddly tingly. It felt like when I took niacin way back in the 90's.  It took about an hour for that to fully dissipate, but the backs of my hands and the tops of my feet stayed sort of...buzzy? Yeah, buzzy.  Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to this new chapter in my ART life.

Also, my TSH is slight elevated (last year at this time it was 2.047 and it was 3.620 at the end of April).  We talked to Dr Calm yesterday and she said that it isn't elevated for a woman who isn't trying to get pregnant, but for women trying to get pregnant, they like to have it in the 2.0 range because the fetus may have brain damage or neurological damage if your thyroid is too low. She's putting me on a very low dose, and she says it's probably over medicating, but she'd rather not take any chances.  I'll be taking .25 mcg, which she says is practically a sugar pill. My mom has had thyroid disease and takes .125 mcg's, so I can see what she means about the low dose.  Nonetheless, I'm feeling a bit worried about it...I just don't want any other worries. I'm full up.  I can choose not to worry about it, and for the most part I'm not, but between the effects of the lupron, and the potential effects of the thyroid supp, I hope I don't end up feeling really weird.

Oddly enough, my feet are still 'flushing'. Weird. Good thing I live somewhere that I can wear sandals!

I feel whiny, cranky and in need of a vacation.  My husband is having MAJOR oral surgery on the 25th, so it is going to be sort of nuts around here during the cycle. Luckily, he should be feeling normal enough by the time we have the transfer, so that is good. 

 I have two new mystery novels that i'm saving for my two days of bed rest, and honestly, it can't come fast enough.

What is wrong with me that when our doctor assures me that our donor is 'sweet' I find myself wishing she would say "smart as a whip!"  I am not the kind of person who likes being characterized as sweet. I think that is part of it. I am a very compassionate person, but I'm also pretty damn edgy, and I think it just keeps coming back to not feeling identified enough with this donor for my own comfort.  The rational part of me knows that my preoccupation with the donor is just a transitory phase as I wait to have a real live baby in my body, so I'm trying to keep it in perspective.

***The doc says I can try taking a benadryl a half hour before my lupron shot, and that might help with the flushing. Here's hoping/1

So much to say, where to start?

Hello my dears.

I'm sorry I've been MIA. I have been struggling with switching to a new donor, and honestly didn't want to put much down for posterity. I always think about what my children will think when they read my blog years later, and I've been so confused and sad that I couldn't really say anything worth writing.  

Remember when I wrote this post  and this post?  These were my wrestling with the idea of the illusion of the donor, and my connections to her, no matter how slim, that were comforting to me. And then I got down right attached, and excited. And then she was disqualified. Next came the lightning round of donor choosing, and here we are, one week from starting lupron. Zowie.

I think one of the hardest things for me to remember is that no matter how I feel about the donor (ecstatic, horrified or indifferent [none of which I feel]) that hopefully there will be a real live human [baby] in 10 or so months who will displace all who came before her (or him) in my mind and in my affections. In the midst of all this identity crisis, and limbo, it's so hard to feel like the future will hold anything other than what is right here, right now.  And yet, it does. Just to look back one year and see where we were, that also seemed impossible to live beyond. 

So I'm here in the train station again. My companions have departed. The tote board says that my train arrives soon, but for now, it's just me. Officials wandering through, wind blowing debris around the tracks, but still here waiting.

******

The way my clinic organizes things is the IVF nurses handle the IP's and the donor coordinators handle the donors. So my same old favorite nurse, who never ever tires of my endless questions, and always laughs at my jokes, will be my contact person. She said she'll call me after each of the donor's appointments, and let me know how things are going.

I feel absurdly confident that her part will go well.  I'm preparing myself that all of this suppressing and then reanimating my cycle might not go well, and if my lining isn't stellar, we won't go ahead with a fresh transfer. If I haven't learned anything else from this IVF business, putting your head in the sand and hoping for the best is NOT the best strategy. So, hopefully we'll have a transfer during the 2nd week of June, but if not, I'm counting on frozen embryos. If two 25 year olds can't make a few frozen embryo's, what is this world coming to?

You'll be hearing a lot more from me soon!

laying low

I am about a week away from starting BCP's so the donor and I can sync our cycles, for a transfer sometime in May.  I am exctied, and nevous and as you can see, laying low.

I'm not sure why. I think it is a well needed break from thinking about all of this stuff.  I'm feeling better than I have in a while. I started taking nortriptaline (v low dose) to help with my sleep disorder. It worked wonders for me when I was first diagnosed with Fibromyaligia, and after the series of rapid cycling flare ups I was having starting in January, I was ready for a break.

I went to a very interesting conference yesterday, and it has me thinking, again, about illusions.

In my last post I said that I found myself calling the egg donor "the birth mother" in my head. 

At the conference yesterday, the panelists and the audience were all wrestling with the psychological differences between birth mothers and donors.  One presenter coined the term 'birth other' which I think really does encompass the whole field from sperm donors to surrogates.

From a lot of different things said yesterday, I started to think about what it would be like to consider the egg donor the birth mother. No one suggested this directly, but through a lot of what was said, I started to think about all the ways, and boy howdy could this be controversial to say, that using donor gametes allows us to preserve the illusion, for ourselves, at least in part, that the baby we are carrying is made from our gametes and those of our partner.  But why not at least play with the idea?

Birth mother implies the person who gives birth, so it's sort of the wrong term, but this child, at least in part, could have been one she carried and raised, if not for the choice she made to donate her eggs. And she is a real person. A human, just like me. Just like our child will be. She is not a body part, or a cell, she's a whole person.  Just like a birth mother would be.  And yes this is different, the child will be in my body, it will be my blood sustaining and feeding it, and finally it will enter the world through the portal of my body, not hers. So perhaps we are both birth mothers? And both birth others?

I think what I'm getting at, in my usual round about sort of way is this: If I reduce her to cells, or just turn her into parts, I can much much more easily put aside my own mourning.  If she is real, if she is a mother of a sort, an 'other' mother, then my illusion that there is no one between me and my child is deflated. Now maybe, this isn't your illusion. I don't know. But I know for myself, part of what made the selection process so hard was that I couldn't find my whole self out there ready to donate her eggs. So I did the next best thing: I picked someone I liked, and who shared enough in common with me physically to give the child a chance at the illusion that we all belong together physically.  And sure, if I'd adopted, or if I adopt, that isn't a luxury I'll have the illusion of entertaining.  

So I suppose I'm mourning the baby who could 'pass'; another illusion to retire, another baby to say goodbye to.

What I am really looking forward to is the very good chance that there will a baby to say hello to instead of goodbye to.

whew.

Both sides now; or maybe soon.

When the going gets tough, this girl goes for Joni Mitchell.

Over the last week I've been thinking a lot about illusions. How important they are to us, our fantasies, our illusions about what is, what can be, what we contain within ourselves, what it means to retire an illusion, how vital we feel when our illusions are met with reality, and how crushing it feels to have an illusion disintegrate right before your eyes.

We've really been struggling with pulling the trigger on the donor. Hmm, I almost changed that, but really, it has felt like 'pulling the trigger' on ourselves.  We have both been wrestling the end of illusion that there is genetic child in our future, and it's a tough one for each of us to let loose of.  I wonder how different this process would be if were only incorporating one donor.  I know that before we knew about the translocation, in my wrestling with the move to donor eggs, I felt both jealous of, and comforted by, the illusion that my relationship to our child would be strengthened by his or her genetic tie to my husband. And when we thought that donor sperm might be our path, there was the illusion that because we would both have my genetic tie, and our tie to each other to cushion the rough spots.

There have been moments when I feel the desire to keen at the loss of my own fertility. I am reminded of how women describe the moment when they realize they are in menopause, and it is the end of the illusion of childbearing, and how for so many the sadness catches them by surprise.  I feel that now. At my saline sono, I was so bitter when the NP said "here is your follicle for this month." Instead of letting it pass I said "fat lot of good that will do me." Ugly bitter moment.

I know everyone thinks their situation is different, but indulge me for a moment. Ours is different. We are a heterosexual couple, choosing to make our family through donor gametes. We could adopt, we have chosen not to. Probably because of another illusion: if we choose the donors, we will have some sense of who the child might be. Of course, that is the biggest illusion of all. Even if we were to make love today and I got pregnant with our mutually genetic child, we could assign characteristics to that child based on our wish to see the links between us and them, but those are fantasies and illusions as well. We are all both the sum of our genetic makeup, and totally unique. 

It feels as if we are struggling with post modern realities in our very bodies.  And no matter what my mind can do with ideas, my body is less than modern, it is prehistoric (Husband may not see things this way, so I'm not speaking for him in this case.). There are moments when I cannot imagine how I can take this alien into my body. This little creature made from the genetic material of two strangers, who I/we have chosen because of our fantasy that they are enough like us to allow us enough of an illusion of sameness to facilitate the connection.  And then, I hold my friends babies, and kiss their sweet little heads, and field their sticky fingers on my face and neck, and I say "Yes, yes, I can do this. I can love any baby. I can love. Period."

I am scared. I am scared of being pregnant. I am scared to being a mother. I am scared of so much. I am scared of getting my hopes up again.  I'm scared that each little disconnection between me and our child will fuel my illusion that I wouldn't feel this way if this was our (even partially) genetic child.

I think this fear haunts me because I felt so different from my mother, and so insecure in our connection to each other. Even though we are good friends at this point, I still rarely allow myself to 'want my mother'.  Clearly, the illusion that a genetic child guarantees a connection is bull.  It is opening myself, to a genetic child or not, that creates that (healthy) illusion of connection between mother and child. 

Many of my friends who are mothers by more conventional means tell me that my fears of not being able to connect to my baby are not unusual. Indulge me in a bit of philosophizing here:

One of DW Winnicott's most important ideas is of the transitional object.  It is a concrete placeholder for the developmental transition between the "me" and "not me" that allows an illusion of connection to the mother when she is gone (the blanket, the binky, the stuffed animal etc). I wonder if, for all mothers and fathers, the genetic connection (mostly unconscious for the vast majority of those who conceive) serves as this transitional object to smooth the transition between being a non parent to being a parent; between the "me" and the "not me" of this totally separate human being. For example, my fears of being a mother and parent, and the way it will transform and disrupt my life, are normal. If we were to conceive a mutually genetic child, my illusion of sameness, or my fantasy that I will recognize myself or my husband in the child (the 'me' in Winnicott's theory), would serve as a transitional experience/object to soothe me as I make this developmental shift. In my case, the fact that it is a much more conscious illusion leaves me scrabbling and scratching to hold onto some illusion of sameness with the donor, be it in appearance, or outlook, and it is difficult to sustain.  This is all to say that perhaps my fears are less about the real baby, and more about myself and my fear that if I don't have the transitional mental space of an illusion of sameness, that I will fail to connect to the child.

So how do I create enough of a transitional object to transport me from this place to that one?  Well, nothing like good old awareness, eh?

What I want is to get to that place of being able to feel and hold 'both sides'. The side where I have my real losses, and grief and trauma, and the other side where I accept that my losses, grief and trauma are part of my package, and I don't fear that it will affect my mothering, and my greatest wish of all to be a  mother who fiercely loves her children, and whose children feel deeply loved.

On Friday I was remembering a girl I knew in high school who loved the story of her adoption: her parents and brothers went to the home for unwed mothers, and of all the babies there, they picked her. She exuded a sense of being loved and wanted and special--sort of like what it is like to find the love of your life. It seems impossible to be in a relationship with anyone else.  I know that there are more factors that went into her experience than just her family's attitude, but at the same time, that story always spoke so strongly to me of the power of being wanted and cherished.  That was something sorely lacking from my own entrance into my family.  I understand why (brother died, marriage already in disarray, mother depressed etc), but it has been my mission in life to welcome my child(ren) into the world wholeheartedly, even if only to assuage my own wounds.

So here we are, with our illusions in disrepair, our dreams a bit unscripted, and our hearts mired in confusion, searching for a guarantee of connection in the smallest of elements.

And yet, just in writing this, I feel clearer. Clearer about why I am struggling so hard to stay in my fantasies that don't serve my reality, and  reality feeling a little less daunting

.